DesuckifyWork®

Hey everyone, Episode 6 of the DesuckifyWork™ Podcast is now live!Today, I’m speaking with Mark DiMassimo, co-founder and creative chief at DiGo Brands—The Positive Behavior Change Agency.™ DiGo is the world’s first creative agency focused exclusively on promoting better habits by building brands and businesses using Positive Behavior Change marketing.

I think DesuckifyingWork falls under the positive change category. And we spend a lot of time talking about that—in fact, this is our longest episode to date, chock full of desuckified goodness. 

We talk about the value of curiosity and how it helped Mark survive the ego-crushing early days in his career. 

We talk about the role of belief and faith and suffering in the work world. 

And we talk about how work can feel like torture and why that can either be tragic or transcendent. 

This discussion has already created some positive behavior change for myself, as I’m more motivated than ever to make this desuckify thing happen. I hope you come away feeling the same!

Mark is an incredibly energetic and provocative voice in the desuckify space. You can follow him and Digo Brands on LinkedIn and check out their site at digobrands.com. 

That’s 3 easy ways to make positive change in your life right now. 

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifywork #desuckifyworkpodcast #positivebehaviorchange #coaching

Hey everyone, Episode Five of the DesuckifyWork™ Podcast is now live!Today, I’m speaking with Mike Wolfsohn, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at High Wide & Handsome, an ad agency in LA. 

He and his partners started the agency in 2010 with one goal—to be the best place to work in the advertising industry. 13 years later, they sit in the #1 spot on AdAge’s Best Places to Work list. Not too shabby.

You may have noticed their goal says nothing about awards or revenue or client size or any of the typical stuff agencies seem to go gaga over. 

Why is that?Well, that’s what we touch on in our conversation. 

We talk about the critical importance of trust in any work culture. 

We talk about their decision to remain a work-from-anywhere agency, even as others push hard to get butts back in seats. 

And we talk about how all of this attention to the employee experience has led to an unheard-of 95% retention rate, in an industry where most agencies turn over their full staff in about three years. 

I for one am just shocked that treating people well leads to happier and more loyal employees. Who could’ve seen that coming?

Well, Mike did. And I’m grateful he came on the show to talk about it. 

You can follow Mike and High Wide & Handsome on LinkedIn and check out their site at highwidehandsome.com.

Here’s hoping more than a few agencies feel inspired to follow their employee-first lead. 

If anyone’s interested, I’m happy to help you on your journey. 

#desuckifywork #desuckifyworkpodcast #workculture #trust #coaching 

Episode Four of the DesuckifyWork™ Podcast is now live!

Today’s guest is Dan Dominguez, Chief Growth Officer for the WHY Institute.

You’ve probably heard of Simon Sinek’s work around finding your why. I’ve read the books, they’re fantastic. 

What Dan and the team at WHY Institute have done is make that process way more accessible. Founder Gary Sanchez created a WHY discovery tool that helps you find your WHY (and your how and your what) in just a few minutes. 

When you know your WHY, as Dan says, everything just falls into place. Your path becomes more clear. And you find it much easier to say no to things that don’t connect to your real purpose. 

During the show, we talk about Dan’s path and how his WHY of contribute made it clear he needed to make a big change in his life and work. 

We talk about how understanding your team’s WHY can help improve communication and understanding, two things that, if we’re being honest, often suck at work. 

And we talk about how businesses can discover their WHY and create a brand that is based in truth. 

Truth. What a concept. I think we need a lot more of that if we want to do this DescukifyWork thing right. 

You can follow Dan on LinkedIn and listen in to his weekly interview show, WHY Not Wednesday. You can also follow the WHY Institute on LinkedIn and check them out at whyinstitute.com. 

If you’d like to discover your own WHY, or your team’s, send me a note and we’ll make it happen. 

Why not, right?

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #coaching #findyourwhy #simonsinek

Hey everyone, Episode Three of the DescuckifyWork™ Podcast is now live!

Our guest today is Joe Palm… Joe is a big proponent of something he calls Practical Servant Leadership. 

You may have heard the term, servant leadership, but the addition of that single word makes a big difference. Makes it a lot more accessible.

