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June 17, 2025 49 mins
More professionals are stepping into the freedom of independent work—on their own terms. This episode explores the shifting tides of the workforce, where freelancers and solo practitioners are redefining stability, career control, and increased income. We explore what it means to work with purpose as a freelancer or gig-based pro—and how to fly free like a bird while building something lasting. We unpack how companies can benefit too, by tapping into agile, high-performing project-based talent.

Working on Purpose is broadcast live Tuesdays at 6PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Working on Purpose is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for

(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor
Elise Cortez.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Welcome back to Working on a Purpose program, which has
been brought to you with passion our pride since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning again this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If
we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm
a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapists, speaker
and author. My team and I at Gusto and I
help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by building

(01:27):
a dynamic, high performance culture, inspirational leadership, and nurturing managers
activated by meaning and purpose. Did you know that inspired
employees outperform their satisfied peers by factor of two point
twenty five to one. In other words, inspiration is good
for the bottom line. You can learn more about us
and how we can work together at Gusto, dashnow dot
com or my personal site Atliscortes dot com. Getting in

(01:49):
today's program we have with us today Miles Everson. Since
twenty nineteen, he has served as a Chief executive Officer
at MBO Partners, the market leader in enabling the future
of work and improving the well being of the professionals
and businesses throughout the world. Prior to IMDIO Partners, Miles
held several senior roles at PwC. Over thirty years as
Global Advisory and Consulting CEO, leading the company's Asia, Pacific

(02:11):
and America's advisory and consulting businesses, eventually becoming the US
Advisory Consulting Vice Chairman. Miles led the first globalization for
the advisory consulting practice across the PwC enterprise. He's the
co author of Freebirds Revolution, The Future of Work and
the Independent Mind for both independent professionals and corporate executives alike.

(02:32):
This educational and practical guide unpacks the ever growing independent
workforce and offers leaders crucier ways to become its client
of choice. To Freebirds, we'll be talking about this book today.
He joined us today from Austin. Miles a hearty welcome
to working on Purpose.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Helloly, thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
It's really great to me too, and we are like
independent minded human beings here. Miles. I'm so happy to
know you. I want to ask you first if you
would just to sort of talk a little bit about
your early career and why you wanted to jump in
into your partners, and then I want to comment as
to why I think it was such a great idea.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Yeah great. So my early career, yeah, my thanks, At
least my very early career. I started very young. I
had I won't go all the way back, but my
very first business was when I was eleven years old.
So I had I had that business builder h DNA
in me, and so I spent though after university, I

(03:32):
was at PwC. Started there in the Minneapolis office, and
then I did a bunch of tours through various offices
in business units, and I was, you know, as you
had sent in the introductory one of the h I
ran the global advisory and consulting businesses in my last act,
so to speak, before I decided to go over to

(03:54):
MBO Partners. When I was at PwC. One of the
things I did is it related to the workforce. Is
I hatched and delivered a what we call the PwC
Talent Exchange. And the idea behind that was that when
you create liquid markets, all boat rising the liquid market.
And as I say in the book, one of the

(04:18):
trends that has a lot of permanency to it is
that the frationalization of everything. At the time, I looked
at it and said, well, we're going to fractionalize every
company's most valuable asset, which is their workforce. And for individuals,
we're going to fractionalize their careers. And that's exactly what's happening.
Lots of data to support that. We may get into
that here. And so then when I decided to move

(04:40):
on from p TOBC, I went over to MBO Partners
and they were a leader in helping independents stand up
their businesses and operate successfully. Is white collar independence? Interestingly enough,
it's now publicly announced, but as of last Tuesday, we
sold MBO to Bline. So b Line is the I'm
going to end vender management system in the contingent work industry,

(05:03):
and now MBO is part of the Beeline family, so
we're happy about that as well.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Congratulations, Miles. It's really exciting. And you know, as I
read your book, and I think you know by now,
I read my guests books cover to cover in part
because I'm a lifelong learner and I want to keep
getting better for my clients and my own notification. But
could really relate to it, Miles, because I am an
independent mind person as you describe in the book, and
went independent in two thousand and three, which correlates exactly

(05:27):
when my daughter was born. So you talk about three
main if you won't do you know, higher independence, considerate
for the disabled, for the children, and for the environment.
I did it for my child because you know, I
have one daughter. My husband then at the time worked
for Deloitte, was on that path, traveling all the time.
Somebody's got to be home base. Still wanted to work,
but on my own term. So I feel like I

