Damsels in Success

Could you describe yourself in just 3 words?

Last week I was asked by a potential client to describe what makes me different from everyone else... in just 3 words. I blew it. And I’m so annoyed with myself for that.

I was in the car when the phone rang, the baby was crying, the traffic was jammed and I wasn’t fully present. I probably shouldn’t have taken the call but when the name flashed up on the screen I couldn’t help myself. I really want to do work with this woman! And in my eagerness I may well have stuffed up any chance of that!

We hear all time how important it is to have an elevator pitch and to be able to explain what it is that we do for a living. I’ve heard it said that men are better at this than women, but I don’t think this is necessarily true. Maybe it’s tough for women to resist being verbose – it has been said after all that women speak three-times as many words every day as men. But other studies say this isn’t necessarily true either.

In any case, I do believe it’s important to be able to describe what we bring to the table in a succinct and clear way. I just didn’t realise I’d ever be asked for just 3 words! So I hadn’t ever given this much thought. I have now though, so I’ll be prepared for next time. Just like I’m prepared to ask a question at every meeting I go to so that I appear to be interested and to have a view. One of my favorite mentors (a man) taught me years ago to do this, when I was just starting out in my career, and it’s advice I always pass on now to the women I mentor. It works a treat in building a reputation as a do-er.

So how do you come up with just 3 words? I looked back through the feedback and testimonials I’ve received as a consultant and speaker and looked for the common themes. You could do this to by asking people you work with for just one word to describe you. It feels good when you’ve come up with the three – sort of liberating to be able to get down to the essence of who you really are.

For the record, I’m practical, refreshing and real. And who are you, in just 3 words?

www.thesheeoblog.com
www.sphinxx.org

All Over the Place

I'm a bit frazzled and discombobulated lately. There's so much going on around me and in my brain that I'm having trouble latching onto the now and being HERE. Instead, I'm bouncing around from one thing to another, not really getting much done, and not enjoying what I'm doing, either.

The ideas are flowing: 1. Start this; 2. Do that; 3. Go there; 4. Write another one of those; 5. Research; 6. Submit... The list goes on and on and on. I keep reassuring myself that one day there will be more time, more energy, more, more, more. But the reality is: what I have is what I have. I need to start--no, WANT to start--taking advantage of that instead of holding out for the more that never comes. I want to read more, write more, finish more often--NOW. I want to be consistent, disciplined and dedicated to the things I love rather than choosing to spend my time doing things that I tolerate only for the sake of this or that.

I think I fear that discipline will stop me from being creative and taking on new things, though.

I love starting new things. I just don't seem to be very good with follow-through these days. I'm not one to give up on my projects, it just tends to take me more time than I ever expected to get them to the finish line. I'm working on this.

I truly love writing and I want to get back to that feeling of excitement that I used to get when I sat down at a blank screen or opened a fresh notebook. I don't want to become stifled by "have tos" and "should haves". I want to be inspired but I also want to be disciplined.

I'm working on strategies to address these things. I'm practicing being in the present and part of that, for me, is understanding that situations aren't always comfortable or satisfying. I have accepted that I am at a place of discomfort, a place where I'm not happy with how I'm choosing to live my writing life. Now, I'm ready to change it and start writing out loud again.

Are you with me? Are you ready to accept where you are so that you can move forward to the next stop on your journey? Feel free to share your struggles in the comments (they don't necessarily have to be writing-related) so that I know I'm not alone. Or if you're already satisfied with the place you're at, please share how you got there so that we can all learn from your successes.

This post was originally published at Ami's writing blog, Write Out Loud.

Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her.

WARNING: This may rock your world.

This time last year I was in the middle of making an important decision for my career and life. I had to decide whether or not I would resign from a corporate job that looked fabulous on the outside to write on a full time basis. To begin with I had national management responsibilities and was the youngest member of the executive team in a multi-million dollar startup. I was working with like-minded people and reporting to a female CEO worthy of imitation. My pay package was quite competitive and I had a 20-minute commute in mild traffic – and across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge which offers a stunning view of the Opera House.

So who in their right mind would even consider resigning from a job like that? Before you judge me too harshly, know that as good as my job sounds, it was not meaningful to me. It was the role I was aspiring to for years but was ultimately unfulfilling – and that did not feel good inside.

Maybe you’re thinking that I’m asking for too much. I think it’s quite the contrary. I left looking to give more, not receive more.

“How so?” You ask.

I reached a point in my career where I’d taken enough. Among other things, I had the flashy title and the salary I set out to achieve five years earlier. It was time for me to give back.

In this, my final post for 2008, I share with you the questions I answered and the guidelines I followed that led me to discover what I really want to do with my life.

Read – at your own risk – if you’re also looking to lead a more meaningful life.

Start with the end in mind. Begin by asking yourself: “What do I need to achieve in the following five years to feel fulfilled with my life?” When you answer, allow yourself to dream huge. Craft your answer around ‘and’ not ‘either/or’ terms.

If you don’t know what you want, start by writing down what you don’t want, or want less of in your work life. In my case I knew that I wanted to contribute in a more meaningful way. But I did not know what that meant exactly. I knew that I had to do something that was genuinely me. Not follow a ‘me-too’ path. I also knew that selling insurance and managing a team were not what I called ‘contributing’.

Fill your goals with meaning. Now ask yourself ‘Why?’ “Why do I want to achieve my goals?” Identify what it will mean to you, the ones you love, your community and the world in general once you achieve your goals. Take time to look inside. If you find it hard to answer this for a particular goal, be open to the possibility that it could be because that goal is not as important as you originally thought. If that’s the case, don’t be discouraged. Instead use this as an opportunity to identify a more meaningful goal.

Knowing the real reasons why you want something so much will help you stay committed to your goals and focused. For those very reasons, this is the most important step in the process.

Develop a plan. Finally, ask yourself: ’How?’ In other words, ask: “What do I need to achieve my goals?” Focus on the resources that you’ll need. How much time and money will you need? Do you need to up-skill? More education? Experience?

Then take time to think through the obstacles that may come across along the way. Take it a step further and come up with at least two solutions for each obstacle. Make sure not to confuse real obstacles with your fears. To tell the difference, test your thoughts against reality. Are you being catastrophic? Or are you generalizing?

It took me a few days to complete this three-step process, but I guarantee that the time I spent working through it has been one the best investments I’ve made on my career.

May 2009 be a meaningful year for us all.

Take a deep breath – with a little smile.
Silvana

*Rash decisions may lead to career suicide.

Protect Your Passion In 2009

It has been said that "the surest way to keep a man in prison is not to let him know he's there." And the surest way to keep a woman from embracing her pure career ambition is to make her believe she's already done it.

Don't believe it.

Heading into 2009, we women still are not advancing in our careers the way we should. We're not getting the fulfillment we desire or making the money we deserve. And this time it's not men who are holding us back. This time, sisters, we're doing it to ourselves, because ambition—for us—is still a dirty word.

Do you unconsciously buy into our prevailing cultural paradigm, that double standard that says: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitchy, greedy, cold, arrogant females who attract enemies, repel lovers, make rotten mothers, live lonely lives and, in one way or another, miss out on fulfilling lives because of their ambition?

Are you not advancing in your career as quickly as you’d like? Are you not making the money you deserve and getting the fulfillment you desire? Are you afraid of what you might have to sacrifice if you pursue your big goals?

YOU’RE NOT ALONE.

It doesn't matter where we grew up, went to school, or go to work. It's the same whether we're in our twenties and new to our careers, or in our fifties and sixties and among the most highly-regarded professionals in our industries. Today, the greatest barrier to earning more money, getting the power and recognition we deserve, and feeling entitled to stay the course comes from inside of ourselves. We agonize over whether or not we deserve to be ambitious—and about what it will cost us.

High-achieving women of all ages and at all stages of our careers all harbor the same dirty little secret: we all struggle with socially sanctioned failure to embrace our ambition. We all have some version of the same pernicious audio loop playing between our ears:

“Will being as ambitious as I dream of being make me less of a woman? Can I? Dare I? Have I gone too far? Will it cost me my personal life? Will I make enemies? Is it impossible to be a great mother and as equally committed to my ambition as I am to the well-being of my children? Will it make those I care about suffer? Is it impossible to be ambitious and happy? Am I giving my employer or my clients their money's worth? If I negotiate, if I ask for what I’m worth, will I lose the opportunity? Is it wrong to care as much about making money as I do about making a contribution and being fulfilled at work? Does taking credit mean I'm greedy, arrogant? Am I worthy of recognition and power? Do I deserve to go after my biggest, most precious career dreams?”

Ambition is not a dirty word, but as far as many of us are concerned, it might as well be.

Why do so many of us self-sabotage without noticing that we’re doing it?

Because everywhere, there are disempowering ideas about women disguised in positive, and even sometimes flattering terms. The ideas translate into seemingly desirable traits women should cultivate, and we buy into them and internalize them. But these views and attributes are not desirable—they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and they lead to self-sabotaging beliefs and behavior. By accepting them, and action on them, we women compromise our ambition—but we don’t see what we are doing to ourselves.

Our culture encourages women to derive our sense of self from being selfless, by giving to everyone else first and foremost—even at the expense of our career dreams. Could there be a more confusing, contradictory recipe for self-satisfaction? No wonder we drop kick our dreams!

We women have been told—implicitly or explicitly—not to value our ambition as much as our other priorities. Instead, we're spoon-fed a culturally acceptable, watered-down definition of success:

-"You don't have to be unabashedly ambitious. You're above all that. You're sophisticated enough to realize that ambition isn't as important as getting the life-balance equation right. Get balance right and you’re successful, even if you have to sacrifice your dreams."

Few of us challenge the notion that the accepted definition of success might actually be holding women back because it is couched in such a positive way.

How can we take seriously the necessary soul-searching required to discover what we were meant to do professionally when we’re rarely encouraged to explicitly acknowledge and to discuss our pure, unadulterated ambition?

This year, tell yourself a new message: your ambition is not a dirty word. It’s the best of who you are. You owe it to yourself—and the world—to make the contribution you were born to make. You can be as ambitious as you want to be—with integrity, grace, and dignity. And being true to your ambition needn’t cost you a happy personal life.

Here's my new year’s challenge to you:
Go down just as hard for your ambition as you do for any other primary priority in your life, be it lover, friend, child, community. Don't sacrifice your ambition for any reason.

In 2009, let's reclaim ambition as a virtue by adopting three rules:

1. You must love your work. You must be willing to aggressively pursue the professional work you were meant to do and to strive for any career opportunities that inspire you.

2. You must regard your deepest career aspirations as unconditionally sacrosanct. The real way to have a great life is to see your career ambition as a part of your value system to which you must give equal attention, along with other non-negotiable priorities in your life, including your partner, your unconditional dedication to your children, and your commitment to your friends and community.

3. You must feel entitled to earn your worth. You must charge your full marketplace value without self-reproach, without leaving money on the table, and without feeling like an impostor.

If you don't go down hard for your ambition, you're letting the best part of you, the part that the world deserves to have you contribute, rot in a basement. In 2009, let's get her out.

Protect your passion. As the ambitious woman you are entitled to be, I encourage you to answer for yourself, every day, a question posed in Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day":

Tell me, What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

To steal a line from the musical “Rent”, “It’s gonna’ be a happy new year.”

Click here to take my quizzes that assess your own internalized beliefs about your ambition.

Read nuts and bolts ambition advice plus inspirational stories of 500 high-achieving women in my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams.

A Half-Baked Holiday

I haven’t sent out my holiday cards yet. Haven’t even decorated the house. It’s T-minus seven days, and I’m debating with my husband over whether or not we’re going to get a tree this year given that we’re leaving the day before Christmas to spend a few days between the grandparents and in-laws. Is a few days of greenery and the scent of fresh-cut pine in the house worth the expense and time it’s going to take to set it up?

