Money Talking

Mike Kibler calls it "brown out:" you're doing find a work, you may even be as busy as usual, but you feel overwhelmed and might even be a little disengaged. Consider it a step before you could end up burned out at work. So how can you get that spark back again? And what can a boss do to reignite your excitement at work? In this episode, Kibler explains why more people are feeling this way, and then role plays how to bring back the thrill you once had for your job with Money Talking's host Charlie Herman.

As 2015's batch of bright-eyed graduates begins the job search, the economy might be finally cooperating, promising a stronger job market and more offers.

Since the 2008 recession, it's been tough for college grads. The pool of job openings has been both small and specialized. And stubborn unemployment rates haven't been the only problem: troupes of Ph.D.-holding baristas are symptoms of underemployment.

Economists are hopeful May's job report will tell a different story. Already, unemployment has dropped from 7.6 to 5.4 percent, and high skill jobs are on the rise. But underemployment is still about 7 percentage points higher than it was in 2000.

Ylan Mui of the Washington Post and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic have been keeping an eye on the job climate for young employment hopefuls. This week, Money Talking host Charlie Herman invites them both to discuss whether "The Economy Is Still Terrible For Young People" or "The Newest Crop of College Grads May Find Underemployment Easing a Bit."   

As Wall Street and Washington anxiously await the latest GDP numbers, the reality about economic figures.

No one wants to be boring, and yet how often do you find yourself pinching yourself during a speech trying to stay awake?

Perhaps the reason for bad presentations is because speaking in public is one of our biggest fears, right up there with death. We can be so scared of giving a bad talk, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But done right, even the smallest of speeches, even the weekly check-in with your boss, can "change the world, even if just a little bit," according to Nick Morgan, the president and founder of Public Words, a company that helps people tell their stories. He's also the author of Power Cues and is featured in the Harvard Business Review article, "How to Give a Stellar Presentation."

He's studied what makes speeches good, and just as importantly, what makes them bad. He said there are some sure fire ways to make a speech boring:

Morgan says before you start a speech, you have to understand where your performance anxiety comes from. He says the reason speakers make all these mistakes is because they often set a standard for themselves that just isn't achievable. So they're humiliated before they even begin. Nerves let filler take the place of genuine communication. 

Morgan says for big speeches, the solution is to use a personal story to hold the parts of your talk together. Get people emotionally invested by taking them on a journey with you. 

But you can't make every little speech a story. It gets old. In day-to-day business meetings, Morgan says the solution to mediocrity and monotony is very simple. All you need to do is spend a few minutes before the talk focusing on the emotions you want to convey. Too often, people enter a meeting with a to-do list in mind instead of a desire to motivate. When your body language and tone evoke emotion, it makes a meeting hum with energy.

Robots are having a moment.

They're breaking hearts in the movie "Ex Machina," splayed across the pages of The New York Times and filling the airwaves with a series from NPR's Planet Money on robots' role in the workforce.

It's a story we've heard before: since the days of the Industrial Revolution, machines have threatened to take our jobs. But in the 21st century, this is not your great-grandfather's robot. 

A recent paper by economists at Columbia and Boston University claims the kinds of robots being made these days might actually increase income inequality. And another study found that nearly half of U.S. employment could be a risk of being computerized.

Money Talking host Charlie Herman asks Stacey Vanek Smith from Planet Money and Cardiff Garcia with the Financial Times what kinds of robots could threaten to edge out workers, and whether the government should step in and help.

Economists found if three key cities rezoned to allow taller buildings with more apartments and condos, the U.S. economy be nearly 10 percent bigger.

When you're the boss, your worst enemies at work might end up on your team. You're in charge of making the office bully feel good about work (and less mean) or pointing out the strengths of the workplace slobs (even if you're a neat freak).

Motivating the people who make you crazy is Liane Davey's specialty. As President of Team Solutions at Knightsbridge Human Capital, her book You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done and the Harvard Business Review article "How to Motivate Someone You Don't Like" provide specific strategies for how to be a good boss to employees with difficult personalities.

First, Davey says, you have to understand why they rub you the wrong way. It comes down to three root reasons: 

When your employees get under your skin on a personal level, Davey says the key is to change your mindset. 

"We don't know what we like," Davey said. "We like what we know." She suggests that to warm up to the people you can't stand, you need to do the opposite of what you might think. Get to know them better; ask them to open up; cling to them. If they tell their story, you'll better relate to them on a human level. 

Then remember that on a professional level, people different from you often bring different strengths. It's in your best interests to warm up to the ones who complement your own weaknesses. If you're meticulous and they're a mess, you're can both stronger when you work together.

But you can't force anyone to like you.

"It's a two way street," said Davey.

If you understand where your employees or coworkers behaviors are coming from, that'll be enough to work with them better. You don't need to like people for the sake of liking them.

And for those office bullies, she says, the best solution is to kill 'em with kindness (and keep giving constructive feedback).

Five years have passed since the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly a 1,000 points in a matter of minutes, and we're still trying to understand what happened. In the months after the crash, regulators concluded it was due a variety of factors, in particular, the actions of one institutional trading firm.

But this month, Navinder Singh Sarao, an independent trader based in London, was arrested for manipulating the market that day in 2010. He's accused of "spoofing," or entering a series of fake requests into the market, effectively bluffing, and making other traders think the market is going up or down. He says he's done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, regulators are behind schedule on one potential protection against wily markets and suggest that as the stock market becomes more complicated, they won't be able to keep up.

Money Talking Host Charlie Herman asks guests Rana Foroohar from Time Magazine and Heidi Moore from Mashable how the market could rest in the hands of one man -- and what, if anything, can be done to stop it from happening in the future.

And then the Hamburglar. What more is there to say?

When former HP CEO Carly Fiorina enters the presidential race next week, as she's expected to do, she'll stand out as the only woman to enter the Republican ring. When she makes her announcement (and launches her second book), part of her message is expected to be that her experience as CEO makes her qualified to lead the country.

It's an argument voters have heard before when business leaders run for elected office.

Mitt Romney ran on his business acumen in the last presidential election. And Michael Bloomberg served as New York City's mayor for three terms after a successful career in business (which he has since resumed).

But some argue that history hasn't been kind to businessmen who find themselves in the Oval Office.

As for Fiorina, political analysts seem to have come to a consensus: she has no chance. She has never held political office, garnered just two percent of Republican votes in a recent poll, and has a decidedly mixed reputation in the business world. So why would she run for president?

Money Talking host Charlie Herman asks business reporters John Carney of the Wall Street Journal and Sheelah Kolhatkar of Bloomberg Business Week: Do good CEOs make good presidents? And for that matter, what makes a good CEO in the first place?

If you've put your worst foot forward the first time you meet someone, all is not lost. When it's loathe at first site, there's still hope for a rebound. This week on Money Talking, Heidi Grant Halvorson discusses her new book from the Harvard Business Review Press, No One Understands You and What To Do About It and explains how you can get a second chance to make a better impression.