Boundless: The Human Side Of Work

Christine Bader is currently living in Bali, Indonesia, where she is spending time focused on her family and self. She is an author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil and a formed head of CSR for Amazon before leaving in 2017, a journey she details in an amazing essay titled “The year I learned to quit.” She talks about leaving the corporate world and shifting her focus from building a career to building a life. Topics Discussed: Recommended Reading Can a...

Tyler Tringas is an entrepreneur and traveler. He's started two companies (one worked!) and now is founding Earnest Capital where he wants to help companies avoid going into $50,000 of credit card debt (like he did) to start technology companies. We talk about how this type of investing vehicle can help transcend some of the pressures to "scale at all costs" in ways that may not be suitable for most companies. Topics Related Links: Earnest CapitalTyler TringasHis Journey Selling...

I joined the amazing Jagriti Pande for a fun conversation around a number of different topics. You can subscribe to her master series on UX designers and other creatives here. Her amazing editing, way-too-kind-intro and fun clip at the beginning were such an amazing gift. Let me know what you think!

"I didn't think I'd be turning down work and choosing not to grow" I spoke with Chris Donohoe one year ago about his just-announced launch of his consulting firm, Uncommonly. He's more committed to carving his own path than ever and we walk through some of the lessons learned, pivots and his long-term strategy. Chris breaks down what he's learned over the past year, how he has started coaching people one-on-one and how he is thinking about structuring his time and day. Topics...

This episode is a special treat from friends of Boundless, Cody Royle, who came on the podcast last year to talk about what the business world can learn from sports. I wanted to share a special episode from his podcast that was just launched featuring the NBA great Joe Dumars and workforce research great Adam Grant. I thought the three of them had a special conversation. If you want to subscribe to Where Others Won't do so here: ItunesOvercastWebsite

Mike was always a self-driven creator, developing TI-83 apps for his classmates to keep track of their grades from an early age. He spent a lot of time "head in in the clouds, making things." It is no surprise then, that he eventually found that self-employment was the right fit after several years of trying to make it work in the corporate world. Mike and I dive into his path in which he slowly made sense of the fact that it was time to take the leap to self-employment. As he was about...

Jeff Hittner of Your Project X and Paul talk about their favorite 10 career myths. They dive deep into the beliefs and mindsets that drive these beliefs while making an argument for people to reflect at a deeper level to shift past the default to contemplate a wide range of options Readable Version: Top 10 Myths Myth #1 - "Once I land my dream job / make $X a year, I'll be happy" (2:35) Myth #2 - "I need to find my passion" (7:15) Myth #3 - "I should never take a pay cut" (14:15) Myth...

In this short episode, I talk about the five lessons I've found that help people make the leap to self-employment: Full Article | This episode is also a YouTube video For More With Boundless: Consider supporting the podcast on PatreonJoin 110+ People Carving Their Own Paths In The Slack CommunitySet Up A Curiosity Conversation With PaulJoin The Free 3-Week Self-Employment ChallengeSign up For The Strategy Toolkit - Learn The Secrets Of Strategy Consulting

Bryan Victor has never taken a traditional path but he doesn’t know any other way. Perhaps that is why he started his own podcast in Singapore, Misfits, which interviews unconventional Singaporeans. At 20, he saved up $10,000 while he was serving required military time and decided he would travel the world for a year. During the trip, he realized this was all the “schooling” he needed (see 10 things I learned). After learning how he could live simply on very little money, he knew that this...

Tash Walker is the founder of a firm and spends her Fridays making marmalade. Before instituting a four-day workweek at her firm, The Mix, she barely had time for her relationships. She decided to start doing research about different ways of working. There had to be a better way than the default options of "Summer Fridays" and "flexible work," that never seem to make less anxiety or stress-ridden. In her research, she discovered many examples of Swedish companies embracing 4-day...

Amid all the buzzwords and reports on the future of work, I find Sarah Kessler's stories about the gig economy to be the most insightful and the most human. Her stories and her book, Gigged, give an accurate picture of some of the upsides of the gig economy, but also some of the downsides. She shares stories of people that are sleeping in their office making five cents per task on Amazon's Mechanical Turk to creative freelancers who can make six-figure salaries working from anywhere. She...

Lydia Lee was a self-described "multi-potentialite" growing up and loves to experiment and play games growing up. You can probably draw a straight line from her hosting television shows for the stuffed animals in her room to her current YouTube channel Screw The Cubicle TV. However, life is never that simple. Lydia is based in Bali where she is the Founder and Corporate Escape Coach of Screw The Cubicle, a movement to inspire people to break free from the shackles of conventional...

Wade Foster was graduating during the worst recession in the past 100 years and traditional employers were simply not hiring anyone. He reached out to a local software company in Missouri and talked them into hiring him to work on marketing. The experience "opened his eyes" to the digital world and the enormous opportunities that were beginning to emerge. He also tapped into a "thirst for developing new skills" that pushed him to learn how to code. The idea for Zapier emerged from some...

Nemo Ashong's bold vision is "a truly inclusive and empowered world" He helps people to be fully expressed and to be more authentic, be more unique and be more powerful. This conversation brought out some vulnerability in both of us and we barely scratched the surface around some tough topics like diversity, & inclusion. I live for this type of tough conversation and appreciate that podcasts give the kind of space to explore topics with nuance. I'm not sure we ended up with any clear...

Ervin Ling followed the default path as an actuary, passing test after test. After passing all the tests, he found himself working harder than he was ever working. As he stared at the television and saw his friends on TV during a weekend trip to the Final Four, he realized he didn't want to keep doing this. He declared (after a few drinks, nonetheless) to his friends, "If UConn wins the national championship, I'm going to quit my job." As any good number-driven actuary would, he didn't...

Ted Bauer is a freelance writer and content strategist who writes prolifically about the future of work. In this episode, he talks about some of his experiences in the corporate world. He shares a story of how he broke the record for the number of story ideas when he first joined ESPN which both captures his frustrations with the corporate world and also illuminates his process of how he generates new ideas for his writing. We talk a bit about technology and his view is that people are using...

While Shayne has built a successful marketing consulting firm, there was no "plan" to do this. His first exposure to marketing was out of necessity - his professor let students boost their low economics grades by joining the marketing group he ran. Shayne quickly applied the lessons to his DJ gigs on the side in college and became more interested in how to build real relationships with people through incredible experiences. He brings this same passion to his work today. Shayne has had many...

Check Out The Video Version: Link to youtube version => YuTing Chiu Podcast Episode Summary Of Episode When we first met for coffee, she said to me, "do you want to see the instrument I created?" I've never had someone ask this question before and plus, who says no to that question? What she pulled out was an incredible handmade triangle instrument that was her re-invention of an African rainstick, except here was the "infinite" version. She wanted to improve on having to flip over a...

Jacqueline Jensen has been a digital nomad for 3.5 years, living and working globally. It might surprise you to find out then, that she's written a book called "Travel Isn't The Answer." While counter-intuitive, she argues for a return to awe and wonder with what is already around us. She talks about different moments of wonder she has experienced (including a breathtaking view in Montenegro) and different techniques for how people can "Live With a Sense of Curiosity, Passion, and Awe...

Dr. Laura Gallaher joins me from Serbia, where she is part of Remote Year, a community that travels to twelve locations within a year with a cohort of people working remotely. Laura is an organizational psychologist who studied humor and communication in the workplace and notably completed a dissertation with "that's what she said" in the title (office fans, anyone?). With a title like that it was probably clear that Academia would be too limiting for her. We talk a bit about humor and how...