Me, this time last year would have said, “Absolutely!” But add one crazy economy, a 60-hour work-week, a marathon training schedule (I’m running Napa Valley in March), promotion of my new book, and two months of back to back weekends spent filming a documentary, and this damsel is not so yuletide enthusiastic anymore. Don’t get me wrong; I’d much rather be baking rugelach, hanging Christmas ornaments, ice skating at the downtown rink, or scouring the city (or internet) for the perfect gifts. But this season hasn’t turned out at all like I expected, and I find myself juggling way more commitments than I’ve realized I can handle, commitments that have nothing to do with the holidays.

I certainly don’t want to be a Scrooge, but in order to do that I know I need to let go of my all or nothing mentality. I’m the type of person that would rather do things right or not do them at all, and I usually pick the former which often results in excessive stress.

And the truth is these are my own expectations. They don’t come from my parents, my husband, or my job—indeed, they’re entirely self-imposed, I think, from years of being on that self-motivated and driven career path. And, I don’t like to think about this way, but in some regards my own behavior, like the economy of the last decade, has been on unrealistic overdrive: taking on time-management debt that I can’t really handle, over-committing, over-extending…you get the point.

And while everything around me seems to be getting scaled back, I realize that my life, too, could benefit from a healthy dose of downsizing. It’s not going to be easy or fun to trim back my commitments and holiday to-do list, but like cutting out the excess calories or watching my budget, I know in the long run I’ll be better off for it and hopefully gain a little more time to appreciate the true meaning of the season. And like so many of us, I’m especially looking forward to a new year and a chance for new beginnings. Happy Holidays, Damsels, and Best Wishes for a Fabulous New Year!

To read more about Jaye and her latest commitments, visit www.jayefenderson.com

The Changing of the Guard: Understanding people’s reactions to change

My graduate nonprofit class spent a great deal of time today talking about change. It got me thinking about how change can be harnessed, how people react to it, study it and how the concept of it is used everywhere from altering school board decisions to winning presidential elections.

Human beings are naturally resistant to change. We are creatures of habit and crave the comfortable security of our same-old, same-old comfort zones.

I’ve written before about the changes that the public relations industry is going through and how we must either adapt or be left behind. This post delves a little deeper into the process an individual (PR pro or otherwise) must go through when confronting change on a large scale, whether they are taking on a new client, electing a new president, accepting a new position or simply deciding that maybe your old ways of doing things are a little outdated and need a face-lift.

There are a couple things that one must take into consideration first, when contemplating a large-scale change within their current organization.

Create readiness. NEVER spring a sudden change upon staff or clients. You set yourself up for failure by doing this and may find yourself the victim of mutiny (or as it is called in the civilized world, a hostile takeover).

Show, don’t tell. Provide real examples; show the discrepancies between what works and what doesn’t. Having examples of successful organizations or firms that implemented similar changes are a huge plus and a strong motivational tool for those on the fence. Let them see how they will benefit and then on the flip side, provide examples of those which have remained stuck, with little innovation. The more extreme the distance between the two examples, the better tool this will be.

Okay, so you have implemented your changes. Excited, you expect big things but there is just one problem, not everyone is on board. Now what?

Overcoming resistance

There are three types of resistance to change. Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral.

Cognitive resistance usually manifests itself in the most frustrating way. It is hard to identify and can be a real challenge when trying to educate your clients/friends/constituency or whatever. This is the person who smiles and nods and then politely ignores everything you have to say.

Emotional resistance has deeper roots and is harder to identify, but has some telling signals. It is generally based on years of decision-making and deep-seated convictions which will cause a person to shout, cry or become overwhelmed. It can be tough to remain calm, because an emotional person will look for you to be reactionary. Don’t play that game. You won’t win. Just be steady and tow the line.

Behavioral is the easiest resistance to spot - usually because the person is either screaming in your face, or if you are really lucky, throwing garbage or animal parts on you. Do not engage in retaliation. EVER. You will never appear to be the victor. As with those who cry and scream, remain calm, walk away and keep your finger’s crossed that eventually they will come to at least agree to disagree without any obvious sabotage.

So in light of all this, what do you do? Here is some information that will hopefully help you get through it, without having a nervous breakdown.

My place of employment is fairly resistant to change. It is still run primarily by men in their 50’s who look at me like I’ve grown a second head when I start talking about social networking and blogs. To be fair, they like the idea of it all, they just don’t really GET it, or how it can help their bottom line. Anyways….

There are three stages of change, much like the stages of grief. My professor did an awesome job of communicating the idea to us using the analogy of a sky-diver. First you make a decision, get over your fear, whatever. Then you have to go to the place and go through the safety course and then actually get on the plane. Lastly you have to jump. That’s a big one, involving a huge range of cognitive, emotional and behavioral sparks that all have to come together in your brain just right for you to actually get out the door of that airplane.

The first stage, oddly enough is the ending stage. This is where you are acknowledging that the way things have always been done is coming to an end. In my industry and many others this is known as the “changing of the guard“. It is a tough time for many. Letting go of your comfort level can be extremely difficult. You can help your employees and clients through this time by providing adequate support, additional resources for information and showing examples of those who have successfully gone before.

(This is assuming that you are not the first!! If so, then you just have to go for it or sit back and wait for someone else to fall on their face. )

The second stage is the neutral stage. In this stage you have pretty much accepted that things are changing, but you are not quite “there” yet. You are not fully opposed anymore, but you are not fully on-board either. You still have doubts. This stage is crucial. Think of the swing states in the election, the undecided voters. This is your chance to really shine and show what you are made of, and why the change will be so beneficial. This stage is all about showing, reinforcing and providing support. You must be prepared for setbacks, and it is not easy. You will have backsliders, but if you persist, you can and will reach the next stage…

Lastly you have the beginning stage. Ahhhh…new beginnings. Doesn’t everyone just love the honeymoon stage? Everyone is excited, and anything seems possible. You mustn’t lose sight however that you are not the first person to implement change. It is a never ending cycle of slowly fixing a system that is broken or appears to be now, but wasn’t always that way. Like a clock with a million tiny parts, it might take some time and effort to figure out not only what is wrong, but after fixing it, how to put it all back together again. It doesn’t always work the way you think it should, but that doesn’t make it wrong either. You may just have to modify your perception of what is “right” and “wrong”.

It is important to remember that real change takes time. Just as with all the excited people (me included) that got Obama elected, I can really feel that there is a fervor in the air that is truly palpable. Change is possible, but you still must go through the process, nothing good is ever easy.

We, as a nation must go through these steps of change together and my hope is that we make it through the tough times, in order to truly celebrate a new beginning.

Feeding the Little Damsel Inside Us All

Damsels, I am writing to tell you that last night I met the proto Damsel in Success. The circumstances of how this meeting came about are unimportant; just suffice it to say that I found myself a guest at an intimate dinner party hosted by Martha Stewart at her home in Bedford/Katonah, NY. I know; it’s almost too much to believe. Yet, there I was, hours before meeting the First Lady of, well, a lot of stuff I’ve tried many times to do or make, trying to put together a hostess gift for the ultimate hostess. What could possibly be good enough? What could possibly be not far-too-much? What on earth do you present to a woman who really does have everything? And even if you could figure all that out, how on earth do you wrap a gift for a woman with multiple gift-wrapping rooms?

In my distress, I was reminded of an episode from Ellen DeGeneres’s long-gone sitcom, where the actress attempts her first-ever solo Thanksgiving dinner. For any of you who has ever tried this, you know it’s a daring feet of equal parts extraordinary courage and foolishness. I, myself, attempted my first turkey day meal ever for a crowd of 25 (including one vegan, who later arrived and announced she wasn’t eating) a full ten years ago, using recipes found in an early Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Anyhoo, in the television version of this meal, where I wasn’t hosting, but Ellen was, just hours before the start of the meal, she learns that one of her friends will be bringing Martha Stewart as his date. That’s right. Martha Freaking Stewart. As expected, improvised palm frond centerpieces and hilarity ensued.

In the end I chose a gift out of my hostess’s own play book – but rather than homemade cookies or muffins, I carried in an exquisitely-wrapped box of “homemade” books from me and my colleagues at the literary agency where I work.

The truth is, I know many moves from the Martha playbook. There may, in fact, be few of her moves I don’t know. As a young entrepreneur I studied her early ventures. Hers was the first S-1 filing I’d ever read describing the company she planned to take public. I marveled at her moxie (prescience?) in starting a consumer brand aimed at exploiting one flavor of intellectual property by way of several established and bourgeoning revenue models. I modeled my early (and far more humble) ventures on her lead. Had I been presented with an opportunity to actually meet her during any of these early years, I surely would have been unable to carry on a dinner conversation (let alone decide what to wear). Now, years later, as what I can only describe as a more jaded version of myself, I acknowledged the opportunity with a far more relaxed sang froid. Like, you know, no big deal, going to Martha Stewart’s house...

That all changed the moment our car drove through the gates and around her grounds. I don’t care how you feel about Ms. Stewart or her company, I dare any woman reading this post to contain her girlish delight if given the opportunity to be hosted by her. To step into her house. To muse around her kitchen, to note the crisp hand towels in the powder room and observe her choice of hand soap. Let’s face it, Damsels: love her or hate her, Ms. Stewart has served as a trailblazer for us all. After leaving Barnard College, newly married and with a one-year old baby at home, she commuted into Manhattan from Westport, CT to work as a stock broker, all the while studying for her Series 7 General Securities licensing exam. She eventually started the mother-of-all catering businesses, which eventually lead her to publish a book on entertaining, and then a lifestyle magazine, a television show, and then finally, start Martha Stewart Omnimedia, a company with its hands in the television and satellite radio broadcasting, book and magazine publishing, merchandising and licensing pies, among others.

As young Damsels looking to make our own way in the world, how could we not admire her mix of girl and Girl Friday? Her melding of business and the domestic arts? Sure, we couldn’t do everything as Martha does; we weren’t expected to. You’re not as pious as your Rabbi or Priest, are you? (I’m not.) And I’m certainly not all the Martha I can be, either. Although I try to be a bit of the entrepreneur that Martha is, a little every day.

Today Ms. Stewart and Martha Stewart Omnimedia finds themselves in transition. They’ve parted ways with one retail partner, and stand poised to announce their plans for this profitable part of the business in the beginning of the next calendar year. Watching her and the closest members of her team chatting around her artfully set dinner table, I delighted in witnessing both the hostess and spokesperson. Oh, I’ll just admit it. I fell in girl-love with her all over again. And Dams, I gotta tell you, I could go on about the cookies served alongside our dessert (made fresh on her TV show earlier that day), but the real story is in her looks. She is so beautiful. Am I angling for an invite back to see the grounds in summer? Not really. What would I say to her, anyway? Now that I’m back to being a sycophant, I’m nearly guaranteed to be a crap conversationalist. I couldn’t bear the thought of embarrassing myself before an early adulthood hero after I’d (hopefully) managed to pull off a drool-free dinner the first time around.

As we said our goodbyes, Martha asked me to step through the kitchen with her – she had a gift for me. I blinked. Could this be happening? Had I fallen asleep and into an immediate fantasy from my mid-twenties? It turned out no: Ms. Stewart presented me with copy of her latest cookbook, Martha Stewart’s Cooking School, inscribed to me, with my crazy name spelled properly and everything. Now I was speechless. Even though I’m in the book business and am able to get all the free books I want, I had to admit that I’d run out and paid retail for the book I was holding. Like a schoolgirl, I clutched the book to my chest and walked to the car, still blinking.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, having dinner at Martha Stewart’s house (with or without the outrageous bonus gift of the cookbook) was probably on my personal “bucket list” of Top Ten Things, along with the brief time I spent living abroad, my time living in New York, penning my first book, a Caribbean sailing trip, starting the company I now run, and marrying a guy I’m really in love with. If it hadn’t been for this coincidence of hospitality, I wouldn’t have this sense that I did this “big” thing of meeting a personal business hero and a Damsel icon. Sure, it would have felt sweeter ten years ago, but even now it feels like being asked out by that guy you always really liked. It’s validating. It provides perspective. And it helps me set new goals for my “Top Ten” list.

