The poll is a fun way for me to think about career topics. A new format always gets me going. But it's also fun because even after writing about careers for ten years, I have a lot of questions in my head that I have not found research to address.

Today's poll is one of them. I know the research about who is bulimic and what happens to them. Mostly because I was bulimic all through college and I thought becoming an expert on the topic would help me stop throwing up. (That didn't work, but the mental ward did). But there is no workplace research. And I'm curious. So I wrote the poll question because I genuinely want to know the answer: What percentage of women in corporate America are bulimic? I think the answer is higher than anyone would expect.

I know that my poll would not pass scientific muster. But I like that we are at least going to start talking about my question. Well, that's what I was thinking. But then I realized that my poll idea—while a grand opportunity for snark, and also an opportunity to fulfill my dreams of writing quizzes for Cosmo—is not the depth of conversation I am hoping for.

So maybe, I am thinking, I will write a post about the poll each week, to hear what you all think of the topic. I still want you to vote on the poll. Who doesn't love a good statistic about sex (last week) or bulimia (this week) or the intersection of sex/bulimia/work (maybe every week)? So you all should love the poll archive.

Some of you will ask, "Why are we talking about bulimia and sex on a career blog?" Here is some career advice for you: The best thing to do in a recession is make your focus on keeping your learning curve high. Forget about rank —it's going to be hard to get internal raises or big jumps from job hopping. But eventually the recession will end, and you want to make sure you're in a good position to take advantage of that.

People who are always curious and always learning are keeping the recession from killing their career trajectory. You don't need to have a job to be learning, you don't need to have a great title to be stretching your skills. And really, really, you don't need to go to graduate school and earn a degree to prove that you are learning.  In fact, maybe you need to take a job you're not thrilled with, but remember that no one can dictate your learning curve. You control that.

My curiosity about bulimics at work is a reflection of the curiosity that got me through the recession that existed when I entered the workforce. When I was unemployed, I worked in interesting jobs for free. When I was employed, I read outside my expertise at night. When I was out with a group of people, I looked for the people who could teach me something new.

So, some of you will go for the bulimia poll, and some won't. But regardless, each of us should ask engaging questions each day. It's a lifestyle, and it's cheap, and it keeps our learning curve steep, so it's a great way to face down a tanking economy.

But can we just take a minute for a reality check? It's not really bad for people who are young. It's a part of the world you don't hear much about in mainstream media. Think about it. Most media is in NYC, and you don't make a lot of money as a writer, so most people who are writing in the tri-State area are married to bankers. Yes, this is a huge generalization, but it is a stereotype because it's true.

Two neighborhoods—Montclair, NJ, and Park Slope, NY—are the bastions of media elite married to banker elite. And it's a combustible moment there, demonstrated by how we get a lot of reporting about how sad it is for the bankers right now. Who are mostly middle aged.

And we get a lot of reporting about how sad it is for older people in the workforce because those are the people getting laid off. The baby boomers love to report about how much discrimination there is against them. And they have huge pulpits to report that from.

Of course, don't get me started. The baby boomers had a great run spending tons of money they didn't have and then bitching that the economic rug is pulled out from under them. But there is no mention that Gen X never even had a good run. How about reporting that?

But okay. This is not the point of my post. After all, if you write a Thanksgiving post, it must be upbeat and not grouchy. But also, I will not write a purely upbeat post because then I'd be in the league of all the people who are going to blog about how much they love their family and how great their family is—blah blah blah. And I should remind you you that it was none other than Tolstoy who said that all happy families are the same. And that is why you should never write about them.

But the adage that happiness is boring is true for everything. For example, it is true in the list of sex scenes that stink. (Thank you, Ben Cascnocha, for knowing I would love that link.) You need to have tension in a good sex scene, like maybe the guy can't get an erection and wants to slit his wrists. Or something less tense but still a little tense. Surely you can imagine.

