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Humans of Martech

Humans of Martech

De: Phil Gamache
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Future-proofing the humans behind the tech. Follow Phil Gamache and Darrell Alfonso on their mission to help future-proof the humans behind the tech and have successful careers in the constantly expanding universe of martech.©2025 Humans of Martech Inc. Economía Exito Profesional Marketing Marketing y Ventas
Episodios
  • 207: Building a career that doesn't hollow you out (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 3)

    207: Building a career that doesn't hollow you out (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 3)
    Feb 17 2026
    "Hey – So what do you do?” Why is it that we always default to work when we get this question. its like many of us have let our jobs become the center of how we see ourselves. This slowly happens to many of us, as work occupies more mental and emotional space.I asked 50 people in martech and operations how they stay happy under sustained pressure. This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right now.Today we close out the series with part 3: meaning. We’ll hear from 19 people and we’ll cover:(00:00) - Teaser (01:08) - Intro / In This Episode (04:27) - Rich Waldron: Auditing Whether Work Is Actually Moving (06:49) - Samia Syed: Tracking Personal Growth (08:33) - Jonathan Kazarian: Tracking Growth Across Life Health and Work (10:11) - Kim Hacker: Choosing Roles With Daily Visible Impact (12:21) - Mac Reddin: Checking Work Against 3 Personal Conditions (14:11) - Chris Golec: Choosing Early Stage Building Work (15:19) - Hope Barrett: Feeding curiosity across multiple domains (17:45) - Simon Lejeune: Treating work like a game (19:52) - Ana Mourão: A mental buffer between noticing and doing (21:46) - Tiankai Feng: Anticipation planning (25:30) - István Mészáros: Choosing Who You Are When Work Ends (29:52) - Danielle Balestra: Feeding Interests Unrelated to Work (31:42) - Jeff Lee: Continuing to Build Personal Projects After the Workday Ends (33:23) - John Saunders: Keeping a builder practice outside of work (34:41) - Ashley Faus: Group Creative Rituals Outside of work (37:40) - Anna Aubucho: Maintaining a second self through solo creative practice (39:56) - Ruari Baker: Preserving Identity Through Regular Travel (42:15) - Guta Tolmasquim: Building a personal product roadmap (45:37) - Pam Boiros: Feeding identities that have nothing to do with work (47:52) - OutroAll that and a bunch more stuff after a quick word from 2 of our awesome partners.A lot of the operators I chatted with don’t talk about happiness like it suddenly arrives. They describe it as something you feel when things actually start to move. Our first guest gets there right away by tying happiness directly to progress, the kind that tells you you’re not stuck.Rich Waldron: Auditing Whether Work Is Actually MovingFirst up is Rich Waldron, Co-founder and CEO at Tray.ai. He’s also a dad, and a mediocre golfer.Progress sits at the center of Rich’s definition of career happiness. He treats it as a felt sense rather than a dashboard metric. When work advances in a direction that makes sense to him, his energy steadies. When that movement slows or stalls, frustration surfaces quickly and spreads into everything else. That feeling becomes a cue to examine direction rather than effort.“Happiness is mostly driven by progress.”That framing resonates because it names something many operators struggle to articulate. Long hours can feel sustainable when the work moves forward. Light workloads can feel draining when days repeat without traction. Progress gives work narrative weight. It answers a quiet internal question about whether today connects to something that matters tomorrow.Rich also points to patterns that erode meaning over time.Roles with little challenge dull attention, even when the pay is generous.Constant activity without visible change breeds irritation that lingers after work ends.Both conditions interrupt momentum. The mind keeps searching for movement that never arrives. Rest stops working because unresolved motion occupies every quiet moment.Progress also shapes identity beyond work. When things move in the right direction, attention releases its grip on unfinished problems. Rich links that release to showing up better at home. He describes being more present as a parent because mental energy is no longer trapped in work that feels stuck. Forward motion restores proportion. Work keeps its place as one part of a full life rather than the dominant one.Balance emerges as a byproduct of this orientation. You choose problems that move. You notice when progress fades. You adjust before frustration hardens into burnout. That rhythm preserves meaning over long career arcs and keeps work aligned with the person you want to remain.Key takeaway: Track progress as a signal of meaning. When your work moves in a direction you respect, it stays contained, your identity stays intact, and the rest of your life receives the attention it deserves.Samia Syed: Tracking Personal GrowthThat’s Samia Syed, Director of Growth Marketing at Dropbox. She’s also a mother, outdoor fanatic, and an avid hiker.Progress became the scorecard Samia relies on to keep her career from consuming her sense of self. Early professional years trained her to chase perfection, because perfection looked measurable, respectable, and safe. That mindset quietly tightened the frame around what counted ...
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    50 m
  • 206: The people who keep you standing (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 2)

