I let my podcasting slip in November because a bunch of stuff kinda came together at once: I was doing more paid work (good), I turned 40 (jury's still out), I got remarried (good), I bought a house (good/jury's still out), etc. I needed to pay more attention to what I was doing here, and I didn't, in part because my audience wasn't huge or anything. So, I'm gonna be back in January 2021 with a renewed focus on discussions about adulthood and transitions, friendships and relationships, etc... as opposed to going into work or other topics. I might hit up stuff about male friendships too, as that's clearly near and dear to my heart.
I know 2020 has been a weird year for many. Enjoy the end of it. Do your best. The sun shall rise again.
This is an audio version (well, similar to) of this post. Just out here trying to grow as a human being where I can, ya know? Here's a video of the ceremony, too.
Got remarried about two weeks ago, then went out of town for a few days, so I've been sitting on this interview with Jim Monroe for a minute, and it's time now to release it into the broader world. He's the author of a book called "Don't Be A Dick Manager," and if you know anything about my seven years of blogging, that's a theme I hit on a lot. This conversation is about management, life, business models, California, the propensity of world-building executives to think of themselves as geniuses, and more. We get into some emotional labor near the end too. Hope you dig it, and I'll be back with some more consistent episode bases coming up in a second.
Here we go ... and how does that feel?
If you want to understand the "A" to "B" narrative of divorce to new marriage, read this.
My ceremony is at 11am USA Central Time on Saturday, 10/17. I don't expect a lot of people to be around or remember it, because it's a second wedding, COVID, etc. If you want to shoot me a text or something, it's 860-967-7667.
Let's do some backstory to start, with some reading materials to boot. Start with me at this present moment. I'm sitting in a coffee shop typing. Well, on what appears to be December 10, 2013, I was also sitting in a coffee shop -- that one was in Minneapolis -- writing about the decline of male friendships. That was almost six years ago and I doubt much has changed.
As for reading materials: Here's a little ditty on "male loneliness killing millions," here's one calling the whole deal "an epidemic," and maybe the No. 1 thing in this canon, a Boston Globe article about how loneliness is a bigger threat to dudes than obesity. You also might enjoy "Why do we murder the beautiful friendships of boys?"
Based loosely on this.
Somewhat adapted from here and the experiences of people I know.
Why is appreciating employees for what they're worth as contributors to the brand so hard for bosses? Oh, right, it's not natural and no one seems to get trained on it. More on how to respect and appreciate employees can be found here.
What now for "the leaders of the free world?" Some references can be found in this post.
With some science and even some data. Based largely on this original post from September 2015. Hope you ... find some information and solace within it.
If you want to go bigger on sample size here and use actual people instead of sex therapists, here’s a Reddit thread (with 278 comments) where people talk about their amount-of-sex-per-week relative to their age, time married, and kids. Some of the better comments are subsequently summarized on Huffington Post.
I'm not a big or relevant voice in the RBG implications and legacy discussion, but I did want to weigh in on some of her "branding" and the ridiculous flaws and assumptions we have around a woman's role in society.
Trying out a new thing here on some episodes where I walk through one of the 2,400 blog posts I've done and try to present some degree of relevance (hopefully) to y'all in 10 minutes or so, with some data or understanding about topics/issues/life/work. I'm starting by going through the post that kind of inspired this podcast, about how much your life changes between 28 and 35. Enjoy, happy weekend, and I'll be back with some of these posts and some guest posts (i.e. me talking to someone) in the next couple of weeks.
Grant Aldrich, who comes from a startup background, is currently the CEO and Founder of OnlineDegree.com. Obviously affordable higher education has been a big topic politically and socially for years now, often in the context of debt that people enter the job market with. We talk a lot about that here, about different biz models for education, about finding purpose, and about the changing nature of the college student. There’s a couple of kernels of life advice near the end as well. Let’s roll.
I turn 40 on November 7. My friend Diana, who has guested on this podcast before, turned 40 this past Tuesday -- August 25. I talked to her on Monday about the promise and the peril of the big four-oh. Plus, if you either listen through or scroll to the end, we have a bunch of horrible conference call stories. Let’s roll.
This is an interview with my friend Nathan, who I think I once called a “KPI Kevin” on LinkedIn and that cemented our relationship. We talk a lot about politics, about outsourcing, about Libertarians and old white men on Facebook, and because he works with a teachers union on the marketing side, we talk about the COVID return to school stuff as well. It’s a longer interview of maybe 70 minutes or so, but we get into the weeds on a few things, including how I myself ended up in Texas. So, give it a whirl if you get some time.
This interview is with Joe Matar, a Marketing VP at Brazen, which is a top virtual events platform, including career fairs. We initially met back in February of 2018, because I was helping work a RecruitingDaily event at Brazen’s HQ in Virginia. We bonded over some funny leadership stuff and sports. Joe is a big Wisconsin guy, i.e. Bucks, Brewers, Packers. I have an odd fascination with the Bucks, so that got us going, and then we saw each other at a couple of trade shows along the way pre-COVID. This is a discussion about sports, leadership, working at Amazon, the Midwest vs. the coasts, making friends after you move for work, “the platinum rule,” and more. Hope you enjoy it. Let’s roll.
This is an interview with my man Fritz in St. Louis, who runs ArchDevOps. He was actually the guest on Episode 27 back in the day. On that episode (27), we talked about battling cancer, raising daughters, and more. This one is more about parenting through COVID, homeschooling, the power of weightlifting, Earth as a “death planet,” and finding and retaining work during a pandemic. Hope you enjoy.
This is a short interview with my man Stuart Higgins of Higgins Talent Sourcing. We talk shop a tiny bit (recruiting), but most of this is about the uncertainty of the modern moment. He's based in England, but his wife is from Poland, and he did this interview in Poland. They're kinda floating and taking care of her mom these days, and oh by the way, they just had their first kid during COVID-19. He couldn't be back up to the hospital for two weeks after the birth. What's the experience of new fatherhood like in such a weird time?
This is a conversation with my LinkedIn friend (I surprisingly have a few of those), Daava, who is a recruiter in Portland Metro. We taped this maybe two weeks ago, so before all the political stuff happening in Portland right now, hence that’s not covered. However, this is still pretty interesting, and we talk about dance moms (she is one), competitive motherhood, the future of recruiting, communication styles, and what type of candidate/employee might excel because of COVID paradigm shifts. There’s also a story about low ponytails and excessive Miller Lite consumption in here. Hope you enjoy it!