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Modern Mentor

QuickAndDirtyTips.com

Rachel Cooke is your guide to leadership and communication, helping you craft a workplace environment you can feel good about. She’ll share tips to help you balance your work and personal life, effectively invest your time, and be mindful about where you’re devoting your energy. Let Rachel help you navigate your path to success—however you define it.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • 31 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 14 min
  • English
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • #921
    Tuesday · 14 min

    Why you’re not being heard at work and how to fix it

    921. You’re putting heart and soul into presenting a message, an idea, a solution. But no one is listening. Rachel Cooke shares some reasons why this may be happening, and some thoughts on how to change the outcome. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #920
    November 3 · 14 min

    Six scary things worth doing at work, and how to do them well

    920. Too many of us are holding back at work. Not from laziness, but from fear. Fear of looking difficult, of not being a team player, of getting it wrong in front of the room. Rachel Cooke makes the case that the work suffers when we stay quiet, and walks through six “scary” moves worth making, plus how to make each one feel a whole lot less scary. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #919
    October 27 · 37 min

    Is it your people or your process? The Ready CEO Rodney Evans on fixing how work gets done.

    919. When your team keeps missing its goals, is it a people problem or a process problem? Most leaders assume it’s the people. After 20 years inside organizations, Rodney Evans rarely buys it. The CEO of The Ready joins host Rachel Cooke to explain why people respond rationally to the systems they work in, and why leaders can hire heroes to overcome a broken system only until those heroes burn out and leave. Rodney and Rachel dig into why leaders dismiss day-to-day fixes as too small to matter, how Rodney gets CEOs to pay attention to meetings and who gets to decide what, and why debates like whether remote work is real are still going a decade later. Plus, she offers advice for anyone feeling stuck, starting with finding out what their real constraints are. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #918
    October 20 · 14 min

    Five icebreakers that actually work for team meetings

    918. You need to open a meeting, and the usual icebreaker makes everyone cringe. Chosen with intention, a warmup does real work by warming up the exact muscles a team needs for the job in front of it. Rachel Cooke shares five of her favorites, from reflection cards to a Would You Rather deck. She explains how she matches each one to what the meeting needs to accomplish, whether that’s getting a stuck team to decide, building trust for a hard conversation or helping a new team connect. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #917
    October 13 · 14 min

    How to get your team working together again

    917. Lots of teams have quietly stopped being teams. They're capable people sprinting in their own directions, connected by a reporting line and little else. Rachel Cooke explains why that fragmentation is lonely for people and expensive for the organization, and offers four ways to put the team back together: a shared winning aspiration, forums for deciding together, smarter use of one-on-ones, and protected time to reconnect. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #916
    October 6 · 11 min

    Four questions to help your team get better at AI

    916. Getting better at AI isn't a technology problem. It's a work design problem. Drawing on a corporate "digital transformation" that never quite landed, Rachel Cooke explains why skill without structure has nothing to hold onto. She then walks through four questions that build that structure: what you're trying to win, whether your tools and guardrails match your expectations, where AI belongs in your highest-value work, and how your team learns together while the technology keeps changing. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #915
    October 1 · 14 min

    5 questions to ask before asking more of your team

    915. Your team missed the deadline, and the reasons are starting to sound like excuses. The instinct is to push harder: tighter check-ins, a firmer performance conversation, more pressure applied in the same direction. But the fastest move and the most useful move are rarely the same one. In this episode, Rachel Cooke walks through five self-directed questions she uses with coaching clients whose teams have stalled, from "what if I'm wrong" to "can you define good" to "what distance have you already traveled." Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #914
    September 22 · 10 min

    Five moves to tell a better story in your year-end review

    914. How do you get ready for your year-end review? And should you be starting now? Most of us reduce our professional story to the obvious stuff – titles, job descriptions, the big projects – and lose the truest evidence of how we actually work. Borrowing a page from college-admissions expert Sara Harberson, Rachel walks through five moves to uncover your fuller professional story, with enough time for year-end. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #913
    September 15 · 12 min

