The Ennea-what?! Michael M guides us through a cool and sophisticated personality tool called the Enneagram. It can help you understand yourself, improve your relationships, and get out of your own way. And by listening to this episode you can save a decade of self-study!

The Future. The Michaels talk about the future, and theirs in particular. Views are exchanged, emotions expressed. Podcasting realness ensues.

How do you deal with stress? And ideally makes things better rather than worse? Michael M talks about a recent scary experience and analyzes his own responses to it. The Michaels then analyze how stress shows up, what underlying factors can be at play, and identify some effective ways to DEAL!

Introducing Mini Meanwhile!  Supplemental podcasts of shorter length, yet providing they same awesome Meanwhile combination of content and attitude.  In this episode-ette, Michael M shares an unexpected insight he learned from becoming a parent, and asks:  why are we waiting for other people to give us permission to do what is most important to us?

What kind of stories are you telling about yourself, and is it time to question them? We carry narratives in our heads that summarize what we think of our successes, our failures, our feelings, our hopes. Often these narratives are kind of a drag, sometimes they are flat-out wrong – yet we can be incredibly loyal to these sucky stories. In this episode, the Michaels introduce a powerful exercise to challenge how you are thinking about yourself. Michael T assesses his post-vacation judgments about getting back to the grindstone, and we learn that Michael M once lived in Calcutta.

Longstanding goals: Love them or dump them? In historic episode 20, the Michaels discuss what we should do with goals we have been carrying around for a long time but have not achieved or in some cases even worked on. Is inaction a sign that it is time to say so long? Or are lingering goals a message from the Universe that something is rilly, rilly important? Our hosts also touch down once more on the idea of “immunity to change.” Michael M reveals a big secret and challenges Millennials to be more like him. Michael T is his usual peppy self.

So you wanna be a manager. Some managers are great. Sigh. And some managers, sadly, make the world worse. Wherein lies the difference? In this episode the Michaels examine the transition from individual contributor to manager. They offer the POV that becoming a manager is more than a getting promotion with some new responsibilities and is, instead, a core transformation in what you do and how you do it. And it’s not a good job for everyone. They offer tips for how to imagine the role and be effective at it and discuss the two hardest things about being a manager. Michael M opines about why teenagers in Yuma are probably better managers than big-time consultants and financiers in New York.

The Michaels had a convo that left michael M with a weird aftertaste. So we decided to revisit that conversation and have a more general check in to our relationship. In doing so, we had some interesting exchanges about money, appreciation, what we choose to measure and what kinds of things make us revert to a " socialized mind" - and also how we want our relationship and collaboration to be. But it takes a lot of vulnerability and openness to get there.

Being a capable professional and human being includes being able to say no, ask for help, and negotiate needs. Yet we may shy away from all of these for a variety of conscious and unconscious reasons. In this episode, the Michaels talk about how to find that middle ground between pushy and pushover. We check in with West Coast Michael’s New Year’s resolution to say no more often, and hear from East Coast Michael about whether there is an inevitable connection between raising toddlers and consuming wine.

Emotions are powerful but that doesn’t mean we are always aware of them or know what to do with them. As a result, lots of our workplaces are filled with zombie professionals who are there but not REALLY there. Detachment from emotion cuts back on our connection and effectiveness, and makes work less satisfying than it could be. The Michaels dig into why emotions are important, how we can become more aware of them, and what are options are for dealing with them in work and life.