We think we’re supposed to want to grab that Boss brass ring, because many our co-workers are clamoring to break out of the cube farm and earn the right to an office with an actual door. But what if the glamorized idea of leadership just isn’t for you? What’s a stellar individual contributor in a...
The person you are today, not the you that showed up on your first day. Think back to the first day of the job you’re in right now. Ignore the sweaty palms &/or pits and think about the version of yourself you brought to your cubicle. It was the best version of yourself, wasn’t it?...
Buckle up for the roller coaster. So, you’ve given yourself permission to dream about what this proverbial “dream job” might look like in your life which means you read Part One, and you’ve started imagining what it might feel like to get paid to do something you don’t have to merely tolerate. Something you more...
Giving yourself a permission slip to dream Henry David Thoreau probably didn’t know when he wrote, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined,” that it would end up on fridge magnets all across America. We don’t do magnets in our house but we do do books, so this is...
Cut from the fatty, boneless part of a pig’s belly, pork belly is the stuff that makes chefs swoon and then tattoo themselves with images all things swine. A close cousin of bacon (the pig’s other righteous claim to fame), pork belly is the stuff that makes brunch worth waking up for. And when it...
And sometimes work involves hard work. Happiness equals reality minus expectations. This beautifully simple definition of happiness is one I keep coming back to whenever I’m anything less than ecstatic (so, often). When we’re bummed by our work, it’s often because we’re comparing our day-to-day experience (reality) to the fantasy (expectations) we let Confucius confuse...
(If you care about being happy.) The single most important thing you can do to be happy at work (and life) is to figure out what you value — the things that matter to you — and then do everything you can to live your life in accordance to what you’ve listed on the back...
About 56,839 people are canned each day in the U.S., which means that about 56,839 people each day find themselves somewhere on the freak-out spectrum (most at the “full-fledged” end of the range). The 56,839 is a measure of people both laid off and discharged, so let’s say for the point I’m trying to make...
It started back in 2011, on a late-fall day near the tail end of an unreasonably gloomy stretch of rain and sleet. I remember sitting in my office, acknowledging the initial stirrings of career disenchantment (a feeling not a lot unlike indigestion mixed with the way it might feel to have a missing limb; you...
For those of us who want to spend our time better. For those of us that get a certain kind of high off productivity (hello, fellow happy workaholics!), the feeling we’re really looking for is flow. (You know, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's gift to positive psychology? I can't pronounce his name either. First or last name. I think his...
And it's not just a money thing. Asking for a raise is never easy; many would rather do something stupid like speak in public or bungee jump off a shady-looking bridge than politely inquire about maybe getting more money for services rendered. But having been a boss and having coached a bunch of bosses, I...
And you might want to, too? I hate job titles, precisely because I used to love them, and they didn’t always love me back. I used to be a judgey-judgerson; yes, judging others by their titles, but mostly judging myself and what my title said in size eight font on my business card about how...
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