It may seem odd to be talking about starvation at a time when most of us are indulging in an abundance of holiday food, but the starvation I’m referring to has nothing to do with what we consume by mouth and everything to do with how we nurture our professional growth. As I write this [...]
The saying, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got,” finds pathetic voice in Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. As she did in her previous book, Nickel and Dimed, this cultural critic formulates a theory about jobs in America and sets [...]
Unlike the frog who failed to realize he was in boiling water until it was too late, I fortunately became aware that I was chronically tired before the downward spiral this form of self-abuse inevitably triggers had taken me to the danger point. The breakthrough came when I participated in a leadership program with Joan [...]
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and I am writing this with a large pot of tea beside me. It sounds very civilized, except that I made the tea because I am tired, and I felt compelled to work on this column. Instead of taking a nap, I chose to take a stimulant and fall back [...]
Every summer at the Nauset Regional School here in Eastham, Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Institute hosts a number of important thought leaders in the fields of psychology and organizational development. When I moved here seven years ago, I didn’t know that this exciting educational venue even existed, much less that it would turn out to [...]
Although the dream of finding and holding on the right job with the right company and never having to look for work again is still alive, there’s an increasing number of people who need look no farther than the contrast between their own and their parents’ employment histories to see that it is more myth [...]
I was catching up with a dear friend, talking about all that had happened in her life since she was laid off from a company where she’d worked for many years. Although she had been restless long before the layoff, she had postponed taking action (despite my urging), hoping that seniority, a track record of [...]
Today, as we all know, work comes in two basic varieties. It may be a conventional employment arrangement, traditionally known as a “job”. Or it may take the form of a contracted service, consulting assignment, preferred vendor status, etc., traditionally known as freelancing. When I started out as a career counselor, the job was the [...]
In my experience, it’s highly unusual to find a young person just starting out who is able to recognize when his career is not going in a direction that will ultimately lead to work that is fulfilling, and who has the courage to change course early on. Josh Siegel is just such an exception.
A few weeks ago a client asked me if I’d ever watched “The Apprentice”. I hadn’t. (For those of you in the same boat, it’s a TV “reality” show where contestants compete to keep from getting fired; the winner is hired by Donald Trump at the end of the season.) My client told me that, [...]
Some of you may remember Jack LaLanne, whose exercise show on daytime TV was helping people stay fit long before anyone had ever heard of Richard Simmons. (he’s still at it, at the age of 90). For many years, he has been in the habit of celebrating his birthday by doing some amazing physical feat, [...]
A journey is the trip after you’ve lost you’re luggage.—Anonymous (quoted by William Bridges) This winter marks the official beginning of a book I have decided to write which will explain my approach to work search to the world. For weeks, I’d been trying to come up with an outline that satisfied me, but [...]