(05:49):
was ahead of my time in some ways back then.
But that's just like you say, I was interested in autonomy,
control and flexibility, and I didn't feel I could get
that in a typical job working for most companies.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, sometimes I get asked,
you know, why do people choose to be independent. There's
specific reasons, but the most simple and basic answer is
because they can.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Right Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly right. Well, one of the things,
there are so many things that I got from your book,
and I really like how you talk about, you know,
unbundled work. And so if you could situate that a
little bit about what you mean by unbundled work.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Yeah, uh, and it's a the description of unbundled I
would even say is a living definition because of this
point that I make about the fractionalization of everything, and
the more you fractionalize any asset, the more unbundled it
can become. And so unbundled work allows you to really

(06:52):
i'll say, celebrate and embrace the people that have deep
specialized skills. Yeah, and when you many independents I have
found are really deep skills and they really don't want
to be the general manager, right, And so that unbundled
is if you can get really good at decomposing the

(07:13):
work and unbundling it, you can get deep expertise and
then things move at a faster pace because people are
focused on one what they're really good at, but also
what they have a passion for. Yeah, And that unbundling
is just to me, is just so critical in terms
of why the way the work is getting done is changing.
And you know, we'll probably you know, if I really

(07:35):
put my crystal ball to work, We're going to see
even more of that get amplified. As you see the
complement of technology today, people would say, you know, gen
AI applied to the work environment, people with very very
deep skills will complement themselves with bots and other technology

(07:56):
to be able to really do just the piece that
they like. We'll see more unbundling. That last is things
involved here.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
M H. I love that you talk about the future
of work is independent, and I like also too that
you talk about that this is more even on an
existential level. The future of work is independent because people's
innate desire for a more fulfilling, rewarding vacational life is
what's also what's driving that. We're gonna talk more about
how things are done inside organizations that really destroy that.

(08:25):
But if if you could just speak a bit more
about the future of work is independent?

Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, so you is it to me? There's a there's
kind of a long potential story that i'll shorten up here,
but I kind of see it that post World War
Two we experienced what I refer to as the corporatization
of America. Now this is more than just America, but

(08:52):
the book is really geared towards the US market for
the most part. And what I mean by that is people,
mostly men, would go to work for a company, and
those companies would make the promise to take care of
them for life, including retirement, you know, pension income and benefits.
And then what happened is by the time you get

(09:14):
to the late sixties, so think of it as roughly
twenty ish or so years twenty five years, you started
to see an emergence of dual income families, and so
the spouse usually the wife, decided to go to work.
And I attribute that to that people are trying to
do one of two things, either meet their basic food,

(09:36):
water shelter needs or they were trying to keep up
with the joneses, and the cash flow that they had
to be real technical to feed their families wasn't enough,
and so then were experienced inflation during the seventies. And
what happened by the time you get to the late eighties,
roughly again another twenty five years, twenty twenty five years later,
what we saw is that the dual income family, even

(09:59):
in itself I was not enough money to support the
feed the family. And so Wall Street invented these things
called mortgage backed securities and other securitizations. And so at
that time what happened is whatever asset you had, if
it was ill liquid, you could fractionalize it and you
could turn it into money to support your lifestyle i e.
Home equity loans and the increase in home values. Well,

(10:23):
that ran its course for about another twenty five years
before you get to the Great Recession in two thousand
and eight, when you saw a collapse of the housing
market and everything else correlated down at that time. But
what you saw is people had started to dabble in
the early two thousands. I think you said two thousand
and three for you, right, you were independent, but there

(10:44):
were others that were dabbling, kind of doing side gigs,
doing some things, trying to get some incremental flow for themselves.
Concurrent with this period from the eighties to the mid
two thousands, what happened is corporate America broke the promise
what promised you. They broke the promise of you come
and work and I'll take care of you forever. They
got ready to find benefit plans. In nineteen eighty, if

(11:07):
you worked for a private company in the United States,
two thirds of those employees had to find benefit plans.
Today that's less than ten percent. By some measures, it's
less than four percent. So that created this broken bond,
and then people became more mobile. They didn't the loyalty
just started to really dissipate, and so then you take

(11:29):
an add onto that. The emergence of technology, and so
it's possible to do work remotely, it's possible to do
work with machines, et cetera, made it possible for people
to go out on their own. So barriers to entry
to start a business today had never been lower. Right,
And so now we're sitting here basically twenty years into posts,

(11:50):
you know, not quite twenty you know, seventeen years posted
a great recession, and we're still in you know, I
would say, the early innings of independent work. So for
the next decade or so, people are going to choose
to work as independents because they can, and because it
creates multiple economic streams to feed their family, and they're
not dependent on one manager that decides they don't want

