Getting Work To Work

To give you an insight into what the next 30 minutes of your life will be like, today's guest has this remarkable phrase on his website: "If You Are What You Eat, Then Feed Me Greatness™." Darryl Bumpass, Sr. is an author, speaker, and life coach exploring greatness, creating a life that reflects the best version of ourselves, bringing out our purpose from within, and turning dreams into reality. Darryl shares his wisdom gained from experience, insights, reading, and listening throughout this conversation. He also talks about self-care, self-investment, tips for recovering from burnout, and his own diet of greatness. I hope you'll grab a notebook and get ready to take some notes because Darryl brings the passion and inspiration that you need.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you say something profound and immediately follow it up with, "I should probably unpack what that means." Recently, I mentioned something along the lines of working according to the principles of Getting Work To Work. It sounded like an excellent thing to say, but I didn't know what those principles were until I wrote them down. Throughout the podcast, I talk about the need for core values to guide us toward work that matters. How are principles different? If values are the direction we are facing, principles are the actions that propel us forward. I hope this episode inspires you to develop your list of principles to see what motivates your life and work.

I was shocked to read the statistic shared by today's guest that "34% of the US population suffers from a chronic illness." How does that impact the world of work? Julie Hamilton is a workplace consultant, chronic illness specialist, and author of Chronic Illness at Work: How Managers Can Support Employees with Chronic Illness. In this conversation, she shares her journey as an HR professional managing her chronic illness and why employees are reluctant to disclose their illnesses. We also talk about finding purpose later in life, productivity versus socialization, why open communication and trust are essential tools in building empathy, humor's role in her life, and how her chronic illness helped her be a better leader. Most importantly, Julie explains why taking care of yourself and giving yourself grace are two of the most important things you can do daily.

No matter how long I pursue my creative ventures, I never stop learning how my brain works, what I still need to understand, and the surprises that show up when I least expect them. July has been full of meetings, video shoots, audio recordings, and ideation. There was so much going on that a critical component of my work took a backseat to the momentum: creativity in solitude. While filling my days away from the computer and around people can be exciting, I need time alone to dream, think, write, and produce. It's a delicate dance as the introvert within wants to stand in the corner bobbing his head, and the extrovert wants to swing dance with the world. Fortunately, I feel the pressure, opportunity, and desire to figure this out. And, of course, share what I'm learning with you.

How do you want to live? What is your morning practice? Your evening practice? Your work practice? These questions are but a few expressed in my conversation with Patrick McAndrew, the Founder and CEO of HARA. As he writes on his website, "Patrick focuses on developing the whole person, knowing that high performance is determined by how you live - not just how you work." In our time together, we explore how where we live influences our creativity, the system of the Internet, living with intention versus being manipulated, self-awareness and self-regulation, and our need for one another. At the core of the conversation are two ideas: 1) focus is not a single skill but an outcome of how you live, and 2) human potential is the ability to explore the range and depth of human experience.

Last night, I was lying in bed dreaming about the future: "What would it look like if I made my entire living from Getting Work To Work?" Yes, I was awake, not asleep. But as I thought more this morning, I realized I'm not the only one considering how to do this. With Hollywood on strike and corporate executive pay in the news, it's an excellent time to remind people what they can do with their dollars in the world of independent artists. I wrote a blog post in 2018 with clear steps to support creative professionals. Five years later, it still rings true. But it's not enough for people to support artists; the artists need to be ready for the support. And that's what today's monologue is all about. In the words of Jack Kent, "Be ready for the yes."

Why do you do what you do? How do your values influence your value and worth? How can you improve your ability to communicate your needs, wants, and desires? I explore these questions and more in today's episode of Getting Work To Work. Suman Cherry is the founder and CEO of Cherry Talent Group and describes herself as a "hiring match maker." In this conversation, she shares wisdom learned from doing the deep work of recruitment for 20 years. She talks about the role values play in determining worth and value, why communication and feedback are essential, how people can improve their visibility with recruiters, and the role mistakes play in building a more impactful, purposeful business. We also discuss what AI will bring to recruitment and what it can never replace: the ability to learn about a person in conversation. Finally, if you wonder how self-growth influences your work, Suman explains what she is learning on her healing journey.

One of the challenges of making a documentary is that so many heartfelt stories are shared but never used in the finished film. A clip or two might appear in the behind-the-scenes footage, but mostly the interviews wither away through time, memory, and the ones and zeroes of the backup drive. One way I've thought to remedy my guilt is to release the entire interview in podcast form. But it just didn't work. I interview differently for a documentary than I do for a podcast. Fortunately, last week I got an idea: What if I share stories from the cutting room floor? I could feature extended sections of interviews, stories, and anecdotes from past episodes of Getting Work To Work: The Series and other short films, not to mention clips from abandoned projects. The first entry comes from my short film about cartoonalist Jack Kent. He shares what it means to be a fearless creator through his main projects, Sketchy People and Gulls, and the best advice he ever received for creating art.

When you look at your skills and experience, do you ever think about how to use them to do something entirely outside the box? To transcend expectations, think bigger, and bring dreams to life? Jesse Schpakowski is a photographer, videographer, and life-long learner exploring these questions. In this conversation, Jesse shares his learning journey from being a kid with a video camera filming his friends to an adult photographing everything from real estate and tourism to nature, bears, and the ferocious pug. He talks about how he learned to be alone in nature, to read the body language of animals, to overcome fear through experience, and how it all connects to entrepreneurship. He also gives insight into what is possible as he collaborates with his partner in her business.

The creative and curious world of work constantly inspires me. The people, the processes, and the products are all infinitely interesting. But if I had to choose what really piques my curiosity: the workspaces people make so they can do their best work. Whether it's a coffee shop, a spare room where we live, or a giant warehouse, every one of us has a place that we have created to do our work. What does your workspace say about you? Does it inspire you to create or shut you down while you search for what you need? Are you messy or minimal? There is no wrong answer, which is what is so satisfying when visiting other people's studios, offices, maker spaces, or shops. When you cross the threshold into a new place, you witness a uniqueness that can't be taught or bought. How much does the environment influence the outcome of what we create? It's hard to say, but it's more than we realize and something we shouldn't take lightly.