Have you got one of these lists? I recently insisted that a younger colleague make one. As women trying to squeeze in work and personal relationships, significant others and children, we often forget to put ourselves on our gift lists. But the truth is, each of us needs one of these to keep our eyes on the ball – to make sure we’re getting those little moments that validate and provide us with perspective. And maybe even make our girlish dreams come true.

Good Enough Mom

We all know that there's no such thing as work/life balance and whoever said that there was should be kicked in the ass (can I say that here), because mommies - especially the single mothers- are lying to the outsiders, putting on a facade and pretending that we have it all under control when in fact we don't.

No one needs to know that we secretly cry in the shower (for those of us that are lucky enough to get one in) or that we what we really have in our coffee cups is a shot of the hard stuff instead of a soy latte. Truth is, some mothers are just one missed playdate away from losing our friggin minds. But as long as we're well manicured and our kids look like baby rockstars no one needs to know the truth right? WRONG!

There has got to be a point in our chaotic life where we put our masks down and open up to letting others know that we're not OK all the time. Learn to say NO and learn your limits because if you don't set boundaries for others not to cross not only will people walk all over you- you'll lose who you are in the mix of it all.

Learn to say No. "Um, as much as I would like to spend my Sunday night baking cookies for 800 students... NO!"

Set limits. " I can't do PTO meetings everying Thursday in the middle of the afternoon because I have a job and if I want to feed and clothe my children I have to work. Thanks anyway though. If you really want me there you'd push the meeting back to say...3 P.M."

Guilt used to keep me up at night when I had to miss a "must attend" meeting at my children's school, but I realized that the women (and a few men) that were in charge of this were stay at home moms. The meeting hours were scheduled around the feedings of their newborns and their husbands' working hours and that's just ridiculous. When I would suggest a schedule that was accommodating for the working mothers, you would have thought I shot Jesus Christ himself. WTF?

My obligations are to my children. They attend school everyday, perform exceptionally well, are friendly to both students and staff, and are well rounded. I attend the meetings that I can, but I won't break my neck to do so and I encourage the other mothers that rush in with children in tow and everything going to hell to do that same thing. Your child will not become a psycho if you don't. I swear to you.

Being a mom is overwhelming and joyful and full of hits and misses everday. I can't tell you how I get by working, attending school, and making sure that I spend quality time with Keira and Mikey, but I make it work. I don't give more than I can. When mommy is down for the count we spend the night in bed with a good book or movie. I make sure that they are my top priority, but again I'm only obligated to be certain that they have what they need and, if it's earned, most of what they want. I didn't read anywhere in the mommy contracts that partaking in bake sales and raffles was a part of that.

Life is all about enjoying yourself and your family and if you're trying to keep up with the the Alphamoms you're going to stroke out and I will be around to tell you that I told you so.

Why Bother With a Day Job When You Want to be an Entrepreneur?

If you’re sitting there – fresh out of college or in the middle of a career transition – trying to figure out whether it’s better to get a job or start a business, I can assure you that you’re not alone. In fact, in the past week I received emails from twentysomethings across the globe asking me what’s the right thing to do – that’s why I decided to write a post.

I grant you that the idea of not having a boss to report to, of working on your own terms and schedule, and of wearing whatever you please to the office (or only your boxer shorts) would tempt the best of us. The question is, as an entrepreneur-in-the-making, would you be choosing immediate comfort over what you stand to learn from working within an organization – which in the long run could play to your advantage?
Based on my experience in the past decade of earning a living as both an entrepreneur and an employee, I believe that working as an employee can add to your entrepreneurial flare. The key to maxing out on your time as an employee is to be deliberate and aware of what you stand to gain.

Here are some clues:

1. Make mistakes on someone else’s tab. The sooner you accept that mistakes are part of your growth process, the sooner that you’ll stop wasting time dwelling on them and spend more time learning from them. The catch is that mistakes can be very costly and it’s through dealing with mistakes that you get better at handling them. As an employee you get a chance to sharpen your skills in handling mistakes. Hopefully you’ll also get a few basic ones out of the way – while someone else is paying for them. Which means that if you plan to one day have your own business, I suggest that you focus on learning from your mistakes so that you make them only once – on your employer’s tab and not on yours when you own your business.

2. Practice your skills. Unlike learning to be a surgeon, in the business world there isn’t such a thing as live sheep for you to practice your skills. In business, you’re either doing real deals, or you’re not. Working as an employee is the closest that you’ll come to practicing your skills on live matter without risking your own money.

3. FREE training. As a firm believer that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, I still believe that one of the perks of working as an employee is the access to training that you get. For that reason, if you’re drawn to entrepreneurship, I suggest that you make sure that you choose to work with a company that offers their staff top-shelf training. And even if you’re not drawn to sales, I suggest that you get some formal training. The bottom line is that sales is what makes up the bottom-line of any business. Your ability to contribute to it is what in large part will drive the success of your future venture.

4. Learn tried & tested systems. If your employer knows what they’re doing, they’ll have sound systems and processes in place. From the templates that the HR department uses, to sales tracking systems, to customer service scripts, you’ll find that great businesses have a framework that allows them to follow well-designed processes. Because a systematic approach is key to delivering consistently without having to waste resources re-inventing the wheel, I suggest that you take a close look at your employer’s framework. Take the opportunity to learn – one day your own business will benefit from having systems in place.

5. Expand your network. Not that I don’t think that your college buddies are smart or competent and would make for great business partners. But I also believe that a diverse team, with multiple points of view and levels of experience is great for business. And what a better way to find a business partner than through working with someone and finding out if they bring out the best in you – or the worst?

6. Establish relationships with suppliers. Similar to meeting colleagues who could be good business partners, working within an organization is a great opportunity to kick the tires of suppliers. I’ve made it a habit to stay in touch with the ones who deliver high quality in a timely manner (with a smile) and at competitive prices.

7. Try before you buy. As an employee, getting regular income, you have less financial pressure. That’s why you can expose yourself to a few industries and roles before locking yourself into a business or industry. Trying several roles is a great way to learn more about what you enjoy, what’s important to you and what you’re great at – before you risk your own capital in a venture.

8. Get ideas. I’m not advocating that you snatch ideas from your employer, but I do suggest that you keep your eyes open. It’s quite common for employees to spot something their employer needs, be it a service or a product, and then turn around and make them their first client. Be open to possibilities, I say.

9. Learn some tricks. As someone in your twenties, the likelihood is that in your first few jobs you’ll be among the youngest one in the team. Although I do not believe in idealizing people or in giving credit based on seniority, I do believe that as a rookie, you stand to learn from those who have been around the block a few times. I’ve personally found that whenever I’ve shown respect to my older colleagues, that they have been forthcoming with their tricks of the trade. It’s then been a matter of keeping what works and ignoring the rest – respectfully please!

10. Learn what NOT to do. Just as an employer does things right – after all they are making enough money to pay your salary – they also have room for improvement. Learn from their weakest links. But do me a favor – do not dwell on their mistakes. There’s nothing more short-sighted than an employee who focuses on what their employer does wrong. Learn as much as you possibly can from your employer – the good and the bad.

11. Save, save, save. An almost guaranteed paycheck is one of the perks about working as an employee. The trick then is to keep your eye on the ball and save as much of your salary as you possibly can. Granted, wearing designer clothes and owning the latest model toys is a lot of fun, but neither one grows your seed capital for a future business.

I’m not trying to be a party pooper by suggesting that you go about being an employee in a deliberate way. Rather, I believe in making the party work for you (and me) and not the other way around.

Reflecting on Obama's Win

A week after Obama’s win and I have to admit that I am still ambivalent. Yes, I voted for Obama but I couldn’t participate in the wild excitement that swept over the country. The excitement, while legitimate, focused way too much on the promise of racial reconciliation as if by his very existence racism is dead. However, anyone following the vitriol spewing from LGBT leaders in response to the news that 70% of black American voters in California supported Prop 8 will tell you that racism is far from dead.

Even looking beyond the wide-eyed dreams of race being a thing of the past, it has been difficult to muster up a conversation on what policies he will implement to address the economic crisis. The optimism is encouraging but it seems devastatingly blind as though Obama, once again by his very existence will change the world. In fact I would be very happy to never hear the words “change” or “hope” again.

Perhaps there is silence because the day-to-day issues affecting us are so pressing: Prop 8 in California, banning of affirmative action in Nebraska, and budget cuts in social services in New York to come into effect by the end of this month. We want to come together but for every bit of outrage we may exhibit towards a change in law or finance, there is someone else rejoicing.

Can people really come together in spite of their differences? Is that even necessary? The diversity conversation too often denigrates to the importance of friendships as if by being friends with someone different from me I suddenly have greater rights. It ignores one basic principal of diversity: we all don’t see things the same way. As a result we look to the government not only as the securer of inclusion but also as a supporter of exclusion.

So when Obama talks about bringing people together, he needs to emphasize the sacrifices that will need to be made and acknowledge that people view the world through various lenses that make coming together difficult. He alone can’t do much if people aren’t willing to stop passing the blame or being hateful when things aren’t going their way.

Obama has set a remarkable tone for what we can accomplish. Voting for him—an intellectual, a black man, a community organizer, an urbanite—while symbolic and I’m sure challenge for many was merely one step in a long journey toward economic and social recovery. It’s critical that we get more involved. We shouldn’t just be reading about his promises for the economy; rather we should be reading critical texts about economics in general. We shouldn’t just be looking to him for frank discussions about race; rather we should come face to face with our own prejudices and what fuels them.

Investing in YOU

The economy is tanking, your 401K is in the toilet and your house is losing value faster than the dollar. With all the volitility in the financial market, what in the world should you be investing in? Take your eyes off those statements and the plummeting numbers and take a look in the mirror. Now is the perfect time to invest in you.

Yes, you.

The best part about investing in Y.O.U. is that it doesn't necessarily take money, though it will take time and effort. You can't stop the stocks from falling, but there are plenty of things you can do to help you feel a little less wobbly. Every bit of time, energy and money you spend improving your healthy, increasing your marketability, learning new skills or just plain doing what makes you happiest is time, energy and money well spent.

Get some exercise. Research shows that regular exercise can relieve stress, decrease your risk for a variety of diseases, and improve sleep, mood and overall health and wellbeing. Getting to the gym or walking the dog may seem like the last thing on your mind, but taking that time out to get the blood pumping and clear your head will make dealing with your family budget or those extra work hours more bareable.

Learn something new. The job market is tightening, unemployment is rising and there's less money to go around. Make yourself indispensible to your current employer (or more valuable to potential ones) by learning a new skill. It doesn't even have to apply to your career. Whether it's improving your typing speed, learning to knit a sweater or brushing up on a computer programming language, expanding your skill-set will give you more confidence and make you a more well-rounded person. You may not even have to pay for this new knowledge, either. There are low-cost or free resources everywhere. Check some books out at the library or find out if there are any community classes being offered in your area.

Get a hobby. Sure, it's not the most obvious of things to do when you're tightening the purse strings, but having a hobby can decrease stress. Doing something you love just for the sake of enjoyment is pleasure at its purest. Take painting lessons, join a club, read a book -- whatever you choose, just have fun.

