I receive about fifty career questions each week. The questions have a predictable diversity, but not my answers. My answers are almost always the same advice: Know yourself better.

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Problem: My boss is a jerk. How can I fix it?

Advice: Understand what you can do differently to make people act differently around you.

Problem: My coworker got promoted instead of me but she does not work.

Advice: Understand why you are not as likable as your coworker and make yourself more likable.

Problem: I've been out of the workforce for three years and I want to reenter. What’s the best way?

Advice: Understand the unique things you can offer your network and an employer, then craft a resume that shows those things.

Do you see the pattern? Self-knowledge is what helps you solve your problems. Sometimes we can get it on our own. But if your problem persists, and you can't solve it, go to therapy. Therapy speeds up the process of gaining self-knowledge.

I can tell you that in my own experience, people who have been to therapy are more interesting than those who haven’t. (Which is the genesis of today's poll — I have a hunch that many of you have been to therapy.)

I will admit that I am probably biased about therapy. I have been going since I was five. My parents knew I was weird but didn't know what to do about it, so they took me to a therapist, and we sat at his desk, because play therapy had not been invented, and I wondered how he could have had such a boring job, and then he told my parents I didn’t need therapy. Read more