Okay. So I can't be all good cheer or I would bore you. But I am doing my Thanksgiving post, so here: the niceness, the let's-all-feel-good thing, is that young people are doing fine in this economy and people should start reporting it.

The not-feeling-so-great thing is that, in the case of everyone but the young, the economy is only good for star performers. But really (and here is the part of the post you should skip if you want Thanksgiving bliss) I have been ranting and screaming for years that the best way to have a good life is to be a star performer at work because that gives you the most flexibility to get what you want out of life. Don't be a star performer for money. Be a star performer so that in an economy like this, you don't have to worry about a paycheck.

But—I know someone will ask—here is the evidence that things are fine for young people:

1. Jobs for low-level candidates are increasing. This data comes from a report from Beyond.com issued on November 14: In October 2008, jobs for candidates with 0-3 years of experience increased by 3.68% when compared to jobs posted in September 2008. This was the only category of jobs by experience level that did not decrease over the previous month.

2. There are plenty of entry-level jobs to be had. There is a backlog of entry-level jobs that have been going unfilled for years. Alan Schweyer of the Human Capital Institute said just three weeks ago, sitting next to me on a panel, that the unemployment rate for college grads has been at 0% for the past seven years. (ed. - Alan Schweyer has a great comment toward the bottom of the comments clarifying this statistic.) In the middle of 2008, Robert Half, a recruiting agency for accounting and finance, said that accounting firms have been so chronically understaffed that we'd have to have a five-year recession for them to catch up.

3. College grads are doing fine in today's market. On November 19, JobFox announced that, "Skilled professionals remain in demand despite the economic downturn. While the unemployment rate rose to 6.5 percent in October, the unemployment rate for professionals with college degrees remains manageable at 3.1 percent."

So I know what you're saying. If things are so great for young people, then why is Obama creating 2.5 million jobs from the Chicago Hilton? The answer is that unemployment is insanely high for older people: Yesterday, Fox News reported that the unemployment rate for people over 50 is nearing 50%.

I'm not saying things are great in the U.S. (Though I do love Obama.) What I'm saying is that young people shouldn't be thrown by the bad news that old people are pushing. Things are not that bad if you're beginning your career. Think big, ask a lot of the world, demand respect and fun and a high learning curve. You will annoy people, for sure, but young people annoy older people in a good economy too.

That photo is from a time when I was just getting my big writing jobs—at Yahoo Finance and the Boston Globe—and my book was coming out. And the headshot was all about making me look older and wiser than people maybe thought I was.

But, really, I am not big on authority. I'm more about conversation. And I think it's way more interesting to look a little off-kilter and ask good questions, than it is to look perfect and act like I have all the answers. So I knew it was time to change my photo.

Then I started getting excited about trying lots of new things on my blog.

Then I did what I do best: Found great people to work with.

The first person I chose was Jessi Pervola. She does the design work for my company, Brazen Careerist, and she is super fun because she thinks of new features and fun layouts that make people want to do more. So I thought maybe she'd do that for my blog.

Of course, all top-flight designers do what Jessi does, on some level. But the other thing that made me choose Jessi is that I love her blog. I love that the design is weird—with tons of white space that would scare most people. And I love that the first things you see when you go to her blog are these two links: What's my problem? and The full list. It makes me laugh. And I think she must be really, really pulled together because she actually knows the number of problems she has.

The other person who worked on my blog is Clay Collins. He is the crazy, night-owl SEO guy who I have to stay up til 2am to talk to. But he is always worth the phone call, even though I usually consume 2000 calories in sugar-enhanced bread products in order to stay up that late. Clay has ideas like the poll. Or maybe that was Jessi's idea. But that's what is great about picking people who are great. They don't bicker about whose ideas are whose. They don't step on each others' toes. They just come up with amazing stuff.

So here are some of the things that are new, and if you look around the site, you'll find a bunch more:

My twitter feed is back. And for those of you who worry that I write too much snark about investors, you will be happy to read this twitter: An investor tells me don't stop writing about investors. "It makes you differentiated," he says. And he says, "Would that be a good pickup line?"