Brush up your resume. It never hurts to have your resume up-to-date and ready to go at a moment's notice. With today's uncertainty, it's probably even more important. So pull out your CV and get to work updating it. If resume writing isn't your thing, you can find plenty of samples and tips online. You might also consider hiring someone to spruce your resume up or offer to exchange services with a friend whose resume is top-notch (your babysitting services for her editing help, for example). And don't forget the all-important cover letter. Have a template at-the-ready so that you can fill in the blanks when that perfect position opens up.

Investing in yourself is the most important investment you can make. When you put time, energy and money into your mind, body and spirit you'll find your personal stock rising faster than anything in your investment portfolio. And you can take that to the bank.

Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her. You can also check out her new writing blog, Write Out Loud, a place for writers looking to free the stories inside them.

ENVIRONMENT: Will You People Be Quiet So I Can Think?

Studies have proven that lighting, décor, smell, noise level, temperature, ergonomics, and color can all affect how you feel. If your environment's draining you dry, try these tips for a little refreshment.

1. Make sure your workspace is ergonomically designed. Constant discomfort is a great way to lose energy fast. Look into the possibility of getting ergonomic tools and furniture for your workplace, so you can stay productive.

2. Avoid RMIs. If you perform the same motions over and over again, you may end up with a repetitive motion injury (RMI) like carpal tunnel syndrome, Blackberry thumb, or bursitis. If you're having a nagging pain, see your doctor and determine what behaviors might be causing it -- and what you can do to avoid it.

3. Create a well-lit office space. Bad lighting can hurt you in several ways. Insufficient light causes eyestrain and headaches, both of which are energy bandits. Plus, fluorescents lack the blue light that apparently sparks greater energy in workers. If you can, work under bright incandescent light or natural sunlight.

4. Strive for a neutral background. A distracting office environment can cause you to waste energy on things that don't really matter. Your best bet is not to have anything around that your body has to use energy to either pay attention to or to ignore.

5. Limit your overexposure to electromagnetic radiation. While there's nothing wrong with a little electromagnetic radiation (after all, that's what sunlight and radio waves are), it's a bad idea to get too much of it. Stay at arm's length away from the screen, and be sure your monitor conforms to Swedish MPRII guidelines.

6. Avoid eyestrain. Protect your eyes from your computer by taking regular breaks, and by positioning the screen the proper distance away. Irritated, blurry eyes make it difficult to dedicate your energy to worthwhile pursuits, and staring at a computer screen that's too close to you can quickly give you a headache.

7. Insist on proper ventilation. If you and your co-workers seem to be getting sick a lot, or if you're constantly having to fight off mold, consider checking your building's ventilation system: the building itself might be sick.

8. Reduce background noise. Studies show that constant low-level noise in open-style offices increases stress and lowers motivation, and impairs the brain's cognitive function in the prefrontal cortex. One way around this is to listen to music while you work, especially if you use a set of noise-reducing headphones.

Does your environment boost or bust your energy? If you're not sure, take a close look and learn how to assess the impact of your environment. All it takes is a few simple changes to boost your energy to the ceiling.

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Visit Laura's site, www.TheProductivityPro.com.

Damsel, Protect Thyself

I have had it up to here with people trying to steal my intellectual property! Over the past couple of years different people have attempted to steal my logo and business name, my website content and most recently, to pass off my written work as their own. What I realized in dealing with each of these situations is that these villainous thieves tend to be ignorant of the law and of my rights as to my intellectual property - that is, until I tell them. For those of you running small businesses like my own, beware and know your rights. You are the best protection you have.

All imitation is not flattery, and it is often illegal. When someone tried to make their own website for the same business as mine and to use the exact wording and arrangement of the text on my site I did not find it flattering. When someone copied my business logo and business name and attempted to put it on their own website for use in commerce I did not consider it flattering. When someone attempted to take a book I had written and pass it off as their own I also did not find it flattering. These three incidents have impressed upon me how important intellectual property protection (and knowledge) can be.

Another Damsel, Mary Grieco wrote an excellent piece about Trademark protection which is a great starting point for those of you wondering how to protect your trademark, or your logo and business name. For more on that, please see her post, Entrepreneurs: 5 Tips for Trademarking Your Business or Products.

Often the solution to such a problem is right there in the law, such as the US Copyright Law, federal law which protects original works of authorship including literature, drama, music and art from the moment of their creation. It is little understood, I have seen, that one does not have to apply to "get a copyright" on a work -- the protection attaches upon creation of the work in a fixed form, or when it is created. A copyright may later be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, though copyright protection exists without registration. What that means is that once I write an article or book, for example, I own the copyright to my work, and my work may only be published with my permission and assignment of copyright to the producers. I do not need to apply for protection - it is already there for me.

There is an exception to this rule that the author owns the rights to her work, and that is when one creates a work while under the employment and direction of another party who owns the copyright to the material. This is known as a work-for-hire situation. This specific type of arrangement, which essentially transfers the authors rights in her work to someone else, must be in writing signed by the party assigning away her rights.

The way to protect yourself is to know your legal rights as an author, musician, artist, small business owner, etc., whether you are an attorney or not. The U.S Copyright Office has a very helpful FAQ section on their website which will explain the rules of Copyright in straightforward question and answer format. Please read this and another similar section at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office web site and understand how Intellectual Property (Copyright, Trademark and Patent) laws work so that you can function well in a business environment and protect a valuable asset, your creative work.

Knowing your rights, as I have just discussed, will give you the tools you need to take the next critical steps in protecting your work. If you do run into a situation as I have, there are a few things you can do:

First, pick up the phone and ask the offending party to stop using your work, ASAP. Sometimes calling someone out on their mis-deed is all it takes. I did this by email once and that worked, too, though it is true that there is no substitute for a call or in-person meeting. (This is more of a business solution than a legal one, but in the event you can resolve the situation amicably this way, you have saved yourself a lot of time, energy and perhaps money.)

Second, write a letter to the offending party informing them of your rights to the property in question and tell them to stop using the material immediately. Often once the law is clearly explained to someone, and they see that they are in violation, they will often relent.

Third, seek the advice of an attorney who is conversant in intellectual property issues. You may need their services in the form of a letter from the attorney on your behalf or perhaps even the instigation of legal action as a last resort. (For many people, this is better as step 2 than as step 3, but that depends upon how versed you are in your legal rights.)

Now for the bad news. The immeasurable consequences of having to assert your legal rights are varied and may include things such as the loss of polite business relationships with the offending party or the risk of bad publicity of some kind from this situation. In my three personal examples each person who attempted to steal my work was a friend or long-time acquaintance before this event took place. Needless to say, those personal relationships are over. In addition, the process can be stressful and costly should you need to hire an attorney and the matter drags out over time. However, you must protect your work, name, reputation and yourself. Your success demands it.

Good luck!

Just How Much SHOULD Be Online?

This particular topic is the cause for frequent arguments in my household. With the seemingly omnipresence of the Internet - everyone is online, often living out a completely separate life via social networking sites such as MySpace, LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook.

At the same time identity theft is on the rise, as well as other online threats. Which leads me to my question....just how much should be online?

I did a post a while back about living a transparent life. While I still agree that networking and having an online identity is good and even necessary in some cases, I am beginning to see the merits of the argument for the opposite side.

Just to stop and to clarify, I am on the borderline between Gen X and Gen Y and have a very active online life. And although I came into the game a little later than many of my Brazen pals. I readily admit that I am addicted to email, blog on a regular basis and really enjoy catching up with pals on Facebook.

However, I have also been the victim of a selfish, unprofessional and slightly vindictive reporter, so I am also aware of the dangers of having too much information available for the world to see.

So how much is too much?

I do not publish under a false name or identity as some bloggers do. I am proud of what I write and what I am contributing to society. Lately though, I have begun to wonder about the world that exists outside my online community, which of course includes my family, my job and life.

There are some things the world maybe does not need to know about. For starters, having too much personal information regarding your family, particularly your children, is never a good idea. As paranoid as it may sound, we live in a different world than our parents did and kids are no longer immune from from media hounds looking for a story, or predators for that matter. And I don't just mean children of celebrities. It seems that just about anyone can become a person of interest in this day and age and if you have kids, they are considered fair game for that person trying to dig up information on you. So it would seem, that keeping them offline entirely is probably a good idea.

Something else to consider, personal, financial and employment information. This seems like a no-brainer to me, but I heard recently about a fellow blogger who was duped (incredibly so, because she is a very intelligent person) by someone claiming to want to help her with her blog. She had posted information about what she did for a living and even what the salary ranges are for her particular occupation. I will respect her privacy and not go into more detail, but I realize that the only reason she was tricked was because of the extent of the information that the online predator had about her. (collected from Facebook, her blog and LinkedIn) Curious I did a google search on myself and was somewhat surprised about the amount of information out there. I can honestly say that maybe I have been a little too lax in allowing my personal identity to be broadcast to the world.

I often wonder at times just who is reading my blog and am beginning to think that maybe having an online life is not always the greatest thing. I mean, should I worry about mentioning my professor, or my boss? Are they reading and will they seek retribution? Am I worried for nothing?

I enjoy blogging but have been told that I sometimes cross the line with my posts.

I want to continue doing what it is I do, which hopefully is reaching out to other bloggers, PR students, writers, and anyone really who is on the same wave-length as me. I do not want to put my children or career at risk however so I have much to contemplate.

Does anyone else experience this dilemma or have I finally let Big Brother get to me? Feel free to share your own experiences, positive or negative. We are all online these days and a part of a larger world than our parents ever could have imagined. Is this good, bad, or nothing new? Maybe I am a little crazy, but without comments I may never know!

Balance is Bunk: Either/Or Is False Choice for Women

Dear Debra: I’m 29. My husband and I have an amazing 3-year-old. I’ve worked part-time since he was born. Now, not only do we need my full-time income, I’m dying to dive back into my career. But I feel guilty, like I’m abandoning my son. Plus, we want another baby someday. I just can’t see how to balance ambition and mothering.

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It is worse to abandon yourself than to be away from your children. You are a better mother if you are fulfilled and happy than if you end up bitter and unfulfilled. Who wants an unhappy mother? And as kids get older, they are better able to appreciate—and benefit from—your ambitious choices.

Women who are driven by a passion for what they do cannot be expected to give that up.

Instead of sacrificing your ambitious self, strategize to avoid damage when life feels out of control. You have to be creative about how to spend time with loved ones. You have to do the same with taking time away from work. When you do spend time outside work, make sure you do it in a way that doesn’t damage your career. If you want to have another baby, plan at work so that you don’t lose your position. I worked with one woman physician and radio program host who was up for a tenure-track position against two male colleagues. She chose not to reveal the fact that she was pregnant until after she’d won the promotion, much to the vocal chagrin of one of her supervisors (a woman, as it turned out). By strategizing to keep her competitive edge, she was able to ignore the anticipated criticism and fight for what was due her. Of course, she felt a great deal of internal pressure, as women so often do. At the end of the day, though, she got the position she deserved and managed to have her baby without derailing her career.

Abandonment isn’t just leaving someone—if you’re in the same room as your kids, but you want to be somewhere else, they sense it and they feel abandoned. In a way, that’s worse than if you just go. Not wanting to be with someone is a form of abandonment. So while the work-life balance evangelists treat it as such a simplistic choice, it’s not as simple as, “Oh, I’ll just stay home and then my kids won’t feel abandoned.” Honestly, if you’re ambitious, and you want a career and you give that up to stay at home with the kids—guess what—they’re going to feel abandoned anyway. So go for integration of ambition and love for your family. Expect and accept some imbalance. Embrace the bitter with the sweet. It’s a much happier solution.

Honeymooning at Home: How to Make Every Day the Best Day of Your Life

"I don't want to come home" I whined to my new husband Steve, lying on the warm white sand of Kalapaki Beach, the spot where a year and a half back I had decided I wanted to trade domestic partnership for marriage.

