I was a guest on Sarah and Meghan’s podcast last week and the most important topic I covered was that I lost 35 pounds. Check out that picture of the new, svelte me at parent’s weekend. (The semi-pained look on my face is becase I was promising I’ll separate my son’s PayPal from my bank account even though I have no plan for how.) Read more
People who are not my kids think it’s really interesting to listen to my side of a coaching phone call. In fact, lots of people say they’d pay to hear both sides, but it’s clear to me that if someone knows another person is listening to them the call gets useless fast and sounds more like a job interview. Read more
I confess that she got engaged way earlier than just now. I had to get used to the idea. It’s a big change and of course I’m happy for her, but I’m nervous about the change. Read more
My brothers are always the first people to send an email to say I misinterpreted research that I’m linking to. (Which I accept as a love note to let me know they read my posts.) So last week when my brother sent me a link he thought I’d like, he also sent me a summary: Read more
Many of you have asked what happened with Kate. In case you don’t remember, Kate was a homeless teen I found myself coaching in Florida. When I realized she was homeless I bought her a plane ticket to come to my house. We made our guest room into her room. I bought her all new clothes, and I told my sons to stop asking how long Kate is staying for. I told them, “This is her home. It’s the only home she has. She leaves when she wants and comes home when she needs to. Just like you guys will do when you’re older.” Read more
I took my son to a Lady Gaga concert.
I could tell you that. And I could tell you I take at least one kid on every business trip I have, and they are sick of it, so I tried to make Seattle fun by adding Lady Gaga. Read more
This is a guest post from Cassie Boorn. She is 25 years old, and she is a social media specialist at a large public relations firm. She is also a single mom to a six-year-old son, and they live in a town in Illionois with a population of 2000.
I read Penelope’s blog posts about abuse and bulimia and failure and oral sex and I wondered if I could ever be that brave. I built my career by becoming friends with big bloggers, and I decided I wanted to make Penelope my friend.
So I hired her for a career coaching session because I knew if we talked on the phone she would remember me. After that I just kept emailing her links to stuff I thought she would like and pitching her for projects I was working on.
She hated all of the projects I pitched her. Read more
In the last week I have written three blog posts that my editor told me are stupid. The first one was about the Olympics. April Ross, a silver medalist in beach volleyball, said that she quit playing indoor volleyball because the practices were too regimented. That made me realize that there are some professional sports that are entrepreneurial. Beach volleyball is one. The coach works for the players, instead of the other way around, and the players drum up their own money instead of receiving a paycheck from the team.
My editor said, “I hope you have a great photo for this post, because your readers generally don’t respond with much gusto when you write about entrepreneurship.”
This is true. So then I wrote a post titled, “I hate USA Today and I don’t fucking care if you’re sick of me ranting about how women cannot have it all. I’m still writing about it because I’m so pissed.” Read more
I have never been great at picking my own clothes. I’m great at interior design, but I have a blind spot for clothes. So I email Melissa photos of my outfits, and she uses her photographic memory of my closet to edit my outfits.
When I sent her this photo, she said: “What is this?”
I only wanted her opinion about the color of the shirt, so I thought it was okay that it was blurry. But the more I look at the picture, the more I think that it’s how I feel about myself right now.
I am not quite sure who I am, right now. And given the current career climate, this is actually how most people see themselves, too—blurry from constant movement, settled on the basics, but unclear on the specifics.
And then I read an article in Fast Company this month titled Generation Flux. The article is about how careers are constantly moving and our identity is therefore moving as well.
So I am focused on how to make myself more clear about what I look like. At least right now. And here are things I think we each need to do to pin down our moving-target, career-jumping selves. Read more
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 the person won’t want to help me again.
So I started forcing myself to ask for help. Like, I put myself on a schedule. And the result was not so much that I got good help (I did) but what I really got was good at asking questions. Because I thought so much about it.
Here are things I’ve been noticing about what makes a person good at asking questions:
1. Surround yourself with people who make you curious.
The first time we had a bonfire at the farm I was dating the farmer and he was winning over my boys with tree climbing and hot-dog roasting. I was concerned about fire safety, but I knew it was hopeless when I realized that the number-one rule I learned about building fires — put them out before you go to bed — does not apply on the farm. He just lets it burn out itself. Read more