Branding has finally reached the snobs who think they are above it.
Every Gen Y-er knows about personal branding, and every Silicon Valley social media maven has one eye on their Klout score. But this year the New York Times declared that branding is a must-do for psychologists. You can’t make money if you don’t have a …

Powerful people do not have good listening skills. They hate to listen. They succeed by getting good at faking it. Here’s how I know. There are sixteen Myers Briggs personality types. Only 4% of people are ENTJs, but almost all Fortune 500 CEOs are ENTJs. Each type has an Achilles’ heel. The ESFP can’t stand being …

The title of this post should really be 5 Steps to Have a Career that Makes the World a Better Place. But the first thing about making the world a better place is that if you really want to do that, you’ll have to make some compromises. Like, I have to write blog post titles that will …

“Your post just destroyed Melissa’s life.” This is the email I got from my friend Melissa‘s fiance, Steven, who is now her ex-fiance.
He did not like the post I wrote.
Before you tell me that I’m a terrible person for writing the post I want you to know that Melissa’s therapist read the post that same day …

See that picture of my son?  I tell him all the time he is not being nice. “Be nice.” I tell him. “If you are not nice then people won’t like you.” So he surprised me by writing it on his hand.
An example of him not being nice is that he doesn’t see that when …

We are in a drought. Not a metaphorical drought. That’s for city people. We are in a drought that is crop failure.
I’ve read a lot about the Dust Bowl during the Depression. My favorite book is a children’s book. And, let me just say that I mostly read children’s books. It makes sense, because I’ve …

When I moved to the farmhouse, I first replaced myself with a new CEO for my company, and then started reading enough about interior design to get a degree in the subject, if I believed in graduate degrees. I became enthralled with Steampunk as a way to blend the rustic nature of my surroundings with my …

Fortune magazine has started reporting about family in corporate life.
We all know corporate jobs are messed up. Fortune magazine is a monument to how messed up corporate life really is. In November, Fortune wrote that the company that Sheryl Sandberg, a working mom, runs, has employees “on lockdown” and their kids come to the office …

I love watching people lie. I know that I probably have the same feelings the liars do, the feeling of being stuck. I like to think about what I do when I have that feeling, how people cope with it, and how much pain we can handle before we become our worst selves.
Lately, I’ve been …

It used to be that the reason people hated me was because I offended them. Poor social skills. I’m sure you can imagine, but if you can’t, here’s the post about how I spoke at a women in business blogging event and I offended everyone by telling them that their blogs sucked and how to …

In the airport a fight attendant said to my six-year-old son, “Where are you going today?”
He said, “California.”
She said, “You’re a lucky boy!”
He said, “Actually, I’m really tired of going to airports with my mom.”
This is because I’ve been taking him on all my business trips. And he is learning something important about business travel: …

Executive function means being able to see the big picture and sort through details to arrive at a good decision. You probably have met more than a few people with very poor executive function. This person is probably very smart but seemingly incompetent in one area—often at work, or in daily life skills, or both. …

Phone call. It’s Melissa.
“Hi,” she says. “Can I come see you today? I can get a flight out of Austin at 5pm.”
Of course I say yes. I assume she is breaking up with her boyfriend because she’s pretty much agoraphobic except for going to the stable to ride her horse or going to the office …

Sunday nights at our house are dinner with me, the kids, the Farmer and the Ex. They are always fun dinners, and I always feel very lucky for that.
My six-year-old talked about his new baby cousin, Eva (who is pictured, in utero, above). “She has a terrible name,” he said, “for Pig Latin. Its Vaeay. …

If I look back on my blog, I can see that each year there were one or two ideas that just blew me away and ended up dominating my thinking. For example, 2011 my year to be obsessed with school – homeschooling and higher ed, 2010 was my year for disillusionment with happiness research, …

Somehow, last year, I got too big-picture. It's not surprising since I'm an ENTJ. I understand my deficit, which is one reason I picked the Farmer, an ISTP-—extremely short-term thinking.
At the end of the day, the Farmer walks in the house and talks about his day's accomplishments, and the weather. I used to tell him …

It’s been four days since I documented my own domestic violence, in almost real-time, between me and the Farmer. The most common response I’ve heard is some variation of: “Zero tolerance for domestic abuse!”
And you know what? I have zero tolerance for things I am not prone to tolerate as well. That's easy, isn't it?
It's …

This post is sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
After I realized that the most underrated skill is asking good questions, I realized that I am not very good at it. I don't ask for help enough because I don't know what question to ask. And also, I worry the question will be bad and then …

Melissa and I had a fight yesterday. We have this fight once or twice a month. Someone who neither of us knows well will ask Melissa something about me just out of an odd curiosity about my life. Something stupid, like, What's Penelope doing for Thanksgiving?
It's stupid, yes, but I think it's even more stupid …

Sometimes people ask me how I get ideas for blog posts. Really, the question is how do I find enough time to let everyone know about everything that bugs me?
For example, here are photos I've been holding onto for a while. It's a series of the dumbest engagement photos ever. But wait. Before you click …