Last week, Vox published an article by internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings about how everybody needs to be a self-promoter now—and we all hate it. Then, I read a response by writer and book coach Leigh Stein, who was quoted in the Vox piece, in which she admitted to actually enjoying creating her social media content. Stein said that she was considerably more optimistic about the state of things than Jennings article was.

I found the exchange fascinating. I find it hard to disagree with either of their perspectives! And Stein wasn't really disagreeing with Jennings either—which left me with one thought: I don't think we're talking about the same things here.

So I resurrected an old piece from July 2021 that made the case I wanted to make—that self-promotion sucks and is contentless, but that self-promotion is not the only mode for creating content that gets the job done on social media—and updated it for today's social media moment. This episode has my response to both Jennings's and Stein's articles, as well as a description of how enshittification doesn't only apply to platforms but to creators, too. And then, I share the 3 Rs of Digital Content.

Footnotes:

• "Everyone's a sell-out now" by Rebecca Jennings on Vox
• "who told you it would be easy?" by Leigh Stein on The Attention Economy
• "autofanfic" by Leigh Stein on The Attention Economy
• "The 'Enshittification' of TikTok" by Cory Doctorow on Wired
• "Always On: The Hidden Labor We Do Everyday" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "To Quit or Not to Quit Social Media" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "Revisiting Remarkable Content to Consider Digital Ecology" by Tara McMullin on What Works

All new episodes are available in written essay form at whatworks.fyi

***

If you’re questioning your relationship to work but finding it difficult to make lasting changes, I’d love to help.

I’m committed to helping you confront and deconstruct big assumptions that compete with your good intentions. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in my new 8-week cohort-based course, Rethink Work.

We’ll examine the beliefs, stories, and systems that keep us hustling—even when it hurts—so you can make changes that last and create a more sustainable approach to work.

• (00:00) - Introduction

Layers. Unless we're talking about cake, you can have too many layers. In today's episode, I share a recent metaphorical revelation I had about sound and sensory sensitivity. And then, I introduce you to a different way of thinking about stress that can help you identify better ways to manage it.

Footnotes:

• Rethink Work: an 8-week cohort-based course
• The Highly Sensitive Brain by Bianca Acevedo
• Stress: A Brief History by Cary Cooper & Philip Dewe
• Stress, Appraisal, and Coping by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

• (00:00) - Layers

So, you're stressed. Or work feels intense. Or you're putting more energy than you should into manifesting a day with "no surprises."

But why? Even if you're not working on an especially challenging project or hustling to get in under a deadline, the work we do can be stressful in a sort of ambient and ambiguous way. And we might downplay that stress because, hey, aren't we just lucky to have a cool job like this?

When we think about work, we're often dealing with an outdated metaphor—The Factory. But if you work in a creative, knowledge-based, service, or caring field, that metaphor doesn't have as much to offer as we think it does, especially when it comes to understanding work stress.

Today's episode offers a way to rethink the ways your work can be stressful so you can rethink the resources you need to feel better and do more remarkable work.

Footnotes:

• Rethink Work, an 8-week cohort-based course
• "Sources of intensity in work organizations" by Armand Hatchuel in Creating Sustainable Work Systems (1st ed)

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

• (00:00) - The Factory

Why is it that our bodies and brains tend to function on so much outdated code? Our personal algorithms and mental shortcuts are often stuck in a different time and place. We jump to conclusions or inadvertently flood our systems with cortisol because some stray line of code gets triggered.

In this episode, I examine the tricky way that our beliefs have a way of creating our reality—not just describing it. What we believe ends up being what we see. Case in point: work-life balance.

Footnotes:

• "Religion as a Cultural System" by Clifford Geertz
• The Second Shift by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Systems Ultra by Georgina Voss
• "Understanding Mindset: Trade-offs, Heuristics, and Navigating Change" by Tara McMullin

⭐️ NEW: Rethink Work, an 8-week cohort-based course ⭐️ Join me for a live and interactive course on rethinking our beliefs about work—including work-life balance, productivity, data, passion, and purpose. Get all the details here.

The only sure bet is uncertainty. As we start a new year, I want to take a closer look at navigating uncertainty and how we can normalize not knowing. In this episode, I introduce you to a nerdy, wire-rimmed-glasses-wearing badass of a German pastor and guide you through 4 questions you can ask whenever you're navigating uncertainty (which is all the time...).

