This story begins at 3am in the Orrington Hotel when I am answering emails. I woke up in the middle of the night to my son vomiting on the bed, which we are sharing, and now smells faintly of chewed up room service fruit plate. Read more
Many of the coaching sessions I do center around a single question: is it time to switch careers? What I’ve found is that in most cases, the answer is no, it is not time to switch careers.
Here’s why: We are absolutely terrible at predicting what we will like to do in our careers, and we overestimate how much we’ll like a new career. Read more
If you want to understand Generation Z (born in the 200o’s), take a look at Pope Francis. He is not just a new pope. He is revolutionizing the Vatican in a way that Generation Z is likely to revolutionize secular institutions. For those of you who are not following Pope Francis, you should. He is so cool he makes me want to give money to the Catholic church. He is a Gen Z mascot. Read more
Most of the time on this blog I focus on bursting bubbles. I deliver bad news about finding a spouse, choosing a career and earning money. But the thing that really keeps me going as a career adviser is the good news. Read more
Educated parents have their kids in an average of five hours of activities per week. That’s a lot of driving around to swimming lessons and dance classes, so I understand why people think it’s important to stick with this stuff. I’m like that, too. I drive 20 hours a week to my kids’ music lessons.
But I still say that if you want to raise a really successful child, you should let them quit things. Often. Read more
A famous person emailed me to ask about personality type. I don’t get a lot of emails from famous people. But I do get some. Like, when Melissa was being an executive assistant to billionaires, I was Melissa’s reference.
I could write fifty posts about giving those references, actually, because I was like, “Don’t hire Melissa, because she’ll quit. She can’t work for anyone for more than a year.” Read more
Photographer Dita Pepe has a series of photographs where she shows what she’d turn into with the different types of men she could could have married. The series is often hilarious for it’s ability to make fun of such a wide range of families that think they’re unique but are actually just living out their socioeconomic telos. Read more
As a bulimic in college, the cafeteria was my focal point. At first, it was where I gained fifteen pounds. Not that anyone saw those pounds on me. In college I had the body of a model. Not that anyone saw that, either, because I wore an A-line skirt down to my ankles and an extra-large sweatshirt. Every day. A guy once asked me if I was an Orthodox Jew because I was so covered up all the time. I thought he was an idiot. That’s how big an idiot I was. Read more
Some days I am gung ho about entrepreneurship and I’m spending the day with my kids while money comes in from my blog and my coaching and I think “I’m great, I’m living the 4-hour workweek,” and for one minute I forget that I hate Tim Ferriss. Read more
My husband tells me that when the tractor was invented, farmers who spent their lives learning to be great with horses had to rely on young farmers who understood machinery. It was an era when young people looked like experts in farming almost overnight. Read more
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penelope@penelopetrunk.com