Seth Godin talking with Penelope, live this Thursday

,

Guess what? I’m going to Seth Godin’s house for my next webinar, which is super exciting to me because I’ve never met Seth, but I love his ideas. (It’s 1p est on April 29. Sign up here.) Seth and I will talk about his book, Linchpin. And I will thank him a thousand times for the encouraging emails he sent to me when I was moping on my blog that I was in my dip and I was worried that I couldn’t make it.

And you guys will ask questions that we will answer.

When I was talking with Seth about what we will talk about he wrote this back to me:

My take is that [generation Y] is the last one that will be as totally brainwashed by the system, by the schools and by companies and by society to believe that the industrial age (and compliance) is their ticket to the carnival. The smart ones will see that and play a different game, and the sooner they realize how bad the scam is, the faster they’ll recover.

I’m excited to hear him talk about this. And I’m excited to hear the questions you’ll have for him.

Sign up here.

/49 Comments

Webinar. How to be a millionaire from your blog. Really.

, ,

You would not know from my blog that I actually make money from it. The first reason you wouldn’t know is that there are no ads on the blog. The second reason you wouldn’t know is that I haven’t posted in a week.

In fact, though, blogging has made me tons of money. I could say millions. It’s sort of semantic though, the millions part, because even being the Big Mac guy at McDonald’s makes you millions if you add up salary from a forty-year career of burger flipping.

I tell you guys all the time to forget about making money from your blog. But I also tell you to post at least three times a week to have a blog that is useful. And look, I’m violating that rule. So I think I’ll just go ahead and violate my other rule, too: I’m going to do a webinar about how to make money from blogging without running ads. (It’s Wednesday, March 31 at 8 pm eastern. Sign up here. )

I guess that another thing about my webinar about making money from a blog will be that it takes a lot of self-discipline.

I think I have self-discipline, but honestly, I’m not sure. Because right now the only thing I’m doing on a daily basis is obsessing about what color to paint the dining room of the farmhouse that I want to treat as the historical building that it is, but I’m drawn to geographically inappropriate color schemes from French provincial life. Read more

/110 Comments

Announcing another live video chat and something else.

,

It is not lost on me that my blog is slowly becoming a platform to announce video chats. So I think I’m going to have to do some fast confessing so that you guys don’t all unsubscribe.

I’m getting married to the farmer. Yep. April 17. Well, not really. I mean, I can’t totally get married because at the beginning of Brazen Careerist, I funded the company by not paying my taxes, so I owe a ton of taxes, and if the farmer and I got married, the IRS would put a lien on his farm.

So we are having an unofficial wedding. Very small. I would tell you how small, but I am not allowed to write details about the farmer’s family. Suffice it to say that on my side, only two people are coming.

And my kids. The kids really want to see a wedding. They would actually like to see me dressed like Cinderella. Because that’s what they know about weddings and princesses, two things that my kids are pretty sure go together. Instead, we will just go out to dinner and bring a wedding cake. The cake will be extravagant, and that’s what will let the kids know something big has happened. Read more

/160 Comments

Live video chat: How to find career fulfillment

,

I keep wanting to use the word webinar, but I can’t decide if it is too jargony. This lexical conundrum reminds me of when the word workout went mainstream. It sounded too jargony to me, and I used to say go-to-the-gym and a not-so-snappy stand-in.

Should I use the word webinar?

Should I tell you how many times Ryan Paugh told me that I have to announce the webinar if I want people to come to it? I kept not announcing anything because I didn’t know what to call it.

Whatever we are calling it, it will happen on this Friday, 1pm est. (Sign up here.) I know that people in Australia cannot listen at this time slot. You have told me before, and I’m listening. One day I will do a webinar at midnight. One day I will record webinars so it won’t matter so much what time slot they happen in. One day there will be world peace.

On Friday we will talk about finding fulfillment, which is actually like establishing world peace, just doing it one person at a time. In an act of full disclosure, I’m going to tell you that knowing what to do is not the hard part of finding fulfillment. Doing it is the hard part. It’s like breaking up with a terrible boyfriend when the sex is really good. Not that I have ever had this problem. I have found that part of what makes a terrible boyfriend is terrible sex. But whatever. I can imagine the problem. The problem is that you know what to do and you don’t do it.

Wait. Actually, that’s the problem with everything. Like, I knew I was going to have to write a post about the webinar where I don’t know if I should use the word webinar. I knew it wasn’t going to change if I waited so long to write the post that Ryan Paugh wants to kill me. But I waited anyway. Why do we not take the action that we know is the right action? I will not be covering this problem in the webinar.

But sign up anyway. Here.

/51 Comments

How to get unstuck in life

,

I am a person who lives and dies by her to-do list. And right now, I'm dying.

I'm dying because I am following all the prescribed rules except one.

Here are things I'm doing well:

1. I clear my inbox. I deal with each email the second I read it—by responding, deleting, or transferring to my to do list.

2. I have a single list. I have A's, B's, and C's for my priorities, so I can tell what is most important to do on any given day.

