You've probably noticed that podcasting is having its moment.
Smartphones mean that anyone can host one or download one, and they’re an easy way to pass a boring car commute or some treadmill time. Apple reported that podcast subscriptions through iTunes reached 1 billion in 2014. Here’s a reason to consider becoming a host, and not just a listener: running a podcast is one of the best ways out there to network. Indeed, it feels far more authentic, and is more effective, than hanging around with your business card at cocktail parties. Here’s why: Hosting a podcast means you have a great reason to call or email interesting people and ask for their time. It’s not just you wanting to "pick their brain," you’re offering access to (ideally) many listeners, and you’re providing something of value to these listeners. Even big-name people are far more likely to get on board with this concept than meeting you for an informational interview.
Increasing connections
"While I didn’t start my podcast as a networking tool, it’s certainly become one," says Joe Saul-Sehy, host of the finance-oriented podcast Stacking Benjamins "I’ve had some incredible fan-boy experiences talking to financial pros like Jean Chatzky and David Bach, artists and thinkers like Austin Kleon, Gretchen Rubin, and Don Hahn. None of those conversations would have happened without the podcast. I’m finishing a book right now and the number of people I can ask for help has grown immensely, which I owe to the number of people I’ve connected with because of Stacking Benjamins," he says. Podcasting is structured more like an actual chat, with a give and take that deepens a relationship. Says Erik Fisher, host of Beyond The To Do List, "Podcasting is like being invited into a conversation over coffee. It's intimate, informative and a bonding experience for everyone involved." It gives you a way to network even if you’re not local, or wouldn’t wind up at a conference together. Saul-Sehy lives in the small town of Texarkana, TX, and needless to say, many of the guests he meets through his podcast would never wind up there.
The upside for you and your guests
These connections often pay off directly. Since starting the So Money podcast a few months ago, Farnoosh Torabi reports that she’s been inspired "to up my professional game" and the podcast has "earned me a richer network. The podcast is intimate, too, so when we talk, we go deep. We share personal stories about money and in the end, you feel like you've made a friend. And in some cases, those relationships have helped me take my business to the next level." Online marketing guru Robert Coorey spent "many generous hours" walking her through a digital product launch, and 4-Hour Work Week guru Tim Ferriss called her up to offer advice on how to improve downloads. "Who would ever have thought Tim Ferriss would be calling me on my cell phone?" The process of getting to know people also makes you a better networker generally. Portia Jackson hosts the Working Motherhood podcast, and has interviewed over 300 successful working moms. "Having an interview-based podcast has also helped me in offline networking as my conversation skills have improved and I now have an easy ‘in’ to talk with people I would have otherwise been slightly intimidated to approach," she says. Even if a person you want to talk to will never wind up being a guest, your take-aways from other interviews give you great fodder for small talk. Of course, there are some complexities involved in getting started in podcasting, and developing an interview style, and getting your first few guests. If you have any big name connections, you might want to start with them until you get your first few thousand regular listeners. Then you can approach bigger name people you don’t know yet. But if they say yes, you will get to know them—and do it in a way that provides something of interest to other people at the same time. That’s what good networking is all about. Phil Mora is based in Silicon Valley and AVP Product at SikkaSoft, a health SaaS startup. I specialize in product magic, digital marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and digital marketeer. When I am not working on mobile health, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. I look forward to connecting with you! </ Here’s my contact info >
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Steve Jobs called intuition “more powerful than intellect.” Albert Einstein called it the sacred gift. Some of the most important partnerships, products and theories are born from the instinctive feeling of intuition.
