I was very inspired by a recent Claire Zillman article in Fortune about the mayor of Sonoma, California. Partly, I was inspired because I believe it is good for our civic life when more women – across all sides of the political spectrum – run for and serve in public office. But Rachel Hundley also inspires me because hers is a wonderful reinvention story. And, a story of diving in…
I’ve got mixed feelings about New Year’s resolutions. I like the “fresh start” feeling that January represents and the chance to renew commitments to our goals or make big changes to our lives. But the research on resolutions isn’t so great – in fact, only 8 percent of people who make a resolution manage to stick to it. One way to take some of the pressure off is to start…
I have a friend who is very accomplished. He’s started and sold companies, built a local startup community, run events and done charitable work. I had lunch with him once and marveled at the long list of achievements on his LinkedIn profile and asked how he managed to do so much. He admitted that he was more involved in some things than others and that he wasn’t solely responsible for…
One aspect of working that can be profoundly impacted by having children is business travel. The issues around travel can be both philosophical and practical. When my children were very little I tried to limit my travel. But in the last few years my travel has increased and they seem to be none the worse for wear. On the practical front, I’ve developed a few strategies for helping my family…
There’s a lot of bad career advice in the world. But early in my career I read an article with this tip: Any time you get significant praise, drop it into a file marked “Hooray.” Then, when you have a bad day, pull out your hooray file and flip through it. It will remind you of all the great things you’ve done and all the great people you work with.…
This weekend’s episode of Bullseye, an NPR show hosted by Jesse Thorn, featured legendary TV producer Norman Lear. It’s worth a listen for many reasons, but at the very end of the interview Thorn asked Lear what it was like to be producing six network sitcoms – all of which were in the top 10 in the ratings – at the same time. His answer was wonderful. He said “Was…
Everyone knows that networking is the way to get ahead in the world. Everyone also knows that networking, for most of us, is hard. There is a ton of great advice out there about how to network without networking. It’s worth seeking out. But one tactic that has worked for me is making fabulous introductions. So let’s start with a basic principle: connecting begets connections. When you connect two people for…
A story this week on Quartz.com (a publication I’m becoming increasingly obsessed with) was both fascinating and not the least surprising: a study found that mothers outperformed their childless peers, as measured by output of academic research. There are a million caveats to this study, which looked at PhD economists, including the bias found in a pool of high-powered academics. But I think there’s something to this theory, in part because…
The internet revolution has been a boon for parents and caregivers in so many ways. We can use a variety of platforms to connect with each other across states and time zones and also find others like us, right around the corner. The internet has also made working from home possible in a whole new way. And for those looking to restart their careers it is now possible to launch…
The media narrative on working moms isn’t always pretty. Generally they seem to revolve around questions like: How do they do it? Can they have it all? There are many mornings that begin with #facepalm because of some story that seems to reinforce a tired narrative that doesn’t describe my life or the lives of many women I know. So it was with relief, amazement and joy that I read…
