In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews self‑employment coach Stephen Worley, founder of LifeSkillsThatMatter.com. Worley opens with a personal turning point: being laid off on Election Day 2000, which he frames as the third most important day of his life and the catalyst for his mission to help people navigate a fundamentally changing world of work. He outlines four major trends reshaping employment: jobs becoming less permanent, the need for continual skill acquisition, automation’s impact, and the decentralisation of management leading to remote, collaborative work, alongside a market fragmenting into niche opportunities. Worley advises listeners to treat themselves as the primary resource of their own business, emphasizing self‑knowledge through daily journaling and growth prompts that track learning, skill development, networking, and creation. He tells his younger self to think for himself and recognize that anyone can work for themselves, challenging the education system’s narrative of dependence on central authority. On happiness, he argues that being authentic in one’s work is essential, as work occupies most waking hours and should be energising rather than a source of misery, noting that money does not buy happiness. He recommends the 1907 book The Quest of a Simple Life by William Dawson, highlighting its timeless message about intentional life design to achieve calm and simplicity. Worley shares his personal mantra—“grow by creating, listen to love, everybody’s trying their best”—and directs listeners to lifeskillsmatter.com/getstarted for free resources and a five‑step guide to starting self‑employment.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Stephen Worley with us. He's a self-employment coach and founder of LifeSkillsThatMatter.com. So welcome to the show, Stephen.
Thanks so much, Tyler. Glad to be here.
Of course, thanks for joining us. We'll dive in. The first question I have for you, Stephen, is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
I'm not sure it's the best story, but it was the most important one, Tyler. And that was getting laid off 17 years ago, Election Day 2000. I say that is the third most important day of my life after being born and getting married, because corporate America kicked me out of the system and showed me there's an entirely new way of working than from what I was taught. And that's really what I'm on that mission now to help people understand that work as you know it is fundamentally changing and you're going to end up working for yourself in some shape or form, or at least managing more of your own work than ever before within the next decade.
And what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
I think right now is helping people wrap their heads around that if work is changing, then how do I manage my career, right? So I always tell people work is changing in 4 ways. It's becoming less permanent, right? Everybody's changing their jobs more frequently. You have to learn new skills more frequently. Number 2, automation. We've heard a lot about that, how that's going to change work. Also, the decentralization of management. More of us are starting to work remotely. We're using collaborative software. So the idea of management and managers is changing and reducing their influence over us. And finally, our mass market's descending into a bunch of niches. You've never had a better opportunity to be yourself and to do your thing and to make money from that and to make a living than ever before. And that is really what I want people to understand is, You are responding to those trends. Just worrying about your resume, your cover letter, and how you manage your career in the past is not going to be effective enough. In fact, it's going to make you more miserable.
And what's your— it could tie in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice, so not necessarily industry-specific?
You should learn about yourself as if you were the first resource of your business, because you are. Even if you currently are an employee, you want to know yourself in a way that you've never been taught before. Tyler, I often tell people that the most important subject in life that has never been taught to you is how to learn about yourself. And one of the best ways to learn about yourself is to start writing. There's many different ways. You could do traditional journaling and just kind of writing about your thoughts and feelings throughout the day, your most positive and negative feelings, or I do prompts. I actually have a growth journal on my website where you ask yourself every single day, "What did I learn about myself today? What did I learn in terms of a skill or knowledge in terms of the thing that I want to accomplish in my work? Did I meet somebody new today?" And did I create something today? Because so often we wait for somebody else to tell us what to create. And what you should be doing is experimenting, whatever it is that you want to do, like try to break off a little piece and create something for yourself.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Stephen, you can work for yourself because Tyler, we've all been taught that only a select few people can ever work for themselves. And that's just not true. We have an entire educational system that has been designed designed to make us feel like that we aren't worthy of managing ourselves, that we have to constantly follow the directions. We have to defer to central authority, follow the schedule. And we are now entering an economy that, that doesn't work anymore. Things are changing so fast that you really have to be able to think for yourself. So that's what I would tell my younger self. Think for yourself. You can work for yourself and you can create your own work.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Being yourself. I know that sounds so corny, but when you really think about it, there's people listening to us right now who are doing work that they feel like they're supposed to do to make their parents happy, their spouses happy, friends, whatever. But I believe happiness is like if you have this limited amount of time on earth and the thing that you're going to spend doing most compared to anything else after sleeping is working, so you better enjoy it. You better get energized and motivated by that. And if you're not, That's a big red flag. You have a lot of thinking to do. So I really want you to think about what it is that you want, because that is what's going to make you happy. And don't worry about how much money it's gonna make. Money is not gonna buy you happiness.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
I'm gonna give you a book that, that nobody's ever said on your show before. It's called The Quest of a Simple Life. It was written by William Dawson in 1907. This was a story of a guy who felt chaotic and overwhelmed by working in an office in London. It was really polluted and noisy. So he took his family to go live in the countryside because he wanted a simpler life. And the biggest message from that book is that even 100 years ago, people were struggling with the same things that we're all struggling with right now, is that we wanted to feel calmer, less overwhelmed. And that book shows you that you can have that. You just have to intentionally design your life and your work to get you that reality.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
Favorite quote and why? I would say, hmm, I'm gonna have to get back to you on this one. Can you edit this out?
No, it's fine. I like it to be more authentic. So do you have like a mantra though?
Uh, yeah, my mantra that I use, um, Every morning there's a couple of things that I tell myself. Yeah. I tell myself, number one, grow by creating, listen to love. And one other thing I also tell myself is to— everybody's trying their best. And to— I think, yeah, I forget. There's one other one. I had four. That's— but Yeah, no, no, no, it's fine.
Um, and, and yeah, it didn't, doesn't have to be like exact quote. So, um, listen, amazing interview. Uh, last question I have for you before we let you go is where's the best place for people to find you online?
So if folks want to, if you're interested in like exploring your work options, you're, you think you want to work for yourself, I would highly recommend go to lifeskillsmatter.com/getstarted. Whole bunch of free resources there, the first 5 steps to start working for yourself.
Awesome. Thanks again for coming on, man. We appreciate it.
Thank you for having me, Tyler Wagner. Best of luck. The podcast you just heard was recorded with Anchor. If you want to make your own, download the Android or iOS app completely free from anchor.fm/podcast. That's anchor.fm/podcast.
