For those of you who don’t remember, a film crew came for three days to make a demo reel for a reality show based on my family.

Here is the problem: we are too normal. I’m not kidding. That’s what the TV people ultimately concluded. But I take being too normal for reality TV as new-millennium Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

The other thing the TV people said was that listening to my coaching sessions was magical. Really. They said that. So I’m writing it for you again: magical. They filmed at our house for three days, which means they heard my side of a dozen calls, and in each case, they couldn’t believe how fast I could figure out the person’s problems and solve them. (And then, of course, I started doing that for the producer of the demo reel. That was a big hit.)

So there is probably not going to be a reality show based on my family. But the good news is that I’m going to focus on doing my own video podcast/reality show where I coach people. I am not totally sure how I’m going to execute that, so if you have ideas, please let me know.

And if you want to know how to specialize, this is the process. You think you’ll be great at one thing, but people tell you you’re great at something else, so do what people tell you you’re great at. Don’t fight it.

So somehow I’m going to be great at reality TV coaching. In the meantime, here is a peek into my too-normal-for-TV family.

I have been trying to think of time differently, so I don’t panic because I don’t have time to do that. I have a job that requires about 60 hours of work a week. And I homeschool my kids. So the only way to get by is to stop thinking of time in terms of work time and personal time. I don’t have enough time to fulfill the needs of those two categories.

I have to find new categories so that I feel like I have enough time.

Tuesdays my son and I drive four hours to Chicago for piano lessons, cello lessons, and orchestra rehearsal. I used to think of it as a terrible day where I drive eight hours and get no work done. But then I realized I could do work while I drive.

So I recategorized drive time as work time, and then I felt better about getting work done on Chicago days. Read more

Of course I have to open this post with something about how stupid college is. Colleges are finally responding to the problem they charge tons of money and then graduates are unemployable and in debt. Colleges are responding by becoming job preparation centers. And Frank Bruni, opinion editor for the New York Times, says this is a waste of time and resources. Here’s what’s better:

1. Skipping college.
The real issue we have with admitting that college is not a path to the work world is then we have to ask ourselves why we send our kids to high school. There is plenty of data to show that teens are able to manage their lives without the constraints of school. The book Escaping the Endless Adolescence is chock full of data, and a recent article by my favorite journalist, Jennifer Senior, shows that high school is not just unnecessary, but actually damaging to teens who need much more freedom to grow than high school affords. Read more

One of the first things I wondered about the Farmer when I met him is why he was even reading my blog.

He told me, “I’m an entrepreneur.”

I was hooked. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I could see that I was going to learn a lot from him, and nothing gets me going like a steep learning curve.

That was five years ago. Today, I read all the farming magazines that come to the house, I sit in on meetings with the seed salesman and the accountant who specializes in farms. The Farmer has a rule that I can listen but I have to wait until the end for questions, because people in the farm community are too nice to tell me when I’m asking too many. “But you are,” he tells me. “Just trust me that you are.” Read more

This post is about productivity. I have to tell you that because this is a career blog and career blogs need topics that fall into the career space. You can’t have a blog that doesn’t have a topic. Even Mark Cuban, who seems to not have a topic because he writes about basketball and colleges and eating at the iHop still has a clear topic: How to make a ton of money.

1. Life is easier if you embrace hardship instead of trying to avoid it.
My blog topic is not how to make a ton of money. It used to be. When I was in my twenties, and early 30s, my focus was money.  But somewhere I realized that I wanted an interesting life more than money. I think it was when I was at Ingram Micro, a Fortune 50 company, and I was blown away at how boring and risk averse everyone was. The Fortune 50 is a study is seeking safety in product lines, in workplace practices, and in a stable life. Read more

The wage gap, of course, is the gap between men and women. We don’t talk about the wage gap between, say, black men and white men because the causes are so visible. Like, most black boys do not grow up with a father, and in some cities 50% of black men have been in prison.

But we talk about the wage gap between men and women like it is some Escher puzzle that we can solve through infinite stories in the media.

But in fact, the wage gap between men and women is as big a red herring as the gap between black and white men. Women don’t care about workplace stuff and men don’t care about home stuff.

I know that’s a stereotype, a cliche. But it’s a cliche for a reason. I’m right. Read more