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Itamar Gilad is the author of Evidence Guided, which is my favorite book out there on how to practically DO product discovery. Prior to becoming a product consultant and trainer, he had a long product career at Google where he led the creation and launch of products that are now used by over a billion people.

In this conversation we explore the GIST approach to product discovery through the origin story of Gmail's tabbed inbox, to help you see what great product discovery looks like in practice.

—

Topics discussed

(01:33) Creating frameworks and coming up with catchy models

(10:02) GIST: the meta framework organizing model concept.

(15:02) Illustrating GIST through the story of Gmail tabbed inbox

(21:06) Refocusing goals led to stronger, simpler idea.

(25:08) Prioritize, filter, and reevaluate for effective ideas.

(29:02) Usability and value risks, low confidence, evolution.

(35:43) Key results drive achieving goals, engaging company.

(40:07) Inquiring about applying startup approach to enterprises.

(45:32) Navigating uncertainty in strategy with evidence and discovery.

(50:44) Emphasizing iterative nature of product discovery process.

(59:10) Encouraging analysis for companies hesitant about changes.

(01:01:18) Evaluate, test, experiment, launch, measure, impact, outcomes

—

Links & resources mentioned

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Itamar Gilad : website, LinkedIn

• Evidence Guided (book) - website, Amazon

—

Related episodes:

• #55: How does continuous discovery come together for a new product?

• #44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets

—

Books:

• Evidence Guided: website, Amazon

—

Other resources:

• Itamar’s downloadable frameworks & resources

• The GIST framework

• Confidence meter for ICE scoring

• Creating Product Strategy with Multiple Strategic Tracks (MuST)

• Marty Cagan: The four big risks

• Gibson Biddle: proxy metrics (within product strategy)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Steve Portigal is a veteran user research leader and consultant who helps companies mature their research practices. He’s the author of Interviewing Users, a classic in the field, and the host of the design leadership podcast Dollars to Donuts. In this conversation, we explore:

• how to use creative practices to develop your voice as a leader and storyteller

• how to be a smart consumer of research findings when you aren’t an expert in the craft of research

• one simple question leaders can ask to set their organizations to make the most of research

• and how to create the conditions for high-impact, effective creative work in your team

—

Topics discussed

(10:21) Experimenting with writing and finding one's voice

(15:47) Feedback model: GASP - goals, attempts, successes, possibilities

(19:53) Workshops, creativity, and self-doubt

(27:06) Embrace authenticity, find your unique facilitation style

(28:10) Appreciating different approaches, understanding executives' skepticism

(34:37) Engage with compassion

(39:29) Research is essential for informed decision-making

(49:01) Compassion and reflection are crucial for leaders

(50:48) Create a safe learning space for engagement

(56:03) Assessing code quality and marketing effectiveness

(01:00:39) Research raises questions, timing and deployment important

(01:10:31) Stay fascinated with the world around you

—

Links & resources mentioned

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Steve Portigal: website, LinkedIn

• Book: Interviewing Users

• Podcast: Dollars to Donuts

—

Related episodes

• #3 Christina Wodtke: Unleashing potential with extraordinary teams

• #62 Sahil Lavingia: Independent Thinking & Pricing at Gumroad

—

Books

• Interviewing Users

• Don’t Make Me Think

—

Other resources

• Great User Research (for Non-Researchers)

• When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods

• Nielsen: Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Christian Idiodi is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG). Before SVPG, he profoundly shaped or reshaped the culture and products of CareerBuilder, Snagajob, and led the product transformation in Datasite, the first SaaS for due diligence in the finance industry.

—

Topics discussed

(08:56) An unusual childhood leads to survival skills, creativity

(12:25) Aspiring doctor turned innovator seeking problem-solving opportunities

(18:33) Guiding others through transformation, not crafting it

(21:31) Thriving on tech success, driven by motivation

(28:40) Cycle of innovation: growth, stagnation, reversion, reaction

(36:45) Reading biographies as a leader to improve your decision-making

(37:40) Key to career success: leadership, insight, humility

(47:23) Transitioning roles, what were key mindset shifts?

(56:30) Prioritizing practice before game day

(01:03) Choose kindness, support, and do good work

—

Links & resources mentioned

• Christian Idiodi - SVPG

• New book: TRANSFORMED

• Inspire Africa Conference

• Innovate Africa Foundation

—

Related episodes:

• Marty Cagan: Moving to the product model

• Martina Hodges-Schell: Understanding your operating model

• Product Therapy - What is product sense?

—

People & orgs:

• Jay Acunzo

—

Books:

• Turn the Ship Around - L. David Marquet

• An Everyone Culture - Robert Kegan

• Build - Tony Fadell

• Walter Isaacson - Steve Jobs

• Team of Rivals - Abraham Lincoln

• Invention: A Life of Learning Through Failure

• Sam Walton: Made In America

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Martina Hodges-Schell is a transformation coach and consultant that helps organizations adopt a Silicon Valley approach to innovation. She spent 25 years leading design and innovation in tech companies, and now she loves providing a fresh, outside perspective to help teams develop and mature their product practice.

In this conversation, we…

• define transformation and what it means for your company operating model

• explore how a company operating model might be shifted by adapting AI technology

• Discuss how embodied leadership practices like equine coaching can give leaders the most honest feedback

Enjoy!

—

Topics discussed

(05:31) A horse's feedback reflects your behavior and communication

(06:51) Feedback on your actions and decision making

(10:48) Leaders MUST be involved in change process

(13:57) Control is equated with power, active involvement important

(18:58) Change is difficult, people resist it

(19:45) Balancing ideas within organizations, encouraging participation

(25:37) Four lenses for an operating model

(29:18) How AI transforms operating model: structure and collaboration challenges

(31:36) Organizational structure should promote collaboration and communication

(37:17) Optimistic about innovation, promoting change and collaboration

(39:55) Focus on broad possibilities, capabilities, and brand

(43:16) Closing the loop from teams to leadership

(50:20) Guiding questions in life

(52:49) Book recommendations

—

Links & resources mentioned

Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/martina-hodges-schell-operating-model/#transcript

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Martina Hodges-Schell: website, LinkedIn

• Book: Communicating the UX Vision: 13 Anti-patterns That Block Good Design

—

Related episodes:

• 72 Pam Fox Rollin: Growing Groups Into Teams

• 75 Chris Smith: Simple guidelines for AI investment sizing

• 74 Chris Smith: How to think about adding AI to your product

• 77 Marty Cagan: Moving to the product model

• 39 Melissa Perri: Product strategy and the missing middle in organizations

—

People & orgs:

• Noelle Saldana

—

Books:

• The Build Trap

• Growing Groups Into Teams

• TRANSFORMED

• Managing Transitions

• Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

• Leading Change

—

Other resources:

• Martina’s OMG (operating model goals) canvas

• North Shore - AI transformation blog series

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Marty Cagan joins me for real talk about what it takes to transform into a strong product company.

You can read the episode transcript here.

—

Topics discussed:

(00:00) The process and challenges in writing a book

(12:27) Real world products need tech for results

(17:28) Deciding on investments, solving problems, and changing processes

(28:11) Understanding disconnects

(36:00) Top leadership support crucial

(40:28) How product coaches help

(44:57) "Being agile" doesn't always mean "doing agile"

(49:52) Handling objections well

(54:45) How it comes together in an organizational operating model

—

Links & resources mentioned:

Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

Marty Cagan

• LinkedIn, website

• New book: TRANSFORMED

• Previous books: INSPIRED, EMPOWERED

• SVPG

—

Related episodes:

• #31 Marty Cagan - Empowering product teams

—

Books:

• The Crux

• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

• The Art of Action

—

Other resources:

• Product Management Theater

• Product Leadership Theater

• Transformation Theater

• So You Want To Write a Book?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Randy Silver is a product leadership advisor, podcast host, and global product community weaver. We explore the conversations needed to drive impact and perception of value.

You can also read this episode here.

—

Topics discussed:

(04:00) Moving from a journalistic editor to product editor

(07:34) Parallels between product management film production

(09:53) Missed opportunities & the need for collaboration

(15:21) Alignment with stakeholders

(18:24) Sales misalignment and restructures

(21:10) Diagnosing teamwork challenges with partners

(25:02) Diagnosing your new org via informational interviews

(28:05) Creating a manager README

(30:11) Roles and responsibilities convo for better understanding

(35:19) Guiding conversations and change

(44:22) Did reorganization at Airbnb address strategy misalignment?

(46:18) Defensive reaction within product community to Airbnb

(52:14) Coordinating while scaling

—

Links & resources mentioned

Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/randy-silver-conversations-create-impact#transcript

Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

Randy Silver: website, LinkedIn, Twitter

• MTP talk: “Getting aligned with your exec team by Randy Silver”

• Podcast: The Product Experience

• Book: “What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of Crisis”

• The product environment canvas

• Stakeholder Informational interview template

—

Related episodes:

• Andrew on Randy’s podcast, The Product Experience

• #72 Pam Fox Rollin: Growing groups into teams

• #44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets

• #18 Josh Seiden: Create clarity with outcomes thinking

• #5 Rich Mironov: Building a thriving product organization

• #3 Christina Wodtke: Unleashing potential with extraordinary teams

—

People & orgs:

• Georgie Smallwood

• Matt LeMay

• Alan Albert - value based pricing

• Itamar Gilad

—

Books:

• Growing Groups Into Teams

• Evidence Guided

• The Team That Managed Itself

• Continuous Discovery Habits

• Outcomes Over Output

• Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management

—

Other resources:

• Product, it’s time to grow up

• The 11 Laws of Showrunning

• Rich Mironov: The slippery slope of sales-led development

• The Journey to Empowered Teams - Twitter, Airbnb & Tumblr

• Product Strategy Acid Test

• OODA loop

• Manager README: The Indispensable Document for the Modern Manager

• Roman Pichler - the decision making chart

• Relentless equanimity

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Chris Smith is a longtime engineering leader who has been in the trenches of building with AI & machine learning for years. This is a short, bonus episode to go along with our main conversation: https://pod.fo/e/20a5ef

—

Topics discussed:

(00:00) AI tooling allows for cost-effective testing.

(06:02) Scoring and statistical measures to track progress.

(09:22) Costs if model needs rebuilding or hyperparameter tuning

(11:31) Order of magnitude investment estimates

(15:10) Decide upfront when to cut bait.

(17:12) Investment essentials for meaningful results and outcomes.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Chris Smith is a longtime engineering leader who has been in the trenches of building with AI & machine learning for years. He’s led the development of data systems & strategies at tech giants like early Google, Yahoo, and Sun; S&P 500's like Live Nation; and a wide variety of startups.

