Work the System:

The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, Fifth Edition

Message from Sam, 9/9/2024: I’ve spent the last ten months going deep, hunkered down, bringing “Work” up to date yet carefully preserving the main threads (because, of course, base reality works the same way everywhere, all the time…). I’ve made the book easier to read and understand, added some new insights, and addressed the economic/social earthquakes of the last five years.

Of course, the “systems mindset” is the focus: I want you to “get” it.

I’m calling this 5^th Edition the “Updated for 2025, Unwoke’” edition. (Yes, go ahead and read into that.) My aim continues to be this: bricks and mortar, virtual, retail, construction, service and/or product producer, owner-operated, large or small staff—it doesn’t matter. Whatever the business type (presuming the product or service is useful), dysfunction has its roots in this foundational weakness: a fire-killing, non-systematic approach by the leader. The systems mindset is utterly logical and believable, a deeper vision of how a business—and a life—mechanically unfolds.

Yes, for any endeavor’s success, including a life well-lived, leadership IS everything.

The systems mindset epiphany occurs in a single identifiable moment, never to fade. Suddenly, with this vivid “one layer deeper” view, underlying system processes are starkly revealed and subsequent real-life mechanical actions are obvious.

You’ll never be the same. You’ll never go back.

Watch the animation below.

Perhaps a surprising nuance, my book is not a lead-in to coaching, consulting, or some online training program. I have nothing down the line to sell you. At the risk of cliche, now my job is to spread the word; to provide a guidebook to those who may be sinking. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I have many followers on my email mailing list (you can join me here on this page). I have recently started to post on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

This fifth edition was published on August 20, 2024, in hardcover and e-book iterations. You can order those versions on Amazon and elsewhere. (Be sure to choose the 5th edition, not the 4th. For now, they are both listed by certain sellers.) The audio for the 5th, which I narrate, should be available late this month.

Feel free to contact me. I’ll always respond personally.
-Sam Carpenter