Unbalanced

Charles and Josh are co-founders of a boutique creative consultancy, Good Morning. It's tricky to describe what Josh and Charles do, but easy to feel it when you work with them. Easier still when you hear them talk about it in this episode.

We talk about how culture is a wave that brands can ride (if they have the know-how), defining yourself versus leaving some parts undefined, and how they've left space for experimentation, fun, and freedom into their consulting business.

And yes, we talk about NFTs.

We talk to Mandy Riggar, a design consultant and entrepreneur.

Nilesh and Zach talk with ex Head of Brand Strategy at Reddit, Joe Federer about leaving an iconic internet company and striking out on your own.

After a few months hiatus, Unbalanced is back.

Tune in as Zach and Nilesh discuss some changes in Zach's world, a sneak peek at the next episode, and the ongoing saga that is Nilesh trying to remember who wrote the damn music.

We focus on "productizing" thinking products; the mythical act of doing work once and selling it to multiple clients. As an indy, this is a tricky proposition, and in classic fashion Zach and I argue about it live on air to figure out the good, bad and ugly.

It's not been an ideal operating environment for, well, anybody lately. We're trying something new – a "live" episode of Unbalanced, where we hit record and do zero editing.

This week, we're exploring COVID-19.

In extreme circumstances, but as always – we wonder out loud about what it all might mean for work, life, and independence.

We kick this off with a quick chat about what we're trying to do on Unbalanced, and what we accidentally sound when we misplace our passion or ideas. Also, a chat with Zach about his side hustle, and the race against time before we welcome newborns into our families.

In this episode, Zach and Nilesh intentionally take the devil's advocate position that "jobs are great" – and we argue the various ways we feel that's true.

Why are we doing this episode? It's good to check assumptions. And, given it's easy to "sell ourselves" on independence versus looking at independent work V salaried jobs in an objective manner, we figured you'd enjoy a thorough look at the other side.

Nilesh shares his back story – what it was like being a maniac coder in London in the early part of his career, to founding the Lodge at W+K in Portland, and finding the gaps between technology, creativity, independence, risk, and reward.

Client work demands so much focus, but this show is about balance – so what about the other things beyond client work? Zach and Nilesh each rattle off the top 3, debate and argue, go on tangents, and try to deliver some useful takeaways.