It was the last day of our honeymoon in Kauai. And although I knew I was returning home to a life of fulfilling work, dear friends and family, and several creative projects, I couldn't imagine being more happy than I was buried in my new book Bottlemania, watching perfectly blue waves pirouette in the air, picking up a tan, and sipping a Lava Flow from both hands. (To contextualize, my new brother-in-law Richard wanted to ensure that Steve and I slept on our red eye, and he was doing his part by keeping the rum flowing.)

"The honeymoon doesn't end when we leave unless we let it," Steve assured me. "This is just the start."

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a honeymoon once referenced "the inevitable waning of love like a phase of the moon... In many parts of Europe it was traditional to supply a newly married couple with enough mead for a month, ensuring happiness and fertility" for when real life post-nuptials set back in.

I've tried to make good on Steve's promise, continuing the things about a honeymoon that make it worth having more than once (or if you are in my family - sometimes two or three times- but still, never enough).

There's no reason NOT to honeymoon everyday, to make sure that engagement with one's partner, professional and personal work, and relaxation and renewal never end.

So I share with you five strategies for reframing "honeymoon" as a verb in order to take action and find success and balance whether at home or on a tropical island.

PRACTICE GRATITUDE. A 2-bedroom bungalow on a private Western Kauai beach- a surprise gift from Steve's Aunt Nadine, the Waimea Plantation Cottages' Manager. What is there not to be grateful for? Mosquitoes, an IBS flare up, too many family members to see. I'm ashamed to admit I let these small irritants occasionally get the best of me despite being in what I think might be the most beautiful place in the world. Obstacles take on as much weight as we let them. How can we reframe every challenge as an opportunity to practice gratitude?

BREATHE DEEPLY. Just as it is easy for me to breathe deeply when I'm on the beach, it's easy for me to hold my breath when I get immersed in the minutiae of my life. Every health professional worth his/her co-pay testifies it reduces stress. So make breathing as intentional as anything else you do in a day.

LAUGH UNTIL YOU CRY. Whether laughing at the lyrics of Jawaiian music or at the latest swimwear trends on the beach, I spent most of my honeymoon in stitches. According to Laughter Coach, Dr. Annette Goodheart, "Healthy, non-ridiculing and connecting laughter provides physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits you probably never realized or imagined. We are born with the gift of laughter -it's being serious that we learn. So, learn to laugh, and live, all over again."

PRACTICE LETTING GO. JUMP. As I got into my harness and looked down several hundred feet at the floor of the Kauai rainforest, I could think of a laundry list of reasons why ziplining might have been a big mistake. I'd already gotten married. Was I ready for this latest "plunge?" According to Sidney B. Simon, author of "Getting Unstuck: Breaking Through Your Barriers to Change," fear "warps your perception of your life and what you can do to make it better." It keeps us from realizing our best selves, from evolving into who we were born to be. Conquering fear is not about making rash decisions, but about crafting a harness that makes you prepared to leap and enjoy the ride.

ACT LIKE EACH DAY SHOULD BE THE HAPPIEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE. While I continue to be über critical of an institution that fails at least 50% of Americans who choose it, often propels unnecessary consumption, can all too easily reinforce limiting gender roles, and is closed to many of my dearest friends, I really appreciated that marriage gave me the permission to be deliriously happy. Like a honeymoon, happiness shouldn't be reserved for a few days a year. When I demand happiness from myself, I'm never disappointed with the outcome. As Elizabeth Gilbert says in Eat Pray Love, "Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

Stop the Self-Sabotage - Play it Forward

It’s a no-brainer that our decisions have consequences – the question is do our actions reflect our knowledge of this simple fact?

It was the know-it-all comment by a teen-age girl to her mom that prompted me to re-examine my own actions. As I was going about my own business in the locker room at the local pool where I go for my weekly swim, I over-heard a mom and her teen-age daughter arguing. At the crux of their argument was the daughter’s refusal to place her bag inside one of the lockers. I did not find it surprising that the daughter refused to do so – or even that she rolled her eyes. On the other hand, I found it fascinating to hear how the daughter justified her decision. With some attitude, she told her mom, almost verbatim: “What’s the point mom? It’s such a waste of time to put my bag in a locker. What for?” Now, I’m far from being a mind-reader, but after watching ‘What Women Want’ I’ve become quite good at listening into people’s thoughts. I could hear the mom thinking ‘Yeah right taking 30 seconds to put your bag in a locker is a waste of time! I’ll tell you what’s a waste of time…taking weeks to replace your stolen documents and to earn back your allowance!”

From how that argument unfolded – the mom lost – I learned that what may seem very minor decisions throughout our day, deserve more of our attention because they could end up disturbing our lives in a major way.

For example, while I was working as a pastry apprentice in a hot hotel kitchen in Miami, some days standing on my feet for 12 hours at a time, the last thing that I wanted to do at the end of my shift was clean my tools. A shower and a bed was all that was on my mind. But I learned the hard way that dashing out with a tool-box full of sticky knives and piping cones was not a smart move. After spending an afternoon cutting chocolate cakes and then plating desserts until mid-night, I decided to go home (shower and bed) without properly cleaning my serrated knife. That’s when I found out that staying back 10 more minutes after a shift to run my tools through hot water was a piece of cake in comparison to having to empty out my tool box to get rid of the ant colony that was inside having a feast. What about when writing a document at work, be it a contract for a client or a board paper, or a fax. Do we feel it’s a drag to stop every few minutes to hold down the Control and the S keys? (for my Mac it’s Command and S) Realistically, how much of our time does doing that take? On the other hand, how long would it take us to re-produce the document if our computer crashed? (okay, Mac’s don’t crash as often, but still you get my point) One situation that I’ve been struggling with for the past 9 years is every time – without fail – that we leave the house, my husband asks me as I’m about to walk out the door, if I have my house keys. Almost each time – without fail – I can feel myself roll my eyes (just like the teen-ager in the locker room) and say to myself ‘here we go again’. But, here I go, for the first time ever, I’m admitting to my husband that he’s doing the right thing. He is thinking about the consequences. I’m hoping that following my almost indecent exposure that you agree that as annoying as it may be to check for house keys, that it’s much more aggravating and time consuming to be locked out of the house.

With this I’m not advocating that we lead paranoid existences. I’m proposing that we become more preventive and think through our decisions – even the small ones.

Which decisions could you play forward and stop the self-sabotage?

The Economy is Broken. Are You?

On any day of the year, an estimated 18 million American suffer from depression; and this statistic was compiled before our nation’s current economic crisis! Living just ten minutes away from the World Trade Center, where most mornings I commute into Manhattan from Jersey City with scores of brokers, planners, traders, and bankers, I’m acutely aware that America is not only in a financial crisis, but also a spiritual one. Distressed and/or displaced, we are increasingly aggressive in our dashes for open train seats, unforgiving if another body rubs up against us, and unlikely to initiate a conversation with our fellow commuter. I’ve received more “no’s” and had more events I’m affiliated with cancelled in the last two weeks than at any other point in my life.

According to Marcus Buckingham, a fellow coach and speaker who coined the term, “play to your strengths,” only 17% of American workers play to their professional strengths most of the time. And yet, high workplace performers typically play to their strengths more than 75% of the time. Therefore, says Buckingham, under “normal” circumstances most of us are happy in our jobs, oh, about once a week.

So no wonder we’re not feeling the love. If we are fortunate enough to have a job, most of us are not wild about them chiefly because they don’t adequately showcase our abilities. And if we leave in search of something better, we join 6.1% of Americans who are currently unemployed. While many of my clients are grappling with this disappointing reality by making plans for graduate school, they are frighteningly in good company. Economists are forecasting 2009-2010 to be a record year for graduate school enrollment, ironically just in time for private loans and scholarships to dry up.

So why don’t we all just come home tonight, fix ourselves a stiff drink, cash out what’s left of our IRAs and 401(k)s, and retreat under the covers for the rest of the year?

Because in reality, while there is no denying that we are in difficult economic times, our happiness depends on how we interpret the world as much as it does on what it actually looks like. A lot of coaches, mental health professionals, and meditation practitioners have focused our work on empowering those we serve to embrace happiness. We have argued that although most of us are born with a particular happiness “set point,” we can train ourselves to make happiness habitual, regardless of our life circumstances, if we make it as much of a priority as any other professional or personal goal.

While there are as many recipes for cooking up a happiness regimen as there are self-help authors in Barnes and Noble, I propose the following: a pinch of Pollyanna with a dash of Dr. Viktor Frankl.

For anyone who has not read or seen the Disney classic, (which has been on the boob tube so frequently in the last month I’m convinced most TV network execs must have a happiness coach on staff), Pollyanna Whittier is a young orphan who goes to live with her miserly Aunt Polly in Vermont after her parents’ untimely death. She transforms her aunt’s dispirited town with “The Glad Game.” Anytime she or her neighbors concede to idle gossip, whining, or sadness, Pollyanna challenges them to cite one thing that makes them glad. And in no time, even Ole Aunt Polly can’t help but count her blessings.

It seems simple enough. But does it work?

During this week’s morning and evening commutes, I’ve made a mental list of at least a dozen things that make me glad. While each day I recite my staples- my partner, my family, my cat, my friends, my work, and my health- I try also to come up with a series of people and things particular to that day so that I continue to play the game actively rather than go through it on autopilot. For example, today I expressed gratitude for dressing warmly so that I could enjoy the cool, sunny fall day and for having a night free to spend watching the Presidential debates with my partner. Yesterday, I was glad that I got to do a presentation on one of my favorite subjects, speaking for social change, and reconnected with an old high school friend. Tomorrow, I’ll continue to be glad about receiving a kind email from a former student and who knows what else. But what I do know with absolute certainty is that when my head, heart, and gut are focused on “glad,” I notice myself exerting less effort trying to slay the “sad.” I think I’m back on track for making happiness a habit.

But shifting one’s happiness set point means more than finding daily reasons to be glad. It also entails engaging in purposeful work. In his landmark book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl says that there is a direct relationship between our happiness and our clarity about what we were put on this Earth to do. One of the most powerful questions my mentor coach asked me when we started working together was, “What is the question you were born to answer?” I still get goose bumps remembering the first moment I found myself having to articulate an answer, accepting the challenge to come up with a mission and vision statement for my life. When I know what my purpose is, how specifically I am contributing to a world I want to one day bring children into, it’s hard to succumb to suffering.

As Buddha says, “Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.”

What contributions are you called to make?

Art Attack

I don't know about you, but I could use a break from the constant barrage of bad financial news this week and from trying to read and absorb every detail of the economic crisis. I am going to ignore, for just a few minutes, the on-line stock ticker that is streaming me ever declining Dow digits and the up-to-the-minute presidential campaign drama in favor of having a little fun. (I am guessing you are up for a bit of the same, since you are on this site!)

Here's what I want to talk about today -- art. I confess that it is my passion and my profession. Sadly, I think most people get too little of it in their daily lives, and I am here to inspire you. Yesterday morning a friend and I were chatting over coffee when she asked me what I think about Jeff Koons' crazy sculptures that are on view at the Metropolitan Museum right now and about his work in general. She made it clear that though her children find his work fun to experience, and she actually enjoyed the exhibit on the museum's rooftop herself, she does not give Koons much credence as an artist, especially since he has a factory with close to 100 workers to produce "his artwork."

In the age of star status for artists like Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst (think $200 million in a single artist auction two weeks ago in London spent on things like dead cows in formaldehyde) and Takashi Murakami (kitchy Japanese comic book type figures and bright colors on everything, blending art with luxury commercial goods) things do seem to have gotten a bit out of hand. All of this built upon Andy Warhol's legacy of exploration of pop culture -- we even coined a term for what he did, Pop Art. And now we have these three blue chip contemporary artists wildly famous in their lifetimes as well.

