Age is just a number.

Yeah, I know, I call BS on that too when I’m sitting at home nursing my aching back as I wonder if I’ll ever touch my toes again.

But Willie Pietersen has other ideas. At 88 years old, this former lawyer and CEO is a professor at Columbia’s graduate school of business, recently published his second book and consults with some the world’s biggest and best-known organizations.

And I had the good fortune to speak with him as today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast.

The secret to his success is the same secret he shares with leaders in his work:

🐱 Stay relentlessly curious - never stop searching for satisfying answers to life’s biggest questions.

🐱 Live life at a reasonable pace - make time for reflection every day to keep yourself from getting swept up in the swirl of the inconsequential.

🐱 Cultivate moral courage - know what you stand for and act accordingly, always.

Sounds like solid advice to me. Which isn’t surprising coming from one of the most intelligent and thoughtful people I’ve ever met.

Now, here’s your chance to meet the incomparable Willie Pietersen.

You can follow Willie on LinkedIn. And check out his site at williepietersen.com. While you’re there, make sure you take a peak at his latest book, Leadership—The Inside Story: Time-Tested Prescriptions for Those Who Seek to Lead.

My site and my Substack newsletter are quite peak-worthy as well. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider running around the country like Forrest Gump and writing “for a good time, listen to the DesuckifyWork® podcast” on the inside of every bathroom stall you pop into along the way. Don’t forget to include the circle-R or our lawyers will track you down using elaborate handwriting analysis techniques in collaboration with our partners in the deep state.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #creativity #leadership #moralcourage #curiosity

If you’d like to watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

What if we did something new every day?

Could be something small like putting your socks on in the opposite order, or something huge like going skydiving in a chicken suit.

This is what Asmara Kazmi has been doing for the past three years. Well, not the chicken suit part (I think), but she has been trying something new every day for over 1,000 days. And it’s given her a whole new perspective on life. And on how we should be running our businesses.

Instead of thinking of companies as simply places to make money, she sees the potential for something much bigger. And better.

Imagine if we created organizations that were medicine for a sick society.

Bold? Yes. But so is skydiving in a chicken suit.

If we follow through on Asmara’s vision, we can expect businesses to:

🐱 Protect and encourage health in all forms: financial, personal, mental and structural

🐱 Provide timely, tangible, transparent education

🐱 Empower autonomy by providing meaningful engagement and support

🐱 Avoid toxic systems that force individuals to internalize structural shortcomings within the organization

TLDR: We’ll desuckify work by putting trust in people to do more than they think they’re capable of.

That would certainly be a new experience for most of us. Let’s follow Asmara’s lead and give it a try.

You can follow Asmara on LinkedIn. And keep an eye out for her upcoming site, paradigmplayground.com. I can’t wait for it to go live.

You shouldn’t wait to check out my site and my Substack newsletter. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider asking Santa if you can borrow his sleigh so you can deliver DesuckifyWork® t-shirts, socks and mugs to all the not so good boys and girls that make work way more painful that it should be.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #medicineforasicksociety #businessculture #changetheworld

To watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

I’ve been trying to embrace the idea of experiments lately. Treating decisions as test and learn opportunities instead of my usual m.o. of assuming I’ll be stuck with the consequences of every decision for eternity.

I recommend this approach to a lot of my clients. Figured I might as well take my own medicine.

So, here’s my latest experiment. A new podcast format I’m calling “MicroPods.” Each one 30-minutes(ish) or less, going deep on one topic.

In this episode, I’m speaking with Professor M.S. Rao, a brilliant human who has written over 50 books, over 300 academic papers and too many articles to count. He’s also the founder of MSR Leadership Consultants, with a goal of training one million students as global leaders by 2030.

He’s keeping up this pace even after experiencing a stroke that has left him with decreased mobility and other significant impacts on his day-to-day life.

It was an honor to speak with him about what he calls “Soft Leadership.” An approach whose time has come, in my opinion.

The gist? It’s a human-centric form of leadership that emphasizes partnership to get stuff done instead of traditional hierarchical methods.

Want more than the gist? Listen to Dr. Rao and he’ll fill you in.

Once you’ve listened, I’d love your POV on this experiment. Let me know what you think!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #softleadership #advertising #adagency #experiments

If you’d like to watch on YouTube, please click here.