The book · out now

Work Is Fun.

Seven Ways a Successful Ice Pop Company Makes Work Meaningful, and How You Can Too.

Fifteen years of running King of Pops. Stories from behind the cart, lessons from hiring people you love, and a field guide for making the whole thing worth it.

Buying 20+ for a team? I’ll do a free virtual Q&A. See group reads below.

Work Is Fun book by Steve Carse

Read it together

Read it with your team.
I’ll show up.

Buy 20+ copies of Work Is Fun and I’ll bring the experience to you. No catch — I just love talking to people who’ve read it.

Book clubs, leadership teams, HR programs, college courses — whoever wants to read together.

King of Pops cart with rainbow umbrella: ‘Nothin’ fancy, but something special’

What I’ll bring

The full Pops treatment.

  • 30-minute virtual Q&A — I’ll join your call, take questions, and tell stories you won’t find in the book.
  • Books and pops — I’ll bring books and pops with me, or we’ll ship them to your office. Signed copies either way.

We read Work Is Fun as a team. A week later we’d launched our own “super secret fun committee” — for random acts of kindness, surprise moments, and a little more humanity at work.

SJ Scott Jacobsen Co-founder & COO, Invest With Roots

Inside the book

Seven chapters, seven ideas.

Work Is Fun is built around the seven ideas that have shaped how we run King of Pops. Lessons from fifteen years of selling ice pops in the heat, hiring people we love, and building something that doesn’t feel like work.

01 · Featured chapter

Write an Epic Story

Every business worth working for has a story. Mine starts in a gas station parking lot in 2010 — laid off, broke, slinging pops out of a cart. Then a neighbor named Don Lemon walked by, liked the pops, and the next thing I knew it was on CNN. The book is about how to find your version of that story and live it.

Read more about this chapter
CNN with Don Lemon · 2010 · gas station parking lot, Atlanta

02 · Chapter

These Are the Good Ol’ Days

Why I keep telling myself to slow down and notice now, before it becomes the thing I miss later.

03 · Chapter

Ownership Is Free to Take

Even inside the most structured org, there’s more autonomy than you think. You just have to grab it.

04 · Chapter

Pride Compounds Over Time

Pride isn’t a perk. It’s a discipline. And it shows up in every small thing you ship.

05 · Chapter

Remember to Play

Play isn’t the opposite of serious work. It’s the engine of it.

06 · Chapter

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Culture isn’t a perk wall. It’s the feeling people leave the building still carrying.

07 · Chapter

Work Within the Tension

Every business has seasons and trade-offs. The good ones don’t fight that. They design for it.