I played softball from the age of four. You needed to be five. My parents lied about my birthday so I could be with the five-year-olds while my older sister played on the big kid team. You would think anyone who does anything from the age of four is bound to be some sort of […]
career
Don’t Tell Your Boss About The Food Poisoning
If the words “staying close to the bathroom” have made it into any of your “sick day” emails, you need this post. I’ve been there. Especially if you are a perfectionist, type A, overachiever; it’s agonizing to figure out how much detail to give your boss. If you ate at a new sushi place and […]
Listen Better to Win Negotiations, Even With 4-Year-Olds
I took my older son (he’s 4) on a trip to Phoenix to visit family. Our main outing was to the Phoenix Zoo to see this “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” style exhibit called Big Bugs. I’m not into bugs, but we scored a great deal on Groupon, so off we went. The zoo set […]
The Magic Email: How to Hold People Accountable
The Magic Email from the book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss, really works. About the book itself: An ex-FBI international kidnapping negotiator opens each chapter with a crazy-but-true hostage negotiation story. Then he takes whatever tactic was used and applies it to regular life. You […]
Fully Unplug With Time Blocking
The big theme of this post is learning to be a jerk about your time, through time blocking. I don’t actually condone being a jerk. Part of the reason I started this blog was to dispel the whole “Nice guys finish last,” cliché. That said niceness is subjective, and if you read my blog, you […]
Why You Need a Career Title, Not Just a Job Title
Have you heard of a career title, as opposed to a job title? If you look closely at the LinkedIn profiles of leaders in your industry, you’ll start to see it. The “Headline” and “Summary” sections have shifted from regurgitating someone’s most-recent job title, to giving more all-encompassing description that could pertain to a wider […]