    The unsexy fix for meetings, deadlines, and cross-team conflict

    913. When something's broken at work, we reach for the big fix — the reorg, the new tool, the strategy overhaul. But ask people to describe their perfect coffee and they'll say rich, dark, bold. Put a cup in front of them and they reach for weak and milky. Rachel Cooke applies that same gap to work, where what's holding you back usually isn't strategy. It's the thousand small snags you've stopped noticing. Here's how to find one and ease it from right where you sit. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #912
    September 8 · 10 min

    How to handle uncertainty at work when your boss doesn't have the answers

    912. Your boss used to have answers. Now they've got questions. It feels destabilizing - but Rachel makes the case that this is the opening of a lifetime. When certainty disappears, the old rules about who has the answers go with it. Four bold moves for a moment that's wide open. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #911
    September 1 · 11 min

    How to build workplace community in a remote AI-driven world

    911. You can spend an entire day on video calls and still not have one real conversation. The connection that used to come free with the office doesn't come free anymore. After a trip to California wine country, Rachel Cooke found herself fixated less on the wine than on the village each winery had built around itself, and on what that says about connection in a remote, global, AI-driven workplace. Three reasons to build your own village, on purpose. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #910
    August 25 · 36 min

    Billy Eichner on why success comes from love not trauma

    910. What do you do when there's no template for the career you want, no obvious next step, and no one waiting to hand you the opportunity? Comedian, actor, and writer Billy Eichner built his entire career by refusing to wait to be chosen. In this conversation, he and Rachel Cooke get into how you bet on yourself when the path doesn't exist yet, how to keep going through constant rejection without letting it paralyze you, and why the wish to be chosen never fully goes away, even after you've made it. Billy is the force behind "Billy on the Street," a co-writer and star of "Bros," and a familiar face from "Parks and Recreation" and "The Lion King." Here he opens up about his new audio memoir, "Billy on Billy," the parents who built his confidence by never instilling shame in him, the artists like Madonna and Barbra Streisand who taught him defiance, and his belief that success can come from love rather than trauma. If you're trying to go off script and build something no one else can see yet, this one will give you the nerve. Listen to "Billy on Billy: An Audio Memoir" Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #697
    August 11 · 8 min

    When it comes to managing, do I do it fast or right? (Reissue)

    697. We get a lot of mixed messaging when it comes to managing the tension between speed and efficiency. We need to be sure—to have the data, to have done the research and the analysis before deciding or implementing. But also, we need to be agile, move quickly, test-and-learn, and not fall into analysis-paralysis. How do we find the middle ground? Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com. The episode transcript can be found here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #908
    August 4 · 18 min

    How TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie recovered from depression

    909. Blake Mycoskie built TOMS into a $600 million brand and gave away more than 100 million pairs of shoes — then fell into a seven-year battle with clinical depression after selling the company. He talks with Rachel Cooke about why outward success never made him feel like enough, the limiting belief that drove him for decades, and the small, everyday practices — not the dramatic interventions — that finally pulled him through. He also shares what he's learned interviewing guests like Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Love, and Jewel (whose memoir "Never Broken" he recommends) on his mental wellness podcast "No Magic Pill," plus the story behind Enough, the brand he founded to fund mental health organizations. If you're a high performer who ties your worth to your latest win, this conversation is for you. Content note: this episode discusses depression and suicidal ideation. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • #907
    July 28 · 11 min

    Be a goldfish...but only sometimes: when your team should reflect vs. move on

    907. When should your team reflect on what went wrong, and when should you just move on? Rachel Cooke uses Ted Lasso's "be a goldfish" mantra to unpack the balance between looking back and looking ahead, then shares five questions—three that mine the past, two that aim at the future—to help your team do both intentionally. Modern Mentor is a Quick and Dirty Tips Podcast, hosted by Rachel Cooke! Find more from Rachel at LeadAboveNoise.com. Have a question for Modern Mentor? Email: modernmentor@quickanddirtytips.com Discover more from Modern Mentor! Facebook LinkedIn Newsletter Transcripts available on your podcast app or QuickandDirtyTips.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Showing 1–20 of 31 episodes