There is a poll. It will change every week. Maybe every Tuesday if I can stick to a schedule. There are so many things I want to ask you guys. Today's question is about sex with your boss. But only because I wanted to ask if you thought I should change my photo all the time, but my editor—yes, now I guess I have a poll editor—said the sex one is more interesting.

The header is different. The queen of branding herself has a branding problem: I sold Brazen Careerist to my company, so I don't actually own it anymore. So I really need to separate myself from the Brazen Careerist brand. I don't quite know how to do it. Maybe Penelope's Blog. Like Seth's Blog? Or maybe I am too full of myself and I will never be Seth. (After all, Seth keeps getting book contracts to republish his posts, and when I tried to do that, my editor nearly canceled my contract.) So the header will probably change a lot—like, every night at 10pm when I have branding panic and call Jessi to make changes to the art.

It is no coincidence that I'm launching a new blog the week of Thanksgiving. Thank you so much, each of you, for being part of a community that makes finding success at the intersection of work and life a much less lonely process. I like that we all do this together.

This has been a tough year for me. Divorce, farmer tumult, funding a company in an economic crisis. And all of you have been a great reality check for me about what is going right and what isn't and what we can expect from life.

You have also helped me to see that it's been a great year. My blog allowed me to start my company, and my company allows me to have big, fun job and still pick my kids up after school. And believe it or not, I actually still have a fun dating life . . . but you'll have to come back here to find out about that.

I am publishing my own interview here, with a few tweaks. And I talk a lot about how to have a successful blog.

But my favorite thing about this interview is that it captures a moment in time: when I was blogging full time and making six-figures. I had just sold equity in my blog and was about to spin off my company, Brazen Careerist. My days were spent in a coffee shop, interviewing people about their ideas, and blogging.

It sounds like a great life, and in fact, it was nice. I didn't realize it was great though. I was in marriage counseling, not making good progress. And I was anxious that I was not doing enough with my blog. I wanted to do better in everything.

And that's the instructive part, to me: That there were a lot of good things about what was going on at that time, but I didn't focus on them. I focused on what I wanted next.

So, as I publish this post today, I remind myself to be happy about what feels good, right now, instead of focusing on what I want to change right now. Wherever we are in life, we have those two, separate lists, and we can choose which to focus on at any given time. Here's three cheers for choosing the happy list for a day.

Stephane
What makes a blog successful according to you? Is it traffic, reach, revenue, etc?

Penelope
It helps you to reach your goals— either career or personal.

Stephane
When did you decide you finally reached success with your blog?

Penelope
I love blogging, and I am able to support my family doing it. So on some level, success is being able to support my family doing something I love. On another level, I am redefining success constantly, because once I reach a goal, I set a higher goal.

Stephane
How long does it take to become a successful blogger?

Penelope
I’m sure it’s different for each person. Each person has different goals, different definitions of success.

Stephane
Who do you think are the most successful bloggers on the Internet today?

Penelope
The people who are using their blog to reach their goals.

Stephane
Which five blogs do you regularly read?

Penelope
Guy Kawasaki’s blog
Lifehacker
Get Rich Slowly
Employee Evolution
TechCrunch

Stephane
Which websites would you recommend for any new bloggers stating to blog?

Penelope
ProBlogger

Stephane
Which book(s) would you recommend for new bloggers (these can range from marketing books, blogging books, etc)?

Penelope
The Sensual Woman. I read it when I was a kid and I was trying to figure out what sex was. I didn’t really understand—at that point—why people would even want to have sex. But what I did understand was that if you were your real self, and just did what felt right, you would meet the definition of “good in bed.” And then, very quickly, I realized that this book applied to everything in life—just be your true self and people will see that you enjoy yourself and they will see the true you and whoever you are, seeing that will be interesting. I think a lot of bloggers are scared to be their true selves on their blog, but so much of blogging is about the blogger’s personality. So people should read this book—to understand how fundamental it is to just be yourself.

