Getting Work To Work

Their mission may be simple—"We Tell Makers' Stories"—but hidden in every photo, interaction, page, and podcast is an unquenchable fire to build a global community. Kate and Jack Lennie are the visionaries behind We Are Makers, an independent print publication and podcast featuring makers all over the world. In our conversation, we talk about the power of storytelling and what makes a compelling story. Kate and Jack also share why they choose to produce a magazine, the ever-evolving nature of their work, how they stay strong as a couple, the visceral nature of failure when working with your hands, overcoming obstacles, the power of having a mission, and what it was like to distribute the first We Are Makers grant.

How do you get better at your craft? Sounds like a potential start to a not so funny joke, but I'm serious: How do you get better at your craft? With skills that rely upon your hands and time—like woodworking or pottery or painting—you just have to do the work, go through the process, and see what comes out the other end. Is it good or is it crap? Probably. But in the digital world, it's a little bit different (or so we tell ourselves), because we can create or buy or borrow systems that indicate when something is broken or going to lead to failure. They can also do a lot of the mundane work for us. As a programmer, you can generate an entire program in seconds of time, shifting your time burden from authorship to editor. But do you actually get better as a programmer? Maybe. Improvement comes in different ways, I guess. But the more I think about getting better at my craft, the less it has to do with what software I'm using or not using, and doing the actual work.

There is often a moment in every interview on Getting Work To Work that stops me in my tracks. In today's interview with Kimberly Lau and Linda Young, they dropped the mic twice with these two mind-blowing moments: "We have enough clothing on the planet to clothe the next six generations" and "Since we opened nine months ago, we have saved 2,500 pounds in textile waste from the landfill." In our conversation, they share the mission and purpose behind Project ReWear, a resale business that goes beyond reselling clothes by rebuilding a system through tracking and valuing donations, measuring real-time impact, and making secondhand second nature. They are finding a way to impact the planet positively for generations to come and here to show you how you can too.

What did Arthur C. Clarke have to say in 1968 about communication in the distant future? Buried in the middle of a single page in 2001: A Space Odyssey, on a trip to the moon, is an interesting description of Clarke's imagined future and our realized present. It's always uncanny when science fiction gets something right, but that's not why I'm bringing this up. Instead, I'm more curious with this question: What can we learn from it? Yes, our communication is in chaos. It's like we're all standing around in the same room shouting, saying everything, hearing nothing. So, how do we filter the noise from the signal? Well, let's go on a literary journey to the moon, and see what we can learn from Clarke's Newspad.

As much as I love imagining dystopian and doomsday scenarios of AI overtaking humanity, talking with experts about positive implementation strategies is a better use of my time (and mental health). Building upon an education in Data Science and Analytics and AI ethics, Ben Tasker currently "leads a Data & AI Academy that upskills and reskills more than 36,000 employees in the public utility sector, preparing them to be AI-ready and future-ready." In our conversation, he brings stories of real world applications of technology and AI. We also talk about how to actually upskill and reskill, why disruption isn't new but the speed of change is, blended work environments and whether we'll have AI bosses, AI as a system not a tool, practical ways to use AI, how to develop a learning plan and apply AI to it, and how AI can be used in small business.

ChatGPT Prompt for summary of the World Economic Forum's The Future of Jobs Report 2025: "What are the most important takeaways from the World Economic Forum's report: The Future of Jobs Report 2025?"

Hey there, you're listening to Getting Work To Work on this fine day in late September 2025. I'm your host, Chris Martin, and I'm glad you're here. What's going on? Oh, not much? Head in the sand or just ignoring willfully the dumpster fire that is consuming everything everywhere? I pay attention, then I do my best to get to work. I had a good start to my day. I dropped my wife off at school and then headed to my favorite local coffee shop, got some snacks, and read a chapter in Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann.

While it's fun to people watch at the coffee shop, it's even more fun to bust out a hardcover book in the midst of a sea of laptops and retirees. What kind of person does that? Isn't it more appropriate to give the air of importance while typing away feverishly on your laptop? Nah, because I too had work to do. Yes, I consider reading work.

This book has been on my radar for a couple of weeks. In my recent conversation with Stacy Bass, she mentioned she was looking forward to diving into the book. Austin Kleon also interviewed Sally recently as part of his typewriter interview series. I ordered it from my favorite local independent bookstore, Copper Bell Bookshop, in Ridgefield, Washington. While it took a little longer to get than if I had ordered it from Amazon, they don't need my money. Copper Bell does, so I ordered and waited. The anticipation of getting and reading the book continued to build—I love that feeling—and then when it was time to pick it up! Yes! New book time!

Editorial Note: Chris doesn't need more books, but he definitely needs more books.

Art Work hits a home run in the freakin' prologue, in the very first paragraph! Here's a taste:

"This is a book about how to get shit done. Or, more particularly, how I got it done. Or didn't. And I guess that's a big part of an artist's life—getting other shit done besides the shit you're supposed to be doing—the art, that is." – Sally Mann

I love this framing of the duality of our work: the art—the stuff we're supposed to do—and everything else. It gets me thinking of the backwards nature of modern life, where the label of "what we're supposed to do" is affixed to everything but our art. Things like admin, networking, content creation, marketing, management. All important things, but would they be necessary (or even possible) if we didn't have the art and continually challenge ourselves to make the art better?