We get into a lot during the show… but first I’d like to thank Joe for being vulnerable about his early life and upbringing. It’s pretty powerful and it’s a real gift when someone opens up like that. So thank you, Joe. 

Building on that, we talk about how one simple question from an early boss changed the trajectory of Joe’s life.

We talk about Agile, something I’ve often had a negative reaction to, perhaps because, as Joe says, many companies are doing it wrong.

And, we talk about the measurable business value of fun and play. Joe’s big on measurement. I think CEOs are as well.

We also talk about swallows, and how they create these incredible formations that look like bunnies, and how that’s not quite as adorable as it sounds

You can follow Joe on LinkedIn and join his LinkedIn group, Practical Servant Leadership.

During our conversation, he touches on some of his favorite content. Here are some links to check them (and a few others) out:

Greatness, by David Marquet, short, high-impact storyboard video of how a Nuclear Submarine Commander transformed a team of followers into leaders using one simple method

Alive at Work: The Neuroscience of Helping Your Team Love What They Do, by Daniel Cable

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, by Daniel Cable

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts, by Brene Brown

The Power of Vulnerability, 20-minute TED Talk that launched Brene Brown to international fame. Watch it with your significant other and then your team…then discuss!

Project Aristotle: Multi-year Research Project at Google to quantify how to consistently create very high-performing teams

Demotivators on Despair.com – We’ve all seen those corporate posters. Here’s some dark humor for your dark enjoyment.

Joe is incredibly gracious and invites you to email him at [email protected] if you’d like to learn more about practical servant leadership. You can chat about his 2-Day workshops and even get a sneak peek at his upcoming book, “Practical Servant Leadership: How to Cut the Crap and Make it a Power Tool for Your Team”.

I’ll leave you with a few of his favorite quotes:

“A culture is determined by the worst behavior a leader will tolerate.” Rick Lochner

“The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.” Dr. Stuart Brown, Founder/CEO of the National Institute for Play

“Never eat more than you can lift.” Miss Piggy

Now that you’re sufficiently inspired, please enjoy the podcast!

Welcome to Episode 2 of the DesuckifyWork™ Podcast. 

Today, we’re talking with Ryan Berman, a long-time advertising creative exec who is on a mission to help leaders, brands and individuals discover more courage for themselves, their teams and the world. 

He has more than 20 years in the courageous ideas space and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Inc. and Forbes. 

Ryan speaks about courage all over the country to executives, marketers and more, including Google, Snapchat and Charity: Water.

His book Return On Courage: A Business Playbook For Change, is the foundation for the work he does and we touch on a number of those topics during our conversation. 

We talk about fear and how to recognize it, understand what it’s trying to tell you and move through it with courage. 

We explore the misconceptions people have around courage, and why being courageous is actually the least risky thing you can do at work, whether you are a CEO or an entry-level employee. 

And we talk about a word that may not actually exist, but I absolutely love… “figureitoutability.” Full credit to Ryan for that one, let’s add a virtual TM on all mentions throughout the show. 

If you’d like to keep up with all the great work Ryan is doing, you can find him at ryanberman.com, courageous.com and couragebrands.com. His book can be found at returnoncourage.com as well as Amazon, Audible and iTunes. And The Courageous Podcast, now in its third season, can be found on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

You can also follow Ryan on LinkedIn, where he shares a ton of great desuckified content. 

Hope you enjoy Episode Two of The DesuckifyWork™ Podcast!

Welcome to the first-ever episode of the DesuckifyWork™ Podcast!

As you can probably guess by the title, this podcast is all about finding ways to make work not suck. 

To do that, I’ll be talking with a number of expert-level desuckifiers. 

People who are already making a difference. 

I’m super excited to dive into this project. And I’m thrilled that our first guest is Jocelyn Brady, a brain coach who helps people discover better stories for their life and their work. She’s awesome. 

In this episode we touch on a number of topics, from the current suck state of work to the value of play in the workplace and how it can make just about everything better. We also briefly talk about serial killers, so if you’re a true crime nut, there’s something here for you too.

So, without further ado, here is The DesuckifyWork™ Podcast!