Where do our Hello Monday guests come from?

Hi folks! This week's Hello Monday interview with Jessica Powell really resonated with readers. I got posts and messages from so many people who were similarly thinking about leaving jobs they didn't love. And, other people wrote as they were mid-transition.

And, many people wrote to offer ideas for guests we should feature in the future. I'm so glad! There are so many important conversations to have about what the future of work will look like, and more importantly, about how we can prepare ourselves to succeed in that future. So, it seems like a good moment to share a little bit about our process for inviting people on the show.

First, let me introduce the team. Laura Sim has produced our shows this year. Laura has a creative approach to audio, and whenever you hear something a little out of the ordinary, you can bet she had a hand. Like, the episode where we all went to Chinatown to eat Dim Sum? Yeah, that's Laura. She also helped us commission music for the show from the mysterious (and magical) Breakmaster Cylinder.

Dave Pond is our technical director. He can make any piece of equipment run. He listens to the episodes on his commutes home from work and delivers thoughtful notes ("this part's boring") that help ensure the episode you hear is juicy. And, on occasion, he'll travel across the country to get someone like Melinda Gates on tape in person because I believe that, when possible, every conversation is better had IRL.

Our head of original audio and video is Florencia Iriondo. Flo is a world traveler and a talented musician. She had complete faith in Hello Monday before it even existed, and has pushed the team to lean into our curiosities. There are plenty of shows about work, after all. This is the only show about what we care about the most.

There are a few other people who work on the show as well, and I'll make sure you get to know them in a future letter. But this is the core group of guest pickers. So...how do we come up with our guests?

We look for people who have a story to share about a challenge they've faced in their own careers. Sometimes, those people are well known, like actor Laura Linney or writer Roxane Gay. Sometimes, they simply have an important story to share that can help other people.

We look for fresh ideas. So, if we've just done an episode about having the courage to quit your job, we probably won't do another.

We look for people who have jobs that didn't exist a decade ago. Take Aminatou Sou. She's a professional influencer. That's a field that exists because of the internet. There was no major at my college for this.

We look for heart. There are a lot of people who have talking points. Hello Monday isn't interested in talking points. We want guests who are willing to drop into conversation, to ask questions as well as answer them, to think about their lives and their careers in real-time, and grow with us through the conversation as a result.

If there are people you'd like to hear from, email us at [email protected], or leave your thoughts in the comments.

Podcasts aficionados probably already know that well-known couples therapist Esther Perel launches a podcast about work this week. In a recent interview on The Cut, she explained that work and home are now “the two hubs where we go to experience connection, community and belonging and meaning, what used to be much more of a part of our larger structures in our religious life.”

This is core to Hello Monday. Most of us will spend half of our waking life at work. We all want to use our show to make that time count.