Footnotes:

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Wikipedia overview)
• Letters & Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Small Arcs of Larger Circles by Nora Bateson
• "Dancing With Systems" by Donella Meadows
• "Sustainability in Knowledge-Based Companies"  by Peter Brödner in Creating Sustainable Work Systems
• On Religion by John D. Caputo

Note: I talk at length about God in this episode—but there's no evangelizing. It's about "religionless Christianity." Just trust me.

Love What Works? Support the show by telling a friend about today's episode or the What Works newsletter. Or by becoming a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Learn more!

You can also read today's piece at whatworks.fyi

• (00:00) - Navigating Uncertainty

Today, a short meditation on time, the end-of-year season, and how we might carry what we experience now into the next season of work.

Footnotes:

• Dr. Who: the "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey" speech
• Time On Our Side, featuring essays by Tim Jackson and Barbara Adam (among others)
• Daniel Dombeck's 2018 study of mice and time
• Exhalation, including "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang

Read today's piece at whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Support the show and my work by becoming a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Learn more!

This is the 3rd edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental project from YellowHouse.Media exploring media, curiosity, and identity. I'll be sharing one more episode from this project next week before returning to the usual What Works program in 2024!

How do you feel about "showing up" in online spaces? What fears or anxieties do you have about hitting the publish button or connecting with strangers on social platforms? My husband and YHM partner Sean has long avoided the public side of working online. But that's changing.

In this edition of Cold Pitch, I ask him about his fears, where they come from, and how he's getting on now that he's been a bit more public with him work. Plus, I offer some analysis on how recognition—or perhaps more importantly, misrecognition—shapes our identities. The conversation ends up in a place that neither he nor I expected but were glad to have arrived at.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about YellowHouse.Media
• Dial Sean's phone tree: 1-406-200-8460
• Learn more about artist Tamar Ettun
• "The Politics of Recognition" by Charles Taylor
• Read the essay version of this edition

Planners and project management apps reinforce linear, chronological thinking. What if we used a completely different medium to plan for growth?

I'm hosting a workshop on Thursday, December 14 at 12:30pm ET/9:30am PT for premium What Works subscribers. If you'd like to learn more about planning as a learning process and make a syllabus for your next learning project, upgrade for just $7 per month: http://whatworks.fyi/subscribe

This is the second edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental project from YellowHouse.Media about media, curiosity, and identity. In this edition, Sean and I talk about our favorite daily YouTube show, Good Mythical Morning.

It's the backbone of our evening routine, the content we rely on to draw a thick line between the workday and rest time, and, as you'll hear, a rich text.

Footnotes:

• Good Mythical Morning on YouTube
• Ear Biscuits on YouTube
• "Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal" on Wikipedia
• "From Work to Text" by Roland Barthes
• "Parasocial Interaction" on Wikipedia
• "Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction" by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in Psychiatry
• "We Found Extremely Rare Toys in These Blind Boxes" on GMM
• "Five Guys vs. Shake Shack | FOOD FEUDS" on GMM
• "Our 2500th Episode!" on GMM
• "We React to Photos That Will Break Your Brain" on GMM

• (00:00) - EP 2: This YouTube Show is a Rich Text

Over the next few weeks, I've got something a wee bit different for you! This is the very first edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental media project from YellowHouse.Media. Cold Pitch explores media, curiosity, and identity through a variety of forms and methods.

In this first edition, Sean McMullin (my husband & partner at YellowHouse.Media) and I talk about, well, cold pitches. A cold pitch, simply put, is a request to a stranger to do something for you. Podcasters deal with cold pitches every single day. Most are terrible. Not only are they irrelevant and poorly executed—they most often start with an outright lie.

I have feelings. Clearly.

In this conversation, we talk about the social "meat space" basis of a cold pitch, the psychology of email, what you might learn from the autistic folks in your life about honest & direct communication and more.

If you dig it, follow along with Cold Pitch at coldpitch.substack.com
And you can find a written version of this edition, along with links to references, here: https://coldpitch.substack.com/p/an-inbox-full-of-lies

• Learn more about YellowHouse.Media, our audio production agency
• Find out more about Sean McMullin
• Support What Works

• (00:00) - Script