The more you exercise this sixth sense that’s available to each of us, the more successful you will become. You can avert catastrophes before they arise and increase your effectiveness. There are many signs that your intuition is talking to you. In any given situation, you can experience nagging thoughts and feelings of suspicion, anxiety, doubt, curiosity or wonder. Your body has signals like goose bumps for inspiration or a churning stomach when something is off. The biggest indicator of an intuitive person is that the individual listens to and heeds the signs his or her intuition is giving. Intuition is what sets apart the brilliant from the average. Here are five ways you can cultivate your intuition: 1. Follow your vision. Your vision is the essence of your legacy, your “why” and your purpose. When you craft a meaningful and encompassing vision for your life, your business and your world, you can use it as a map for years to come. If you use it, your vision will show you what is in alignment in your life and what is not. Visualize the outcome of your actions. 2. Be mindful. When you are mindful, you hear and listen to your intuition better because you are aware of your body's signals and you act quicker. Rather than thinking about what is next or what happened yesterday, you can be in the now, which is much more effective. The more you are in the moment and present, the more time you will have. Meditation is an extension of mindfulness. It clears your mind of clutter and enables you to hear the small voice of your intuition.
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3. Trust your gut.
Donald Trump admits, "I've built a multi-billion empire by using my intuition." Before my dad left for a three-week trip to New Zealand in 2005, I asked him not to go. I didn't know why, but something just didn't feel right about it. My sister Heidi had a hunch, too. It turned out that my father was in a near-fatal car accident that left him with severe brain injuries. We didn't know then just how accurate our intuition about his tragic trip was. Now, if a business or life decision doesn’t feel right, I trust my gut. 4. Pay attention to your dreams. Our subconscious (or soul, if you will) is often the voice of our truest and highest self. It speaks to us in dreams with symbols. You can even ask your dreams for answers to specific questions and keep pen and paper by your bed to record what comes. At night our dreams show us important clues. Harriet Tubman relied on her dreams to lead 300 slaves to safety. Einstein dreamed many of his theories. By tuning into your dreams and learning to interpret your personal symbols and emotions, you will also become more intuitive. 5. Tune in to synchronicity. Listen to the cues your body gives you. Is there a burning sensation in your chest? Do you have butterflies in your stomach? Goose bumps? Did you see the same book title three times in a row? What is the song on the radio saying to you? Maybe you watched a movie and the main character seems to be speaking directly to your life. There is a whole thread of messages and activity going on in the world just beneath the surface. If you tune into the little details, you may just find your way to answers you never expected. If you’ve never put much stock in the power of intuition, you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise when you start to pay attention. Things that used to seem elusive will start to present themselves as opportunities. You’ll be able to make quick decisions that you don’t second guess. You’ll gain confidence and peace of mind.
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Phil Mora is a business consultant and CMO at Bold. I specialize in digital marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and digital marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. I look forward to connecting with you!
</ Here’s my contact info > 
Work is increasingly both everywhere and nowhere—more deeply embedded in our lives than ever before, but disappearing as a discrete activity.
The old rules of work applied to an economy of factories and offices, a world of "standard," stable employment with large employers, over careers with more or less predictable trajectories. The new rules belong to another universe—flexible, precarious, and entrepreneurial, less and less tied to specific times, places, and employers. In his 1931 essay "Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren," the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a few generations, "man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well." Here we are in the future, and while the technological advances he predicted continued, the post-work utopia never emerged. So how should we navigate a world where every moment, including sleep and leisure, can now be colonized by work, by the possibility of monetization and optimization?
Old Rule: You commute into an office every day
NEW RULE: WORK CAN HAPPEN WHEREVER YOU ARE, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
"Rush hour" is disappearing: New York City's subway system reports that "weekday growth was strongest outside of the traditional morning and evening rush hours" as people ditch the traditional commute to live and work differently. Co-working spaces are popping up everywhere: one estimate puts the number above 20,000—a virtual doubling in the number of co-working spaces globally since 2008. Work-from-home policies are increasingly standard among employers, and remote work is a growing trend—Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is 100% remote, its employees scattered in bedrooms and home offices everywhere. The Remote Year initiative enables 100 remote workers to spend one month in 12 different locations across the globe. Technology may be the great enabler, but the impulse is deeply human: we want to live life on our terms in the place we are most comfortable, and we can work there, too.
Old Rule: Work is "9-to-5"
NEW RULE: YOU'RE ON CALL 24-7
Time matters just as much space. The upside is working when we want to—employers are increasingly likely not to care exactly when the work is done, as long as it gets done well and on deadline. The downside is always being on call—the same screens that connect us to many aspects of our personal lives are also the means of production.