(12:13):
them at a company anymore. Right right now, None of
what I just said is very technical or you know,
high wisdom, but pragmatically that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yes, And a few things to add on to that
that are darn fascinating. One is that you talk about
that today there are seventy two million independent workers in
the United States working occasionally part time, full time, in
other words, on their own terms and that organizations, in
order to future proof themselves need to be able to
open their eyes to see the totality of their workforce.
And I like how you break down looking at that,

(12:47):
you have the sixty to thirty ten rule, and then
of course you've got a recommendation for organizations that if
they don't have if less than twenty percent of the
workforce isn't independent, you want them to get to thirty.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
Right. Yeah, So if you talk to most CEOs of
companies of almost any size and you ask him or
her what their most valuable asset is, they're going to say,
my people. The problem is most of them define my

(13:19):
people as their W two employees.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
However, because so many people, as you mentioned, seventy two
million by mbo's independent research in the United States are
choosing to work as independents, some of the best talent
in the world has chosen to be independent professionals. And so,
by definition, if you don't include the total population of

(13:43):
humans that do work in your people definition, you don't
have the best people. Because you write by definition of
the population, you've narrowed it too far. And so I
sit back and I look at it, and you know,
I'm not an advocate that says everyone needs to be

(14:04):
an independent there's you know, there's never going to be employees.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you
should get to about thirty percent independent because if you
look at you know, the non farm labor in the
United States, it's about one hundred and fifty million people,
and you have seventy two million independence. Some of those
seventy two million are also doing some full time jobs,
but roughly a third of the workforce is already independent.

(14:25):
So if you're not tapping into that, you're you have
an organizational mistake. I like that.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, you said that. I completely agree with that. Miles,
and you go on to talk about you know that
this whole idea of independent work you call them the
independence ts not NCEE. It benefits the company as well
as the individual and from the from the company's standpoint,
just looking at the numbers here, you're talking about the
extra cost and curb with full time employment. FIICA benefits

(14:53):
onboarding all that and say that they could see a
fifteen to thirty five percent reduction employment expenses right off
the bat hiring independence.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
That's right, and that's and we see that right, and
you so you're bringing up you know, what i'll call
the math component of this, and it's real. You know,
we we see twenty percent cost productions, which is a
key is a key component of why you would do this.
But I'm going to add another layer here and maybe
you were going to get to it in a little bit.

(15:22):
But I kind of think it's interesting how you see
executives talk about we want to diverse an inclusive workforce,
and so we have DEI programs, et cetera. But one
of the first things many companies do is they take
that workforce that they hire and they put them through

(15:45):
a company training program to try to make them more homogeneous.
Here's how we think, here's what we do, et cetera,
et cetera. And so are they really celebrating diversity because
I would argue that independent are people that are independent thinkers.
It's not the only limited diversity, obviously we know that,

(16:05):
but people that have independent thought that are self starters,
that come at things that maybe aren't just the same
old corporate way, are really valuable to companies. And I
think we're seeing that it's going to be even more
so that way. For two reasons. One is in America,

(16:27):
the average worker will stay at a company for three years.
Who thinks they have a permanent workforce?

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Those I can tell your workers don't think that they
have a permanent job.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
That's for darn sure exactly. And so then you know
what you hear often is well, you know, but that's
all of our knowledge is and our people, et cetera.
That's changing the knowledge and I always sitting in the
data and the ability to take that data and analyze
it quickly, which is obviously is just is that ability
is increasing exponentially with the use of various technology, mostly

(17:06):
and AI and gen ai in particular. But your organization
needs to become very proficient at having a recomposable workforce.
So you assemble teams to go execute missions. When that
mission is done, you dissemble those skills and reassemble other ones.
Some of those people might be the same people, some

(17:27):
might go work for other companies. And that's why I
think the independent workforce is exactly where the future lies
for companies that are going to be really agile and
the ability to move fast to take advantage of growth
opportunities while keeping their cost structure very variable.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
I'm convinced, but we'll let our listeners and viewers think
more about that as we take our first break and
we resume. I'm your host, Doctor release Cortes. We've been
on here with Miles Everson, the chief executive officer of
MBO Partners, the market leader and enabling the future of
work and improving the well being of professionals and businesses
throughout the world. We've been talking first about why the
independent mind and the freebirds are of interest to the

(18:06):
professionals driving it, but also what the companies get out
of it. After the break, we're going to talk about
the six forces shaping the future of work. We'll be
right back.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her

