What Works Podcast
1) EP 429: Maybe bigger isn't better?
On June 8, Skye Pillsbury opened the latest edition of her newsletter, The Squeeze, with the header RIP Gimlet. She continued:I’m heartbroken over the news that Spotify has laid off another 200 podcas...Show More
2) What Else Must Be True?
Have a big decision on your mind? Trying to choose between a bunch of good options?Today, I'm talking about decision-making… not so much how to choose, but the context of our choices. No decision gets...Show More
3) Getting My $#*! Together: A Messy Review of 2025
Here we are at the tail end of 2025. I just "opened" my Spotify Unwrapped... And after 3 years of burnout recovery, I’m finally ready to figure out what getting my shit together in the shadow of every...Show More
4) On Getting Attention, Encoding Messages, and Diving into the Deep End
How do you get people to care about what you care about?It's a marketing question. A movement-building question. A question at the heart of the attention economy. And in one form or another, it's the ...Show More
5) Drifting Toward the Status Quo
If you’ve ever chosen an ambitious, unconventional, or deeply meaningful aim only to see your plan devolve into something far more run-of-the-mill, this one is for you.Footnotes:Read the essay version...Show More
6) Rethinking Busyness (With Help From HBO's The Pitt)
Try as we might, many of us can’t shake the overwhelming sense that we're just too damn busy—that feeling that there’s something we’re forgetting about, somewhere we should be, some person we should b...Show More
7) Delightful Misdirection (Or How to Rethink Your Options)
How we think about a problem or goal really matters. The variables we include, the relationships we draw between them, the flows of influence or resources—they change the interventions we choose. They...Show More
8) We Can't Quit Turning Leisure Into More Work
I'm pretty sure The New York Times is trolling me.Footnotes:Read the written version of this episode."Hobbies Too Relaxing? Try 'Leisure Crafting'" by Lora Kelley in The New York Times"Research: How '...Show More
9) The Spectacle of Competence
"Competence porn" is an indistinct genre of media that showcases people doing their jobs (loosely defined) exceptionally well, often using niche skills or uncommon expertise. You've no doubt seen it i...Show More
10) 3 Ways I Make Sense of the Unexpected & Perplexing
In the last episode (written version), we talked about how "sensemaking starts with chaos" and that chaos arises when our expectations don't match reality. That mismatch occurs because the mental mode...Show More