According to a 2013 survey by the American Psychological Association, "More than half of employed adults said they check work messages at least once a day over the weekend." Almost the same number also did so before or after work on weekdays and during sick days. A full 44% even do it while on vacation. Also in 2013, the American Time Survey found that 34% of those employed work on an average of one weekend day every week, rising to 43% in the growing ranks of the self-employed. The average adult now sleeps approximately 6.5 hours a night, down from 8 hours a generation ago, and 10 in the early 20th century
Even sleep is under siege, reports Jonathan Crary in his book 24/7: Late Capitalism And The Ends Of Sleep, with the average North American adult now sleeping approximately six-and-a-half hours a night, down from eight hours a generation ago, and 10 in the early 20th century. More disturbingly, adds Crary, "Recent research has shown that the number of people who wake themselves up once or more at night to check their messages or data is growing exponentially." It’s up to us to set the limits.
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Old Rule: you have a full-time job with benefits
NEW RULE: YOU GO FROM GIG TO GIG, PROJECT TO PROJECT
Last year, and the freelancer marketplace Upwork (formerly Elance-oDesk) estimated that there are 53 million freelancers in the U.S., which represents 34% of the workforce. No wonder the polite question to ask these days is not "Where do you work?" but "What are you working on?"
The question to ask these days is not "where do you work?" but "what are you working on?"
All freelancers share a focus on getting gigs, which are the new unit of work, but surveys find that around half of freelancers feel lucky and liberated, while the other half are seriously stressed, wishing they could find full-time work. The Freelancers Union survey identified "independent contractors, moonlighters, diversified workers, temporary workers, and freelance business owners" as distinct groups within the freelance workforce—anything but one-size-fits-all.
Old Rule: Work-Life Balance is about two distinct, separate spheres
NEW RULE: FOR BETTER OR WORSE THE LINE BETWEEN WORK AND LIFE IS ALMOST ENTIRELY DISAPPEARING
Companies are obsessed with work-life balance, says André Spicer of the City University Business School in London—"but the more people talk about it, the less it seems to actually exist. The realities of contemporary work involve a complete blurring of work and life. We try to establish barriers but they are constant knocked down."
Take the constant search for new income streams: when platforms like Airbnb and Uber enabled the monetization of "slack" resources, many people suddenly had themselves working overtime as landlords or drivers. Time with friends is replaced by networking. Social media updates, once entirely personal, are now an extension of your CV, another way to constantly be selling yourself.
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Old rule: you work for money, to support yourself and your family
NEW RULE: YOU WORK BECAUSE YOU'RE "PASSIONATE" ABOUT A "MOVEMENT" OR A "CAUSE" ... YOU HAVE TO "LOVE WHAT YOU DO"
Don’t ever say you "just need a job"—"the unofficial work mantra for our time," wrote Miya Tokemitsu in a widely discussed article, is "Do What You Love." Employers looking to harness or answer the "passion" of workers are increasingly branding themselves as movements and causes, anything but a boring old company that makes widgets.
The problem with "Do What You Love," says Tokemitsu, is that "it leads not to salvation, but to the devaluation of actual work . . . Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace." Instead of enabling the good life, work gobbles it up entirely. Self-actualization, says Carl Cederström of the Stockholm Business School, "is not necessarily something we want, but something that we’re required to do." When so many of us are in the persuasion business—persuasion workers now account for some 30% of U.S. GDP, estimated economist Gerry Antioch in 2013—it’s no surprise that we have to start by persuading ourselves of the life-or-death importance of what we’re doing.
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Phil Mora is a business consultant and CMO at Bold. I specialize in digital marketing, business development and entrepreneurship. A creative problem solver with a talent for strategic thinking and communication, I combine lessons learned from more than 15 years as a high-tech industry executive with my roots as a software technologist, product developer and digital marketeer. When I am not working on client projects, I am obsessed with with sports, fitness, wellness, nutrition and anything holistic: you’ll find me at the gym or outdoors training hard. I look forward to connecting with you!
</ Here’s my contact info > |
Product Builder in Colorado. travel 🚀 work 🌵 weights 🍔 music 💪🏻 rocky mountains, tech and dogs 🐾
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