So what do I think? (Let me get up on my soapbox for a moment, and I warn you, though I am short this box is tall!) I'll take what I can get. I think it is terrific that so many people in America know the names of these three living, breathing artists and can, perhaps, even identify works by these artists. It is unfortunate, however, that MORE people can't identify an artist whose work they enjoy or a museum exhibition that really impressed them. If Hirst's formaldehyde soaked shark gets the general public into the Met out of fascination - fantastic! If Koons draws hoards to the museum's roof deck with his shiny metal sculptures, I couldn't be more pleased. I am thrilled that Murakami brought so many to the Brooklyn Museum - and even from other boroughs! Perhaps while there these same people will find something which truly does impress them for something other than an affection for kitsch and shock value, something such as an emotional response to a work of art never seen before or an intellectual interest in a style of art never examined before or an excitement about a previously-unknown cultural tradition. It could be the Koons that speaks to them, or it could be something else entirely -- I am just glad for people to have the experiences.

We need a more hearty appetite for culture. I am not asking you to give up your guilty pleasures such as your US Weekly celebrity fantasy league or your weekly quota of Facebook time, but I would love it if more of us could devote some free time to hitting a museum, perusing the local art galleries, watching a film such as PBS's series Art:21, Art in the Twenty-First Century or reading a magazine devoted to artistic endeavors. There really is something out there for everyone, and you don't have to be on vacation to play cultural tourist -- do it in your home town, or the nearest big city. Need some more inspiration? There are some great things going on in NYC this fall such as the Giorgio Morandi exhibition at the Met through December and the Museum of Modern Art's Van Gogh exhibit, or you could check out new art and new ideas at the Lower East Side's New Museum, and many, many more. I am sure there are other amazing things to see near you, too. If not, come visit us in NYC. We will share!

Okay, I can't stand it anymore. I am going to check the stock market. But thanks for indulging me in a break.

How to Set Up an Effective Office Space in Your Home

I’ve worked full-time from my home since 1992 and can’t imagine doing it any other way. Whether you work full time out of your home, occasionally telecommute, catch up on work in the evening, or run a household, you need some sort of dedicated “office” space in your home. Offices can serve as the family computer center, a place to do paperwork, and the occasional work-at-home office.

The first big question is where to locate your home office. Until the last few years, most builders didn’t catch on to the popularity of a built-in home office. If you have a computer, you might need more than an antique writing desk in the living room. But if you only use your “office” to pay bills, write letters, and return phone calls, you can get away with a corner of the kitchen.

If extra space is difficult to come by in your home, you’ll need to get creative. I’ve seen people attempt to use a hallway, part of a bedroom, and even a closet. However, these spaces can be fraught with disadvantages. It’s difficult to work while children are running everywhere. If you’re working near your bed, you might think about napping constantly. If you’re too cramped, you can’t spread out your work or lay out projects. Personally, I commandeered the “formal” living room—no one ever used it anyway—so it was wasted space. Perhaps you can steal the guest room?

Set yourself up for success. Wherever you end up locating your home office, ensure you put some thought into your decision. If you are going to be working from your home full-time, use this checklist to ensure you’re set up for success and maximum productivity. Here are some initial considerations:

• Where will you set up your home office?
• How will you modify the space to meet your needs?
• Can you lock the door? Can you lock the windows?
• Do you have sufficient lighting for that area?
• Can you get privacy if you need to make a phone call?
• What office supplies you will need?
• Where are the electrical sockets located? Will you need additional power sources?
• Do you have enough storage space, such as a file cabinet, bookcases, credenza, closets, etc.?
• Where you will store back-up disks? Is the storage area safe from fire, flooding, etc.?
• If your home office is in the basement, and if the basement tends to get damp, do you have a de-humidifier?
• Do you have a personal computer that you already use at home? Will you need different software or upgrade the RAM? Will others need to stop using it for personal purposes?
• Do you have sufficient office equipment for your home office?
• Do you have a desk? Is it large enough to do office work?
• Do you need to have a modem installed on your home computer?
• Are there sufficient phone jacks in the area you’ve designated for your home office?
• Do you need a separate fax line, Internet, and business line?
• Do you have voice mail or an answering machine?
• Do you have a smoke detector in your home office area?
• Do you have a fire extinguisher located hear your home office?

Regardless of whether you work full-time from home or a few times each month, your home office has some common requirements.

Furniture and storage. You’ll be sitting a lot, so make sure you’re comfortable. A folding chair will soon make your back ache and your productivity wane. Insufficient storage space will result in piles of paper all over the floor. So make your home office function just like your traditional office. Think through all the elements that surround you while you work:

• A professional office desk and worktable
• Sturdy filing cabinets and drawer space for files (quality pieces that won’t fall apart)
• An ergonomically correct chair
• Bookcases or shelves to hold binders, trays, phone books, and reference manuals
• Stackable storage units that maximize your space vertically
• Large garbage can
• Supply caddy/accessories
• Stackable trays for “in” and “out” boxes
• A large, standing document sorter with slots for envelopes, fax paper, letterhead, etc., that fits under your desk for easy access

Computer and peripherals. This is not the area to skimp—make your computer fly. You do not want to waste time waiting to run or switch between programs. Get the fastest computer you can afford, one that is upgradeable. Within a year or two, it will be obsolete, and you will need the ability to stay current.

• A computer with lots of RAM, a large hard drive, and a DVD burner
• Docking station. Your main computer should be your laptop that can be hooked into an external monitor when you return to your home office (no transferring files)
• External back-up system (like an external drive)
• DSL or cable or satellite Internet connection (no dial-up)
• High-security remote access to your offsite office computer
• USB hub such as Linksys 2.0, which has seven easy access ports to plug in your keyboard, iPod, PDA docking station, digital camera, USB flash drive, etc.

Software. You should select software packages that “talk” to each other, to minimize copying and keystrokes. I personally use Microsoft Office products, because more software is designed around that platform than any other. My contact manager works with my word processor that works with my accounting software that works with my graphics package, etc. Here are my requirements:

• Spam filter
• Internet security and virus protection
• Integrated contact management
• Fax within the computer
• Postage
• Accounting software
• Email software
• Spreadsheet, presentation, and word processing suite
• Calendar or a paper planner

Other technology and equipment for people who work at home. Now add all the peripherals that go with your new setup:

• A separate business phone line and fax line if you conduct business from home so your clients don’t get voice mail saying, “You’ve reached the Smith residence.”
• Wireless headset
• Cell phone and PDA, which can be separate, but optimally one which includes PDA and email access
• Pager or text pager (only if you’re required to carry one)
• High-quality laser printer, copy machine, and scanner (separately or all-in-one)
• Telephone with voice mail

It takes money, time, and creativity to set up a home office. Who knows…setting up a clean, organized, productive office space at home might allow you to consider more work-at-home or other home-based business opportunities.

Just a Small-Town Girl?

Many of the posts on this site for leading lasses in the professional realm focus on how to network within our communities. Any wonder? It’s a networking site! But what about those of us who know the value of professional learning and networking that takes place in person, not just virtually, yet live in smaller communities (say, with populations under 125,000), where networking opportunities do not abound? Jen Dalitz’s recent post “Getting Behind the Communities that Support You” applies to some women more than others; namely, it applies to women who live in cities where supportive communities for women actually exist.

One often overlooked fact is that successful professional women do not only live in urban areas. Take me, for instance. After a two-year career in the corporate office of a Fortune 100 company in Atlanta, I moved 70 miles east to the university town of Athens (population 112,760 including University students) to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Georgia. After two years teaching in Athens’ public school system, I find myself in an office setting again, as a grant writer for the same school district’s administrative offices. While I’m happy to be making a difference by adding value to the school district, I do have aspirations that go beyond grant writing: freelancing, mentoring kids, volunteering, and, ultimately, becoming a director of fundraising and development for this organization or perhaps another. Now, where’s a girl like me to turn for networking opportunities? Clearly, I’ve come to this virtual community, but I need real people to network with, too!

If you’re a woman living in a smaller community and desiring to enhance your career through networking, here are some hopeful tidbits and helpful tips to remember:

1. Resist the desire to think you’re “missing out” by living in a smaller community. Instead, find ways to take advantage of your smaller pond. If you’re not already a big fish, become one! It’s much easier to do that in Nantucket than in New York. For one thing, decision makers are closer at hand and more likely to have time to meet with you personally to hear your good ideas, opinions, and constructive criticisms.

2. Remember you do not have to live in an urban hub to use all your skills in a way that fulfills you, your community, and the wider world. Seek opportunities that get you noticed in your community, and, if possible, in an even wider radius. Example: If you can design web pages, volunteer to design one for your local food bank or Girl Scout troop. You never know who will stumble across your handiwork!

3. Spearhead a professional networking group in your community if one does not exist. Chambers of Commerce or Economic Development Foundations are good places to start; plus, they might give your group visibility on their website.

4. If you desire to network with a certain category of professionals (writers, women, engineers, non-profit professionals, etc.) and there just aren’t that many where you live, see what’s available in the city nearest you. Maybe you’ll have to drive an hour or two for once-monthly meetings or events, but isn’t that face-to-face interaction invaluable?

5. Finally, if in your dreams you see yourself in a larger city (often I do), check online networking sites (Hey, look! You’re already on one!), and become familiar with the profiles of folks who are where you want to be, doing what you want to do. Engage them in online conversation, via blog comments or even emails, and see where the connection takes you.

As for me, while I’m committed to becoming a leader in my small community, I’m exploring networking opportunities that are already here. I’ve just begun to get involved with a couple of different young-ish networking groups here in Athens. I’ll let you know how it all turns out. In the meantime, happy creative networking, my fellow small town gals!

Professional Development for a Cause

A growing trend in many non-profits is to create young professional networks in order to get young adults more involved in the organization. I am a member of several of these groups and I strongly recommend them to young professionals for the following reasons:

1. Network: What I love the most about these groups is that they tend to have young people from different fields working together on a common issue. It’s not an unfamiliar scene to find a teacher, a law student, an investment banker, and a nonprofit president-hopeful sitting together discussing their passion and suggestions for educational equality.

2. Learn Skills: These groups aren’t just about sitting around and talking about an issue; you get to roll up your sleeves and get involved. Whether it’s fundraising and marketing or being a career counselor for a day, you get to develop interests and skills you may not have ever known you had.

3. Give Back: All of your actions go towards the greater good of the organization and the community it serves. It’s not uncommon for discussions to lead to the creation of a new program for teens, or for fundraisers to go so well that more families can be served.

4. Look Good: While the level of commitment can vary by organization, you are never turned away for wanting to become more involved. As a result your work can be placed front and center on your resume. Now, what looks better than community service that demands a commitment and innovation while also forcing you to grow professionally?

These groups allow us to use our passion and skills for good while providing a space to explore new ideas and interests. Below I have listed some organizations; the first three I am a part of, and the others are organizations that I have heard great things about. If you are in NYC, visit their websites to get involved. Also, many of the organizations listed have chapters around the country so you are never too far from learning while giving back!

* Step Up Women’s Network: Step Up Women’s Network is a national non-profit membership organization dedicated to strengthening community resources for women and girls. Through teen empowerment programs for underserved girls, women’s health education and advocacy, professional mentorship and social networking opportunities, we educate and activate our members to ensure that women and girls have the tools they need to create a better future. Recent Event: Photography exhibit hosted by teens enrolled in their teen empowerment program. Cost: $50

* Let’s Get Ready!: LGR’s YPN is a network of young professionals committed to supporting Let’s Get Ready through their mentorship of LGR students, fundraising, donations, and networks There are two main events for people to be involved in: Career Days (providing mentoring opportunities for disadvantaged teens to learn about different careers) and fundraising events. Recent event: Career Day for teens at NYU. Cost: None.

