Most people who are on top of their game respond to most emails within 48 hours. However some emails are so terribly written that it’s actually impossible to send an answer. Other emails are so terribly written that the amount of time it would take to figure out what to answer is simply not worth [...]

This week's poll is about celebrities because I love peeking into their lives in order to see the world in new ways. I love learning so much that I think that’s even why I spent so much time with the farmer even though it was bad for a long time before I stopped dating him. [...]

In the middle of 2007, I was interviewed by Stephane Grenier for his book, Blog Blazers. The book came out this week, and it's a nice resource for understanding the approach top bloggers take to their trade. (Examples of interviews include Seth Godin, Steve Rubel, and JD Roth.)
I am publishing my own interview here, [...]

Here's what last week was like: On Sunday I flew to Detroit and gave a speech at the Public Relations Society of America. Then I flew back to Madison on Tuesday and met with an investor who only wanted to talk about my blog even though I want him to put more money into my [...]

There are so many lists of books to read before you die, or before you turn 30, or before your job sucks the life out of you. But you probably wouldn't need to depend on a list from someone else if you could just figure out how to pick your own.
The best way to get [...]

One of the most popular posts here is What Generation are You? Take the Test. I'm sure one reason it's popular is that people like tests. We all want self-knowledge, but we want it handed to us on a silver platter, not thrown at us in clumps of dirt by our families, or served up [...]

The slowest moment in my whole life was the time between when the World Trade Center fell next to me, and when someone broke a window and I climbed in to get air. In my memory this time span is about fifteen minutes. But from the historical record, I know it was about one minute.
I [...]

This is the last thing I should be writing on my blog. Because it's now clear that the blog is a great dating tool. Propositions all the time. So I should not tell you this, but here it is: It turns out that I'm a lousy girlfriend.
Not the bad in bed type. Well, sort of. [...]

I haven't posted for two weeks. This is the first time in ten years that I have gone two weeks without writing a column. Really. I have a track record for continuing to write when every other sane person would take a break: I wrote a column right after I delivered a baby, I wrote [...]

I give a lot of speeches, mostly telling people how to manage Generation Y, and how to manage their careers so that they are not jealous of Generation Y. My charm, I think, is that I don't prepare a speech. I never know, exactly, what I'll say when I stand up. It works for me—no [...]

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 [...]

I'd like to tell you that there are no bad questions. But you know what? That's not true. So here are the ways people ask me questions that drive me nuts:
1. You ask me a career question for your wife.
The first problem with you walking around in the world telling people you need help for [...]

After my first visit to the farm, I quickly invited myself back. "I'm coming there without my kids," I told him.
When I got there, he made me hamburger that was shaped a little too much like how it might have looked in the cow's body, and then he asked me what I wanted.
"I want this [...]

I got an email from this guy who told me he thinks I need a friend on a farm. I think he wrote the email right after I wrote about being a pint-sized ENTJ on the estate-sized front lawn of my grandma's house. I am not sure how he knew I am fascinated with farms, [...]

One of the most dangerous things you can do in your career is to think you are different from everyone else. The biggest validation of that idea comes in AA meetings – it is widely understood by this group that thinking you're different is just an excuse not to get help, an excuse to think [...]

The transition from college to adulthood might be the hardest one we make in our whole lives. After we spend twenty years learning how to get good grades, we go into a workforce where those skills are largely irrelevant.
In fact, the skill that is most important in adulthood is self-knowledge—knowing what you like, what you [...]

I am trying to figure out what is the right kind of guy for me to be dating now that I'm getting a divorce. As an incorrigible go-getter — with all things I do — I am getting a jump start on dating. So if it's offensive to you that I'm dating before I'm divorced, [...]

Brace yourself for the most thorough compendium of research I've seen about how good-looking people get more of everything. The book is Looks: Why They Matter More than You Ever Imagined, by Gordon Patzer, professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago and former dean at California State University.
It is well-documented that good-looking people make more money [...]

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 [...]

Men are hard-wired to think they are funny. They use it as a courtship technique. A study by Eric Brassler at McMaster University finds that women rate men as more attractive if they make more jokes. And men are somehow aware of this, because they are more likely to make jokes if women are around.
This [...]