Hey, so I have been a fan of Jesse Hempelt's, writing an amazing podcast, Hella Monday, for years now.
But it was her deeply insightful six part series on reopening the world of work that really led us into the virtual studio space to jam.
Jesse is a senior editor at large at LinkedIn and host of the award winning podcast Hella Monday, and for nearly two decades shes been writing and editing features and cover stories about the most important people, the icons and companies and technology, bringing together people and exploring world shaking ideas, and appearing everywhere from CNN, PBS, MSNBC to Fox and CNBC and many others really addressing the culture and business of technology.
But it was her deeper impulse to get to the heart of things and her love of storytelling and the humanity underneath technology that has really drawn me to her work.
In today's conversation, we learn how those threads have woven through her life, landing her most recently in the world of audio helming LinkedIn's hello Monday podcast.
Jesse really focuses more broadly now on the world of work and all of the different issues, emotional, psychological, political, technological, and how we navigate them as human beings and how they affect us, while also bringing her unique stories and lens into the conversation in a way that didn't often happen as a writer and a journalist.
And we dive also into that six part series I mentioned on reopening, whether the word reopening even describes what's happening now, and all the important questions and touch points that people are navigating during this unusual moment.
So excited to share this conversation.
And as I shared on our last episode, we're getting really close to wrapping up our own six part spark story series, drawing fun and inspiring two to three minute stories from my new book, sparked in the beginning of each episode leading up to the launch of the book on September 21, which is just a few days from now.
I was so inspired by these amazing people, I wanted to share their sparked stories as these short hits of inspiration and insight as we all make the transition into a season of reimagining and, for many, reinvention.
So here's today's short and sweet sparked story.
The maven impulse sometimes shows up as a generalized, relentless curiosity about everything and everyone, like you live in a state of childlike wonder about the world around you.
My friend Neil Pastricha, who's a maker maven, personifies this a maven primary.
He's one of the most genuinely and broadly curious people I know.
If he asks you how you're doing, he waits for an answer.
Then he asks why?
What contributed to it.
How do you feel about your answer?
Ho wonder?
And would it have been different yesterday?