EP 394: Self Help, LLC: The Paradox of Self-Help Expertise with Patrick Sheehan

Who do you trust with improving your life?

Show Notes

Our quest for self-improvement requires us to decide who (or what) to trust with our time, energy, and money. What book do you decide to read next? Which coach do you hire? What accounts do you follow? Our consumer choices seem endless—so finding someone or something to put your trust in might feel like an Olympic feat.

On the flip side, as business owners or independent workers whether explicitly or implicitly in the business of self-help, our goal is to cultivate trust. Why would someone trust us with their business, their marriage, or their hopes and dreams for the future?

In this episode, I sit down with sociologist Patrick Sheehan to talk about his study of career coaches and the role they play with job seekers. We examine the roles that both credentialed and experience-based experts play in society and why uncertainty and instability might inspire us—for better or worse—to put our trust in prophets rather than priests.

Footnotes:

• Edelman Trust Barometer 2022
• “Confidence in US Institutions Down; Average at New Low” Gallup
• “Fatigue, traditionalism, and engagement: the news habits and attitudes of the Gen Z and Millennial generations” American Press Institute
• “We’ve stopped trusting institutions and started trusting strangers” by Rachel Botsman (TED Talk)
• “The Change Rules of Trust in the Digital Age” by Rachel Botsman (HBR)
• “Where did all the coaches come from?” by Patrick Sheehan (Work In Progress Sociology)
• “The new economy as multi-level marketing scheme: career coaches and unemployment in the age of uncertainty” by Patrick Sheehan (Work in Progress Sociology)
• “Gun Culture and Wellness Culture Come From the Same Place” by Alan Levinovitz (Huffington Post)

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What is What Works?

"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. 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.