—

Topics discussed:

(00:00) AI industry at inflection point, causing chaos

(09:05) Machine learning, neural nets, and generative AI

(14:03) Generative AI: LLMs + broad understanding

(21:56) Open source models improve specialized problem solving

(25:06) Access to data leads to competitive advantage

(32:53) AI training improves productivity and learning speed

(42:51) Reduced investment in GPT models speeds results

(48:47) Expectation mismatch leads to brand perception risks

(53:54) Non-technical work is crucial for AI product success

(57:30) Building a computer vision product from scratch

(01:03:14) A strategic approach to refining and testing prototypes

(01:08:04) Closing learning loops

—

Links & resources mentioned

Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/chris-smith-how-to-add-ai-to-product/#transcript

Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

Chris Smith:

• LinkedIn

• X / Twitter: @xcbsmith

• Bluesky @xcbsmith

—

Related episodes:

• #75 Chris Smith: Simple guidelines for AI investment sizing

—

People & orgs:

• Dr. Marily Nika - AI Lead, Meta Reality Lab

• Travis Corrigan - Head of Product, Smith.AI

—

Books:

• Evidence Guided - Itamar Gilad

—

Other resources:

• GPT = “generative pre-trained transformer”

• Wizard of Oz experiment

• Tom Chi - learning loop

• Joel Spolsky: The iceberg secret, revealed

• ML Ops

• Computer vision

• Precision-Recall curves

• Leaked Google memo: “There is no moat”

• Universal basic income (UBI)

• Stop-loss order

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Nacho Bassino is a veteran product leader and the author of Product Direction, one of my go-to books on how to actually generate a product strategy. There are many excellent books out there on strategy as a whole, but surprisingly few that specifically cover product strategy.

—

Topics discussed:

(00:02:12) Nacho's journey into product leadership

(00:09:23) How leaders can adapt to others' communication and cross-cultural preferences

(00:10:50) Strategy: defining problems and prioritizing solutions

(00:19:44) Painful, but typical; a fake strategy

(00:24:20) Time and team needed for first big strategy creation

(00:30:17) Three key aspects of quarterly reviews: OKRs, roadmaps, and Opportunity Solution Trees

(00:35:33) Connection between impact, outcomes, and initiatives with revenue generation

(00:40:11) Empowerment: teams' accountability and autonomy

(00:51:36) Nacho's hard product leadership call

(00:58:15) Strategy for startups vs larger companies

(00:59:02) How the opportunity space expands with company growth

—

Links & resources mentioned

Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/nacho-bassino-build-your-first-product-strategy/#transcript

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Nacho Bassino: Website, LinkedIn

• Book: Product Direction

• Podcast: 100 Product Strategies

—

Related episodes:

• #68 Adam Thomas: Operationalizing product strategy

—

Books:

• Product Direction

• The Culture Map

• Playing to Win

• Product Roadmaps Relaunched

—

Other resources and articles:

• A product strategy acid test

• What is "strategy"?

• Burnout as a strategy problem

• Should leaders be prescriptive about strategy?

• Product strategy: focus vs prioritization

• Does strategy matter before product-market fit (PMF)?

• Execs care about revenue. How do we get them to care about outcomes?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Pam Fox Rollin is an executive coach and strategist. This is a conversation about the conversations that leaders are not having. These are THE difference between building a truly committed team that delivers the future you care about… and having a group which is a team in name only.

Topics discussed:

(00:03:55) Writing a book about teams as a team.

(00:11:41) Teamwork failure due to individual mindset silos.

(00:14:51) Telling the difference between hard work and commitment

(00:18:40) OKRs align and drive team objectives.

(00:20:54) Incentive structures and team behaviors

(00:24:02) Shared promise vital for effective team; align goals and coordinate efforts.

(00:28:25) Leaders build futures that matter through conversations.

(00:33:08) Finance team doubts engineering's budget needs.

(00:36:23) Trust: vulnerability in actions and five dimensions.

(00:38:21) Dimensions of trust

(00:42:23) Design conversations as a leader to level up.

(00:46:01) Challenges of remote work and trust.

(00:49:05) Missing conversations hinder team building efforts.

(00:53:44) Collaboration needed in achieving desired outcomes.

—

Links & resources mentioned

Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/pam-fox-rollin-growing-groups-into-teams/#transcript

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Pam Fox Rollin: LinkedIn, Altus Growth Partners

• New book: Growing Groups Into Teams

• Altus’ Growth podcast: Missing Conversations

—

Related episodes:

• 22 Pam Fox Rollin: Be a leader who helps people come alive

—

People & orgs:

• Bob Dunham - Institute for Generative Leadership

—

Books:

• Growing Groups Into Teams

• The Thin Book of Trust - Charles Feltman

—

Other resources:

• IBM study: “Augmented work for an automated, AI-driven world”

• Paper: On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Zooming in on three common change management issues: forecasting, role transitions, and departmental power dynamics.

—

Topics discussed

(00:03:01) Companies transforming into product organizations

(00:05:01) Revenue shift: smaller now, longer-term impact

(00:08:30) Practical topics: forecasting, transition, change management

(00:10:04) Identifying leading measures and assumptions in forecasts

(00:14:25) Seeking tech-enabled scale, revenue visibility, innovation

(00:20:29) Power shifts in organizations impact staffing and funding

(00:22:12) Evolving organizational model for product-centric strategy

(00:27:23) Key considerations for acquiring a company: purpose, integration, impact

(00:31:18) Leaders modeling simple mental health practices shift organizations. Organizational change requires supporting structures and models

(00:35:38) Quieting the mind to connect and trust

(00:37:33) Organizations need specific change management for success

(00:40:40) "Name fears, tame them; face personal insecurities."

—

Links & resources mentioned

Full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/eisha-armstrong-pragmatic-change-management-strategies/#transcript

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Guest: Eisha Tierney Armstrong - LinkedIn

• Book: Fearless: How to Transform a Services Culture and Successfully Productize

—

Related episodes:

• 2 Barry O’Reilly: Unlearning and creating culture change

• 9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe

• 59 Kenny Borg: Identity transformation and embodying fulfillment

—

Books:

• Fearless: How to Transform a Services Culture and Successfully Productize (Eisha’s book)

• "Leading Change" by John Kotter

• “Managing Transitions: Making the Most of the Change” by William Bridges

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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MJ Jastrebski is the CPO of Stylitics, a rapidly scaling retail technology company that helps retail websites automate styling and bundling for their consumers.

Click here to fill out the MTTM listener survey form by August 16, 2023: https://makethingsthatmatter.com/survey

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:07:20) Understanding product roles/levels, influence, and career growth.

(00:13:10) Product and process management at different levels.

(00:19:22) Leadership training emphasizes accountability among executive teams, prioritizing cross-functional exec peer relationships & alignment.

(00:28:27) The importance of buoyancy.

(00:36:17) How mindfulness and empathy are important for effective leadership.

(00:43:41) What Stylitics is doing and how it's scaling up

(00:47:12) Expanding internationally and into new verticals. Emphasis on shipping and team muscle building.

(00:55:38) Creating product families to address pain points, setting expectations, iterating with alpha, beta, and GA stages, building retailer relationships, understanding different market needs.

(01:02:08) Changing roles, building skills, and evolving identity.

(01:11:30) Creating psychological safety is crucial for innovation. It allows people to take risks without fear of judgment or failure. This enables organizations to gather more information and make better decisions.

—

Links & resources mentioned

• You can end episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Guest: MJ Jastrebski & Stylitics

—

Related episodes:

• Mike Saloio: Leadership, meditation, ego, and ubuntu

• Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe

• Kenny Borg: Identity transformation

—

People & orgs:

• Stylitics

• Carlota Perez

—

Books:

• Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages

• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

• Multipliers

—

Other resources:

• Give away your legos

• How to craft your product team at every stage, from pre-PMF to hypergrowth

• The 3 lenses of innovation

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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It's been quiet around here because I'm in deep in the creative process of reimagining this show, and I need your help. Podcast analytics are terrible, and I want to know more about YOU.

Please fill out this short, 5-ish minute survey. Your help on this goes a LONG way, and I appreciate you taking the time!

Click here to complete our listener survey

https://makethingsthatmatter.com/survey

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Donna Lichaw is an executive coach for unconventional leaders, and the author of the newly-released book The Leader’s Journey.

Donna brings a background in design and product to her executive coaching and helps unconventional leaders take control of the story to drive impact for themselves and within their teams. We go deep on:

• how to handle managing our own stories in healthy conflict

• creating psychological safety

• what it looks like to “give yourself an A” so you feel freed up to invent new possibilities

Listen now on…

Links & resources

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Donna Lichaw: website, LinkedIn, Twitter

• Donna’s new book: The Leader’s Journey

—

Related episodes:

• Mike Saloio: Leadership, meditation, ego, and ubuntu

—

People & orgs:

• Neuroleadership Institute

—

Books:

• The Art of Possibility

• Rethinking Positive Thinking

• The Upside Of Your Dark Side

• Nonviolent Communication

• Radical Candor

—

Other resources:

• Donna’s toolkit

• The SCARF model (psych safety)

• 3F model

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Adam Thomas is a coach that helps product teams operationalize strategy so they spend more time focused on building the right products and less time fighting fires.

—

Sign up here to get upcoming essays + episodes emailed to you.

Follow the MTTM journey on Twitter or LinkedIn!

If you haven't already would you do me a favor and take ~40 seconds to rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts ? It really helps. (Scroll to bottom of page for rate/review links.)

—

Links & resources mentioned:

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Adam Thomas: website, LinkedIn, Twitter

• Adam’s Maven workshop: Survival Metrics

—

Related episodes:

• Melissa Perri: Product strategy and the missing middle

—

Books and media:

• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

• The Crux

—

Other resources:

• Warhammer 40K

—

Timestamps:

[00:01:48] War gaming shaped product strategy

[00:03:22] Warhammer 40K

[00:07:11] Michael Jordan's Winning Shot

[00:11:22] The whole person equation

[00:14:15] Emotions in the workplace

[00:17:54] Survival metrics

[00:23:08] Implementing survival metrics

[00:27:26] Trust issues in product development

[00:30:05] Internal value exchange

[00:34:33] Being "Product Led" is Misleading

[00:36:26] Using survival metrics consistently

[00:39:23] Focusing on important outcomes

[00:45:12] Complying with regulations in finance

[00:50:13] Questions to ask yourself

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Mike Saloio is the CEO and cofounder of Huddle, a startup that brings together fractional swat teams of expert builders to help startups generate real momentum on their most important projects within a week.

This is a candid conversation about leadership and how our egos, sense of identity, and personal practices shape our company cultures. In particular, I think you’ll find practical benefit from our discussion about decoupling the concepts of morality and integrity to have healthier team dynamics.