Now, before I lose you using labels like art and artist, I don't consider myself an artist, and maybe you don't either. My art is my work, specifically projects like this podcast. So, with that in mind, I use the label creative entrepreneur. It's a decent catch-all label for having multiple creative pursuits and several revenue generating services. I run a business of one, but it's still a business. I'm an entrepreneur because the risk is on me. Even as I write this, I could replace entrepreneur with artist and it would still fit. Artists are entrepreneurs, but not all entrepreneurs are artists, you get the point. One term is societally praised while the other is reviled. I'll let you decide which is what, but my point is this: labels don't matter. What matters is doing the freakin' work of your craft. Or, inline with Sally's thoughts, getting shit done.

As I've shared in previous episodes, I've been struggling with writing my monologues. Underneath it all, something has shifted. The work is still sitting down at the desk, writing down my thoughts, recording, editing, and publishing a new episode. But what was once a quick process, has slowed down. I've been more distracted, but there's also a new depth and complexity presenting itself in my thoughts. Sometimes, I get lost in that change. I stare at the sky while the dog eats and shoots leaves. I wonder what I'm going to write. But I'm not doing the work.

So, I sit down and the puppy wants in my lap. He sits in my lap and wants down, only to scratch to be let back up. I've got work to do puppy. I can give up and go sit on the couch so he can have a lap to sleep in, or I can do something different. I can get creative. So, I get his car seat and put it on a chair next to me. I pick him up, plop him in. He eventually gets used to it, puts his face on the edge of his seat nearest my arm and starts snoring. Good boy. Now I can dig deep into what I'm trying to say.

Type, delete, shameful surf of social media, type, delete, snore, type, type, scratch, type, type… YES! This is the work. This has always been the work of creativity. You have to go to your workspace and work. Alone (or with furry companions). Over and over again. And you'll get so sick of it, you'll long for something different, something new. You might go to social media or a coffee shop in search of a new rush of dopamine, another high, but over time, you learn (or you don't) that the work is also getting used to the monotony of creativity, the loneliness.

I'm not complaining though, this is the work I signed up for, it's just taken awhile for me to realize what my work was, the dual nature of it. As I look at my weekly task list in front of me, I see the work for clients and I see the work for myself. Earlier in my career, I couldn't see how both could exist simultaneously, so I tried to pick one or the other. The highs and lows of trying to be one thing and changing my mind as to what that one thing was…exhausting. That's probably why I burnt out multiple times along the way.

But the truth is that I gotta do the work: the work of the creative entrepreneur and business owner, and the work of the artist. Paying attention to the flow of that work is equally important. Some days, I'm in artist mode, writing, interviewing, editing. Other days, I'm in client mode, editing and producing. They both offer sustenance to one another. It's just being aware of which one I need to focused on.

Hence, the need to sit in my workspace and listen to myself. To listen to the snores and the heartbeats of my creativity. That is also the work. But if everything is work, you want to know what isn't work? Productivity. Efficiency. Time management. There's just the work. Somedays it flows like a river through the Grand Canyon. Other days, the river is dried up waiting for the future promise of a flash flood. So, plan your journey, and go for a walk. You might get far or nowhere at all, but you're no longer where you once were, and that's the important thing.

What is the connection between photography and memory? What are the stories beyond the frame of our most cherished family photos? What will we wish we had known about our loved ones? Profound questions and thoughtful answers with today's guest, Stacy Bass, photographer and author of Lightkeeper: A Memoir Through the Lens of Love and Loss. Fulfilling her curiosity for behind the scenes stories, Stacy tells her own tales of writing the book, why she became a photographer, what she discovered about her parents through photographs and memories, what it's like to be the de facto family archivist, the marriage of photography and writing, and how to keep the light of our loved ones alive after they are gone.

Who will you become in 12 months time? This question stood out in my recent conversation with Georgee Darling, because change takes time, even though I want it to happen immediately. Often this question leads us to action steps we can take daily to become who we want to be—and yes, I'll share several of my own action steps in this episode—but sometimes it keeps us stuck in our imagination, living in the land of what could be. What this question is really getting at has as much to do with vision as it does action. Not just over the next 12 months, but today, tomorrow, and up until your final breath.

If there's a quote from today's interview that sums it all up, it's this: "What's the point in building a business if you're not gonna build one that you really love?" Georgie Darling is a freelance writer and coach who helps woman build businesses that lead to freedom. In our conversation, she shares her journey from the world of journalism and branded content to coaching and freelance travel writing. We talk about why you often have to leave behind what's known to reveal the future, why people who travel to Bali become coaches, what it means to edit your life, burnout, quick wins versus long-term burns of meaning and purpose, unique ways Georgie uses ChatGPT, and the role community plays in finding freedom.

I've had a hard time coming up with new podcast episodes lately. It's not that I lack things to talk about, my mind is just in a million different places. Fortunately, a minute on Threads provided me with enough kindling to get my creative blaze started. Have you ever read something so hilariously ludicrous that you just couldn't stop laughing? According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, a new tech company called Inception Point AI is going to create "a stable of AI talent to host podcasts, and eventually become broader influencers across social media, literature, and more." The cost to do all this? $1 or less per episode. But that's not what got me laughing. It was this quote from CEO Jeanine Wright: "I think that people who are still referring to all AI-generated content as AI slop are probably lazy luddites." While that technically isn't a joke—or anything to make people laugh at a comedy club—it does reveal three truths that we need to reckon with: 1) the cost of creativity; 2) who profits from it; and 3) the growing need for more critics.