How to Be Awesome at Your Job
How to be Awesome at Your Job
Get more fun, wins, meaning, and money from your job! With 25,000,000 downloads and mentions in The New York Times, Forbes, and Linkedin Learning. This show helps grow your skills and impact at any job that requires thinking and collaborating. Each week, Pete interviews thought-leaders and results-getters to discover specific, actionable insights that boost work performance. Their stories and advice sharpen the universal skills to flourish at work. Boost your time/energy management, leadership, confidence, career opportunities, and fulfillment—while still getting home earlier.Try starting with episode 0: START HERE and listener favorite episodes we put at the beginning numbered: A, B, C, D, E, and F. (Subscribe and/or sort Old to New to find these starter episodes.) Welcome!
Episodes
Mentioned books
12 snips
Mar 26, 2026 • 37min
1140: Bringing More Laughter, Fun, and Connection to the Workplace with Chris Duffy
Chris Duffy, award-winning comedian and writer who studies humor and human connection. He explores using playfulness at work, why self-deprecating moments build trust, and simple habits that make you more magnetic. Short practices for noticing funny details, layering emotion into observations, and when laughter connects versus excludes are highlighted.
16 snips
Mar 23, 2026 • 41min
1139: How to Become the Manager that People Want to Work For with Ashley Herd
Ashley Herd, founder of Manager Method and former GC/Head of HR at McKinsey and Yum! Brands, shares practical leadership tools. She explores why many managers get no training. She highlights simple, often-overlooked behaviors that make people feel valued. She presents the Pause, Consider, Act framework and quick meeting and hiring practices that actually work.
22 snips
Mar 19, 2026 • 41min
1138: Breaking Free from the Invisible Norms that Limit Our Best Work with Nilofer Merchant
Nilofer Merchant, author and longtime technology leader known for collaborative strategy, challenges invisible workplace norms that hold us back. She explores how power, politics, and fear shape decisions. Short takes cover AI’s human edge, protecting originators, learning the unwritten rules, and practical steps to influence norms and create more choices at work.
21 snips
Mar 16, 2026 • 48min
1137: How to Build an Unbeatable Mind with Former Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine
Mark Divine, former Navy SEAL commander and creator of Unbeatable Mind, shares techniques for elite mental clarity and resilience. He tells a life-saving parachute story and explains balancing hard action with restorative practices. Hear practical tips on fixing attention, a quick box-breathing reset, concentration training, and aligning work with your mission.
22 snips
Mar 12, 2026 • 41min
1136: How to Reshape Your Beliefs to Unlock Hidden Capabilities with Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal, author and researcher on behavior and human potential, explores how beliefs shape what we can do. He digs into striking studies about persistence and placebos. He explains beliefs as tools, names common limiting beliefs, and offers practical techniques to test and reframe them. Short, vivid stories and research make the ideas stick.
21 snips
Mar 9, 2026 • 45min
1135: Patrick Lencioni on How to Identify Your Gifts for More Energizing Work Days
Pat Lencioni, founder of The Table Group and bestselling author on leadership and teamwork. He unpacks the Six Types of Working Genius and how to match tasks to your natural gifts. He talks humility, shame around weaknesses, practical job crafting, team mapping, and why aligning work to your strengths helps prevent burnout.
11 snips
Mar 5, 2026 • 37min
1134: Creating the Moments that Make Work Come Alive with Daniel Coyle
Daniel Coyle, bestselling author and researcher on how groups grow and thrive, shares ways to make work more alive and meaningful. He discusses why flourishing is social not solo. Short rituals, vulnerability loops, and quick visualizations spark clarity and connection. Practical moves include pre-flights, appreciative pauses, and tracking moments of aliveness.
11 snips
Mar 2, 2026 • 47min
1133: The Philosophy of Scores: How to Measure What Truly Matters and Stop Playing Someone Else’s Game with C. Thi Nguyen
C. Thi Nguyen, associate professor of philosophy who studies games, technology, and value, explores how scores and metrics shape what we care about. He discusses how metrics can hollow out meaning, co-opt values, and privilege narrow skills. He argues metrics act like maps that erase context and suggests making measurements more modifiable and context-aware.
25 snips
Feb 26, 2026 • 38min
1132: How to Find Deep Satisfaction While Pursuing Excellence with Brad Stulberg
Brad Stulberg, researcher and bestselling author focused on sustainable excellence, offers a mini roadmap to meaningful striving. He explores why chasing happiness fails and what to aim for instead. He explains how curiosity beats fear, how intensity plus joy fuels top performance, and practical ways to rebuild focus and care deeply about what matters.
15 snips
Feb 22, 2026 • 35min
1131: How to Stop Playing Small at Work with Kelli Thompson
Kelli Thompson, leadership and executive coach and author of Closing the Confidence Gap, explains how to stop shrinking at work. She exposes the pedestal problem and why over-admiring others and AI can silence your voice. Short segments cover trusting your intuition, spotting your genius zone, and asking the right questions to reclaim confidence and speak up more often.
