WORK Underlined: Narrative and Numbers

Today we are talking about narrative and numbers. And the tension between the two.“Narrative driving numbers early in the life cycle and numbers driving narrative later.”From Narrative and Numbers by Aswath Damodaran.The idea is simple and also hard to live by. Narrative drives numbers early. Numbers drive narrative later. And that back and forth never really stops.I think in narratives. I like numbers, but I like narratives better. Narrative is another way of saying vision. Or purpose. Or the dream. It is what you tell yourself. What you tell your family. What you tell other people. It is what fuels you when you do not have much else to work with.Narrative matters most at the beginning. When you are building something new. When it is just an idea. When all you have is belief and how hard you are willing to grind to get there. But numbers matter too. Because if the numbers do not map to the narrative, the narrative is fake. And eventually the numbers build a story of their own.The same thing applies to people. You can have a vision for your life. A dream. A story about where you are going. But if your behavior and your numbers do not support it, something is off. The narrative is not wrong. It just needs to be checked.The point is not to abandon the narrative. You never do. The point is to keep it honest. To let numbers inform it without killing it. To let the story evolve without lying to yourself about what is actually happening.Narrative fuels you. Numbers keep you honest. You need both.This is WORK. Underlined.Watch full episode on YouTube. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Search traffic is down, referral traffic is drying up, platforms are changing their rules, people are evaluating what to do…and what’s next.Emily Kirkpatrick is one of these people. She left a big, recognizable job in dramatic fashion, went fully independent, and built a real living on Substack and YouTube. No ads. No corporate overhang. Just her voice, her point of view, and a direct relationship with her audience.We talk about the economics of independence. What happens when traffic disappears. And why so many writers, creators, and journalists are fleeing big institutions in favor of owning their work and their audiences.We also get into taste. Celebrity fashion. Stylists. Publicists. Rage bait. Samples that do not fit. The strange incentives that shape what we see on red carpets and why so much of it feels off. And how being honest about what you actually like is harder and more valuable than chasing relevance.This is WORK. Conversations. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Gen Z is resisting the workplace emergency and honestly, they are not wrong.On today’s episode, we talk about Gen Z and their refusal to get wrapped up in manufactured chaos of work. No all nighters. No dropping everything. No pretending every problem is catastrophic. Their perspective is simple: Nobody is dying from this.I love a problem at work and a get down into the trench - there’s only one way out of this - type situation. I find them intense and invigorating and an opportunity to be a part of something hard fought and in some instances, hard won. I also believe these are the best ways to experience and learn from greatness. The people who can dig deep and rise to an occasion are endlessly inspiring. That said, I’m a weirdo. Distance from work can be healthy. Too many workplaces run on adrenaline, drama, and fake urgency. Too many people confuse stress with importance. Too many trenches aren’t deep enough and the payoff from being in one is unclear. I get this and appreciate it. But there is a flip side. When you are trying to build something, apathy is dangerous. Teams can break when some people care deeply and others do the bare minimum. Accountability gets uneven. Resentment builds. We talk about where responsibility actually comes from. Clear ownership. Clear stakes. Being honest about what matters and what does not. When people feel connected to both the reward and the consequence, regardless of generation or circumstance, they show up.We also talk about managers. Passionate ones. Perfunctory ones. What you can learn from both. And why working for someone who truly does not care is one of the most dangerous career moves you can make. Gen Z isn’t apathetic - maybe it’s that they haven’t been given enough of a reason or clear enough purpose or motivation to care.This is WORK. Net/Net.Watch full episode on YouTube. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