3. I make sure I have long-term goals. And I put them in my list of A's. I identify the items I must get done before the end of the day. But I also add at least one non-deadline-based item that helps me reach a bigger, life-changing goal.

4. I rewrite the list every day by hand. Because if something on the list is not worth taking the time to rewrite by hand, it's not worth taking the time to do.

5. I make sure I get all the A's done first. Only then do I move on to less important items. Just kidding. I don't do this. But I should. Honestly, I can tell that it doesn't really matter if I follow all the other rules when I'm not doing this one. Read more

/161 Comments

How to find the most fulfilling careers

, ,

Thanks to dating sites, we have a great way to gather data about the human condition without having to write grant proposals to the National Science Foundation. I first became aware of this bastion of data when OK Cupid announced that older women benefit from showing cleavage in their photos, but younger women don’t. I immediately started showing more cleavage at work because we know that people want to do business with people they want to date, and men think women who look datable are actually harder workers.

Now the site that specializes in matching married people looking to cheat, AshleyMadison.com, has released its list of the most adulterous professions based on the 1.9 million people who are registered on the site. (via BoingBoing)

Here’s the list: Read more

/90 Comments

Live video chat: How to find the hidden job market

,

This video chat will take place Friday, March 12, 1pm eastern. (Sign up here.) This chat will be about how to get a job by looking in the right places. (And, I am experimenting with mysterious titles for my video chats. Do more people sign up if the title sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery?)

The last video chat was so out of control that I actually got reprimanded from just about everyone in the company. Except Andrew Shell, who said it was funny and funny is all people care about.

So I have a choice of doing a private chat for Andrew, or I can switch up the format to be less obnoxious. And, as I am trying to be more likable, being less obnoxious will be good for me. So this week I’m doing the video chat alone. And for those of you who are disappointed that Ryan Paugh won’t be there, take solace in this: The headset for doing the video alone is much better with my hair than the headset for doing a video with Ryan.

Sign up here to join the video chat on Friday.

/39 Comments

The biggest triumph is getting out of bed

,

Psychology Today did an interview with me. It was about my most triumphant moments in my life, and how I overcame obstacles to get there. I knew immediately that the interview was going to be a disaster, so I told them I wanted to do the interview written, rather than on the phone.

Then I didn't write the interview for a week.

Then I complained about the questions: I don't really believe in triumph. Because the most triumphant moments are the days when I have no idea how I’m going to fix anything, but I get out of bed anyway. On the other hand, the moments of huge achievement are not actually that hard to get to. By the time you’re close, you are so motivated to get there that it doesn’t feel like work at all.

So I wrote that. And then I felt bad. So I tried to give an example. People like examples. And I like Psychology Today. And I didn't want to disappoint them.

So I wrote that the moment when I was a freelance writer and a new mom and had post-partum depression but I knew I had to keep working so I had to get out of bed and write. Maybe there were fifty moments like that. Or five hundred. But those are the moments of triumph. The thing is, I think it was probably messed up that I kept working and did not check myself into a hospital. And then I started thinking that all my moments of triumph came at the heels of me having done something totally terrible. Read more

/152 Comments

List of things I hate #3

,

This is not an exhaustive list on the topic. In fact, it may be an inexhaustible topic. There are older lists of what I hate. So today’s post is merely my most recent list.

Which is notable because hatred is a process. Neurologists have proven that love and hate are closely related, and I have found it’s hard to hate a person unless I am also close to that person, and the same is true for a topic. In that vein, life is the process of expanding our love and our knowledge, and I suppose, our hate.

So here are some things that I have recently reached the point of thinking so much about that I feel qualified to hate them:

1. Sarcasm
The use of sarcasm is always inappropriate. Sarcasm reveals insecurity and cynicism — both things that make a person unlikable. Sarcasm is always negative in meaning, and the tone is always disparaging. On top of that, people who use sarcasm think they are being funny, but this is a poor man's humor; because comedy is about timing. You say it, then there's a beat, and then people laugh. With sarcasm, you say it, there's a beat when someone realizes you've said something you don't mean, and a beat to process what you did mean. The timing is off.

So comedians rarely use sarcasm because it's not funny. And top performers don't use sarcasm because it's mean. Read more

/196 Comments

Live video chat: Blogging Bootcamp, Tuesday March 2

,

Yep, that’s right. I’m going to tell you how to write a blog that will help you meet your goals. Tuesday night at 8 p.m. eastern. The chat will be upbeat and inspirational. At the beginning. And then I will rant about my pet peeves. For example:

  • Why you should not try to make money from your blog
  • Why you should not start a second blog
  • Why you should take care to link to other blogs, a lot

But mostly, I’ll answer your questions, which you can ask in real-time.

I’m doing this video stuff with Ryan Paugh. (I am linking to his personal blog to show you that I take my own advice.) Ryan keeps coming to these events a little bit drunk. But that doesn’t stop us from getting rave reviews. Here’s one he forwarded to me from his mom: “Great job, Ry.”

So sign up here. And you will have a great blog. Or you will at least know why you don’t.

/84 Comments