No one wants to seem old and outdated. The key to avoiding this is learning how to think like the next generation. So recognize what you care about that younger people don’t care about. Not like a house and mortgage – that stuff is dependent on what stage of life you’re in. I’m talking about …

I get up at 5am to drive my son to his cello lessons in Chicago. On Saturday he’s in lessons for four hours. I wake him and he says, “No. It’s too early. It’s too hard to drive to Chicago all the time. I can’t do it.”
I don’t say anything. I sit on the side …

The last company I founded, Brazen Careerist, was full of Gen Yers. In fact, for a while, I was the only person in the company older than 25. I spent a lot of time learning to adapt. Fast. And the whole time I thought to myself: I can’t wait until these kids need to adapt …

I was a latchkey kid with unlimited charge accounts at all the local stores before there were charge cards. As a kid I worried I was annoying, because people always rolled their eyes when I said “charge it please”. Now I understand that I was the only person in the city with a charge account …

When we were at LegoLand I was struck by the high emotional intelligence of the employees. Their job is to make everyone feel like their Lego project is great. (You’d be surprised how many parents are there, swiping the white blocks from little kids at the Lego snowman contest.)
High emotional-intelligence jobs are very hard, and …

I know you're thinking that the workplace is dead between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but actually, December is a great time for careers. Here are five reasons why:
1. Job hunting is great in December.
January is the biggest month for hiring, but December is the second-best month for a job hunt. This is …

I get an incredible amount of email from people with Asperger Syndrome. It's all really similar. Here's a sample:
“I'm 45 and a lawyer and I have Aspergers. I don’t know what is appropriate, and not appropriate some of the time, such as talking too much about very personal info, or saying something that offends someone.
“I’ve …

Last week was a board meeting for my company, Brazen Careerist. I used to hate the board meetings because there is so much to prepare beforehand, and if everything is not going great, then you have to really face that.
1. Hide your feelings if they are going to be trouble for someone.
I am still a …

You are probably wondering if I think about Melissa having an affair with the Farmer.
I do. I think about it all the time.
As a preventive measure I tell the farmer that if he cheats on me, I'll stay with him. Forever. I'll never leave him. He'll be stuck on the farm with me, in misery. …

First of all, here is a photo of rhubarb cobbler.

And this is my food blog post for all of yeterday’s commenters who think I would not be a good food blogger. You will love this post: it's about what to do if you think you're about to be fired.
1. Be really interesting. And fun. …

When we are not in the garden, I obsess about how I want to redesign my blog to look like the Pioneer Woman’s blog. I want to be the Pioneer Woman on Suicide Watch. That will be the new title of my blog. I am obsessed with stealing her blog design.
Melissa sits in my garden …

You hear all this talk aobut how you have to march to your own drummer, think out of the box, blah blah. The truth is, you can't change anything until you know all the rules.
Advice admonishing you to break rules is so shallow. How can you break rules without learning them first? People who understand …

I get my haircuts in Los Angeles because my best friend Sharon cuts my hair for free, which means the cost of the plane ticket to LA is cheaper than paying for cut and color in Chicago.
Sharon is a color specialist. This is Sharon picking color for a client who Sharon is trying to focus …

I just got back from Washington, DC where we were meeting about the future of Brazen Careerist. The only time you have big company meetings for a startup is if you have no money or a lot of money. We just got a lot of money.
Usually I bring something to do during Brazen Careerist meetings …

A lot of what I learned in college I learned from the New York Times. I was completely incapable of managing the college application process on my own. In hindsight, it strikes me as similar to my experience with the DMV. The application process is way too complicated for someone with Asperger Syndrome. But I …