—

• Mike Saloio - Twitter, LinkedIn

• Huddle

—

Related episodes:

• Barry Brown: Work as a pathway of transformation

—

People & orgs:

• Steph Golik (cofounder)

• TechStars

• EXPA

• Rick Rubin

• Alfred Adler

• Ray Dalio

• Russell Simmons (+ meditation book)

—

Books and media:

• The Courage To Be Disliked

• Article - Polarities

• Polarity Management (book)

• Success Through Stillness

• Rick Rubin book

• Huddle launch article

• The Playbook

—

Other resources:

• Ikigai

• “You must become somebody before you become nobody”

• Ubuntu

• Transcendental Meditation

• Four minute mile effect - Bannister effect

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Rob Walling is a serial entrepreneur and the internet godfather of indie SaaS businesses who has built six companies and has been a long-standing voice in creative, independent paths into product building and entrepreneurship since 2010.

Links & resources mentioned

• Book: The SaaS Playbook

• Back the Kickstarter

• Startups for the Rest of Us podcast & MicroConf YouTube

• TinySeed

• MicroConf

—

Related episodes:

• Rob Walling (ep28): Build a great business and let that be enough

• DJ DiDonna: Navigating sabbaticals and career breaks

—

People & orgs:

• TinySeed

• MicroConf

• Dr Shelly Walling

• Justin Jackson - choosing a market

—

Books:

• The SaaS Playbook

• The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together

• Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

• The Zen Founder Guide to Founder Retreats

—

Other resources:

• MicroConf

• IndieHackers

• The 5PM idea validation framework

• Survivorship bias

• Stair step method of bootstrapping

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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What do you do when one of your top three KPIs is stagnant, and the product isn't growing? A micro case study in debugging retention and unlocking growth.

—

You can read the original article here.

LINK: STARTING CONDITION CHART

LINK: DEEPER DIVE PIE CHART

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Petra Wille is a product leadership coach and the author of Strong Product People, my go-to book for the people development side of being a product leader. In this conversation, we dive deep into why and how a community of practice can level up your team and save training budget.

You can also read this episode here.

—

Sign up here to get upcoming essays + episodes emailed to you.

Follow the MTTM journey on Twitter or LinkedIn!

—

Links & resources mentioned:

Petra Wille:

• Website

• Twitter @loomista

• LinkedIn

• Book: Strong Product People

• Conference: Product at Heart

—

Related episodes:

• Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe

—

People & orgs:

• Robert Kegan

• Tolingo (translation company)

—

Books:

• Strong Product People

• An Everyone Culture

• The Culture Map

• Selling the Dream

—

Other resources:

• Product Communities of Practice: Everything You Need to Know

• Dan Pink - Autonomy, mastery, purpose

• The (product) cultural iceberg

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blog.makethingsthatmatter.com

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Bob Moesta is one of the pioneers of Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) theory, which has fundamentally changed the way we think about building products and discovering what progress people actually need and want from the products they hire.

—

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—

LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED

Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

Bob Moesta: The Rewired Group, LinkedIn, Twitter

Bob’s books and podcast Learning to Build Demand-Side Sales 101 Jobs to be Done Handbook The Circuit Breaker podcast

—

RELATED EPISODES:

April Dunford: Find your power in the market through positioning

—

PEOPLE & ORGS:

W. Edwards Deming

Clayton Christensen

Genichi Taguchi

Willie Hobbs Moore

Tim Davis

Claire Sullentrope

April Dunford

Ryan Singer

Basecamp

Intercom

—

BOOKS:

Learning to Build

Competing Against Luck

Grit

Introduction to Quality Engineering

Orthogonal Arrays and Linear Graphs

Shape Up

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Never Split the Difference

—

OTHER RESOURCES:

Orthogonal arrays

Magic squares

L9 prototype

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Sahil Lavingia has had an epic journey as an entrepreneur: he dropped out of college to become employee #2 at Pinterest and then went on to found Gumroad, one of the largest platforms for creators to sell their work and earn a living online. After the company failed to meet its VC-driven growth timeline and almost died, Sahil had to lay everyone off and build it back up into the resilient, streamlined, and fully distributed company it is today.

Episode web page.

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—

Links & resources mentioned:

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• Sahil Lavingia: Gumroad, Twitter, personal site

• Book: The Minimalist Entrepreneur

• “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company”: essay + talk

• Sahil’s early stage investment fund

—

Related episodes:

• #42 ARM: A mental model for fulfilling work

—

People & orgs:

• Gumroad

• USC

• Patreon

• BandCamp

• Substack

• Daniel Vassallo tweet about money he’s made Gumroad

• Paul Graham: “You've found market price when buyers complain but still pay.”

—

Books:

• The Minimalist Entrepreneur

• Essentialism

• Only the Paranoid Survive

—

Other resources:

• How Gumroad is run: No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees

• Video: Gumroad Q4 2022 board meeting - where pricing change was announced

• “Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company”: essay + MicroConf talk

• What is a transformer model (AI)?

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Five things I (re)learned from spending a week with SVPG + some of the best product coaches in the world.

=====

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Links & resources mentioned

Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

—

Related episodes

• #60 DJ DiDonna: Navigating sabbaticals and career breaks

—

People & orgs

• Marty Cagan & SVPG

—

Books

• The Thin Book of Trust

—

Other resources mentioned

• Vision example: SpaceX

• Vision example: Microsoft productivity

• Vision example: Apple’s Knowledge Navigator

• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

• Original agile manifesto

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DJ DiDonna helps us approach taking REAL time off and evolving our identity along with our career.

Whether you’re feeling like you need to take time off, or if you’re curious about what sabbaticals are and why they might be good for both you and your organization, have a listen. You’ll learn about how your interests and identity can evolve along with your career, but not be bound by your career.

—

Links & resources mentioned

• Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email

• DJ DiDonna: LinkedIn

• The Sabbatical Project

—

Related episodes:

• #59 Kenny Borg: Identity transformation and embodying fulfillment

—

People & orgs:

• The Sabbatical Project

—

Books:

• Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life

• Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

• How Will You Measure Your Life?

• The Lies of Locke Lamora

—

Other resources:

• TED talk: Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off

• DJ’s TEDx talk: Sabbaticals: Time [off] well spent

• LinkedIn career break feature

• Research: “The three meanings of meaning in life: Distinguishing coherence, purpose, and significance”

• Exercise: 2022 Reflection + 2023 Goal Setting

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit makethingsthatmatter.substack.com

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Kenny Borg helps us explore the ongoing evolution of our identity, deal with imposter syndrome, and embody fulfillment throughout the journey instead of putting it off to the end. He cofounded Ethr, a coaching collective that exists to help you develop a relationship with your own consciousness and actualize your wisdom. Before that, he spent more than a decade as a founder & CEO operating and advising direct to consumer brands. 

You can also read this episode here.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Kenny Borg: LinkedIn, Instagram * Ethr * Related episodes + #24 Laura Garnett: Find your zone of genius and never fear a job search again + #9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe * People & orgs + Ethr + Joseph Marshall + Crazy Horse * Books + An Everyone Culture + Atomic Habits + The Power of Ritual + The Genius Habit + The Power of Four: Leadership Lessons of Crazy Horse + The Lakota Way

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Scott Young is an expert on rapid, effective learning. This ep will help you learn new skills effectively and quickly amidst the chaos of real life.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Scott Young: website, Twitter + Book: Ultralearning + Scott's podcast + Course: Top Performer + Previous challenges - The MIT Challenge - The Year Without English * Related episodes + #54 David Kadavy: Creative self-actualization * People & orgs + Cal Newport + Benny Lewis + Steve Pavlina + James Clear * Books + Deep Work + Fluent in 3 Months + Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals + Atomic Habits + Fluent Forever + Polarity Management * Other resources mentioned + Desirable Difficulties: When Harder is Better for Learning - Scott H Young + The Human Brain | Brain and Cognitive Sciences | MIT OpenCourseWare + Thinking on the margin - Definition and examples — Conceptually.) + Anki

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Rob Fitzpatrick is the author of The Mom Test, and he'll help you fight the good fight to bring your ideas into the world.

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Links & resources mentioned Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Rob Fitzpatrick - Twitter, website + Books: - The Mom Test - The Workshop Survival Guide - Write Useful Books + Nonfiction Author's Community * Related episodes + #56 Ash Maurya: The Innovator's Gift + #54 David Kadavy: Creative Self-Actualization * People & orgs + Sherry Walling * Books + The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sht Together + Rocket Fuel + Partnering: Forge the Deep Connections That Make Great Things Happen + Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals + Mind Management, Not Time Management * Other resources mentioned + The shape of an idea - Rob Fitzpatrick + Effectuation + Trends.vc + The new biz model for indie creators? Gluing it all together with an Outcome-Oriented Community. + 💡 Beyond retention, toward outcomes | Robfitz in progress + El Camino de Santiago + Jobs To Be Done + The 3 Paradoxes of Life - Mark Manson

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Ash Maurya introduces "The Innovator's Gift" to help you find problems worth solving, and navigate the uncertainty of new product ideas.

You can also read this episode transcript here.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Ash Maurya - LEANSTACK, Twitter + Ash's books: - New: Running Lean - Scaling Lean * Related episodes + #55: How does continuous discovery come together for a new product? + #44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets * People & orgs + Bob Moesta + Tom Chi - Tom Chi talk @ MindValley: Everything is Connected - Here's How + W. Edwards Deming + Peter Drucker + Steve Blank + Eric Ries + Dave McClure + Sean Ellis * Books + They All Laughed: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives + User Story Mapping + When Coffee and Kale Compete (JTBD) - Alan Klement + Demand-Side Sales - Bob Moesta + The ONE Thing + Thinking in Systems * Other resources mentioned + Customer forces canvas + LEAN canvas + Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) - The Milkshake Study + Recency Bias

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How to apply continuous discovery techniques to a nascent, early stage product that doesn't yet have product-market fit.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Related episodes + #44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets + #31 Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives * People & orgs + Teresa Torres + Ash Maurya + Jeff Patton + Marty Cagan * Books + Continuous Discovery Habits, by Teresa Torres + INSPIRED, by Marty Cagan * Other resources mentioned + Andrew's original Twitter thread + Opportunity Solution Trees - Teresa Torres + Jeff Patton - Story Mapping + Lean(er) Canvas - Ash Maurya + Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)

Images mentioned

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David Kadavy will help you follow your curiosity, find your way to creative self-actualization, and learn to discern what you really want.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * David Kadavy: website, Twitter, podcast + David's podcast: Love Your Work + David's newsletter, Love Mondays + David's books: - Design for Hackers - The Heart to Start - Mind Management, Not Time Management - Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, & Examples * Related episodes + #9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe + #49: Founders Pledge - Thoughts on entrepreneurship and philanthropy * People & orgs + 80,000 Hours + Effective Altruism * Books + Work, by James Suzman + Doing Good Better (effective altruism) + Why We Make Things and Why It Matters, by Peter Korn + Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi + The Time Paradox, by Philip Zimbardo + Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin + So Good They Can't Ignore You, by Cal Newport + The Case Against Education, by Brian Caplan + The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin + My Creative Space, by Donald Rattner * Other resources mentioned + Donald Rattner on David's podcast + Founders Pledge + Ezra Klein podcast with James Suzman + Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford commencement address + Social desirability bias + Theranos - Elizabeth Holmes + Taylorism + NaNoWriMo

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Some short thoughts on how to review and close out a tough year, and set ourselves up for a powerful, generative new year.

