The Moxie Podcast

What’s wrong with work today? Since you listen to this podcast, you’re probably dissatisfied with the normal 9-to-5, but do you know why? My guest this week, Rodney Evans, is here to tell you. Through years of personal development and her work as an organizational designer, Rodney has learned the many reasons that work doesn’t work, in both our personal and professional lives.

Join us to learn about the outdated systems that are at the root of these problems, plus a peek at the ways Rodney is helping organizations reclaim a healthy workspace. You’ll also hear how she has shaped her identity completely outside of what she does and the journey she took to get there. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. About her podcast (The Brave New Work podcast) and why it’s important to share the valuable knowledge, skills, and experiences she holds.
2. What it means to help organizations become more people positive and complexity conscious.
3. Why the way we work doesn’t fit our knowledge-based world.
4. The many ways we lose who we are when we force ourselves to adapt to the roles our work demands.
5. How she came to understand and heal this problem in herself.
6. Tips for learning how to articulate your needs and experiment with solutions to bring about change.
7. What is so wrong with the current concept of “servant leadership.”
8. Why we need to pursue an ecosystem that is open to all options, rather than using a binary system that limits options to either/ors.
9. The importance of focusing on how you contribute best and what energizes you, rather than trying to do everything.
10. How to stop serving your ego so you can better understand your value and stop relying on work for validation.

Read more about The Ready.
Find Rodney on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Tune in this week for a special conversation between our very own Michelle Lee and returning guest, Dr. Sarah Moon. As two Asian American women, they discussed how they’ve been dealing with the increases in Asian hate crimes over the past few years. They explored how Michelle is equipping her young daughters to know and love who they are, in ways she didn’t have herself. You’ll also get to hear why you should strive for inefficiency to spend more time focusing on the things you value and love.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Why the important, meaningful, purposeful things in life require inefficiency.
2. The ways a focus on achievement affects our lives, health, and self-worth.
3. How letting go of your idea of a routine can help you reclaim your time and enjoy the moments you’re in.
4. That you should acknowledge the work and thought that you invest in the lead-up to your accomplishments, not just the success itself.
5. How to reevaluate the demands of your job to give yourself the space you need to thrive.
6. About the fear, anxiety, and complex feelings both women have dealt with because of anti-Asian violence.
7. Michelle’s experience with equipping and preparing her daughters for the situations they may face.
8. What their six-year-old selves would be proud of in their current selves.
9. Why it’s also important for Dr. Moon to remind herself that she’s not that six-year-old self anymore.
10. Ways to hold and honor the ways people might fail you without saying that what they did was okay.

Other links:
The full article from Nicole Chung that Moon reads can be found here.
Listen to Beth Waterman's full episode here and Alice Armitage's episode here.
Moon can be found on Instagram here.

Welcome to an exciting bonus episode, featuring an amazing conversation with someone who blows me away. For this episode, I got to connect across oceans with Aussie Alice Armitage. She’s defying conventional wisdom in every way, most importantly with her new printed (yep, with paper and ink) newspaper, Pandaemonium.

This newspaper uses long-form stories to explore the many ways people approach success differently. These unconventional stories reflect Alice’s own desire to push boundaries and show that the traditional way isn’t the only, or even the best, way to get things done.

As she celebrates the release of their first issue, Alice joined me to share what led her here and her hopes for the future.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. About her journey from an ambitious country girl to a disillusioned big-city player to the passionate storyteller she is today.
2. How Alice learned to integrate her environment, work, and passions to create a life that makes her happy.
3. The reasons boundaries are meant to be pushed, plus her life-long drive to explore outside the norm.
4. Why the tiny daily steps we take in our pursuits are often so much harder and more important than the giant leaps.
5. What Pandaemonium means and why it is the perfect name for her newspaper.
6. About the single hardest thing Alice faces and how she hopes to inspire others through it.
7. Her reasons for choosing long-form storytelling as the best format for Pandaemonium.
8. The ways she hopes the newspaper will resonate with readers, creating a richer world along the way.
9. How she has become comfortable with making mistakes, plus some tips to help you do the same.
10. What she looks to for inspiration, both personally and professionally.

If you look up the word “capable” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Satta Hightower, my guest this week. A gift storyteller, she has spent the last eight years building a thriving freelance content marketing business that is creating a foundation for her family’s future. Though she stumbled upon freelancing accidentally, she has successfully QUADRUPLED her income through her business. 

Satta shows us how to achieve great things, seek a spectrum of perspectives, and focus on the important things - all while finding a balance that ensures joy in every area of life.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. About Satta’s love of storytelling and its roots in her cultural heritage.
2. Why done is better than perfect, particularly when overcoming creative blocks in your craft.
3. How two layoffs in five years birthed her powerful freelance business.
4. The changes she’s seen from her early days of independent creation to her approach today.
5. The ways that fighting to build generational wealth for her family gives purpose to her work.
6. Why she believes wealth building and freelancing are linked, especially in regards to income streams.
7. How Satta is being inspired to nurture her creativity, mind, body, and spirit through the women she admires.
8. About her dream to explore life, culture, and multi-faceted black stories through her millennial perspective.
9. About her experiences as a dynamic, successful, first-generation Liberian-American woman, entrepreneur, mother, wife, and neighbor.
10. Why it’s so important to embrace and promote a variety of perspectives and stories in our work, media, and communities.

How well do you know yourself? What you can offer to the world, who you are, and where you want to go in life are all questions that can only be answered through self-knowledge. In this week’s episode, Cam Lee Small joins me to explore these questions and the journey required to understand yourself fully. 