    206: The people who keep you standing (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 2)
    Feb 10 2026
    Pressure at work rarely stays contained within the job. It spills into family life, friendships, and daily relationships. I asked 50 operators how they stay happy while managing responsibility at work and at home. This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right now. Today we continue with part 2: connection, the relationships that recharge you and keep you standing when the work would otherwise knock you sideways.We’ll hear from 17 people and we’ll cover:(00:00) - Teaser (02:00) - In This Episode (04:30) - Eric Holland: Limiting Slack and Prioritizing Family Time (05:33) - Meg Gowell: Shared Family Routines (08:31) - David Joosten: Filtering Reactive Work So Time Stays With Family (10:30) - Aboli Gangreddiwar: Designing Work to Enable Family Travel (12:01) - Kevin White: Separating Career Drive From Family Identity (13:42) - Joshua Kanter: Daily Family Rituals (18:07) - Gab Bujold: Daily Check-Ins With a Trusted Work Partner (22:30) - Anna Leary: Treating Workload Stress as a Shared Problem (24:31) - Angela Rueda: Shared Problem Solving Conversations (26:50) - Blair Bendel: Using In Person Conversations to Stay Grounded (29:28) - Matthew Castino: Work Satisfaction Correlates Strongly With Team Relationships (33:17) - Aditi Uppal: Connection as a Feedback Loop (35:48) - Alison Albeck Lindland: One Social System Across Work and Life (37:34) - Rajeev Nair: Human Bonds Absorb Pressure Before Burnout (40:12) - Chris O’Neil: Filtering Work Through People and Problems That Matter (42:24) - Rebecca Corliss: Creativity as a Shared Emotional Outlet (44:24) - Moni Oloyede: Teaching as a Living Relationship (45:50) - OutroConnection starts with who you protect time for. Our first guest begins there, shaping his work around people who refill him and drawing hard lines around anything that steals those moments away.Eric Holland: Limiting Slack and Prioritizing Family TimeFirst up is Eric Holland, a fractional PMM based in Pennsylvania, and the co-host of the We’re not Marketers Podcast. He’s also a dad and runs a retail apparel startup. Eric shapes his happiness around people before tasks. He pares his work down to projects shared with colleagues he enjoys being around, and that choice changes the texture of his days. Conversations feel easier. Meetings end with momentum instead of fatigue. You can hear a quiet confidence in how he describes work that feels relational rather than transactional.Family anchors that perspective in a very physical way. Nearly every weekend, from late November through Christmas, belongs to his ten-month-old son. These are not abstract intentions. They are mornings that smell like coffee and pine needles, afternoons on cold sidewalks, and evenings defined by routine rather than inboxes. Time with his son creates emotional weight that carries into the workweek and keeps priorities visible when deadlines start to blur.Eric also draws a firm boundary around digital proximity. Slack does not live on his phone, and that decision protects the moments where connection needs full attention. The habit most people recognize, checking messages during dinner or while holding a child, never has a chance to form. Presence becomes simpler when tools stay in their place.The system he describes comes together through a few concrete moves that many people quietly avoid:He limits work to collaborators who feel generous with energy.He reserves weekends for repeated family rituals that mark time.He removes communication tools from personal spaces where they dilute focus.Eric captures the point with a line that carries practical weight.“Delete Slack off your phone.”That sentence signals care for the relationships that actually hold you upright. Attention stays where your body is, and connection grows from that consistency.Key takeaway: Strong connections protect long-term happiness at work. Choose collaborators who give energy, protect repeated time with family and friends, and keep work tools out of moments that deserve your full presence.Meg Gowell: Shared Family RoutinesNext up is Meg Gowell, Head of Marketing at Elly and former Director of Growth Marketing at Typeform and Appcues. She’s also a mom of 3.Remote work compresses everything into the same physical space. Meetings happen steps away from the kitchen. Notifications follow you into the evening. Meg treats that compression as something that requires active design. She and her husband both work remotely, so separation never happens by accident. It happens because they decide when work stops and family time starts, and they repeat that decision every day.That discipline shows up in how she leads at Typeform. An international team creates constant overlap and constant absence at the same time. Someone is always offline. Someone is always mid-day. Ideas surface at inconvenient ...
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    48 m
  • 205: The daily infrastructure behind sustainable careers (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 1)