Stephane
What is your most successful blog post ever?

Penelope
Well, success is a tough thing to define, but the post about my first day of marriage counseling got me in a front-page article in the New York Times and the post became a feature for a British women's magazine and my Google rank for the term "marriage counseling" is an SEO dream.

Stephane
What’s your biggest tip on writing a successful blog post?

Penelope
Find a very popular topic and then write at the very edge of that topic. If you write in the center, that’s where everyone else is and it will be hard to present something that is unique. If you write at the edge, and throw in stuff not totally related to your topic area, then both you and your readers will find surprise in that intersection of the new stuff and your topic.

Stephane
What's your best advice in regards to content and writing for bloggers?

Penelope
Keep writing.

Stephane
How important do you think are the headlines of your blog articles?

Penelope
Very important. It’s how people decide if they will read or not.

Stephane
What are your main methods of marketing your blog?

Penelope
Write good posts. Joint the online conversation that is bigger than my blog.

Stephane
Which marketing tactic has surprised you the most in terms of its effectiveness?

Penelope
Being nice. A blog is a conversation, not a soapbox. So when I engage my readers, and when I talk with other bloggers, via their blogs, people really respond in a positive way.

Stephane
Do you make any direct money from your blog through advertising, product placements, etc?

Penelope
Yes. I earn a six-figure income from my blog.

Stephane
What is your best monetization method (Ads, affiliate marketing, etc).

Penelope
I sell my blog posts to print and online publishers.

Stephane
Do you find you get more from direct monetization of your blog or from opportunities that come because of the existence of your blog?

Penelope
I think that long-term, the blog opens a lot of doors that are new career opportunities more than direct dollar income.

Stephane
What’s your most interesting story related to your blog and blogging experience?

Penelope
I try harder in marriage counseling because so many people are reading about my counseling experience on my blog.

Stephane
What’s the one biggest opportunity that came to you because of your blog?

Penelope
I sold equity in my blog and spun off a separate company.

Stephane
Any other comments or thoughts you'd like to share?

Penelope
I don’t think people should look at blogging as a money making venture. Every few people can make money off a blog. But blogging opens tons of doors—via networking, especially, because bloggers have access to people they would not otherwise get access to. Blogging is a great way to build a career if you know what you want from your career. This doesn’t necessarily mean that blogging itself is a great career. It’s probably best as a means to create stability in one’s career by getting to the top of one’s field. I think bloggers in general are smart, dedicated, and exceptionally well-informed. Blogging takes a ton of time, so most people are blogging about career-related stuff because that’s the only area that is worth the time commitment. So it makes sense that bloggers would be great hires, and blogging, therefore, will help people to get to the top of their field.

Intuitively it makes sense that younger women marry more easily than younger men— young women are hot, and they are out-earning their male counterparts, while young men are suffering a masculinity crisis. However as everyone ages, the men earn more money and the women have flabby thighs.

But I don't think the issue is, as Easterlin says, marriage. I think the real issue is children. Having kids complicates a woman's life in ways that are not so difficult for men. It's true that men today are more involved in parenting than ever before, but still, children affect women so much that they don't start earning less than men until they have kids.

Here's the deal with parenting: men believe they are doing a great job of parenting no matter what they're doing, and women always think they could do better. So a woman does better in marriage and career early-on, but when she adds kids to the mix, her self-esteem is challenged (second-guessing her parenting) and her ability to support herself is challenged (she earns less money) and she becomes increasingly dissatisfied.

I'm sure a bunch of women will write to tell me that their kids are the love of their life. But don't bother. Because I'm not saying women don't love their kids, and maybe I am saying that the lack of happiness is precisely because women love their kids so much.

So here are three things to do if you're a woman who wants to hedge against unhappiness in later life.