(18:51):
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
a lease A Lisee at Eliscortes dot com. Now back

(19:15):
to Working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Release Cortes, as I too,
am dedicated to help and create a world where organizations
thrive because their people thrive. However, we do that and
they're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and
contribute their greatness, and we do business that betters the world.
I keep researching and writing my own books. So one
of my latest came out. It's called a Great Vitalization

(19:41):
how activating meaning and purpose can radically and lag in
your business. And I order to help leaders understand what
today's workforce really wants, and then I provide twenty two
best practices to help you equip you to put that
into your culture to give that for them. You can
find my books on Amazon or my personal site Atliscortes
dot com. Are just now joining us. My guest is
Miles ever since he's the co author of Freebird's Revolution,

(20:04):
The Future of Work, and the Independent Mind. So first
let me also celebrate and just be joyous with you, Miles,
how much you clearly love music. I'm delighted by how
you wove the themes of music throughout your book. And
of course these six forces that we're going to talk
about next. You know, number one is life in the
fast lane. The first force, the rate of change is accelerating. First,

(20:27):
just talk about how did you work Why is the
music important for you to work into your book.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, so it's actually a very good story. So my
now wife, we weren't married at the time I wrote
the book, but I was sharing with her about the
book and what I was writing. And she is an
author as well, she's not a business author. And she says,
because that sounds really really boring.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
Thanks Annie, Yeah, I love you too.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
And she said, you know, why don't you why don't
you like do some more storytelling in there about people
who were free birds instead of just talking about all
these facts and data and about the future, like leverage
the past, because people there's been this free bird spirit,
you know, Miles that I hear you talk about. It
has been around for decades. That's not new. And so

(21:23):
I landed on using musicians and then I added many
of the tech innovators and the musicians. We got to
that primarily because the original gig economy was musicians doing gigs.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, you talk about that in your book.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
Huh, And I could make very strong compelling arguments that.
So you have songwriters, screenwriters, musicians that create. They create
the value and the content that people want to take
and to consume. But the exchange for that value does
not really sit in most cases with the creators of

(22:00):
that content. It's the people that take the value are
the studios that take the distribution. They take all the
money out of the distribution. So you have excellent musicians
that make very little money, but they continue to do
what they do because they do it because of the
love of the passion they have for their music. And
I just kind of think it's wrong that we are

(22:20):
not rewarding the creators of value more and we're giving
it to those of control distribution.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah. I love how you shared that what Taylor Swift
did to take back control of that, that was such
a great story, so I wanted to just celebrate them. Well,
thanks for sharing that, and it sounds like you married. Well,
she's definitely adding to your life. So that's good.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
So let's just hit on.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Let's just hit on these six forces fairly quickly because
I want to just move through them, because there's a
whole bunch more. I want to ask you still for
the last segment, but the first for shaping the future
of work life in the fast lane. The rate of
change is accelerating. You could say a bit about that.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
Yeah, so the rate of change is accelerate. By the way,
I don't think any of these or Sherlock home moments.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Okay, okay, I'll brace myself, bare myself accordingly and so.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
But a lot of people talk about the only constant
is change, but the reality is that the rate of
change is in fact accelerating. And so AI was originally
invented in the late fifties, but because you didn't have
enough capabilities to house the data and the technology to

(23:26):
support it, you didn't see any kind of mass adoption
of AI until the mid nineties when it got used
for algarithmic trading on the trading floor. So from the
mid nineties though to two thousand and nine, when the
cell phone came the smartphone came out in earnest, it
was only fourteen years so it took forty years to
get the first application of it that it could be

(23:46):
used in the masses, but it took only another basically
a decade. And now when you think about the rate
at which AI is being embedded into technology, it's just
it's completely off the charts, like you can't predict how
quick it's going to happen. Yeah, and so, and I
use there's all kinds of other you know, when you
when you think of what's happened with decoding the genome.