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Completion questions: remembering and reviewing"Remember" questions

• What was your favorite music playlist?
• Who was your favorite artist?
• What was your favorite song?
• What was your favorite concert?
• What were your favorite photos?
• What were your favorite videos?
• What was your favorite movie?
• What were your favorite articles?
• What was your favorite travel?
• What were your favorite experiences?
• What was your favorite speaking, teaching, awards, or recognition?
• What were your favorite memories?
• What was your favorite restaurant?
• What was your favorite meal?
• What was your favorite first meeting?

Past year calendar review

This is an exercise I learned from Tim Ferriss, and it's great. If you do nothing else, I'd do this.

Simply put, you go through the entire past year on your calendar, and make a list of the people, activities, and commitments that triggered peak positive/negative emotions on a weekly or monthly basis. Then, find the 20% of each list that produced the most reliable or powerful peaks. Proactively schedule the positive ones now, and avoid/reduce the negative ones.

Areas of life review

Look holistically across your life. Don't solely focus on your career. I tend to go through the following eight areas of life:

• health & wellbeing
• creative expression & fun (hobby, travel, adventure, etc)
• wealth / finances
• relationships (family, friends, romance, other)
• personal systems (habits, routines, processes) & personal development
• career/mission/work
• emotions / spiritual
• mind

For each area, I ask the following five questions (I don't necessarily answer all of them every time though):

• what was accomplished?
• what wasn't accomplished?
• what worked?
• what didn't work?
• what was missing?

Lastly, I like to have a freeform section that is just "is there anything else I need to say about this to feel complete?" I'm often surprised at what comes out here, so don't underestimate this question.

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Flow is defined as an optimal state of consciousness, where you feel and perform at your best. This episode will help you get more of it in your day.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Related episodes + #12 Rian Doris & Conor Murphy: Flow — Cultivating the optimal experience of life (part 2) * People & orgs + Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi + David Kadavy + Cal Newport + Flow Research Collective * Books + Mind Management, Not Time Management + Deep Work + Flow + The Power Of Full Engagement * Other resources mentioned + Steven Kotler - FAQs on Flow + Adam Grant - The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing. Here’s How to Get There. + David Kadavy: Arrange your time and tasks according to these seven mental states, and you’ll be a creativity machine + Brain.fm - music designed to help you focus + Focus (app) + Freedom (app) + Apple releases iOS 15 with Focus mode and more + Cal Newport's Time Block Planner + Fantastical (app) + Incubation stage of creativity

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Wow: two years of making things that matter! Andrew checks in with lessons learned in year two, impactful episodes and show updates.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Related episodes + #31 Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives + #39 Melissa Perri: Product strategy and the missing middle in organizations + #42 ARM: a mental model for fulfilling work + #43 Courtney Bigony: Life above neutral with Positive Product Design + #44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets + #48 ARM redux: 4 nuances of fulfilling work (#48) + #50 Bo Burlingham: Small Giants & the roots of great businesses * People & orgs + Hayley Darden - Hayley's explanation of her verbs model + George Kao * Books + How To Do The Work + The Dip * Other resources mentioned + Sign up here to get upcoming audio essays emailed to you + Article: "How to know if you’re interviewing at a product-led company." + Nicole LePera: IG post on self-regulation + Positive Product Design PPD

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Best known for his books Small Giants and The Great Game of Business, Bo is an editor-at-large of Inc. magazine and the author of five books which have profoundly impacted values-led business creation. I don't know of anyone that has explored more deeply, through real-world examples, what it means to build a meaningful business. 

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko, or via email * Bo Burlingham - website, Twitter * Related episodes + #9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe + #43 Courtney Bigony: Life above neutral with Positive Product Design * People & orgs + Tugboat Institute & Evergreen Companies + Dave Whorton + Adam Smith + Harriet Rubin + Jack Stack + Jim Collins + Kleiner Perkins + John Doerr + Clay Christensen + Norm Brodsky + Gary Erickson & CLIF Bar * Books + Bo's books - Small Giants - The Great Game of Business (GGOB) - A Stake in the Outcome - Finish Big + The Fifth Discipline + Good to Great + The New New Thing + The Innovator's Dilemma + How Will You Measure Your Life? + Battle Cry of Freedom + The Lessons of History * Other resources mentioned + Small Giants Community + Great Game of Business Community + Life After Pi + Open Book Management + How to Build a Company That Will Last for 100 Years | Inc.com + Inc Magazine + Something Ventured + Springfield ReManufacturing + Transcendental Meditation (TM)

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This episode flips the script and makes Andrew the guest, exploring his views on entrepreneurship and philanthropy.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email * Related episodes + #28 Rob Walling: Build a great business and let that be enough + #42 ARM: A mental model for fulfilling work + #48 ARM redux: 4 nuances of fulfilling work * People & orgs + Founders Pledge + 80,000 Hours + Effective Altruism (EA) + TinySeed + MicroConf + Singularity University (SU) + Simon Sinek + Iodine Global Network (IGN) + Pebble smartwatch * Books + Blitzscaling + Doing Good Better (effective altruism) + 80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good * Other resources mentioned + "Eat me if you wish" + Skunk works

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This episode explores four nuances of creative and fulfilling work. It share lessons from follow-on conversations to ep42 about ARM, a mental model for fulfilling work.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko, or via email * Related episodes + #42 ARM: A mental model for fulfilling work + #43 Courtney Bigony: Life above neutral with Positive Product Design + #14 Derik Mills: Cultivating a faculty of wonder in business and life * People & orgs + Glo + Jay Shetty * Books + Primed to Perform + The Creative Habit + The Purpose Factor * Other resources mentioned + Self-determination theory + Ikigai

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Matt Kressy is the founding director of the Integrated Design & Management (IDM) program at MIT. This conversation is a heartfelt exploration about art, design, and the inner drives that fuel our creative work.

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Links & resources mentioned* Matt Kressy - LinkedIn, Twitter + MIT IDM program + New England Innovation Academy + Designturn * People & orgs + Glo + Hugh MacLeod - Gapingvoid * Related episodes + #14 Derik Mills: Cultivating a faculty of wonder in business and life * Books + Hillbilly Elegy * Other resources mentioned + Human centered design

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This episode reviews the key ideas from "The Infinite Game," a massively transformative book by Simon Sinek, and explores how to apply them to your work.

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko or via email * Books + The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek + Finite and Infinite Games, by James Carse

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This adapts the core ideas from "The Timeless Way of Building," a classic of architectural theory, to creative and personal leadership. 

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Links & resources mentioned* Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko or via email * Original book: The Timeless Way of Building * Click here to get PDF of the full "Timeless Way of Leading" adaptation * Ep #22 Pam Fox Rollin: Be a decisive leader who helps people come alive

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Teresa Torres teaches an approach to product creation and creative work that will help you think more clearly, make better decisions, and raise the odds your bets will pay off. She's the author of the new book, Continuous Discovery Habits.

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Links & resources mentioned* Teresa Torres - website, @ttorres + New book: Continuous Discovery Habits + Product Talk membership program + Product Talk Academy (courses) * People & orgs + Hope Gurion + Ash Maurya + Tom Chi * Related episodes + #27 Hope Gurion: What nobody told you about being a product leader + #31 Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives * Books + Decisive - Chip & Dan Heath + Peak - Anders Ericsson + How We Think - John Dewey + Testing Business Ideas, David Bland + Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke + Polarity Management * Other resources mentioned + How to know if you're interviewing at a product-led company + Business Model Canvas + Lean Canvas + LEANSTACK + Human Centered Design + Stanford Symbolic Systems + Explore / exploit - how to choose new opportunities

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Courtney Bigony is on a mission to align tech products with the latest science of human thriving.  She's the creator of Positive Product Design and the Director of People Science at 15Five. 

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Links & resources mentioned* Courtney Bigony - Twitter, LinkedIn * Positive Product Design * 15Five + Best Self Management * People & orgs + Martin Seligman + Center for Humane Technology + Tristan Harris + Scott Barry Kaufman * Related episodes + #9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe + #26 David Dylan Thomas: Understand cognitive bias to create positive impact in your work + #35 Dianne Frommelt: Building products to help people become their best selves + #42 ARM: A mental model for fulfilling work * Books + Transcend + Flourish + Designing Your Life + Nonviolent Communication + Permission to Feel + The Upside of Your Dark Side + Small Giants + The Great Game of Business + Hooked + Indistractable + Say Goodnight to Insomnia * Other resources mentioned + VIA character strengths test + Brené Brown value sheet + Positive psychology + Meliorism + High quality connections - Jane Dutton + Tugboat Institute + Tim Ferriss - past year review + Feed forward interview + ChilliPad + School of Transformation - feelings chart + Virtual distance + PERMA + Perceived proximity + Gallup strengths + Mood Meter (emotions tracking app, from Permission to Feel book) + The Social Dilemma (documentary) + Asana + Diana Chapman - Conscious Leadership Group + Deep Feedback Movement

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ARM is a simple mental model to help you intentionally craft more fulfilling work.

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Update: I’ve now released a follow-up episode answering four questions about the model that have come up since this episode was released. Check it out here.

Links & resources mentioned* VIA Character strengths survey * Andrew's original Tweetstorm on ARM model (expanded version of these ideas) + Saeed Khan's "3 things in a job" model response * Related episodes: + #11 Rian Doris & Conor Murphy: Flow — Cultivating the optimal experience of life + #24 Laura Garnett: Find your zone of genius and never fear a job search again * Books and other resources + Brené Brown - values list + So Good They Can't Ignore You + Designing Your Life + The Infinite Game + Job crafting - What Job Crafting Looks Like - HBR - Job Crafting - Univ of Michigan + 80,000 Hours Guide: A guide to using your career to help solve the world’s most pressing problems + Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential

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Barry Brown helps leaders be more of who they are and be more effective in making their unique contribution to the world.

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Links & resources mentioned* Barry Brown - LinkedIn + Barry's company: Human Ethos * Books + Andrew's must-read book list + The Wisdom of No Escape - Pema Chodron + Why We Make Things and Why It Matters + The Craftsman - Richard Sennett + So Good They Can't Ignore You * Other resources mentioned + Singularity University + Woodstock, Vermont + Larry Brilliant + Peter Diamandis + David Roberts + Transformative Technology Conference

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Eric Steege is an energetic product leader intent on spreading great product cultures and practices. This conversation explores how to use product thinking to build your culture.