This is an episode for people grappling with how to manage and how to embrace AI. Good managers in the future will seamlessly balance being human, creative, fallible, empathetic and visionary with tools, systems and services which automate all that isn’t differentiated nor distinct. Managers and people who refuse to adapt and evolve will be extinct in a workplace soon to be fueled by agents (and not the good looking Hollywood kind).Good managers use AI to buy time and insight. Bad ones either ignore it or dump garbage prompts into it and call that progress.The myth of management is that more people equals more power. The reality that managing people is hard, bureaucratic, and often inefficient. The future of good leadership looks like fewer people doing better work, supported by better tools.This is WORK. Unsolicited Advice. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Meet Selena Rezvani. She is a leadership coach, four time author, and someone who spends a lot of time thinking about why work feels harder than it needs to be.We talk about suffering at work.We talk about why people are suffering at work and what suffering at work even means.We talk about side hustles and life rafts.We talk about the loss of trust and optimism.We talk about Gen Z (obviously).This is WORK. Conversations. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

The most vibrant channel on Work Like A Girl’s slack is the working mom channel. It’s also the most honest, acute and to the point. It goes something like this:One woman says - I need help.The others say - I got you.In this episode of Net Net we talk about the politicization of the mom brand and the idea of motherhood - namely: Motherhood as a proxy for what women should want, do and be.Being a parent is hard. It takes patience, sacrifice, energy, and restraint. It also requires juggling more variables than most jobs ever will.What’s interesting to me is how women are increasingly becoming pitted against one another based on how they do it. Or if they decide to do it.There’s no one way for women to grow and flourish. The same is true for kids. The real work is creating systems that support different choices, different needs and different outcomes.This is WORK. Net Net. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Today we are talking endurance.We breakdown the quote: “The trick in any field, from finance to careers to relationships is being able to survive the short-run problems. So you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long-term growth.” from Same as Ever by Morgan Housel’s.Housel basically says the real trick is surviving the short-term problems long enough to benefit from the long-term ones. Which sounds obvious until you are in the middle of the short-term problems and losing your mind.In case you were wondering, the short-term problems never go away. They just change shape. Different job. Same stuff. New title. Same annoyances. Different company. Same human behavior.Endurance does not get nearly enough credit at work. Talent gets praised. Intelligence gets rewarded. Big ideas get airtime. But most careers are built by the people who can stay steady when things get boring, messy, repetitive, or just plain annoying.We talk about what endurance actually looks like in real life. Not grit as a poster on the wall, but the ability to compartmentalize, keep perspective, and not spiral every time something goes sideways. Showing up with energy even when you do not feel inspired. Doing the work in front of you instead of obsessing over everything else.We also get into effort. The stuff that takes no talent. Being prepared. Paying attention. Staying focused. Not quitting early just because something got hard or uncomfortable.If work feels heavy right now, if you are tired of the short-term problems and wondering when it gets easier, this one is a reminder that staying power matters.This is WORK. Underlined. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

Meet Ariana Ferwerda. She’s the founder of Halfdays. She’s looked at women’s ski apparel, thought it sucked and decided to do something about it. Ariana saw a real gap in the market. Women’s ski gear that was either technical and ugly or cute and useless. She talks about trusting her instinct on opportunity, what it was like to raise money ‘early’ in her career, building a brand and an inventory heavy business in a highly competitive category without pretending she had it all figured out.We also talk about gatekeeping in the outdoor industry - what it’s like to break in and break thru. We also get into why women have been asked to choose between function and identity for so long. If you have ever looked at a product and thought someone should fix this, or wondered how frustration turns into a real business, this one is worth your time.This is WORK. Conversations.Watch full episode on YouTube. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of WORK Net Net, Erika breaks down why worry feels productive but rarely helps. From the illusion of control to the mental toll of trying to plan for outcomes you cannot predict, this conversation looks at anxiety as an affliction, not a strategy. If you have been spiraling, overthinking, or lying awake trying to solve problems that have not happened yet, this episode is about learning how to trust yourself more and conserve your energy for what actually matters. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe

On this episode of Unsolicited Advice, we talk about what actually makes teams work. How clarity beats charisma. Why initiative matters more than experience. Why most partnerships fail long before the deal is signed. And why avoiding hard conversations always costs more than having them early.If you’ve ever felt stuck, frustrated, or exhausted by the way work actually functions day to day, this one will feel familiar. And hopefully useful.This is WORK. Unsolicited Advice. Get full access to WORK at erikaayersbadan.substack.com/subscribe