(24:07):
You know, originally two thousand was I don't remember the
exact number now, but was like one hundred billion dollars.
Today you get your DNA coded for less than one
thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, well it's it's it's mind boggling. Okay.
So in the second force, you call it, get your
memory for nothing, in your chips for free. Let's we
all remember where that came from. Yeah, So progress is deflationary.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah. So the reason I say that progress is deflation
is when you have multiple innovations that converge at the
same time, it advances the social well being of the population.
And so that's why progress is inflationary. We have five
year olds walking around with supercomputers in their pockets that

(24:54):
are more powerful than what a standalone supercomputer was worth
in the late sixties, and so we raised the social
standard of what is common when you have multiple innovations
that converge. So the inflationary point is you make experiences

(25:15):
and capabilities available to people at scale that otherwise you
would have never been made available to So progress is
in fact deflationary. Even in inflationary periods, you're still advancing
the well being of people and the experiences.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
That they have so really quick.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
I just want to situate for our listeners and viewers
who maybe are hearing that in an abstract way you
talk about your book, how you know, once upon a
time you could build a game that took a decade.
Now it's take thirty minutes and it costs less as well, correct,
And so that I think that helps our listeners and
viewers better understand what you mean by that it's so powerful,
so crazy.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
Yeah, thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah you're welcome.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
All right.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
So furce number three is you call it we are
never getting back together again, And that is the fractionalization
of everything which you hinted at. It the first, the
first episode. And by the way, I don't know if
you know who Rashad tobakham Walla is. He's a futurist
as well. I had him on earlier. He talks a
lot about fractionalization.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah, I am aware of him. And anytime you have
a valuable asset and you fractionalize it, you bring liquidity
to a market. And this has been happening for centuries, frankly,
but what's happened is, you know, if you look at
the right share market. For example, in two thousand and nine,

(26:35):
I think was about a three hundred million dollar market
in San Francisco, and within five six years it was
well over a billion five market. So why is that.
It's because we fractionalized right share and people come in
right share, you know which. The one I really think
is kind of humorous and funny is in two thousand
and five, if we'd have been here and I said, hey,

(26:56):
you know, I think we should have an app that
allows people to fractionalize their home so other people can
come and sleep in their bed. That's the craziest thing
I've ever heard, Miles, Well, that's that we have that.
It's called you know Airbnb or vrbl right, right, And
so this fractionalization of everything just makes it possible for

(27:19):
people to use obviously part of an asset when they
want to use it, and they don't have to bear
the costs for the whole asset when they're not using it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
And one of the things that I found, there are
so many things about your book, Miles is just really
just packfull with just all kinds of value. But you
talk about how companies will increasingly fractionalize their workforce to
get the right people with the right skills at the
right time for the right price, and they won't be
patting their week trying to fill it with other things
to get their actual steady two week paycheck. If that

(27:48):
doesn't get your attention as a leader, I don't know
what to do to help you.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
Yeah, no, I agree. And you know you see where
you know, anyone that's worked in companies has been through
the experience of the new budgeting process where even in
zero budgeting environments where people come back and say, well,
I'm going to need more people, I need more resources.
So it's kingdom.

Speaker 5 (28:08):
Building, and you know that can be the death of
a company to be candid. Absolutely, this fractionalization is definitely
you can part use of.

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Assets. So but by the way, we didn't talk about potially.
It makes the fractionalization point come home. When I left
PwC and I was deciding what I was going to
do next, I commissioned an independent research firm to give
me the answer to the following question, is there a
correlation or causation between the market valuation of a company

(28:47):
and the relative share of independence to full time workers
that they have? And the answer is that there is. So.
In two thousand and eighteen, when I commissioned that study,
the valuation for the market capitalization, there was about one
thousand basis point premium for those companies that had a
higher relative share of independent workers. Wow, in twenty twenty three,

(29:11):
that differentiation had jumped to fourteen hundred basis points. Now
I do not think it's causation. We could never prove causation,
but I think it's correlation. So people that run asset
like companies and are more agile drive more market capitalization
than those that had rigidity in them. And so that

(29:32):
rigidity includes a rigid, stable workforce that doesn't change, doesn't innovate,
et cetera. And so I think there's there's a fair
bit of you know, hard dollar facts here that support
that you need to fractionize your workforce.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Like I said, you've totally convinced me, and I am one,
so you know which later then led me to start
to found other companies myself. But it started off just
being independent. So I really get that. Okay. So number
four would which is what you call you can't touch
this is from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows.

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Yeah, So I would argue that in the most of
the twentieth century and before, the mindset was that if
I have something of value, I'm going to try to
protect it and hide it and I'll get paid for
it in a binary transaction with the counterparty. So I'll
sell something you know, trademarks, ip, et cetera. And then

(30:28):
what you started to see with the emergence of technology
and it's on steroids today is open source software, right,
and so that's knowledge flows. So now I'm going from
knowledge stocks as binary transactions. Knowledge flows says if I
get more people to add to this and participate in it,
it will become more valuable and I'll figure out how
I make my money off of the flow of that information.