1. Don't have kids. Daniel Gilbert (who has a son) has great research to show that kids do not make people happier. Kids give great joy but also wreak great havoc. People used to think there is something wrong with women who don't want kids. But really, there is something wrong with people who tell you that their kids make them happier: they are lying. Of course, it might not be intentional. And anyway, we lie to ourselves about a lot of things that we can't change. But stop thinking that everyone should have children. Maybe not.

2. Keep your career. In her book, Necessary Dreams, Anna Fels reports that women struggle to have careers when their children are young. But when the kids are older, the women who kept their careers throughout the early years of raising children are much happier than the women who gave up careers. This research does not, of course, take into account who was happy when they were going on a three-day business trip and leaving a one-year-old at home with the nanny. Also, keep in mind that quitting work to have kids and reentering the workforce later is not that difficult for moms today. So get back into the workforce as soon as you think your kids can handle it; the benefits will ripple throughout your life.

3. If you are divorced, get plastic surgery. I am convinced that a lot of the reason women are happier earlier in life is that women have more control over their destiny when they are better looking. We know that people who are better looking get treated better throughout life, and we know that younger women do better remarrying than older women. So women should get plastic surgery if they get divorced so that they can remarry faster.

I say this about divorced women, but to be honest, I'm not taking the advice. It rings true to me, but it's hard advice to swallow. The incurable optimist in me tells me I'll do fine getting remarried just by being me.

But then, that's the trouble with all research—when it suggests a change you weren't already excited about, you decide that it doesn't apply to you. And I'm no exception.

John is the force behind the Duct Tape Marketing blog, which is a great example of how to use a blog to grow a whole business. Today, his blog looks like an empire.

Guy Kawasaki has a very popular blog that I link to a lot, and he's author of a bunch of books about entrepreneurship, one of which we are talking about on this call: Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition.

But that's not actually the end of the story. I got back to my hotel, which, you may recall, I did not even need because I was not staying overnight in that area, and I sat on my bed and cried. Normal. Right? I mean, I did just get dumped.

But then I had to go to a party. For those of you who don't hang out in Menlo Park, which might be 99% of you, there are no real parties there. For one thing, the ratio of men to women is about 1000 to 1. And the ratio of men with life-of-the-party social skills to women is about 1,000,0000 to 1. So all parties in Menlo Park are actually networking events. The line between work and friends is blurred there more than anywhere else in the world. Most people are very high performers, so they can choose to work only with people they want to be friends with. And most people there work all the time, so they have to tell themselves work is not work—otherwise, when would they be doing their personal life?

I sort of fit in with this crowd.  But sometimes I make mistakes. Like, I live in Madison, Wisconsin, where all fashion comes down to some version of fancy camping. When I go to New York, I wear a professional version of fuck-me black, and I feel dressed right every time. In Menlo Park, I thought it would be sort of like New York, but with color. And I don't really do color. So I did white.

Well, I did white after I cried. You cannot cry in white. So I put my blouse on the chair and put on a t-shirt that is good for blowing my nose into, and I wallowed in sadness for an hour. Then I put on the white blouse and black skirt, and I went downstairs to the party. Yes. It was in my hotel. Moments like this—me making sure that my drama episode is in the same place as my next meeting—is what makes me a smart traveler.

So I go to the party and the first person I see is, unbelievably, the most important person for me to see. She is a woman who has reached out to me and done a bit of mentoring and is maybe a little bit too respected in the world to pop up in a blog post like this. But she greeted me with a hug and she said, "You look so nice."

Which means, "You are overdressed." Which I knew when I saw that she was dressed like the guys—the girl version of blue shirt and khakis and ECCO shoes.  So I went upstairs and changed and hoped that too many people would be vying for her attention for her to notice that I changed clothes in the middle of the party.