Links & resources mentioned* Eric Steege - Twitter * Related episodes + #18 Josh Seiden: How to create clarity with outcomes thinking + #35 Dianne Frommelt: Building products to help people become their best selves + #14 Derik Mills: Cultivating a faculty of wonder in business and life * Books + The Infinite Game + Finite and Infinite Games + Outcomes Over Output + The Hard Thing About Hard Things + The Lean Startup + Who Moved My Cheese? * Other resources mentioned + NUMMI (2015) - This American Life + Gall's Law + Amazon bar raiser program + Amazon leadership principles + ADKAR Change Management Model Overview + HEART metrics + Pirate metrics + Early adopters + 15Five culture + Asana culture + Glo & The Glo Podcast + Magic Mind matcha green tea

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Melissa Perri is on a mission to grow great product leaders. This conversation will help you to become more strategic and multiply your impact. 

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Click here to directly email Andrew your questions, comments, and feedback! He reads everything that is sent in (click 'Allow' if you get a popup): connect@makethingsthatmatter.com

Links & resources mentioned* Melissa Perri: Twitter, website + Melissa's new podcast, Product Thinking + Melissa's book: Escaping the Build Trap * Related episodes + Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives (#31) + Hope Gurion: What nobody told you about being a product leader (#27) * Books + Melissa's book: Escaping the Build Trap + The Art of Action * Other resources mentioned + "The Product of You": A Talk from Melissa Perri on Product Leadership + How to know if you're interviewing at a product-led company + What is Good Product Strategy? — Melissa Perri + Cost of delay + Gib Biddle strategy framework

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Sarah Avenir is a full-hearted leader who models vulnerable strength in her experiments to create sustainable businesses that are good for people.

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Click here to directly email Andrew your questions, comments, and feedback! He reads everything that is sent in (click 'Allow' if you get a popup): connect@makethingsthatmatter.com

Links & resources mentioned* Sarah Avenir: Twitter, website * Sarah's books: + Gather the People + People-First Growth * &yet + Find Your Weirdos * Related episodes: + Nilofer Merchant — Unleashing Onlyness to benefit from the ideas and potential in every person (#20) * Books + Nature and the Human Soul + Emergent Strategy + The Power of Onlyness + The Infinite Game + The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America + Falling Upward + Dune * Other resources mentioned: + The Nine Enneagram Types + Why Software is Eating the World + Dune - Litany Against Fear + Waking Up app - David Whyte series + The Invitational Identity - David Whyte + Babette's Feast (movie)

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C Todd Lombardo brings a blend of humanity, rigor, and innate curiosity to the questions that shape what we do. Learn to ask better questions and unlock clarity in your work.

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Links & resources mentioned* C Todd Lombardo: Twitter, LinkedIn * C Todd's books: + Product Research Rules + Product Roadmaps Relaunched * Related episodes: + #31 Marty Cagan: Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives * Machine Metrics * Question formulation technique (QFT) * Books + Switch + Turn the Ship Around

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Michael O'Bryan is on a quest to make truly humane systems by transforming how organizations understand and support human development, interaction, and performance. 

For the transcript and full show notes, go to: https://bit.ly/3tDQhma

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Dianne Frommelt is the Chief Product Officer for 15Five, a company I am a longtime fan of. They're on a mission to create high performing, highly engaged teams, and to create a product that helps everyone who uses it to be and become their best selves.

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Links & resources mentioned* Dianne Frommelt: LinkedIn, Twitter * 15Five + Podcast: Best-Self Management * Resources mentioned + Yvonne Chouinard’s practice that inspired 15Five + How To Have Clearing Conversations At Work + Conscious Leadership Group * People + Neil Degrasse Tyson + Laura Garnett – see episode 24: “Find your zone of genius and never fear a job search again” + Marty Cagan – see episode 31: “Empowering product teams to do the best work of their lives” + Rich Mironov – see episode 5: “Building a thriving product organization” + Josh Bersin - The Future of Work: It’s Already Here… And Not As Scary As You Think - The Future of Work: Lessons In Job Architecture and Career Management + Anese Cavanaugh (intentional energetic presence) * Books + First, Break All The Rules – by Marcus Buckingham + 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership + Product Roadmaps Relaunched + The Genius Habit

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Will Toms is the cofounder of REC Philly, an incubator, community, and resource center aimed at helping independent creatives make a sustainable living. In short, he's out to challenge the narrative of the starving artist and create an international community of creatives who control their own destinies.

For the transcript and full show notes, go to: https://bit.ly/2XtS3HE

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For the last episode of 2020, Andrew reflects on 8 big lessons learned from guests this year, and shares a few reflection questions to ask yourself. Wishing you all a peaceful end to this turbulent year. Here's to making things that matter in 2021!

For the transcript and full episode notes/resources, go to: https://bit.ly/3rCEUcY

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For the transcript and full episode notes/resources, go to: https://bit.ly/3qR4Fpz

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Get Marty's new book, EMPOWERED, here: https://amzn.to/36u08l0

For the transcript and full episode notes/resources, go to: https://bit.ly/3fPC138

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This is the first episode released under the new name of the show, Make Things That Matter! If you're curious, listen to ep29 for more on the rebranding.

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Tweet me what has jumped out to you, helped you, etc.→ @askotzko

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All year one episodes:

1. May Lindstrom: The power of having a North Star (#1)
2. Barry O’Reilly: Unlearning and creating culture change (#2)
3. Christina Wodtke: Unleashing potential with extraordinary teams (#3)
4. Marshall Mosher: tough product calls, acclimating to fear & what it feels like to be Iron Man (#4)
5. Rich Mironov: Building a thriving product organization (#5)
6. Barry Brown: Shaping the shapers (#6)
7. Becky Baybrook: culture, candor, and how Millenials are changing management (#7)
8. Paula Daniels: Living on the edge of your own invention (#8)
9. Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe (#9)
10. Susan Basterfield: decentralized team structures and participatory decision-making (#10)
11. Rian Doris & Conor Murphy: Flow — Cultivating the optimal experience of life (part 1) (#11)
12. Rian Doris & Conor Murphy: Flow — Cultivating the optimal experience of life (part 2) (#12)
13. Muriel Clauson: The Future of Work — identity, engagement, and being future-ready (#13)
14. Derik Mills: Cultivating a faculty of wonder in business and life (#14)
15. Sam Fankuchen: Leadership and responding to the needs of the world in a time of crisis (#15)
16. Holly Hester-Reilly: Building a customer-centric team and product culture (#16)
17. Dr Matthew Cook: Beating trauma, identity shifts, and continually recreating who you are (#17)
18. Josh Seiden: How to create clarity and lead strategically with outcomes thinking (#18)
19. Dan Gould: Fighting unconscious bias and attacking systemic problems with entrepreneurship (#19)
20. Nilofer Merchant: Unleashing Onlyness to benefit from the ideas and potential in every person (#20)
21. April Dunford: Find your power in the market through positioning (#21)
22. Pam Fox Rollin: How to be a decisive leader who helps people come alive (#22)
23. Soushiant Zanganehpour: Solving systemic problems with social entrepreneurship (#23)
24. Laura Garnett: Find your zone of genius and never fear a job search again (#24)
25. Karl Kuhnert: How to find strength in vulnerability and live your values as a leader (#25)
26. David Dylan Thomas: Understand cognitive bias to create positive impact in your work (#26)
27. Hope Gurion: What nobody told you about being a product leader (#27)
28. Rob Walling: Build a great business and let that be enough (#28)

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For the transcript and full episode notes/resources, go to: https://bit.ly/3m2WTpl

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You can submit your own audio questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/andrewskotzko

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For the transcript and full episode notes/resources, go to: https://bit.ly/KarlENLIVEN

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For full episode notes and transcript, go to: https://bit.ly/NiloferENLIVEN

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Click here for the full show notes, resources, and transcript.

Follow the ENLIVEN journey:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter @askotzko
• Instagram @skotzko

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Follow Andrew Skotzko * Twitter @askotzko * Instagram @skotzko

Follow Josh Seiden* Twitter @jseiden * LinkedIn

Explore these ResourcesIn this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Josh Seiden - Twitter & website
  • Josh's book: Outcomes Over Outputs
  • Sense & Respond Press
• Ryan Jacoby - Making Progress
• Alan Cooper
  • About Face
  • Goal Directed Design
• Eric Ries - The Lean Startup
• Alexander Osterwalder - Business Model Canvas
• Jeff Gothelf - Lean UX Canvas
• Risks dashboard - Giff Constable
• Nicole Rufuku
• The Logic Model Framework (see page 3 for summary)
• Feature Factory
• Melissa Perri - The Build Trap
• David Marquet - Intent Based Leadership
• Steven Bungay - The Art of Action
• Taproot Foundation

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Follow Andrew Skotzko * Twitter @askotzko * Instagram @skotzko

Follow Dr Matt Cook* Facebook * Instagram * YouTube * Twitter

Explore these ResourcesIn this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Dr Matthew Cook  (@BioResetMedical)
  • BioReset Medical website
  • BioReset podcast website - iTunes / Spotify
• Andrew Weil
• Functional medicine
• Integrative medicine
• PTSD
• Psycholytic therapy
• Limbic system
• Dr. Mark Hyman
• Ulcer bacteria story
• TransTech Conference
• Bad Science
• "Studying Studies" by Peter Attia
• The Drive - podcast by Peter Attia

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Follow Andrew Skotzko * Twitter @askotzko * Instagram @skotzko

Follow Holly Hester-Reilly* Twitter @h2rproductsci

Explore these ResourcesIn this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Holly's (@h2rproductsci) company — H2R Product Science
  • Holly's podcast — Product Science
  • Product discovery in uncertain times
• K Anders Ericsson - Peak (book)
• Deliberate Practice
• Marty Cagan — book, blog, trainings
  • The Alternative to Roadmaps
  • The Four Big Risks
• Continuous product discovery / dual-track discovery and delivery
• Christina Wodtke episode
• Barry O'Reilly episode
• "Feature factories"
• MediaMath
• Outcomes-based roadmap
• Scrum
• Agile software development
• Waterfall
• Mythical Man Month
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar
• Thanks for the Feedback
• SAFE is a joke
• Fight Song - Rachel Platten
• Physical (song) - Dua Lipa
• Derik Mills episode & Glo yoga
• Empathy mapping
• Impostor syndrome

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If you are a new listener to ENLIVEN, we would love to hear from you. Send us your questions so we can feature you on our next “Ask Me Anything,” episode! HERE

Follow Andrew Skotzko * Twitter @askotzko * Instagram @skotzko

Follow Golden* Twitter @goldenapp * Instagram @goldenapp * Facebook

Explore these ResourcesIn this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Sam Fankuchen
  • Golden: website | iOS | Android
  • Golden's Mutual Aid Platform
• Penske
• Applico
• Advent Health
• Not Impossible Labs
• Stanford d.school
• Design Thinking
• Arne Sorensen, CEO of Marriott video addressing all associates about the impact of COVID19
• David Kelly & IDEO
• Pluto.life
• Annenberg Foundation
• Pledge LA - Diversity & Inclusion for Companies in LA
• ReFed Project
• Feeding America
• Ritz Carlton Culture
• Disney Culture

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Follow Andrew Skotzko * Twitter @askotzko * Instagram @skotzko

Follow Derik Mills* Twitter @DerikMills * Instagram @DerikMills

Explore these ResourcesIn this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• Glo.com
• Conscious Business By Fred Kofman Ph.D.
• The Fearless Organization: Psychological Safety by Amy C. Edmondson
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
• Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
• Netflix Culture Deck
• How Netflix Reinvented HR

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The first thing you need to know about Muriel Clauson is that she's SUPER passionate about people and sees her mission in life as unlocking human potential to help everyone live radically fulfilling lives.