(30:50):
I don't need a protection of strategy where I keep
it and trade it in binary transactions. And you know,
there's all kinds of business models, and you see it
out there where the knowledge flows is creating a lot
of value for both the consumer experientially, but also for
the investors from a return perspective.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
I remember, just briefly, I got into the human capital
space miles in the late nineties in Seattle, and so
I was selling staffing services back then, and of course,
you know, I knew about Linux, the Linux operating system,
Linus Torvalds, and the idea of open source, and I
remember back then being pretty blown away about that idea.
And of course, you know, look at it today and

(31:28):
it's very powerful when you start thinking about how many
people are contributing to and improving that the idea of
open source or knowledge flow is really compelling.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, and the you know, all these trends that we're
talking about, they're not flashing the pants, They have a
lot of permanency for multi rik decades too.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yep, yeah, yeah, okay, right for number five and I'm
ready all right, so you know we are the champions.
Is number five winning the war for talent, and I
got to start with you know this this first opening
quote from Tim Ryan, the PwC US chairman. You quote
him in the book saying the war for talent is

(32:07):
over talent one.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
Absolutely, there's no question. And so you know, at MBO
we talk about being a customer of choice to the
talent because in a liquid market, the provider, the supplier,
has more more balance and power than the buyer. And
so if you're really good at what you do, by definition,

(32:32):
if you're really good at what you do, you'll always
be a free agent in anything. The reason people signed
long data contracts is to manage downside risks. But if
you're good at what you do, you in fact are
being independent. And so talent, you know, for some of
the reasons we've already talked. You know, they're no longer

(32:52):
tied in financially because of that, you know, the defined
benefit plans are gone. My fits are portable for my
defined contribution plans, the ability to work remotely, so my
geographic reach is so much greater than what it used
to be. Talent gets to choose what companies they want
to work for, and if the company's you know, an

(33:15):
undesirable company to work for. They will not attract the
top talent. It's not going to happen, right.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
I want to commup more on that, but we are
overdue for our last break, so let's just go ahead
and grab that last break, and then we'll pick that
up when we come back. Okay, we've been on air
with Miles ever since. He's the chief executive officer at
MBO Partners, the market leader and enabling the future of
work and improving the well being of professionals and businesses
throughout the world. I'm your host at least Cortez. We've
been talking about the forces that shape the future of work.

(33:42):
After the breaker and dive a little bit further into
this idea of how talent has won the war.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at

(34:26):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise
Alise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Release Court. As you
know by now, this program is dedicated to empowering and
inspiring you along your journey to realize more of your potential.
If you want to learn more about how we can
work together and learn about the Gusto Now Academy for
leaders and individuals on various journeys alike, make your way
to gustodashnow dot com and then navigate to the training

(35:17):
tab to find the academy. Love to have you join
us if you are just now coming on with us today.
My guest is Miles Everson. He's the co author of
Freebird's Revolution, The Future of Work and the Independent Mind.
So I wanted to pick up on the notion that
fifth the Fifth Force, winning the war for talent and
talk about one the great resignation that happened as people

(35:41):
were quitting their jobs right and left, and of course,
as you position it, then what came of that was
the great realization?

Speaker 4 (35:48):
Right, Yeah, So you know I just kind of, first
of all, I kind of try to whenever you're presented
with a situation, try to look at two things. One is,
what's the positive here? But the other is is there
a contrarian view maybe two way the masses are thinking?

(36:08):
And so, you know, everyone was talking about the Great Resignation,
and what triggered for me is I said, well, I
actually think what's happened is it's allowed people to see
the possible of just going their own way and being
an independent It's actually the great realization. They were afraid

(36:29):
to do it, and now that they're staying home and
they're not going to work every day, they're like, I
can do this. So they've realized that there was more
than one way to operate your career, and that you
don't just need to be a full time employee for
one or a few companies. You have the opportunity to

(36:50):
have more control over your work and your life and
your economics candidly than what they otherwise not possible. I
really do believe it. It was a realization. It's just
a shue grab form.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Well, I do too, and I wrote about that also
in one of my last books. And that means we
have to talk about this idea of the forest one
hundred percent return to office mandate that so many organizations
are mandating. I find myself just completely baffled by that, Miles.
I mean, I have so many conversations with people like you,
futurists and such, and so this idea. Of course, the

(37:24):
workforce want's location and schedule flexibility. They also recognize their value.
They don't want to have their dairyer stapled in a
seat and deal with traffic every single day of the
week and then not be able to see their kids
go to their soccer games or whatever it's And and
what I find so beautiful about what happened in the
pandemic is it really did fundamentally alter our molecules of

