DesuckiFive Friday - April 19, 2024
Happy Friday, everyone. It’s that time again… five bite-sized bits crafted to squeeze some of the suck out of your work life. Featuring Josiah Pledl, John Arms, Paul Millerd and some scientific validation for fans of free time.
Hope you enjoy. If you do, please feel free to share this with friends, family, coworkers, etc. If not, please pass along to your mortal enemy.
1. DesuckifyWork™ Podcast
Why is it so hard to be a leader?
Besides constant technological change, economic uncertainty, post-pandemic turmoil, dramatic shifts in generational expectations, global unrest, distributed workforces and 27 other unexpected things that will show up in your inbox by the morning, it’s a piece of cake, really.
The good news? One thing remains constant throughout all of that. Our need for human connection. And we can do great things when we embrace that need and create workplaces rooted in empathy and resilience.
This week’s guest on The DesuckifyWork™ Podcast—Josiah Pledl, former school principal, business executive and the founder of 45 Degrees Leadership Consulting—has a few (okay a ton) of ideas on just how to do that.
2. Desuckifier Spotlight - John Arms
Work sucks when you’re trapped in a system where one size definitely does not fit all. The idea that the standard 40+ hour a week FTE gig is the only option available to the millions of brilliant people with expertise thousands of companies need is absurd. John Arms is leading the charge for a new way of working that works better for so many—fractional. In support of the cause, he’s co-founded an online community, helped create a yearly conference and literally wrote the book on fractional—Revolt: The rise of fractional and the death of full-time. Time will tell if that prognosis is true, but there is little doubt that the world needs more pathways for talent to connect with opportunity. And fractional is one of the best options I’ve seen in recent years.
3. Desuckified Book Reco
The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd
Stop me if you heard this: you get good grades, go to a good college, bust your butt to get a job with a company that will set you on a course for a dream career filled with fat paychecks, promotions and prestige. Sounds awesome. Whether or not you actually want all of this is irrelevant. It’s the path that’s been laid out for you and you’d be foolish not to take it. Right? In his book, Paul lays out a different path, a “pathless path” that allows you to factor into the equation. Your passion, your curiosity, your creativity, your soul. All are welcome on this new way of moving through life. And it’s time we heard more about it.
4. Desuckified Tip of the Week
Okay, so this one is a bit of hybrid… half helpful tip and half shameless plug. If you haven’t watched/listened to The Brief Bros. podcast, you are missing out on some pure advertising gold. Hosts Howard Ibach and Henry Gomez go deep into the world of creative briefs (the most important document an agency produces, imho) in a quest to uncover the secrets that spark the greatest work in the world. Here’s the helpful tip part—follow them, listen and learn, soak it all in. Then, pour those insights back into your agency… you’ll look like a genius. Now, here’s the shameless plug—I was lucky enough to be invited to the show for a second time. And we went off script a bit. Instead of creative briefs, we spent our time talking about creative leadership. The good, the bad and the unfortunate reality that almost no one gets the training they need to do the job well. I can help with that, btw. Call me.
5. Desuckified Learning from the Week
I found this nugget in an article by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic. In 2021, scholars at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA calculated the well-being levels of people with different amounts of time to use at their own discretion; the researchers found that the optimal number of free-time hours in a working day was 9.5—more than half of people’s time awake.
So… we’ve got some work to around how much work we do each day. Is it possible to create a life where you get those 9.5 free hours a day? Maybe not. But it sure would be fun to try.
Life’s too short to do work that sucks. Click below to set up a free 30-minute Desuckified Discovery Session.