Muriel is an entrepreneur, researcher, speaker, and advisor to governments and companies globally on creating a better future of work. Her work has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and Forbes. She speaks on the future of work globally with organizations including the World Bank, Singularity University, China’s SAI Task Force for Innovation, the Milken Institute, United States Embassies, the Young Presidents Organization, and many more. Muriel was named a 2017 “Game-Changer” by Women at the Frontier as an innovator in science and technology.

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Click here to directly email Andrew your questions, comments, and feedback! He reads everything that is sent in: https://tinyurl.com/ydda8zc6

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Show notes

• How Susan went bungee jumping... and met her husband [0:03:42]
• What is Enspiral? [0:08:39]
• What are the different types of roles and engagement within the Enspiral network? [0:10:45]
• "What we really are at Enspiral is healthy power relationships and practice" [0:17:41]
• How do things get done in Enspiral? [0:18:02]
• The greatest gift Enspiral gave itself: culture first, THEN tools [0:19:37]
• How their decentralized governance tools (Loomio & CoBudget) emerged [0:20:03]
• How should we think about consensus? [0:24:18]
• "The most important thing about decision making is deciding how you want to decide, making that transparent, and then also deciding what actually does a real block mean?" [0:25:11]
• Scaffolding vs frameworks [0:27:21]
• How does a new venture get set up in Enspiral? [0:29:41]
• Do ventures have to contribute X% of their profits to the foundation? [0:34:52]
• How is Enspiral building a deliberately developmental culture? [0:36:20]
• "If we want to change the possibility for the future, we need to be prepared to come together in configurations and groups of people we've maybe never met before, to do things we've never done before. Organizations provide all of the fodder for us to do our ongoing development, we just don't frame it that way." [0:38:46]
• How learning & development (L&D) thinking needs to evolve [0:43:28]
• "We need to create the conditions for us to experiment, to play, to fail, to notice, to reflect." [0:48:46]
• Why is this an idea whose time has come? [0:50:02]
• The power of using a check-in to start meetings [0:53:59]
• Are these ideas that can be added to an existing organization? Or do you need a clean slate? [0:57:09]
• "Nobody leads all of the time, everybody leads some of the time. Followership is as important a gift as leadership." [0:59:54]
• Why is it worth it to transition to this way of working? [1:01:53]
• "You might never change the system, but if you can change the experience for yourself and your comrades, that's a great outcome too." [1:03:58]
• How can product leaders start implementing this? [1:05:23]
• How do we make it safe to try practices like this, if it doesn't feel that way? [1:13:51]
• Why is most feedback unhelpful? [1:20:52]

People, books, companies, resources etc mentioned in episode

• Susan Basterfield (@OpenToGrow)
  • GreaterThan
  • Enspiral Foundation
  • Better Work Together (Susan's book)
  • Better Work Together Academy
• Loomio - tool for collective decision making
• CoBudget - tool for participatory budgeting
• CompuServe
• Michael Schenker - UFO - Strangers in the Night (album)
• Susan's interview on Team Human podcast with Douglas Rushkoff
• Deliberately Developmental Organizations (DDO)
• Reinventing Organizations - Frederic Laloux
• Teal Organizations
  • Self-management
  • Wholeness
  • Evolutionary purpose
• Bryan Ungard - Operationalizing Love
• Seth Godin's altMBA
• Liberating structures & app
• Pyxis agile consultancy (Montreal/Paris)
• Decurion
• Climate-KIC
• Consensys
• DAOstack
• Brené Brown
• Yash Papers (Chuk brand) in India - styrofoam & compostable tableware
• Cut the bullshit: organizations with no hierarchy don’t exist - Francesca Pick
• Books
  • Better Work Together
  • Reinventing Organizations
  • An Everyone Culture
  • Going Horizontal - Samantha Slade
  • Brave New Work

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Show notes

• "You don't belong to you, you belong to the universe.", Buckminster Fuller [0:03:00]
• "You might not be in the best position to know why you're special. It's not up to you to decide if you're good enough to be here. You are." [0:05:16]
• Amy's first day working for Buckminster Fuller [0:06:38]
• "Work is a place where you learn and grow"... [0:11:07]
• Guidance for dealing with anxiety [0:14:06]
• "I think sometimes a feeling of connectedness is THE most important thing you can have in the workplace." [0:15:30]
• "It's so much more fun to be curious about someone else and what they bring than to be tense about being found out." [0:16:36]
• Why did "The Fearless Organization" strike such a chord in the world right now? [0:16:58]
• Why psychological safety is peaking right now [0:17:40]
• What is psychological safety, and what is it not? [0:19:19]
• Psychological safety is a sense of felt permission for candor [0:19:42]
• Psychological safety is NOT about being nice [0:20:18]
• "Being nice is code for, 'I'm not going to tell you what I really think.'" [0:20:33]
• Psychological safety is NOT the goal [0:21:31]
• What's the relationship between psychological safety & courage? [0:24:37]
• Psychological safety vs culture fit / belonging [0:27:02]
• "The job is to deliberately reframe reality so we can be more learning oriented." [0:30:11]
• What are cognitive frames? [0:30:22]
• How does Amy create psychological safety in the classroom? [0:31:45]
• What is a "good" question? [0:32:33]
• The leaders toolkit for psych safety [0:36:43]
• How psych safety helped turn around Ford between 2006-2009 [0:37:55]
• Concern: won't psych safety take too long? [0:43:46]
• Why is psych safety worth it? What's the ROI? [0:45:07]
• Parallels to self-compassion [0:47:11]
• Psych safety & Flow [0:49:26]
• How do we implement a psychological safety initiative? [0:50:30]
• Using the work itself as the laboratory for culture change [0:53:02]
• Common failure patterns? [0:54:03]
• "A culture of nice can often mask a culture of fear"... [0:55:08]
• How do you measure psych safety & tell if you have a problem? [0:57:34]
• How to pulse check if your team has psych safety [0:59:12]
• Does psych safety differ across intra/extraversion, or personality types? [1:01:59]
• How does psych safety affect hiring processes? [1:04:52]
• Everyone is different: how adapt building psych safety to this variety? [1:07:58]
• What is work for, to you? [1:09:54]
• What ONE thing would Amy have a leader do to build more psych safety? [1:12:37]
• What happens when leaders apologize for safety violations? [1:13:37]
• CONTEXT MATTERS [1:16:05]
• I'm not the boss, what can I do? [1:25:30]

People, books, companies, resources etc mentioned in episode

• Amy Edmondson (@AmyCEdmondson)
  • The Fearless Organization - @WorkFearlessly
  • Amy's HBS faculty page
  • Amy's books: The Fearless Organization & Teaming (Amy's prior book)
• Buckminster Fuller - his moment of great despair in his early thirties and his moment of insight: "you belong to the universe"
  • Geodesic domes
• VUCA
• Ford, Alan Mulally & Mark Fields
• Kristin Neff & Self-Compassion
• Growth mindset
• Flow & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Steven Kotler
• Kim Scott
• Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - associated with self-focused metacognitive evaluation
• Simon Wardley - value chain mapping overview talk & writing
• Stanford - Designing Your Life
• Nilofer Merchant - Onlyness
• Process Knowledge Spectrum
• Jerry Colonna - Reboot
• Books
  • The Fearless Organization
  • Teaming (Amy's prior book)
  • Leadership and Self-Deception
  • Radical Candor
  • Flow
  • Stealing Fire (group flow)
  • Mindset
  • Self-Compassion
  • Designing Your Life
  • Reboot

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Show notes* Paula's favorite movie that informs her work [0:02:41] * Paula's mentor: Dorothy Green [0:05:20] * How Paula originally got involved in environmental work [0:06:56] * What did Paula learn from Dorothy? [0:10:45] * Being against something vs being FOR something [0:13:35] * LAFPC's origin story & what was it like for Paula when the policy passed? [0:14:56] * Keeping the light alive & finding the others [0:20:35] * The moment that almost killed it all [0:24:49] * What did Paula feel when it suddenly became real? [0:26:38] * Where is the Center for Good Food Purchasing today? How'd it get here? [0:30:30] * How should someone think about working with many types of stakeholders? [0:33:35] * "I saw people yelling at a junior staffer, as if he didn't have feelings. So I stood up there and told the story of this human being...sometimes people in government are seen for their role and not for their person." [0:36:40] * How does Paula coach somebody to be effective working with people who are different than they are? [0:37:20] * Case study: How Paula got the city of LA to change their thinking on stormwater [0:39:00] * "Usually it's fear-based thinking. They don't want to mess up. So they're worried about something. If you can figure out what that something is, give them examples of how it's handled differently, then you can start making a difference." [0:40:25] * How do you redirect a culture or group of people? [0:41:39] * Why government & entrepreneurs is like baseball & surfing [0:42:13] * The circular economy: what's catching Paula's attention? [0:44:33] * Why is this the time to engage with the idea of the circular economy? [0:49:48] * How does Paula teach people to be a systems thinker? [0:53:08] * Paula's monthly whiteboard review exercise [0:54:04] * Polarity management [0:56:13] * How does Paula design an intervention? [1:02:52] * What lights Paula up? [1:10:28] * Quotes & mantras that inspire Paula [1:11:59] * "You're always on the edge of your own invention. And every moment has that opportunity." [1:13:56]

People, books, companies, resources etc mentioned in episode* Paula: @PaulaADaniels * Center for Good Food Purchasing - @center4goodfood * LA Food Policy Council * Dorothy Green * Heal the Bay * LA Unified School District * US Conference of Mayors * Dana Gunders - NRDC * Books + Cradle to Cradle + The Upcycle + Polarity Management + Thinking in Systems - Donella Meadows + Simon Wardley — strategy mapping drafts & value-chain mapping intro talk + Blink * Ashoka Fellows * Advice from a Caterpillar, by Amy Gerstler * Wall-E * Blade Runner * "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Anna Karenina) * CA Bay-Delta Authority * The circular economy * Mayor Antonio Villaroigosa * "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." * "Luck comes to the prepared mind." * "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." * Jonathan Gold * Aquaculture