Back at the party, in pants and shirt, I fit in. I think. But it was loud and the idea of mingling killed me. I wanted to just be sad. But because it's Menlo Park, there was already a social network for people who are going to this party—you identify yourself in this network by how many companies you have started and how much funding you have raised. And people had already seen that I was coming. And emailed me about catching up.

Because people in the top echelons of the business world are fantastic networkers.

Sometimes I think I can keep up with these people. For a long time, I consciously spent one third of my work day reaching out to people and meeting them, whoever they were, to build my network. And it paid off a lot. It gave me more than a few gems, but also, it gave me the stamina for a lifestyle where networking is built into everything I do. I am always thinking about who am I meeting new on any given day.

But what do good networkers do when they want to hide? The first thing I did was make my way through the crowded, noisy room to pick up my badge because it was the last one left on the table and it screamed: Penelope Trunk did not show up!

Then I went to the bathroom. I picked the handicapped stall to get extra room. But I didn't need space for thinking—I needed alone time. So I left. I left the party. I told myself that no one would notice. It was huge and I am from Wisconsin and no one expects to see me at a place like this anyway.

I ordered room service and I read about the recession, which is like celebrating rainy weather on a day you're depressed, and then I took the red eye home.

Then I got an email from Ramit Sethi. He said, “Where were you at the party? I thought you'd be there.”

Actually, let me clarify, he first told me that he is doing something on his web site where he is launching a 30-Day Challenge for people to save $1,000.

I tell you this to tell you why amazing networkers are amazing. Ramit genuinely cared that I was M.I.A., and he is also always promoting something. So he counts on people who he genuinely cares about to help promote his stuff because he figures that they genuinely care about him.

And I do. Ramit is really fun and innovative and every time I talk with him I learn something.

So this is what I did with his email: I deleted it. Because I couldn't think of anything to say about why I wasn't at the party. Then, later in the week, I told myself that he's a friend, and he reads my blog—well, he reads the posts that are not too heavy on career advice—so he probably already read the post anyway and knows why I wasn’t there. So I should send an email saying I didn't go to the party because I needed time to sulk. But I didn't send that because I couldn't imagine a guy writing that, so I thought maybe it's alienating for guys if women who are work-friends write them emails about that.

But then, today, I was thinking about how when I was doing my three years of networking three hours a day, I connected with people all over the country, but my most useful network has grown in the Bay Area. And I think that's because people in the Bay Area are better at networking than anywhere else. And then I asked myself why.

And then I thought: Wait. I have to respond to Ramit. Being non-responsive is exactly the wrong thing to do. So much of networking is just taking the next step to building a closer bond. And the next step is not to hide from the fact that I did not show up at the party.

So here it is. But here's another networking tip: It's not enough to write a blog post. I'm going to write Ramit an email. I'll tell him why I wasn't there, and then, just as he included a link to his blog, I'll send him a link to mine. To the post about him.

It feels good because voting tells everyone that you care enough to leave work—not always easy—and do something that contributes to the greater good. You should ask that question today–it’s a great way to connect.

In the car, I called the farmer for fifteen minutes of fun. I should have been preparing for the venture capital meeting. But I was so tired, and I told myself the call would make me perky for presentation edits.

In that car, on that call, the farmer dumped me.

He has actually dumped me a lot. Five times in four-and-a-half months. In fact, he's dumped me so often that he has already dumped me once when I've been on the phone in a car. And he has already dumped me once when I flew to San Francisco.

So you'd think that maybe this would be familiar and I would just plow through it like the other times. But there is a theme to the dumping. He wants something to be different and instead of telling me, he dumps me. So I convince him that if he asks for something then probably I can give it to him, but he has to ask. So he asks and we go on a few more weeks, and then he dumps me again.

This time, I realized that I should not keep convincing him to ask for something instead of dumping me. I think I realized this after I twittered that he keeps dumping me and it was like confessional because I hadn't told anyone before, and the universal tweet response was that I should get out of the relationship.

So this time, when he dumped me, I decided it was really the end.

