Tiny kindnesses can save a childhood

Before there were charge cards, before there were dual-career families, there was second-grade me, shopping after school. “Charge it, please,” I’d say, like a suburban Eloise.

I shopped because there was nothing to do at home after school except fighting with my brother. And every time one of us got hurt, we’d get in trouble for calling our parents at work. The fighting got worse as we got older, and we began to understand: not even blood would get their attention. So we ignored each other, which felt worse than fighting, so I didn’t go home after school. Read more

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As a podcast guest I discuss: Am I optimistic or delusional?

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

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What a good career coaching session really looks like

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

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Melissa is getting married

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

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The reason therapy doesn’t work

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

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How to recover from a bad decision

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

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We need to talk more about Melinda Gates

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

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What good mentoring looks like

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

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Take more advice. It will help you.

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

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How to manage a career right now

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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

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