Penelope Trunk

Knowing yourself

The five books that wasted the most time for me

Posted to: Knowing yourself
October 21st, 2008
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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 [...]

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Generalizing about generations is good for you

Posted to: Knowing yourself
September 18th, 2008
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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 [...]

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9/11 didn't change me overnight, even though I wish it had

September 11th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Vulnerability is the key to likability at work (and on the farm)

August 26th, 2008
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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. [...]

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What I've been doing while I've not been posting

Posted to: How to blog | Knowing yourself
August 25th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Why you have more trouble with silence than with chatter

Posted to: Knowing yourself
August 5th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Five signs that your career is about to get vapid

July 30th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Three bad career questions people ask me all the time

July 14th, 2008
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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 [...]

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How I started taming my workaholic tendencies

Posted to: Knowing yourself | Money | Productivity
June 27th, 2008
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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 [...]

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New way to measure blog ROI

Posted to: How to blog | Knowing yourself
June 3rd, 2008
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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, [...]

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None of us has especially unique career trouble – not even Emily Gould

May 26th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Secrets to smart decisions when you graduate from college

May 21st, 2008
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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 [...]

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Why you should never complain about your company

Posted to: Knowing yourself
May 13th, 2008
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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, [...]

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Plastic surgery is the next must-have career tool. Maybe

April 8th, 2008
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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 [...]

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The best career tool is self-knowledge

March 11th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Try to be funny, even if you're not

February 29th, 2008
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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 [...]

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Test yourself to find what you need to be happier

Posted to: Fulfillment | Knowing yourself
January 23rd, 2008
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Happiness is not really different in each person. In fact, science shows us happiness is basically the same for all of us. And our roadblocks to happiness are all basically the same as well — that we each think we are special and the research doesn't apply to us, so we just keep trying to [...]

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What would happen if you were blind to your weakness?

Posted to: Knowing yourself
January 18th, 2008
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I have a disorder called prosopagnosia, more commonly called face blindness. It means that I have a hard time seeing faces.
It took me about a month to know what each of my babies looked like. I remember thinking how it's a miracle that the human race survived when it is so difficult to remember what [...]

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Three specific ways to improve your social skills

January 16th, 2008
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Now that I do a lot of public speaking, I am flying a lot – two or three times a month. There are a lot of perks to travel, like expensive hotel rooms and a break from my kids. But my favorite perk is meeting sales guys.
Warning: here come generalizations with no data to back [...]

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Do you think you're a strategist? You're probably wrong.

Posted to: Knowing yourself
January 10th, 2008
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It is a cliché that everyone thinks they're a strategist. The reason everyone thinks they're a strategist is because they don't know what a strategist does.
Get a reality check. Odds are you are not a strategist. 
Strategy requires thinking conceptually and creating something from nothing. So, for the most part, if you need to see something [...]

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