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• What Becky's work is about [0:02:40]
• Becky's background [0:05:06]
• What does "culture" mean? [0:09:33]
• The culture health spectrum [0:11:44]
• One of Becky's favorite books of all time [0:15:52]
• What are the cultural traps people fall into in difficult situations? [0:21:36]
• How leaders at the top screw up culture [0:24:27]
• The biggest trap execs fall into from what Becky sees [0:24:54]
• The rising managerial influence of Millenials [0:26:25]
• How do rising Millenial leaders need to mature? [0:33:35]
• Transitioning from individual contributor to manager [0:36:49]
• Coaching: seeing when someone is "catchable" [0:38:18]
• The nuances of candor [0:44:03]
• The limits of transparency [0:45:14]
• Disclosure versus transparency [0:46:43]
• The 3 things that build trust in a culture [0:49:55]
• What is psychological safety? [0:52:04]
• A quick way to check psychological safety [0:56:33]
• Becky's advice for founders on fear & perception [0:58:44]
• How to start creating psychological safety? [1:01:41]
• The steps after "don't be that guy" [1:03:05]
• what does "safe" mean? [1:06:50]
• How can you start creating safety when it's missing? [1:12:37]
• "Culture fit" vs "culture add" [1:17:47]
• As a job candidate, how to assess if a culture is a good fit for you? [1:19:01]
• Generational preferences and boundaries at work [1:23:51]
• Will millenials always have a different relationship with work than their parents? [1:28:12]
• As an interviewee, how do you test for culture match? [1:30:54]
• What do interviewees ask that they shouldn't ask? [1:34:55]
• Overlooked areas in the interview process [1:35:52]
• "It wasn't what I thought it would be..." [1:37:24]
• The question job candidates SHOULD ask [1:37:34]
• How can someone learn what they ACTUALLY need in a work environment? [1:39:17]
• How do you tell how much of the cultural iceberg is above/below the waterline? [1:41:22]
• At what size of company do you need dedicated HR? [1:47:15]
• Why should a small company or startup invest in culture now, with other urgent work to do? [1:49:30]
• What one change should a leader make to enliven their team environment? [1:53:08]

Books, companies, etc mentioned

• The Beak of the Finch
• Crucial Conversations - Becky especially recommends chapter 5, "On Safety" to broach challenging topics
• Vital Smarts communication training
• Radical Candor
• Principles,Bridgewater Associates, Radical Transparency (TED Talk), and Ray Dalio
• Psychological safety
• The Empowered Manager
• Mind the Product conference
• Matt LeMay
• Who

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Show notesBarry's focus [0:02:50]
Putting the body into submission to the mind [0:05:17]
A leader's first transformational relationship [0:06:15]
"So they're reading all these books on leadership, but they're not gonna miss lunch today.""" [0:07:15]
Internal & external measures of leadership [0:07:52]
"You just adorn yourself iwth these external symbols, and if you get enough of them, then people believe you, and that's called 'leadership.' " [0:08:42]
Where "leadership" misses traction [0:09:32]
The relationship between what we do and who we are being [0:10:06]
"You don't need to leave your current job to find yourself. Meaning isn't tied to a different position in another company.""" [0:12:14]
"It starts where you are with what you're doing." [0:13:26]
"There is no escape door out of their own life. They have to enter their own life where they are with a different mindset and embrace.""" [0:16:20]
Discomfort & limitations as aids to our leadership and growth [0:18:17]
What is the reward of being limited? [0:19:56]
"When people see you able to accept your own limit...those around you will empower you.""" [0:21:08]
How do you reconcile our abilty to grow vs accepting our limits? [0:23:19]
How do you learn humility? [0:26:04]
Vulnerability as an opening for connection [0:27:24]
What is the strategic value of a leader showing weakness? [0:29:49]
How can individual limits can make a team stronger? [0:34:01]
Removing the manhole cover [0:37:07]
How do you start this with your team? [0:41:35]
How we use work itself as the vehicle to take us deeper into ourselves [0:42:25]
What if the team doesn't want this? [0:46:13]
How to change culture, bit by bit [0:47:58]
"You raise a flag, and see who gathers at the pole.""" [0:51:13]
How to keep the room safe by setting boundaries as a leader [0:52:47]
"When we make something, we're becoming someone. And then you're not just making the product, you're becoming that kind of person.""" [0:57:36]
The craftsman mindset [1:00:23]
The new kind of leader [1:04:16]
"Shaping the shapers""" [1:05:01]
"The products that we're making are shaping the world. Who's making those products? That's the shapers. And who's shaping the shapers, that are shaping the world?""" [1:05:21]
"The possibilities of production are endless now. The new question is not what can you produce, but what kind of person can be trusted to handle this?'' [1:06:07]
The scarcest resource in the new economy [1:07:38]
"That question alone is not answered by means or capital. That kind of question is answered by the kind of person who can say 'this is what I want. I want to bend the capital and means to this desired end.' And that has to be something authentically human, that makes the world celebrate." [1:08:50]
"Any leader that sustains their impact over time has developed a robust interior spiritual life." [1:12:33]

People, books, companies, resources etc mentioned in episode* Barry Brown + LinkedIn + Barry's company: Human Ethos * Singularity University * Woodstock, Vermont * Larry Brilliant * Peter Diamandis * David Roberts * Transformative Technology Conference * Books: + Andrew's must-read book list + The Wisdom of No Escape - Pema Chodron + Why We Make Things and Why It Matters + The Craftsman - Richard Sennett + So Good They Can't Ignore You

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My guest in this conversation is Rich Mironov (@RichMironov).

Rich is known as the "product mensch" in Silicon Valley, and for good reason. Educated at Yale and Stanford, Rich is a 30-year veteran of product management at multiple enterprises and startups that have gone public who now consults as an interim VP of Product helping companies to get their product organizations working at top notch.

Show notesHow did Rich end up as a product leader? [0:02:30]
Rich's first week in "product" [0:05:01]
How to learn a new space or company when you don't have background in it [0:06:46]
How does Rich figure out what's really going on, and what to do? [0:08:34]
Common failure modes Rich sees [0:09:32]
What does Rich do in his first 4 weeks as head of product? [0:13:33]
How do you build the trust to make the needed changes? [0:18:37]
Roadmaps: common initial challenge [0:20:29]
How to build initial momentum when "engineering can't ship anything" [0:22:17]
"Teams that don't finish anything quit" [0:25:11]
"Caring is probably the #1 most important feature I see in engineering teams that get a lot of really good stuff done" [0:25:21]
What are the conditions that enable a product team to be at their best? [0:25:43]
Lesson: Assume good intent & don't blame people for the system [0:30:13]
"If we design an organization badly, almost everybody we put into that organization fails" [0:30:27]
"As product people we gotta be curious, we gotta look outside ourselves and figure out what's broken. We're analytical, relentless, and we failed them if our product doesn't work." [0:32:08]
Digging into psychological safety [0:34:55]
How to provide top cover for your team [0:36:13]
How do you make it OK to hear truth and speak truth? [0:37:58]
How to keep the exec team aware of what's being built [0:39:19]
The "exclusive or" question to deal with competing roadmap requests [0:40:15]
"Trust starts with delivering the things we said we'd deliver." [0:42:00]
How do you spread outcomes thinking across an organization? [0:44:06]
Roadmaps & outcomes thinking [0:47:13]
How is PM different in a machine learning context? [0:49:16]
"Just because you have a stack of data doesn't mean it's going to tell you anything" [0:52:40]
"Schroedinger's insight" [0:56:05]
How does a product leader think differently about a product portfolio with ML products? [0:56:59]
Impostor syndrome & internalizing impersonal issues [0:59:22]
How do you help the product team level up their skills? [1:06:55]
"The goal of those discussion isn't to focus on some artifact. The goal is to skill up mentally." [1:09:23]
What one change would Rich have product leaders make? [1:11:27]

People, books, companies, resources etc mentioned in episode* Connect with Rich: + Website + Twitter * Tandem Computers * Tolstoy - Anna Karenina * Shuttle diplomacy * Rich's talk at INDUSTRY on product org/team structures * The Glengarry Leads * The Agile Manifesto * Psychological safety * The Fearless Organization, by Amy Edmondson (re: psychological safety) * Outcomes Over Output, by Josh Seiden * Christina Wodtke - ENLIVEN episode & website * Marty Cagan on outcome based roadmaps * Rich's article on product management in data science * "Hot Dog, not Hot Dog" * Sally Foote - AI at Photobox * Impostor syndrome * RailsCon 2014 talk on Imposter Syndrome - Nickolas Means * Inception (movie) * Calendly scheduling tool * Teresa Torres * Jared Spool * Tristan Kromer * Daniel Elezalde

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Marshall's ridiculous Burning Man clickbait cameo [0:09:15]
Marshall's backstory of not settling for the status quo [0:12:49]
The risks of how we self-identity [0:15:14]
The flow state in action adventure sports [0:16:29]
Tapping into flow as an entrepreneur [0:17:55]
How do outdoor adventures help to innovation? [0:20:59]
The second biggest fear in America [0:24:13]
What is the role of the "debrief"? [0:27:32]
What does REAL team building require? [0:28:04]
The start of Vestigo [0:32:21]
How meaning helps people exceed theri limits [0:37:16]
How can a leader create connecting experiences for their teammates? [0:40:00]
Principles of experience design for improving team outcomes [0:43:34]
Case study: building trust within a product org [0:44:28]
How do you help people move into uncomfortable situations? [0:47:57]
What do leaders screw up culture change? [0:50:36]
Navy SEALs: performance vs trust [0:53:41]
Vestigo's big pivot [0:56:59]
How did Marshall make the decision to walk away from his first product? [1:05:57]
Example: how to fund a B2C marketplace with B2B [1:07:54]
How our self-assigned identity gets in our own way [1:11:54]
Metrics impacted by culture & experience investments [1:16:07]
What's next for Vestigo? Neuroscience. [1:22:18]
Vestigo's version of the AirBnb "Obama O's" story [1:30:52]
Marshall's latest obsession: electric unicycles [1:34:10]
Some of Marshall's favorite podcast episodes [1:37:42]
Book & app recommendations [1:44:59]
What practices enliven Marshall? [1:51:51]
Marshall's hacks for reading [1:53:27]