As a trans-racial adoptee and clinical psychologist, Cam has both personal and professional experience with this process. He shares insights from his own journey, coupled with what he’s learned in his work, to normalize and empower mental health support for future generations.

In this episode, you’ll learn: 

1. How growing up as a Korean adoptee in a small town in Wisconsin shaped who he is, what he does, and how he learned to own his story.
2. Why discovering who you are and what you’re capable of can lead to a more fulfilling life.
3. About the patterns we use to protect ourselves in certain stages of life and how to appreciate the ways they served us.
4. Why letting these protections go when they’re no longer needed can free us from self-made restrictions.
5. The formal and informal ways that mental health support can help us normalize our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
6. Plus, how content creators can help drive this normalization for future generations.
7. Tips for finding mentors for both your personal and professional interests.
8. Why asking yourself questions is essential to a healthier, more fulfilling life.
9. The ways validating and naming your internal experiences frees you to make better decisions.
10. Who has had the greatest impact on Cam's life and why.

I’m excited to welcome Dane Lyons to the podcast and welcome BACK his wife Evy, who joined me last season to talk about building brands, muscles, and teams. Together, Dane and Evy are pushing back against rigid business structures and wholeheartedly embracing creativity. From hackathons to NFTs, they share how they are finding new ways to challenge themselves and build something new.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Who Dane and Evy are, according to each other.
2. How embracing discomfort and joining the podcast last season helped fuel Evy’s growth and journey over the past year.
3. What Evy loves about the work she’s doing - both in her day job and her passion project, the Pleasant Box.
4. The reasons you should embrace creative freedom and your unique passion, no matter what you’re doing.
5. Why you should focus on using creativity as self-nourishment, not an opportunity to make money.
6. About Dane’s gift for imagining original possibilities rather than focusing on remaking or improving what others have already done.
7. His journey from teaching himself to code after leaving the military to working with NFTs and DAOs.
8. …and what exactly those are, plus the opportunities they offer for creatives and freelancers.
9. What it’s like to have both a business partner and life partner in the same person.
10. The wishes Evy and Dane have for the world in 2022.

What makes a good podcast guest? We had so much fun last season with Thomas Hicks, a.k.a. The Cereal Snob, that we had to bring him back to share his secrets. From learning how to show up as a fuller, more energized version of yourself to embracing your journey, Thomas has all the tips you need to own your space and story. Join us for a special bonus episode of The Hectic Podcast.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. What National Cereal Day looks like for one of the world’s premier cereal reviewers.
2. About embracing yourself uninhibitedly and how that can help you make the biggest impression on everyone you meet.
3. How using his phone to amplify his growth helped him best represent himself and his brand.
4. Why connecting with the people who resonate with your whole self is more fulfilling than being liked by everyone.
5. What Thomas learned about himself when he pursued his dream of acting in L.A.
6. The story behind his tattoo, plus the reasons he wants to change it now.
7. Why the journey you take to pursue a goal is so much more important than achieving it.
8. How to redefine success through your experiences rather than your accomplishments.
9. What Thomas wishes for the world in 2022.
10. Plus, some easy ways to pursue that wish for yourself.

How long have you been putting off that thing you want to do? What if you just started today?

That’s the message Devonnae Williams, my first guest of season 3, wants to share. Whether she’s helping companies define their brands and perfect their websites or educating creators on YouTube, she is all in and loving it. Join our conversation to hear what Devonnae loves about connecting with people, how she chases the spark that inspires her work, and what we both can’t stand about hustle culture.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. Why scheduling coffee breaks helps Devonnae be more present, purposeful, and fruitful in her work and life.
2. The many reasons you should really stop shoulding on yourself.
3. About questioning the lies and doubts you tell yourself, plus tips for catching the spiral early.
4. What Devonnae and I love about having deep conversations with strangers in Starbucks’ parking lots.
5. How seeing people as people, not just objects, and being curious about them can create beautiful moments.
6. The many facets of Devonnae and how she is learning about them.
7. How she realized that now is always the best time to make things happen, no matter how prepared you feel.
8. Why being better bakers when it comes to our pursuits is the best way to succeed in them.
9. Why mental health and rest produce far greater results than living a constant hustle.
10. How you can help design the first product for her secret (but not secret) future business.

Hey, there, world! The Hectic Podcast is back for season 3, with our first episode launching on Tuesday, February 8th, 2022. Thank you to the thousands of listeners and subscribers; we wouldn't be here without you.

Darryl & Michelle 

Well, folks, we’ve reached the end of season TWO of The Hectic Podcast and, wow, what a season it’s been. Reminisce with Michelle and me as we discuss our favorite moments from this season. From learning how to share and own our stories to becoming more present in everything we do, our guests have given us so many ways to be better people and creators.

Get a peek behind the podcasting process as we share all of the people that make each episode possible. The podcast grew and evolved beyond what we could expect this season and we can’t wait to share more with you in 2022. Until then, peace!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1. What is at the heart of the Hectic Podcast and why it’s so important.
2. About the connections I loved making this season, particularly with my life twin, Odalys.
3. What I learned from my conversation with Beth Waterman that has transformed the way I approach life.
4. How being aware and paying attention can help you own your life, space, and story.
5. The ways this self-mastery can help you produce your best work.
6. About the blogs and other podcast extras that you might be missing out on!
7. How the podcast has evolved over this season, plus how I’ve changed with it.
8. More about the team behind each episode.
9. The things we’ve learned about the importance of partnership and community from our guests.
10. A little of what you can expect from season three.