The most fun I ever had interviewing someone was when I talked to Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard University. It was about a year ago, and I thought I would just ask him a fast question about how much money someone needs to be happy. (Answer, about $40,000 a year. That’s enough to […]
I spent two hours this week writing an article about autism. My son was diagnosed with autism and I could write five hundred pages about dealing with the diagnosis. But then I reminded myself about specializing. About focus. Specialists get a lot of good things in this world, and people who dabble in everything get […]
Most jobs turn out to be very different than what you were told about in the interview. So your first task in your new job is to figure out what the job really is. Most people don’t do this which is why there is a whole cottage industry of people who coach for the first […]
Movie mogul Mark Gill, the guy who produced blockbusters on a shoestring like “March of the Penguins” ($77 million at the box office) and “Good Night, and Good Luck” (six Oscar nominations) has been fired. Well, officially resigned, but really he was pushed out because he can’t get along with his boss. The New York […]
My husband and I both want to be home with our kids while they are young, and we downsized our standard of living enormously to do that. I made a career change from software company executive to writer. This has been great for me. It’s a career that can grow big, but there is lots […]
The reason you need to take breaks from your work is that if you don’t pick your head out of the trees you’ll never see the forest. Great ideas do not come to those continually mired in details. Your brain needs a moment to relax. Most of us know this intuitively. The problem is that […]
The best companies to work for are those that understand that priorities among workers are changing. In fact, Laura Shelton and Charlotte Shelton conducted a nation-wide survey about worker priorities, published in Generation NeXt. The survey showed that for Generation X, “Recognition scored very low, and power and prestige ranked dead last. Salary, a major […]
The new workplace currency is training. Title is not important if you’re not staying long term. Salary increases of 3 or 4 percent are ceremonial. So use the clout you earn to get training; it will make a difference in a way salary and title cannot because training can fundamentally change how you operate and […]
The book I’m reading right now is by twenty-five-year-old Ryan Heath: “Please Just F* Off, It’s Our Turn Now: Holding Baby Boomers to Account.” The book is great and offers incredible insight into what young people have to offer and why baby boomers need to get out of their way. It’s published in Australia so […]
You have to specialize. Not right away, but figure out how to own some sort of niche. It is the key to your freedom. A specialist in a large company can demand flexibility, but a specialist also has an ability to leave corporate life and succeed on her own, which is something generalists can’t easily […]