podcast Archives | FreeAssociates

Careers: Good Girls & Second Acts

Even after this pandemic is over and things return to “normal” — whatever that ends up looking like — many, many of us will still be working from home. And managers will have to figure out how to build strong, connected teams of folks who are located… well…everywhere and anywhere.

Meanwhile, high-achieving women everywhere are wondering, “Where do I go from here? How do I deal with kids, a spouse, a complex life — and still be the person I want to be?”

Kate Gigax is a certified Executive Coach, facilitator, and the founder of Development Corps, a group that helps its clients learn to live what they call “bigger versions” of their lives, whether that means getting unstuck at work — or becoming a stronger leader.

We cover:

managing your remote team well
figuring out the Second Act of your career
facing fear and self-doubt
learning how you can thrive while being both vulnerable and valuable
and lots of other career-oriented topics

Welcome to WorkLife@Home!

Episode Notes

Kate’s links:

Stuff we talk about:

Brene Brown’s TED Talk on vulnerability
Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast where he discusses “dancing with the fear” (it’s in the Q&A segment starting at 21:28)

You can subscribe on your favorite podcatcher app — Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn and PocketCast — or wherever you normally listen.

And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It’ll help other people find us. Thanks!

Music: Happy Theme by maxmakessounds and Atrium Loop by dpren used under standard Creative Commons attribution license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The Hype Handbook

If you’re trying to make a difference in the world and nobody’s noticing, maybe what you need are the skills of a Hype Artist. The hustlers, the cult leaders, the promoters all have something to teach us about human psychology and how to connect with people emotionally.

Whether you’re starting a band or a company, whether you want to advance your ideas or your career, understanding hype can be helpful. Even essential. That’s the premise of Michael F. Schein’s “The Hype Handbook”, just published by McGraw Hill.

We talk about the Grateful Dead, the Grand Guignol, hip hop and rebellious project management. We touch on Jim Jones and Andrew Loog Oldham. Join us to find out how you can have more impact on the world, even when you’re working from home.

Episode Notes

Mike’s links:

Stuff we talk about:

You can subscribe on your favorite podcatcher app — Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn and PocketCast — or wherever you normally listen.

And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It’ll help other people find us. Thanks!

Music: Happy Theme by maxmakessounds and Atrium Loop by dpren used under standard Creative Commons attribution license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

WorkLife@Home podcast launches

In March of 2020, millions of people suddenly found themselves working from home — trying to figure out how to juggle their kids, jobs, spouses and sanity as they navigated a painfully unfamiliar way of working.

With the advent of all that, we considered how we could make a contribution to the larger community.

FreeAssociates has been a distributed team working remotely since we started the company in 1993. We know how to do this. And what we don’t know, others do.

So we designed and built an online forum. A community where people could ask questions, get answers, and perhaps have a little fun along the way. It’s called WorkLife@Home and you can find it and join it right here.

We added a few helpful articles, too, and we’ll add more over time.

But then we thought, why stop there?

What if we could find some human stories and share both the confusion and the solutions in a podcast? Would people enjoy hearing about other people dealing with the same issues? Would it be interesting to find out how they’re coping? What if we could talk to some experts about managing remote teams?

Cool, right?

Well that’s happening as well! And we’re proud to have dropped our first episode. I’m so excited to share it with our friends! (And hope you will, too.)

You can listen here, or find us and subscribe on your favorite podcatcher app — Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn and PocketCast — or wherever you normally listen.

And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review. It’ll help other people find us. Thanks!

Everything is alive

Package designers try very hard to have every product “speak” effectively to its consumer. But what if we took that literally?

What if you could hold an actual conversation with a can of generic cola? How about a bar of soap? A candle? What would these everyday objects have to say about their own lives, and those of the humans they interact with?

One of my favorite podcasts ever, 99 Percent Invisible, recently presented the first episode of Ian Chillag’s new show Everything is Alive. In it, Chillag interviews inanimate objects.

I know that sounds either ridiculous, boring or impossible. And I have to admit, it seemed stupid enough to me that I almost skipped it. Don’t. Trust Roman Mars. He won’t steer you wrong.

Everything is Alive is, in fact, fascinating in much the same way Joe Frank was on radio. It’s both poignant and strange. There’s even just a hint of Reiner and Brooks, or maybe Nichols and May. You aurally dive into a trippy but somehow real world full of philosophy, irony, insight and a lot of humor. And it works.

Check it out when you have a few minutes. Then say hi to that can of cola that’s sitting in the back of your fridge. You never know what it might be able to tell you about yourself.

Careers: Good Girls & Second Acts

Episode Notes

The Hype Handbook

Episode Notes

Mike’s links:

Stuff we talk about:

WorkLife@Home podcast launches

Everything is alive

What can we help you find?

What else is new?

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