Play, learn, work, retire—those are the four stages of what Mauro Guillén calls the sequential mode of life. In his new book, The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society, he proposes a new story for moving through life. It's a story that actually reflects the facts on the ground—rather than our grandparents' idea of what life was supposed to look like.
In this episode, I talk with Guillén about his research and his vision for how life, learning, and work could be different.
Footnotes:
Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter:
whatworks.fyi
Work with me: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called
Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.
Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a
Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle.
Upgrade your subscription today!
★ Support this podcast ★
What is What Works?
Work is central to the human experience. It helps us shape our identities, care for those we love, and contribute to our communities. Work can be a source of power and a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, that's not how most of us experience work—even those who work for themselves. Our labor and creative spirit are used to enrich others and maintain the status quo. It's time for an intervention. What Works is a show about rethinking work, business, and leadership for the 21st-century economy. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.