* Emerging Leaders of New York Arts (ELNYA): The group aims to bring together local, young arts administrators to discuss challenges specific to their field and generation. Our events are designed to help build the contacts, skills, and knowledge of arts professional under the age of 35 or with less than five years experience in the field. By focusing on this specific demographic we can empower associates, assistants, and junior level staff to explore ideas and potential they may not have opportunity to with their day-to-day responsibilities. Recent event: Happy hour and book club. Cost: None

* Food Bank for New York City: Food Bank For New York City’s Young Professionals is a special group of successful, ambitious individuals, aged 21 through 35, committed to the fight to end hunger throughout the five boroughs. The Young Professsionals support the work of the Food Bank by raising funds and awareness through social events and campaigns geared toward younger New Yorkers. Cost: None

* New York Urban League: NYULYP is a unique entity of the NYUL designed to serve as an empowerment forum for individuals ages 21-40 that live and work throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The organization trains, develops and educates young professionals to take leadership roles within the National Urban League (NUL), the civil rights movement and society-at-large. Members of NYULYP are defining, developing, implementing and leading the next generation. Cost: $75

* Red Cross: The purpose of the Young Professionals Committee is to build awareness and raise funds in support of the mission of the American Red Cross in Greater New York (ARC/GNY). In addition, it is a platform for grooming members for future leadership roles on its Board of Trustees or the Boards of Advisors of its Area Offices. Cost: None

Business Lessons from Inside a Cold Pool - Part 2

Swimming lesson #2 - Your personal best is the only thing that counts. This is not for the softies – although my questions are somewhat soft.

Is winning the only goal even if it reinforces bad or mediocre performance? I think not.

And is losing the end of the world if a person has performed at their peak?
I think not.

Step outside of the pool with me as I show you what I mean by this.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on a tennis court on a sunny Sunday morning. There, you are likely to find the recreational tennis player who only hit lobs and make-me-cringe sliced shots. I guarantee that by playing that way, that person is beating a lot of other players and annoying the heck out of them too. However are they playing the best tennis that they have the potential to play? Far from it.

That person is so obsessed with winning that they are willing to do anything – even look and play funny – in order to win. In the case of this compulsive ball lobber and slicer, winning does not make them a good player.

Back to the pool.

As a competitive person myself, and not of the healthy kind, it was while swimming on a sunny Sunday morning that I learned to focus on my personal best, on the black line under my lane. Some would say that this means that I’ve lost my competitive edge. I say that I’ve actually discovered what real wining is about.

Is it true, that if I beat someone who performs at a lower level than mine, that I’m a good player? No because beating bad or mediocre does not make me good. What makes me good is being able to perform at my peak. And winning does not necessarily mean that I’ve achieved that. I now know that my ambition to win is a distraction because it tempts me to focus on outcomes, not on the task at hand. It’s when I’m able to be in the moment, focusing on the here and now, that I’m more likely to perform at my peak. At that point, it really does not matter whether I swim faster than the guy in the next lane or sell more widgets than my colleagues.

The black line under my lane has become a reminder for me, inside and out of the pool, to focus on my personal best. That black line is there to remind me that it does not matter how fast or slow the guy on the next lane is going. What matters is the pace of my breath, the follow-through of my strokes and the strength of my kick. That is what will take me to the finish line, not looking side-ways to figure out what the other guy is doing.

As Po Bronson says so well, “jealousy and envy are the enemy of creativity.”

The question for you sitting at your desk reading this, is are you so obsessed with winning, that you’re willing to stoop down to the level of the compulsive lobber/slicer, or are you determined to focus on the black line under your lane to perform at your best - at work and in life?

Entrepreneurs: 5 Tips for Trademarking Your Business or Products

One of the greatest assets of a business, the products it sells or the services it provides, is its trademark. The trademark of a business is what identifies your business or products and sets them apart from others. Too often, not enough thought is put into choosing and protecting a trademark. The consequences could end up being a name with little value or a costly legal battle. Here are five basic tips for choosing and protecting your mark.

1. Conduct a Search

When selecting a trademark, there are two main considerations. First, whether you have the right to use the mark, and second, whether you will have the right to exclude others from using a confusingly similar mark. The ability to use a mark is, of course, the most important. Trademark rights in the United States are acquired through use and not through registration. Therefore, it is important to research whether someone else is using the same or similar mark anywhere in the United States prior to the time you start using it. You would not want to spend time and resources promoting and building your brand only to find out a year or two down the line that someone else has been using the same mark.

Conducting a trademark search prior to adoption of a mark is therefore highly recommended. There are some searches you can do yourself, but it is often a good idea to consult with a seasoned trademark attorney as well. You can use the United States Patent and Trademark Office searchable database at www.uspto.gov, but keep in mind that the only records listed are registrations or applications for registration. Such searches do not uncover so-called “common law” or unregistered marks in which third parties can also have rights. Conducting internet searches is also helpful, but often a search conducted by a professional searching firm may be best.

Be sure not to confuse a company name with a trademark. Searching a state’s corporation records is very different from searching the trademark office records. Therefore, even if a name is available to use as your company name, it may not be available to use as a trademark.

2. Have a Unique Mark

Trademarks can be placed into 5 basic categories: Fanciful, arbitrary, suggestive, descriptive and generic. Fanciful and arbitrary marks are considered to be the strongest marks, and they are generally considered to be inherently distinctive. Fanciful marks consist of words that do not really exist. XEROX, KODAK, and PEPSI are some examples of fanciful marks. Arbitrary marks consist of common words that are applied arbitrarily to the goods or services to which they relate. APPLE for computers is a good example of an arbitrary mark.

Suggestive marks are marks that suggest something about the goods or services to which they are applied. COPPERTONE and GREYHOUND are two examples of suggestive marks. If you know that COPPERTONE is a trademark used for suntan lotion, you can see how it suggests something about the product, but if you were not aware that COPPERTONE was used for suntan lotion, you would probably not automatically think of suntan lotion when you heard the name. Suggestive marks are also relatively strong marks.

Marks that are descriptive cannot be protected without “secondary meaning.” In order to protect a descriptive trademark, it is often necessary to prove that the mark has acquired some kind of trademark significance in the minds of the consuming public, or “secondary meaning.” A mark like PARK ‘N FLY for airport parking lots is an example of a merely descriptive trademark.

Generic marks are never capable of acquiring any trademark protection. A generic mark is one that is the common name for a particular product or service. For example, you would not be able to obtain trademark protection in a mark like VETERINARY HOSPITAL or INTERIOR DESIGN SERVICE.

3. Register Your Mark

Once you have decided on a mark, it is important to file an application to register the mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Although registration is not a prerequisite for trademark protection, having a federal trademark registration signifies that your mark is valid and that you have the exclusive rights to use the mark in the United States with regard to the goods or services listed in the registration. It also puts others on notice of your rights and makes it less likely that someone else will use a confusingly similar mark.

Although the trademark office website has a fairly user-friendly online filing system, it is usually a good idea to have an experienced trademark attorney handle the filing. There are a number of laws in the United States pertaining to trademark registration requirements, and if you are not careful, you could inadvertently end up invalidating your rights.

4. Consider the International Implications of Your Business

In today’s global economy, it is now more important than ever to look at the international aspect of your business. Even though you may have no immediate plans to sell products or offer services outside of the United States, it may be important to make sure you are covered in certain key jurisdictions to protect your brand worldwide. There are unscrupulous individuals from other countries that regularly travel to the United States, find a brand or business that looks promising, and then head back to their home countries and file applications in those countries to register identical trademarks. Then, if you ever tried to expand into those countries, you may be blocked from using your own trademark. In addition, it may be important to obtain trademark registrations in certain countries to prevent counterfeiting. This is especially true for products like clothing, which are easily and often subjected to counterfeiting outside of the United States.

Obviously, you would attain the highest level of protection if you filed applications in every country in the world to register your trademark. This is almost never an option, however, since it would be ridiculously cost-prohibitive. The question then becomes how best to allocate your resources if it is determined that you many need to be protected in other countries. In this regard, you should consider: 1) countries where are currently doing business; 2) countries where you expect to be doing business in the near future; 3) countries in which you are manufacturing products or intend to manufacture products; and 4) countries where counterfeiting is a known problem.

Making these decisions involves an in-depth analysis of your business and international trademark laws. Again, it is strongly recommended that you consult with an experienced attorney to help you with these matters.

5. Protect Your Mark

Even the strongest of trademarks can become weakened or invalidated if the mark is not protected against infringers. As the owner of a trademark, it is your duty to monitor the use of potentially infringing marks throughout the country and take appropriate action to stop third party uses of marks that are confusingly similar. Failure to take such action could result in the loss of your trademark rights.

This is merely a short summary of some of the basics of obtaining and maintaining a trademark, and should not be construed as comprehensive legal advice. It is always wise to consult with a professional to guide you as you start or build your business.

Four Years…One Room.

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
--Virginia Woolf

I recently moved into a new apartment, just across town—about a mile and a half down the road; however, while I didn’t move a deep distance, mentally, this new place will be a huge change.

For the last four years, I have lived my life in one room. The studio apartment where I spent much of my time got me through grad school, a thesis, a year of part-time jobs, job searching, my first year as a full-time lecturer, and the start and finish of a novel. When I didn’t have health insurance, I still had a safe place to sleep. When I was buying Chinese takeout with the last $5 of the week, I still had a warm place to eat it. Through all that, the apartment served me well.

For those four years, I lived in one room with three windows. I could see the television from any corner of the apartment. The smells of the crock pot were present weeks after I made chili. When visitors stopped by they entered into not only my living room, kitchen and bedroom, but also into my entire world.

It’s tough to live your life in one room, everything you own out in the open for anyone to see. But I loved this apartment. It was my first apartment on my own, independent from anyone; the first apartment I was able to decorate for me. The bathroom was mine and mine alone. The dishes in the sink were my mess. When I didn’t want to be bothered, I could lock the door and retreat, the only one with a key to the inside.

But after much thought, I realized that 4 years is a long time in the life of a 27-year-old. We all associate memories with people and places, but we also tend to romanticize and dwell when we’re young. When I first moved into that studio, one year into grad school, I was convinced that it was my dream apartment in my dream city. After years of dragging laundry two blocks down, listening to loud tenants arrive home at all hours, setting mouse traps weekly, allowing visitors to use my bed as a chair, my dresser as a coaster, I now see that it wasn’t my dream apartment—but merely my dream at the time.

So sometime in the last year, I decided to upgrade—from a studio to a one-bedroom. I’ve moved on and up quite literally from the Back Bay, built on the swampy tidal bay, to Beacon Hill where my daily walk to Starbucks and back is better than 20 minutes on the Stairmaster.

Mentally I’m hoping my life will be more compartmentalized. I’ll no longer be sleeping in my kitchen and grading papers in the bedroom. I cleaned out my closets and got rid of the clothes that didn’t fit; the clothes I’ve had since undergrad, the clothes that are four seasons out of style. I threw out all the shoes that gave me blisters.

But the new apartment represents something other than more space and a place for dinner parties. It’s my first apartment without a co-signer on the lease. It’s the first time I negotiated exactly what I wanted done before I moved in. I no longer live across from a dorm and a row of fraternities. I’m sure years from now, I’ll grow nostalgic for the late night shouts, chanting, and laughter through the open front window—but I’m enjoying the quiet neighborhood and respectful neighbors. It’s almost as if I’m growing up.

So as I sit here writing at the desk in the nook next to my new front window, my view has changed, but my perspective is a little clearer. The familiar Virginia Woolf paperweight my Mom gave me for Christmas years ago sits near my keyboard, and though the famous quote references writers specifically, her words apply to all women. All women need a room of their own at some point in their young lives. A room to discover who they want to be, to dream their dreams, to write their stories, and to escape to when the world gives them a rainy day. I now have two rooms, a bathroom, a hall, and a walk-in closet all my own. But nothing can replace that first room on the corner of a busy intersection in the middle of a bustling city. That first room is where the dream begins—that second room means you’re living it.