I said, Okay, and we hung up. Nothing else. You might think that being together four months would mean we have stuff at each others' houses. But the farmer is 38 years old, and he's never been in a relationship longer than four months, so I think we both knew that leaving anything at anyone's house was too optimistic.

Which means it's a clean, no-strings break.

Which would have been completely true if it weren't that I was so sad. And if it weren't that I had to give a big presentation two hours later. And on top of that, I didn't have the sales numbers finished that I would need for the meeting.

So I took drastic measures. I could tell I was in shock and I was going to need to cry and I didn't have anywhere to break down. So I got a hotel room, even though I wouldn't be sleeping over. I sat on the bed and stared at the wall and got scared that I would never be in love again in my life.

Then I worried that I would not be able to hold my life together. I have too much with the kids, and the divorce and the company and now being dumped. It's too much.

But then I realized that I never fall apart. I get through lots of stuff and people always say it's so much but really, what else can you do? People get through what they have to. So then I worried that I'd get through this but I'd be numb. One of those people who is great at work but checked out everywhere else in life. I worried that I wasn't crying.

I didn't cry. I opened my computer and realized that I didn't even have the numbers I needed for making a slide. So I called Tim, the guy who helps me with my PowerPoint stuff. And I said, “Where are the sales figures?”

And he said, “Where is the email you said you'd send so I could do the sales figures?”

And I said, "Crap."

So we worked on the slides, and I know my voice sounded like I was trying really hard to hold it together, but I hoped that Tim thought it was because I was nervous that I was missing the slides.

I said, "I hope the guy at [renowned VC firm] is nice."

Tim said, "You don't need someone to be nice. You need someone to be direct and honest."

And then I started crying. I said, "Tim, the farmer dumped me."

And Tim said, "Again? He dumped you last time you were out here, too."

"This time I'm not trying to convince him," I said. "And I do need someone who is nice. I'm sick of direct and honest. I want nice."

Tim said, "I'm sorry." He suggested that maybe I should move the slide about my accomplishments to the front of the presentation so I can feel good about myself right away.

So I redid my makeup to fix the teary mascara. And I put the slide in the beginning of the deck, and I went to the meeting.

I ate three chocolates in the lobby because I remember reading that kids who ate a chocolate bar right before the SAT scored higher.

I pitched the company. The guy said he was familiar with my site.

"You mean you read my blog?"

"Yes," he said.

I told him that my company is not my blog. Then we ran through all the company stuff.

At the end of the presentation, this is what he asked me: "Who was your childhood hero?"

My first thought was that this was like a classic interview question: "What food would you be if you were a food?" And I decided that it was important to give an answer that I could talk about in a way that would be consistent with who I am. And who I want him to think I am.

I said, "Judy Blume." As soon as that came out of my mouth I realize that I was going to have to talk about myself as a writer, and not as a CEO. And all investors want to grill me on my ability to lead a large company. Except the investors who immediately think their friend will run my company because I will be a blogger.

It's times like this, paragraphs like that, when I think, what am I doing? How am I ever going to get funding when I write so often and openly about my dark, funding underbelly? I used to tell myself that the investors have no time to read my blog, but in fact, the investors are so enthralled with reading my blog that they have started asking for advice on starting their own blog.

And still, I keep writing. Because when I think about how I got though last week—the too-much travel, and the high-pressure meetings, and being dumped for the fifth time—the only thing I can think of that will make things better is to write about it. All of it.

And then I think that the investor is a genius for asking me my childhood hero because it does, in fact, reveal who I am. I just have to keep reminding myself that Judy Blume is not only a writer. She is an empire.

Are you wondering if you're good at image management? Ask yourself how you responded to that first sentence. If you said to yourself, "I am not consumed by what other people think of me—I have enough self-confidence to just be myself," then you are probably bad at image management.

