I told this guy who wrote to me that I do not remember ever actually meeting him, even though he says we had a great conversation.
He wrote back. He was relentless, so I asked him to tell me a bit about himself. He wrote, among other things, “I’m the guy you want to date.”
It was [...]

Brian Wiegand is a very low-profile guy who has sold three companies, most recently to Microsoft. He is big enough that TechCrunch writes about him as a good bet for anyone betting. But the bane of Brian’s existence is that his exits have all been for under $50 million.
This is enough for him to [...]

It’s a big day, and I’m excited to take a pause from work with the rest of the country to watch Barack Obama give his inagural speech.
In the meantime, I’m thinking about the day of service. How Obama wants the country to come together in the name of service. And I heard MTV declare, [...]

Is no one going to say that Sarah Palin rocked the vice presidential debate? Who is so arrogant to think that they could do better with just five weeks' preparation?
She did a great job. She memorized speeches that she trotted out in good moments. And she had such nerve! Most of us would [...]

I noticed in the New York Times Book Review last week, there was a nice review of Jim Krusoe's new book, Girl Factory. I was happy to see that, because Jim Krusoe was my first—and most influential—writing teacher.
Jim teaches creative writing at Santa Monica College, (and his faculty page reveals so much about him). [...]

The first time it hit me how important mentors are is four years ago, when I interviewed Ellen Fagenson Eland, former professor at George Mason University. She gave me stunning statistics about how important mentors are to your career.
Eland gave me a seven-step plan for finding mentors (yes, you need a small group of [...]

Do you ever search 43 Things? I love going through it to see what goals people have for themselves. I like seeing where my own goals and accomplishments fit in with everyone else's.
On 43 Things, 21 people want to learn to take criticism but 77,000 people want to get a promotion. You know what's wrong [...]

Don't jump so fast for that promotion or raise you're about to win. Today's workplace is largely unstable — people get laid off and job hop constantly, and in general, staying anywhere more than five years is a career liability. Your learning curve flattens out so much that you're not gaining skills fast enough to [...]

By Ryan Healy – Successful entrepreneurship usually includes a group of trusted mentors, according to Ben Casnocha, author of My Start up Life. But now that I've spent a few months in corporate life, it's clear to me that having a group of mentors is important whether you work for yourself or for someone else.
However, the [...]

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 [...]

I get a lot of email from people who want advice. I usually reply. Sometimes I get an email from someone who is clearly a pain but I'm impressed that he or she asked for help, so I answer. Sometimes I get such a good question from someone that I actually give him or her [...]

This week's Business Week just hit the stands, and what do you know? My blog is featured.
Lindsey Gerdes wrote a great summary of my blog, proving to me that other people can write a better summary of our work than we can write ourselves. (Yes, this is why you should hire someone to write your resume.)
Anyway, for you [...]

If you want to succeed in business you need a mentor. Getting one though, requires patience, a clear focus and the self-confidence to be a nudge.
The multigenerational workplace seems like it would be fertile ground for mentoring. "Generation Y grew up in an environment where parents, teachers and counselors were all about building the self-esteem [...]

Who you hang out with has so much to do with the quality of your life. I think about this all the time, so I was happy to see that the neurobiologists finally came up with some evidence that if you hang out with positive people, your brain actually starts thinking more positively (subscription soon).
I [...]

This is a piece I wrote for the new leadership section at Forbes.com.
Of course a good education and talent are keys to building a successful career, but for most people, school is over and the parameters of their talent were set on the day they were born. So what can you do now to get [...]

One of my best experiences as a mentor was when I inherited an IT department where the average age was 18. There were many men and one woman and no leaders. I sniffed around for who might be good at what in preparation for a departmental reorg. The woman, Sari, looked homeless at best, a [...]

Hey all you women! Looking for a way to look good at a party? Forget bragging rights to house with a picket fence. Forget a plastic-surgeried body that defies gravity. Here are the status symbols for a new generation:
1. A flexible job. This is practically a pre-requisite for being able to successfully balance work and [...]

First-time managers are generally nightmares to work for. They are people who got promoted by doing a non-management job well, and in fact they probably have little experience in management. Here are four of the mistakes that will undermine a new manager the fastest.
1. Focusing on tasks instead of people.
Before you were a manger, your [...]

Get more control of your time. It’s hard to leave the office at a reasonable time of day when your workplace culture centers on long hours. But the cost of not leaving work is high: A half-built life and career burnout.
Of course, if you never work long hours, you will never appear committed enough to [...]

Those who have mentors are twice as likely to be promoted as those who don't, says Ellen Fagenson Eland, professor at George Mason University and 2003 Winner of the Mentoring Best Practices Award. So start taking the mentoring process very seriously — it should be a cornerstone of your overall career strategy. Here’s a plan [...]