    205: The daily infrastructure behind sustainable careers (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 1)
    Feb 3 2026
    Careers place a ton of demand on energy and attention way before results start to stabilize. Many operators discover that health and routine determine how long they can operate at a high level.I spoke with 50 people working in martech and operations about how they stay happy under pressure. This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right now.Today we start with part 1: stability through routines, boundaries, and systems that protect the body and mind. We’ll hear from 15 people:(00:00) - Teaser (01:05) - Intro (01:30) - In This Episode (04:09) - Austin Hay: Building Non Negotiables (08:06) - Sundar Swaminathan: Systems That Prevent Stress (12:33) - Elena Hassan: Normalizing Stress (14:32) - Sandy Mangat: Managing Energy (16:31) - Constantine Yurevich: Designing Work That Matches Personal Energy (19:05) - Keith Jones: Intentional Work Rhythms (23:58) - Olga Andrienko: Daily Health Routines (26:06) - Sarah Krasnik Bedell: Outdoor Routines (27:21) - Zach Roberts: Physical Reset Rituals Outside Work (28:57) - Jane Menyo: Recovery Cycles (31:56) - Angela Vega: Chosen Challenges and Recovery Cycles (36:09) - Megan Kwon: Presence Built Into the Day (37:50) - Nadia Davis: Calendar Discipline (39:36) - Henk-jan ter Brugge: Planning the Week as a Constraint System (43:15) - Ankur Kothari: Personal Metrics (44:07) - OutroAustin Hay: Building Non NegotiablesOur first guest is Austin Hay, he’s a co-founder, a teacher, a martech advisor, but he’s also a husband, a dog dad, a student, water skiing fanatic, avid runner, a certified financial planner, and a bunch more stuff... Daily infrastructure shows up through repetition, discipline, and choices that protect energy before anything else competes for it. Austin grounds happiness in curiosity, but that curiosity only thrives when supported by sleep, movement, and time that belongs to no employer. Learning stays fun because it is not treated as another performance metric. It remains part of who he is rather than something squeezed into the margins of an already crowded day.Mental and physical health shape his schedule in visible ways. Austin treats them as operating requirements rather than aspirations. His days include a short list of behaviors that carry disproportionate impact:Regular sleep with a consistent bedtime.Exercise that creates physical fatigue and mental quiet.Relationships that exist entirely outside work.Hobbies and games that feel restorative rather than productive.These habits rarely earn praise, which explains why they erode first under pressure. In his twenties, Austin chased work, clients, and money with intensity. He told himself the rest would come later. That promise held eventually, but the gap years carried a cost. He remembers moments of looking in the mirror and feeling uneasy about the life he was assembling, despite checking every external box.Trade-offs now anchor his thinking. Austin frames decisions as equations involving time, energy, and outcomes. Goals demand inputs, and inputs consume limited resources. Avoiding that math leads to exhaustion and resentment. Facing it creates clarity. Many people resist this step because it forces hard choices into daylight. The industry rewards the appearance of doing everything, even when the math never works.“I view a lot of decisions and outcomes in life as trade-offs. At the end of the day, that’s what most things boil down to.”Sleep makes the equation tangible. Austin aims for bed around 9 or 9:30 each night because his mornings require focus, training, and sustained energy. He needs seven and a half hours of sleep to function well. That requirement dictates the rest of the day. Social plans adjust. Work compresses. Goals remain achievable because the system supports them.He defines what he wants to pursue.He calculates the energy required.He locks in non negotiables that keep the math honest.That structure removes constant negotiation with himself. The system holds even when motivation dips or distractions multiply.Key takeaway: Daily infrastructure depends on non negotiables that protect sleep, health, and energy. Clear priorities, visible trade-offs, and repeatable routines create careers that stay durable under pressure.Sundar Swaminathan: Systems That Prevent StressNext up is Sundar Swaminathan, Former Head of Marketing Science at Uber, Author & Host of the experiMENTAL Newsletter & Podcast. He’s also a husband, a father and a well traveled home chef, amateur chess master.Stress prevention sits at the center of Sundar’s daily system for staying happy and effective at work. A concentrated period of personal loss collapsed any illusion that stress deserved patience or tolerance. Three deaths in three weeks compressed time, sharpened perspective, and forced a reassessment of what stress actually costs. Stress drains ...
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    47 m
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