Because it's not so cut and dried as either being ruled by everyone else or just being yourself. In fact, managing your image is mostly just making sure that people see you as your true self and don't get side-tracked by things that easily derail our perception of other people.

Here are three ways you need to manage your image and you might miss these opportunities if you're not paying attention:

1. Hang up on important people.
It's clear that voicemail is a dying technology. Email is much more efficient, and it's rare that leaving a voicemail is better than sending an email. But if a phone number is all you have, then you better be ready.

Which happened to me last week. I am raising funding for my company, and I had to call up a powerful, famous venture capitalist. I had an introduction to him. I had his cell phone number, and I was very nervous about getting the message right. As a writer, I wished I had his email, but I didn't. Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe his cell number is more valuable to have anyway. Maybe harder to get.

So I rehearsed my voicemail—connection to the guy first, then my phone number, then what I want from him (a meeting), and then my name and number again. Ready.

Then I dialed and a recording said my message would be translated to email.

I went ahead with my rehearsed message. Which was totally stupid. An email should not read like a voicemail, so I had the wrong message for the wrong medium.

Now I know, for the future, that if that happens, I should hang up immediately and recraft the message I'm going to leave: Probably just a name and a number and the name of the person who referred me. Anything else probably won't get translated properly by the voice recognition software anyway.

2. Compare yourself to losers.
A lot of your performance at work is about perception. For example, research from Tiziana Casciaro shows that if people think you're likable, they will perceive that you do good work. And if people don't like you, they will perceive you do bad work—even if you are a genius at work.

Also, it's important to manage up—let people know what you're doing well—so that they know what you are accomplishing at work and why you deserve to get great assignments.

The problem with all this is that you need to walk a fine line between pushing yourself to be a star performer and feeling good about what you have done already. Complacency is for losers, but so is perfectionism.

You need a balance. Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University studied Olympians and found that people who win the bronze medal are happier than people who win the silver. Because silver medalists compare themselves to the gold medalists, while bronze winners compare themselves to people who didn't get a medal.

If you compare yourself to low performers at work, then you feel successful, and if you feel successful you will be happier. This is circular, but in a good way, because people who are happier at work do perform better. Even against high-performers.

Gilovich sums it up this way, "Happiness is not a trait but a talent. Finding balance between achievement and satisfaction." This is an example of how satisfaction is not actually material to the achievement, but more mental. So be sure to allow yourself enough satisfaction so that your achievements are recognized and people appreciate the chance to work with you. For many people, this means comparing yourself to the losers at work. But that's good for you, as long as you keep on improving. (Hat tip: Dennis Yang.)

3. Spend money on image when money is tight.
Are you wondering how Sarah Palin could spend $150,000 for new clothes last month? If you don't understand why she needs those clothes, you probably are not spending enough on your own image. The key to knowing what to spend money on is knowing what people are paying for, so you know what you're cutting corners on.

For example, expensive bangs are very different from cheap bangs. If you don't know the difference you don't know whether to get crappy bangs. The same is true for eyebrows, and highlights. Newsflash: Good highlights in LA and NY are $300, without a haircut. And you have to get them done every two months.

Sarah Palin is going on TV every day. She has no idea how to look like the other people in that league, but she is doing what Republican stylists say, and she looks great. Who doesn't look great in an Armani suit from Saks? That's the thing about expensive. Expensive is safe, especially if you don't know what you are doing—you will look like you know what you're doing.

And don't tell me about Michelle Obama's $150 dress. She made headlines when she wore it on the View because making that outfit look great is hard to do.

So if you want to look like you belong at a certain level, you need to pay for what others in that league pay for. Work is a club. And if you think people want to see you cutting corners in a bad economy, you're wrong. Time magazine reports that Playboy—the grand arbiter of all image consulting—found that in a bear market, centerfolds of meatier women sold better. This makes sense: In a down market you naturally want to be around people who don't seem to be suffering from the financial hardship.

In a centerfold, it's meat on your bones. In the workplace, it's an Armani suit.