At its core, meaningful work is helping people. But that makes you think you need to save children dying in Africa. But, really, you can push papers for multinational conglomerates and feel like you're doing good for the world. Here's how:
1. Take care of yourself—have the basics covered.
The most important thing about making meaningful work [...]

The market crash is going to mean a new era of banking, but it is also bringing along with it a few new ideas about how to manage one's career. This is not the first sector to experience catastrophe, but it might be the wealthiest one. And we can all learn a little about managing [...]

You can tell if you are avoiding personal growth in your career because you are not feeling challenged. You can tell if you are not feeling challenged if you are not scared. Being scared is what makes life interesting. You should be scared that you are going to fail at something because if you are [...]

There are a lot of rules for first-time managers. For example, never hold a meeting without an agenda, because if you don't know what you're going to do there, then no one else will know what you're doing, either. But the rule about agendas is a great example, because, like most rules for good [...]

Do you want to know what you should do right now? Do you want to know what your best bet is for your next career? Look at what you were doing when you were a kid. Nothing changes when you grow up except that you get clouded vision from thinking about what you SHOULD do [...]

One of the hardest parts of managing your career is getting clear on what's most important to you in the work you do. And it's ironic that the true-but-clichéd exclamation from new parents – "the kids force me to see what is really important in my life" — comes after we have navigated [...]

Most career questions are actually identity questions. It seems like maybe we need to know which job to take, or which boss is better, or which line to delete on our resume. But really, we need to know who we are.
I learn the most about identity when I'm lost and I have to make a [...]

The most prestigious place for college grads to get a job today is Deloitte, according to a Business Week story titled, The Best Places to Launch a Career, by Lindsey Gerdes. In fact, the top three choices for Generation Y are all Big 4 accounting firms.
My first thought was, are you kidding me?!?!?!
Because if you [...]

Today's job market favors employees. The attitude of most workers is that they should have a job that makes them happy. So it's no surprise that at any given time 70 percent of the workforce is job hunting, according to the Wall St. Journal.
Everyone is looking for the right position. But what exactly does that [...]

For those of you who don't know what's going on in my marriage, please read My First Day of Marriage Counseling, and maybe you will want to leave a comment about how if you were my husband, you'd divorce me for blogging about my marriage.
My husband, in fact, has brought up divorce for other reasons. [...]

With 85 million baby boomers and 50 million Gen Xers, there is already a yawning generation gap among American workers–particularly in their ideas of work-life balance. For baby boomers, it's the juggling act between job and family. For Gen X, it means moving in and out of the workforce to accommodate kids and outside interests. [...]

Here's an idea: Instead of thinking of your summer vacation as something that detracts from your work, think of it as a way to boost your work performance — or even your business.
The weeklong getaways that run a day or two over, the hour-long siestas that turn into three hours, and the three-day weekends that [...]

By Ryan Healy — If there is an overarching impact my generation is already having on the corporate world, it is entrepreneurship. Roughly 80% of my friends and acquaintances plan to start their own business at some point. Both males and females, college grads and current students, everyone wants to run their own [...]

By Ryan Healy — Go to college, graduate with a technical degree and become a professional, preferably a doctor, lawyer or accountant. Join the workforce for a few years, then get married and have a kid or two."
According to my father this was the typical advice given to young baby boomer boys growing up. [...]

When you try to decide should you stay at your job or should you quit, you probably focus on the part of your job that is not core to you. For example, getting coffee for the boss. You do that and then your boss teaches you, say, how to review a fashion show in Milan. [...]

A job cannot make you happy, but it can save your life. People spend so much time looking for that perfect job, the perfect boss, the salary that will finally make them feel secure. But in fact, the impact a job can have on your life is overrated. Unless your life is completely falling apart. [...]

The best way to be happier at work is to take personal responsibility for your workplace well-being. Once you do that, any job can be better than it is right now.
Here are four ways you can improve your job yourself instead of relying on your boss or your company to change:
1. Make a friend at [...]

Yesterday Ryan posted about creating a blended life. His post makes me think a lot about my own set up. I am pretty sure people would say I have a blended life:
1. I work from 8-1pm and 8pm to 12pm seven days a week. Except when I don't, because my two young sons need something.
2. [...]

I tell people all the time to change their job if they don't like it, and people tell me this is totally impractical advice. A lot of people write to me to say that my advice only applies to rich people. Or they tell me that single parents, families living paycheck to paycheck, people in [...]

My dad just called. He said one of his fifteen-year-old students asked, "Why do we need to know this? How will To Kill a Mockingbird help me in life?" My dad loves questions like that because he has asked them himself.
My dad has always loved school. He was the kid who did the extra credit [...]