People, books, companies, resources, links mentioned in the episodeMarshall's company: Vestigo
Connect with Marshall: LinkedIn & Instagram
Inside the Adventure podcast interview with paraglider Gavin McClurg
Red Bull X-Alps race
Marshall's Burning Man surfboard
Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Steven Kotler: The Rise of Superman & Stealing Fire
Simon Sinek: Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and The Infinite Game
Brené Brown - TED Talk, books
Colin Brady crossing Antarctica solo, unsupported
AirBnb experiences
Singularity University and the GSP
Roadie
Free Solo
Colin O'Brady crossing Antarctica solo + unaided
Alex Honnold
Transformative Technology Conference
VR immersive plank experience
Oculus Quest
Pluto VR - live virtual VR office experiences on Distributed podcast
AirBnb's "Obama O's" story
Electric Unicycles
Marshall unicycling in VR on the Beltline in ATL
How I Built This podcast
Primed to Perform
Ultralearning
Mastery
Self-determination theory
Blinkist
Pocket app
iOS 13 accessibility updates

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Contact Christina:

• Her website
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Christina's books:

• The Team That Managed Itself (consider leaving a review here if you enjoy it)
• Radical Focus
• Pencil Me In

People, articles, resources mentioned:

• Reboot your team
• Designing the team you need
• The dreaded weekly status email
• Rich Mironov lessons on people and systems
  • ENLIVEN ep with Rich Mironov on creating a thriving product org
• Nicky Case - parable of the polygons on diverse neighborhoods
• "I drink your milkshake"
• Stanford GSB's most popular class: Interpersonal Dynamics
• Google's findings on psychological safety
• "The Executioner's Tale" — Radical Focus book MVP
• BOOKS
  • The Wisdom of Teams
  • The Culture Map - Erin Meyer
  • Thanks for the Feedback
  • The Fearless Organization
  • A Theory of Everything (Integral Theory) - Ken Wilber
  • Flourish - Martin Seligman
  • The Inner Game of Tennis & The Inner Game of Stress
  • Turn the Ship Around
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
• QUOTES
  • "I am sneakily trying to bring more humanity to it"
  • "There's no such thing as 'those people,' there's just people."
  • " 'I'm not in charge' is just an excuse, an excuse for being afraid...somebody's got to go first"

SHOW NOTESComing to California [0:03:23]
Christina's start in tech [0:06:39]
How did Christina get here? [0:07:36]
How do older & younger students affect each other in Christina's classes? [0:11:11]
What is Christina learning from her students lately? [0:12:41]
Christina's "unfortunate" personal quality [0:16:48]
Managing and teaching — do you need answers? [0:18:58]
What had Christina write THIS book? [0:20:16]
Treating your life like a startup & finding Product-Market Fit in your life [0:20:37]
How to validate a book idea, lean startup style [0:21:15]
Christina's big realization - what made OKRs work? [0:24:03]
The 3 things teams actually need [0:24:41]
What types of teams are there? [0:26:37]
Moving from a workgroup to a team [0:28:05]
What makes a team into a learning team? [0:28:49]
What makes a mindful, autonomous team? [0:30:16]
Radical Focus vs OKRs [0:32:56]
Trust & psychological safety [0:33:25]
The kinds of trust [0:34:25]
How trust is built differently across cultures [0:36:17]
In America, do we act like everyone is a robot? [0:37:11]
How can I chip away at cultural constructs? [0:38:50]
When is each type of team/group the right choice? [0:40:50]
What does it take to be a mindful team? [0:45:02]
How should people approach implementing these ideas? Giving feedback? [0:49:29]
Christina's "GASP" feedback framework [0:50:31]
Integral theory: I-We-It [0:57:51]
How long is this going to take? [0:59:50]
Where to start turning around a culture: compensation [1:02:20]
How does this team-level model integrate with the surruonding company environment? [1:05:48]
Can you make a healthy team in a dysfunctional company? [1:06:38]
Which team to start with [1:09:39]
Team health red flags to look out for [1:13:09]
GASP vs GROW? [1:16:15]
Your job as a leader [1:19:58]
The 9X process [1:22:30]
Goals, roles, and norms — and what people miss [1:23:41]
Isn't this too many meetings? [1:27:07]
How to create a lightweight meeting structure [1:29:28]
The thing that really makes the difference in goals [1:31:51]
Isn't this stuff all too "touchy feely"? [1:38:12]
Engineers are humans too [1:40:32]
The reality of work: nobody is in charge [1:41:59]
How to make a mindful team happen [1:42:47]
What impact does Christina want this book to have? [1:44:00]

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Click here to directly email Andrew your questions, comments, and feedback! He reads everything that is sent in: https://tinyurl.com/ydda8zc6

Show notes* Barry moving to America and the "American Dream" [0:06:11] * Experimentation as a lifestyle -- the kitchen table talk [0:13:14] * Navigating uncertainty [0:15:09] * Modeling behaviors [0:22:25] * Barry's hack to get new perspectives on problems you don't know how to solve [0:24:12] * Stumbling blocks in unlearning [0:26:36] * Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and "time to think" [0:31:07] * Barry's personal reflection practices [0:33:11] * "We're trained for more" [0:35:19] * How do I know I need to unlearn? [0:45:27] * Hotseat: Barry puts Andrew through unlearning exercise on the spot [0:48:11] * Andrew's embarrassing insight [0:54:50] * The #1 obstacle to being a learner [1:00:04] * "Steve always got it right" [1:02:24] * How to make being wrong, feel good [1:04:09] * Debunking the 10,000 hour rule [1:07:49] * The levels of deliberate practice [1:08:24] * Applying deliberate practice to day-to-day life [1:15:12] * Building systems & countermeasures around yourself to be successful [1:18:42] * The origin of the Enliven podcast [1:22:44] * How to start a cultural transformation [1:26:37] * Barry's #1 hack for meetings [1:33:01]

People, companies, books, etc mentioned* People + Carol Dweck + Angela Duckworth + Cal Newport + Andy Grove & OKRs + Tom Bilyeu + K. Anders Ericsson + Gibson Biddle (listen to Gib's episode on Barry's Unlearn podcast) + Dr Ed Hoffman at NASA * Books & Podcasts + Barry's books - Unlearn - Unlearn podcast - Lean Enterprise + Mindset + Grit + So Good They Can't Ignore You + Deep Work + Digital Minimalism + Impact Theory + Peak: The New Science of Expertise + Mastery, by George Leonard + The E-Myth * Other + McKinsey & the obligation to dissent + Deliberate practice + Agile

Quotes* "If something important comes up, I'll put it on my calendar. But I'm going to make time for thinking." * making two or three bets and exploring them well is better than making one hundred bets and half-assing them" * "I've been right a million times...and it's bought me jack shit." * "Innovation is new insight that leads to better action" * "we're building these systems that are so example that we don't even know how they work" * "in all our meetings we just talk about output, the things we got done...if we're going to be agile we have to talk about outcomes" * "organizational transformation is just the collective impact of individual transformation"

Lessons and key takeaways* how eager am I to get information that is contrary to my view? * the essentials to unlearning: curiosity, ownership * reflection is a habit of top performers * signs you need to unlearn + challenge facing and not living up to expectation + place you're struggling or avoiding a challenge + tried everything can think of and not getting results you want * What's the real outcome you're aiming for? * when frustrated with the obstacles, zoom back out to the outcomes in order to discover new things to try * we often know what to do...but we can't execute shared things on our own * Andy Grove and Steve Jobs "getting it right" * create and cultivate a personal board of directors to re-energize and gain new perspectives * always have agency for how we show up in a system—so it starts with us—and each of us has a

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Show notes* Why does May's company have all new employees read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"? [0:03:29] * What does May's company really do? [0:05:27] * May's rural upbringing and why she left home [0:07:17] * "The goal was to go until I hit the ocean or ran out of money" [0:09:24] * "I come from a small town, but I'm not a small woman" [0:10:01] * How did an artist end up as a formulator? [0:12:48] * What is the job of the artist? [0:14:16] * Being an idea manager [0:15:32] * The tension between dreams and what can be made real [0:17:21] * The responsibliity of a leader to keep dreaming [0:20:27] * Success, self-sabotage... now what? [0:20:53] * Exploring shame, success, scarcity, and abundance [0:22:54] * Instagram perception vs reality [0:28:23] * Dealing with imposter syndrome [0:29:40] * The Infinite Game [0:34:26] * Intentionally craeting a company culture and environment [0:36:07] * The beauty of having your customers as your investors [0:37:47] * What May Lindstrom skin REALLY does [0:38:23] * The job of the Care Bear — and how to idenify one [0:40:30] * The hardness of "soft" skills [0:43:26] * What's expensive? Dropping your values [0:45:17] * The beauty of bootstrapping [0:47:51] * Challenges with retail alignment [0:48:24] * May's north star: delivering love [0:49:57] * Making tough revenue decisions [0:51:21] * Retail inventory management issues [0:52:54] * Walking away from 25% of her business [0:57:59] * Canaries in the retail coal mine [0:58:23] * How do you turn values into behavior in your org? [1:01:53] * "Tells" that indicate a bad patrner fit [1:08:29] * May's BIG product recall [1:10:55] * The challenge of natural products [1:13:14] * "I knew when I sent that email, there was a chance it could take us under... and it was the right thing to do" [1:19:43] * What enables May to make hard calls that others wouldn't? [1:27:12] * The cost of knowing what other people are doing [1:28:41] * Fear of boredom - what keeps it interesting? [1:30:31] * Choosing your "top of the mountain" [1:39:24] * Who inspired/inspires May? [1:42:30] * "The music is in the space between the notes" [1:46:08] * What is the change May seeks to make in the world? [1:48:53]

People, books, etc mentioned* Connect with May + Instagram + May's company: May Lindstrom Skin - The Blue Cocoon - The Honey Mud * People + Simon Sinek + Seth Godin - the altMBA, where May and I met + Jerry Colonna * Books + The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek + Finite & Infinite Games, by James Carse + Shower whiteboard

Quotes"The goal was to go until I hit the ocean or ran out of money" [0:09:24]

"I can have a can of cold potatoes for dinner if I can finish it with a butterfinger."

"What I am is an idea manager, and so it is my job to see, to hold the vision and build the space in which we can make that vision into a reality. And that is actually my job."

"I come from a small town, but I'm not a small woman."

"This is the first time where the reality far exceeds what I thought I was building...now is when I get to dream again."

"It's my responsibility to keep dreaming otherwise we stay here. And here is great, but there is just so much more potential."

"At the end of the day, we're a love company"

"What's expensive is dropping your values"

"What I'm asking of our retailers is that they treat us like milk."

"Anyone who's too sure that they've got it...they don't."

"I knew when I sent that email that there was a chance it could take us under...but I knew there was absolutely no other right call to make."

"The music in the whitespace... it's in the space between the notes"

"I can't have my North Star be love if I'm operating from fear! You can't do love from fear."

Click here to directly email Andrew your questions, comments, and feedback! He reads everything that is sent in: https://tinyurl.com/ydda8zc6