21st Century Work Life – Details, episodes & analysis

In today's episode, Pilar shares her highlights from the book:

How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be 
by Katy Milkman

Pilar shares her booknotes from: 

Black Box Thinking: Growth Mindset and the Secrets of High Performance

by Matthew Syed

Another episode from the season Booknotes, where Pilar shares the notes she made while reading a book, allowing new insights to emerge spontaneously behind the microphone.

In today's episode:

Part 1
Pilar shares her booknotes from: 

Black Box Thinking: Growth Mindset and the Secrets of High Performance

by Matthew Syed

"The paradox of success: it is built upon failure."

During the episode, Pilar shares:

Zoe podcast episode from 16 March 2026 Tim Spector's 7 health habits for 2026
https://zoe.com/learn/tim-spectors-7-health-habits-for-2026

The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly
The Trial by Rob Rinder
Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths

New newsletter! Pilates and Remote Work: https://pilatesandremotework.substack.com/

And don't forget to check out Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams, the book!

Part 2: Personal Updates

Enjoying writing about Pilates, looking for different teachers to learn from and lots of voicoever jobs last week!

If you're interested in All the World's a Workplace, sign up here.

A very short episode where I (Pilar Orti) share the reasons why the 21st Century Work Life podcast is going on pause. Stay subscribed though, as you never know when new episodes might drop!
Thank you very much for listening and all the best for 2025. 

Get in touch: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us 

We revisit the chapter from Thinking Remote The Dangers of Working Out Loud ,  First published as a blog post in 2016.

30.40
Next up, we turn our attention to the team member, and revisit the chapter by Maya: Now that I'm remote can anyone see how hard I'm working?

39.36
Community news, we share what others are tweeting and saying from our connections

For more links and transcript, head over to www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/revisiting-working-out-loud

In today's episode Pilar catches up with long-time friend of this podcast, Marcus Wermuth to talk about his mid-pandemic transition into new role as the full-time senior engineering manager at Remote.com.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach. For detailed show notes, visit our podcast page. 

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach.

In today's episode Pilar and Maya reflected on the changes which have taken place in remote work throughout 2021 - differentiation of terminology, the rise of asynchronous communication, new apps, and the endless talk about hybrid!

We also thank our community, and share news about upcoming workshops and themes for the new year.

36.08 Virtual Not Distant news

40.52 Thank you to our community

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach.

In today's episode Pilar interviewed Carlos Jonay Suarez and Elsa Rodriguez from Pueblos Remotos: https://www.pueblosremotos.com/ about their exciting initiative to bring remote workers and rural communities together in Spain's Canary Islands. Connecting local entrepreneurs with international nomadic workers synergises creativity and idea sharing, while creating lasting friendships in a sustainable ecotourism environment, to benefit all participants.

Carlos would rather network with you in person than online, but meanwhile can be found on LinkedIn and also (in Spanish) SinOficina, and LinkedIn is also the best place to find Elsa - as well as keeping up with all the news and information on the main Pueblos Remotos site.

You can find out more information and get in touch with us over at www.virtualnotdistant.com

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach.

In today's episode, Pilar and Maya kick off a series reflecting on Thinking Remote: Inspiration for Leaders of Distributed Teams, which was published in 2018 - a geological epoch ago, in remote work terms. What has changed, what has stayed the same, and how have Pilar and Maya changed and evolved their own thinking on these themes?

The first chapter of the book dealt with designing the digital workplace, and you can read the original blog post from which the chapter derived here: Designing the Digital Workspace: What We Can Learn from the Physical Space — Virtual not Distant.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach.

In today's episode host Pilar Orti speaks with Corine Tan from emotional wellbeing platform Kona. They discuss their recently published Remote Manager Report 2021, and the product they have created - which helps teams check in with each other and share their context and emotions, via a slackbot which presents as a cute dog avatar.

Download Kona's team building guide, and keep up with Corine and Kona on Twitter.

This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com) where we help managers and teams transition to an office-optional approach.

Today's episode features Tammy Bjelland founder and CEO of Workplaceless, and features a deep-dive into their new product Placeless Coach.

Tammy talks to Pilar about the background to Workplaceless, and the evident need for Placeless Coach, which helps teams and individuals develop better habits and behaviours around asynchronous working. Check it out at Placeless Coach - Reserve Your Spot.

And keep up with Tammy on LinkedIn and Twitter, to see what else she is working on.