(37:44):
how we relate to life and work. And there is
no going back from that.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
Yeah, I don't see that you can go back and
have its stick. You know, there are there benefits to
being to having people together, of course, totally right, because
social interactions and human connection is so critically important. I
think when it comes to again this is just a

(38:09):
personal opinion, is that the most significant missing part of
people not being in the office together is what I'll
refer to as water cooler innovation. Right, I understands, do
transactions get processed faster? I don't think so, Like, are

(38:33):
people more productive? I don't. I don't see that happening,
especially if they had a you know, an hour an
hour and a half commute each way. They're spending three
hours commuting and now they have to commute. Are there
people that take advantage of it and probably don't work
as hard or you know, as productively as maybe they could?
Of course, but you have that in people that work

(38:53):
in the office as well, which is a different type
of you know, laziness of saying. So, I think the
mandatory full return to office work, you know, for some
some environments obviously is required. You know, if you're talking
about an emergency room for people, they've got to be
of course, professionals need to be there, right, But carte

(39:17):
blanche to say that that's the policy, I think it's
kind of a hard pill to swallow for many very
talented independent people or you know, workers in the workforce.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
I do too, which is going to bring us here
to our our last force for shaping the future of work,
which is I love how you say, you know, I
can't get no satisfaction, and of course you you strike out,
I can't get no. And it's just called satisfaction Force
number six. The state of independence in America. I think
it's interesting. There's just so many really interesting ideas there

(39:50):
about what did you say? Gallup said that six percent
of the workforce really wants to work full time in
the office. What forty five percent would give a would
take a pay cut to have a couple of days
working from home and those couple of days from home
are worth an eight percent pay increase something like that?
Or do I have those numbers about right?

Speaker 4 (40:07):
Yeah, you have those about right. That's right. You know.
The other thing that we know from the work that
we did at MBO, so MBO had the longest or
has the longest running primary research in the United States
of the independent workforce. It's been running for over fifteen years.

(40:27):
We know that independence believe that they're healthier, happier, and
more financially secure than when they were a full time employee.
And so I kind of always ask the basic question
of who doesn't want a happy, healthy, a happy, healthy,
secure workforce. It's kind of to me, is very logical

(40:52):
and straightforward. And so I do think that we're going
to see more and more people work is independence. I'm
gonna and I don't want to jump too far ahead
because you may be planning on talking about this, but
I do want to. In chapter nine, I talk about

(41:13):
want to make break free, and I talk about freedom, courage,
and decentralized authority, and then then I go on to authenticity.
So I think part of the reason we're seeing this
movement to the independent workforce, in why it's so high,
is that, for different reasons, very few people trust central

(41:36):
authorities any longer. Not everyone, but you know, you can
go down the list of central authorities that people mistrust,
and so that includes companies that act like central authorities
over their workforce, so they don't trust them, they don't trust,

(41:58):
you know, like I could just go down the list,
say who trust big pharma, Who trust big big banks?
Who trust big government? You can you can see the challenge,
right or wrong, it doesn't actually matter. What matters is
there's a distrust. And so you got this lack of
trust in central authorities. And then in order to be

(42:22):
a really successful independent, I believe you have to have
a high degree of authenticity. And in order to be authentic,
you have to be willing to be vulnerable, because when
you're an authentic person, you will find people that disagree
with you or dislike you, and you have to be

(42:43):
okay with that. Yes, and independence I think personify that.
And that's kind of where the whole thing about free
birds came. Freebird's value or prioritize free will over being
controlled by others.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
It's very very very very true for me, very true.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Yeah, yeah, And so I just think it plays into
that state of independence. This just I wrote this about,
you know, freebird revolution in the future, work the independent mind.
This is bigger than work, is my point.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
I totally understand that point. It's I've chosen this is
my life, which which is where I want to go next.
Miles one of the things that I found so intriguing,
and it was like, you know, I get Miles, I'm
with you, I'm completely with you. I was nodding my
head vigorously. I was reading your book. You talk about
how independents see the lifespan stats and they know they
don't want to retire at sixty five. I have no
interest in retirement sixty five. I want to lived more lives.

(43:39):
And I know you were saying in your book too,
that you've got just as much of him and Vinegar
and you, you know, as you might have several years ago,
and you've got stuff to do that you expect and
imagine that we'll see people working well into their seventies
and even their eighties. And you look for the time
when maybe we start to see even centurians working in
the workforce. And I can tell you my belovedment are

(44:00):
who I was up seeing in Canada. His name is
Land Secretary and is eighty six years old. He's still
kayaks under days a year, skis under days a year
and works or travels one hundred days a year. That's
where I want to be. Why would I want to
you know, I don't want to go. And you know
this idea of this glut to you talk about the
third boxes of life and be the glut where I

(44:20):
just kind of hang out and coast for the last
third of my life. I am just getting started.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
Man.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
The crescendo has taken off.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
Yep, no, I agree. I mean I I don't intend
on retiring as people would consider it any time.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Sin, why would you leave all that beautiful experience and
passion behind, you know, it's just it's so beautiful, and
as you say, maybe we won't wait. They don't want
to work two thousand hours a year. Maybe they don't
want to work full time, maybe they want to work
part time or seasonally or whatever, but they do want
to be engaged in what I can tell you two
miles from a logo therapeutic vantage point, which is where

(44:54):
how we learn to activate mean in our lives, we
are at our best when we're serving other people. We
stop serving, or we start serving others, whatever that might be,
is when we really start to decline. And that's when
you see people marching to the grave.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yep, that makes complete sense to me.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we have just just maybe a
couple of minutes here when they're not that much left.
I think what I want to do next is just
let you just sort of share whatever final thoughts you
might have. You have maybe a couple of minutes to
do that. There's so much more we could have gotten
out of your book, but you know, the show is

(45:29):
listening by people around the world miles who really care
about the world of work. They're either trying to improve
themselves as a leader, they're trying to get more out
of the world of work for themselves. What would you
like to leave them with?

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Yeah, So as it relates to work, I think one
of the most important things that you have to be
open to. In addition to my point about you need
to be authentic and therefore being comfortable being vulnerable, you
have to be a consonant learner. You have to learn,
learning and then apply right. So one of the concerns

(46:04):
I have about I'll say, you know the gen zs
in particular, is it's kind of a research demographic or
generation where they learn stuff and so you see a
lot of people listening and learning to things that they're
not applying as fast. And so I really encourage that
segment of the population because they're the future of the

(46:27):
country frankly, and you know the world because they're younger
in their work careers. Is you've got to be really
good at learning and apply and you need to do
it fast, fast, fast. That's that rate of change is accelerated.
You will have multiple careers. So anytime you're trying to
become rigid in something, I think you need to challenge
yourself and say, why are we being so rigid? And

(46:47):
then the same thing for companies. What's interesting about companies is,
at least even today, many of the people in leadership
roles in those companies think about that. The future of
the workforce is people should come up the company the
way that I did, right, I know, nice, that couldn't
be a bigger flawed mindset, agreed, And so you know

(47:09):
that's what I would encourage. And then just one little
little plug is I'm now working on a book about
how a free bird thinks about their own health and
health health conditions, because I do believe that individuals need
to take their own health into their own hands and
kind of be their own general practitioner. And when you
do that, you will live a much healthier life because

(47:31):
there's a direct correlation between how healthy you are, how
long you can work, and how happy you are, Yes,
and ultimately your wealth. Right. Yes, more to come on
those over the next year or so, but that's what
I would leave it with at least.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Okay, thanks Miles. Two things really quick, When is the
book coming out, do out hopefully, Well, the new.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
Book on health will come out about a year from now.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Okay, so you got to come back. So I've had
you got to beat my record so far as four
four times on because of new books. So you come
back a second time. And then let's for our listeners
and viewers. What's the name of the company that acquired
NBO B line E Line? Okay, I want to make
sure we get that right. Well, I really appreciate the
work that you're doing, Miles. I'm very, very very aligned.

(48:14):
I think you know, it is a book about life,
not just work, and I think you've written something that's
really really powerful for both individuals as a call to
reach their further into their own potential, their own fulfillment,
and I think radically shake how many leaders are looking
at their workforce in a very very rigid limiting way.
So I really applaud your work and I appreciate you

(48:36):
coming on to working on purpose.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
Great. Thanks, Ellis, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Very welcome. Listeners and viewers, you are going to want
to learn more about Miles Everson and the work Keenest
team are doing at B Line. Now, I guess I
was going to send them to MBO partners dot com.
Is there a better site for them to go to? Now?

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Partners dot com is still alive and okay.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Mbo partners dot com. You can also find Miles on
LinkedIn as well. Next week, we'll be on the air
with Bill Jizuski talking about his new book, What's Your
Life Score, a playbook for designing your best life. See
you there, and remember that work is one of the
best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making
the impact we crave. It can give us the opportunity
to do business in a way that betters the world.

(49:17):
So let's work on Purpose.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,
each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.
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