Time versus Money: The Choices We Make

Every Thursday at 6 p.m. the owner of a pasta shop parks her truck outside a house in my neighborhood and sells freshly made ravioli, cut pasta, roasted asparagus, ricotta cannelloni, tomato sauce, and more. The customers? Women who are hungry for homemade pasta and starved for time. The food isn’t a bargain price, but the shoppers don’t care. They pay for convenience.

In other words, they trade money for time.

As women finally accept we cannot “do it all,” we are increasingly happy to make this trade. I’ve got a friend who hired someone to organize family photos and also pays a manicurist to make house calls. This friend is an attorney with two children under the age of three. She has money. She has no time.

Another friend pays her nanny to start work an hour early once a week and go to the grocery store. I’ve talked to women who have their dry cleaning delivered. And their milk. Every moment squeezed out can be spent with a cooing baby, a jabbering six-year-old or a novel and a glass of wine.

Of course, not everyone has gobs of money. Choice must be made, and we make them—
consciously and unconsciously—all day long.

You stop at the grocery on the way home. Do you buy fixings for a homemade meal that will net leftovers or do you splurge on the prepared dinner?

Do you stay up late to iron shirts or just drop them at the cleaners the next morning? Or maybe you go all out with the aforementioned delivery service?

Do you pay shipping charges at Gap.com or trek to the mall?

If you decide to go shopping, do you dig through racks at Loehmann’s or just buy the outfit the mannequin at Saks is wearing?

Do you clean your house on Saturday mornings or hire someone to do it? And what about the yard?

Most of us can’t afford to trade money for time at every opportunity. But I do think it helps to look at the choices for what they are. Don’t chide yourself for being lazy and buying the prepared dinner. You are not lazy. You simply want time for the things in life that really matter, and if you can afford it, there may not be a better way to spend your money.

--

By Caroline Wilbert for DivineCaroline.com

Business Lessons from Inside a Cold Pool - Part 1

The fact is that you won’t get much of a work-out by staying dry and walking around the edge of a pool contemplating whether to swim or not to swim.

The same goes for work – to make things happen and to call your shots, you just gotta jump in.

And a lot can be learned from jumping in, especially if the pool is un-heated.

Swimming lesson #1: Tackle your fears head on

For someone like me who grew up in the tropics in hot and humid weather ( 32C all year round), cold water is, in Andy Warhol’s words: a threat to my existence (actually he said that about nudity, but you get my point). Regardless of my feelings of dread, for the past three years, my husband and I have been going for a swim every Sunday morning at a local un-heated public pool. And without fail, for close to three years, every Thursday I’d start to have second thoughts about our Sunday swim. (I know, most pathetic!) And by Sunday I could ramble off a long list of ‘valid’ reasons as to why we shouldn’t go swimming – the pool’s dirty, we’ll have to share a lane, we’ll get a cold, we’ll get fungi on our feet and on and on and on. Even though I managed to get myself to go, I really struggled and only did it because ‘it was good for me’ not because it felt good.

That was until one day I decided to tackle my fear head on.

By tuning into the little voice inside my head, I noticed that come Thursday, driven by the most irrational panic, my little voice (which sounded like Woody Allen’s), would fixate on the initial shock that my body would feel when it hit the water. Aha! No wonder I felt like a lamb would when being taken to the slaughter-house! When I picked up on that, I started to question the validity of those thoughts. Sure I would feel very cold as soon as I got into the pool, but how long would that last, especially if I swam fast? Maybe 30 seconds at most? And how long after I got out of the pool would I feel great? All Sunday long? Most definitely! And really, how bad is it to feel shock? Sure, it’s not pleasant, but it’s not the end of the world. Besides, what won’t kill me will make me stronger.

I can’t say that I’ve gotten over my feelings of dread towards the cold water, but now I look forward to our Sunday ritual, despite the cold water. Instead of rambling off a list of excuses, I now have a list of reasons for going.

The same principles apply to work. Bad things don’t last long. Okay, that also means that good things don’t either, but you get my point. Nothing is the end of the world. And anticipation is certainly always worse than the actual event.

In other words, when you’re faced with something you fear or dread, don’t avoid it. Instead ask yourself, what are you telling yourself about it that is making you feel like you have to flee or fight? Are you saying to yourself that it will last forever, or that it’s temporary? Are you thinking that it’s the end of the world, or that nothing really is? And are you surrendering all control or are you taking responsibility? To get into the seat of power, learn to tell yourself that nothing lasts forever, that whatever happens, it’s not the end of the world and that you can control the most important thing – you can choose how you feel.

Next time that you’re faced with a challenging situation, like for example making cold calls to find new business or contributing at a meeting, instead of fleeing from it or fighting against it, tune into your little voice and turn it around by disputing it. Notice how energised you feel afterwards.

To confront my fears, one of the most powerful things that I’ve learned comes from Susan Jeffers PhD in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Whenever I face a challenge, I tell myself that whatever happens I can handle it. To make it work for you, think of the most dreaded and feared situations in your work life and then say to yourself, “I can handle it”. Try it. I’d love to hear if it makes a difference for you.

Most definitely, in the pool, at work and in life, risk-takers risk failing, non-risk-takers risk nothing at all. (Ouch!) What separates the do-ers from the look-ers is do-ers jump in even if they feel the fear. From past experiences they realise that the anticipation is really worse than death itself. They also know that starting something is probably one of the hardest parts of most endeavours. After they’ve started and are doing something, the only way is forward. It’s impossible to find possibilities and solutions when you’re just looking (circling the edges of the pool contemplating whether to jump in or not). Also, there’s some truth in the common saying: “You either swim or you sink.” That only applies when you’re inside the pool. Sure there’s the possibility that when you’re in the pool you can sink – something that is not possible when you’re playing it safe by the pool-side. But if you’re not in the pool, you don’t have the chance of swimming, either. And if you’re in the pool and you sink, well, you’ve learned lessons, which will carry you over to the next experience. And that’s worth every stroke.

What fear will you confront today? I’d love to know.

--
Visit Silvana's blog, www.SilvanaAvinami.com

Does Too Much Education Lead to Oblivion? Are All Grad Students Self-Important?

I have been a little lax in posting lately, mainly due to the beginning of grad school. For those who have been following this blog for a while, you may remember that I really did not think I would get accepted in the first place, seeing as how I did virtually no studying before I took my GRE. I guess despite dismal scores, the admissions office does in fact look at things beside the numbers. That was a relief.

Anyways, going back to school, even if only one day a week has been an eye-opening experience definitely. I thought I was busy before…

Anyways to get back to the subject of this post…

Grad school is really different than college. When I was an undergrad – you had on occasion those self-important jerks that were convinced they knew everything, but it was OK, because you knew that in time they would wake up and smell reality, like when it came time for them to get that first REAL job in the cold, cold world.

There is nothing like an interviewer who doesn’t give a crap about you, your life’s mission or your GPA to put you in your place.

Now however, it is a bit harder to take the BS because the ones in class who are sitting there pontificating HAVE been out in the real world, and they are still that delusional. Scary.

My God...Is that what I sound like?

I like to think that I am an active participant in class. I enjoy the discussions and throwing around ideas, but I am more than a little alarmed by some of my classmates.

Most of the people in my program are older, and like me they are returning to school to either move up the corporate ladder to a more attractive salary or are wanting to change careers entirely. I get that.

But when did it become the "it" thing to do to spout off at the mouth about everything from your political leanings to your choice of transportation on the second day of class? Since when does anyone get to tell me what to think or feel? (Maybe they are Palin fans - after all doesn't she agree with creationism in schools and burning books. Guess she missed the Hitler chapter in her world history class.)

Too many Grad students get caught up in the arrogant and self-serving ideology that they are the next best thing and will single-handedly save the world. Newsflash! Objectivity is a myth and no ONE person will ever save us.

If I ever become one of them...please do the world a favor and shoot me.

Women Say No to Sarah Palin

On Wednesday, September 3, two women in New York sent an email to 40 friends asking them to share their thoughts about Sarah Palin's candidacy. By Monday, they had received nearly 15,000 responses. They've posted the responses on their blog, Women Say No To Sarah Palin. Whether you support Palin or not, the blog is worth a visit!

This is the email they sent:

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce—on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate—that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.

Therefore, we invite you to reply here (womensaynopalin@gmail.com ) with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience—the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.

VIVA!

Sincerely,

Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com

Making Change Your New Comfort (For a Change)

This is my horoscope for the month of February 2008 – the month that I resigned from my job as a national sales and marketing manager to write full-time – I thought it would be worth keeping.

“SCORPIO Your ruler Pluto is introducing a new cycle into your life, which can only take place every 240 years. You can expect a whole new world of connections to open up this year, with early signs this month.” (from Vogue)

Did you get that? “A new cycle…which can only take place every 240 years.” That explains it all.

Not that I believe astrology is the be-all and end-all, but it seems to be the only place where I can find an explanation for the amount of change that’s taking place all around me.

And I’m not talking about the type of change that makes the headlines – like the ‘rapid’ change in technology and medical innovation. I’m talking about those quiet spots where I did not expect to see change in a million years. I’m talking about those people who seemed to have job endurance and much higher career stamina than I do – and because of it, it looked like they were going to stay in their jobs and careers for much longer than they have.

There’s the entrepreneur who set up an entire production plant 10 years ago to manufacture disposable medical products. He recently sold it and is now looking for a change. Last time we spoke, he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. Understand that this is someone who supposedly had his life mapped out as an industrialist. He was not supposed to change. Then there’s the well-paid brand manager at an FMCG – with an MBA from a top school under his belt – who quit his job to work in a government agency. He, who had a ‘bright career’ ahead of him in the corporate world, was not supposed to change either. Then there’s this executive in the finance sector who developed his career at an international level who recently quit to do…he doesn’t know what yet, but he’s sure that he wants a change. And my favourite one of all is the doctor who studied and worked for years to become an oncologist and gave it up to become a public speaker. I mean, come on, she had what a lot of people see as a noble job, saving lives. Nope, that was not enough for her. She too needed a change.

Why am I so surprised? And maybe you’re not? Because until very recently I have been considered by my network of friends (check it out on facebook) as a hopeless job hopper. With 12 jobs and two careers (and a 3rd one emerging) already under my belt in a decade, I can’t necessarily disagree that I’ve hopped around. But I’d like to think that I’m far from hopeless.

Being that in the past 5 years the three times that I’ve switched jobs, I’ve increased my salary by 30% (that’s a 30% pay rise every 14 months) and each time I’ve been promoted to positions with higher responsibility, I like to consider myself a strategic job hopper.

Because I believe in sharing the wealth, below I share with you my top guiding principles as a strategic job hopper:

1. Work with an employer, not for them. Admittedly this is merely a play on words, but believing that as an employee I work with an employer not for them, has been the lynchpin of my career. This approach to work is what allows me to feel that I’m in control of my career and the master an commander of my own ship. I see resigning from a job a naturally occurring change of course, not an underhanded ship jump.

2. Have a plan: Having dreams of your own and a solid plan to make them happen places you in the seat of power of your career. Without either one, you run the risk of being at the mercy of an employer’s agenda and of wasting your life working to help others reach their goals. Personally, for the past ten years I’ve planned my life in 5-year chunks. I’ve found that this time-frame is just right for my needs. It’s long enough to give me the vision that I need in order to stay on track and it’s not too long as to make me feel over-committed.

3. Focus on transferable skills: It breaks my heart every time that someone says to me: “I want to change but this is all I know.” I feel like yelling to them: “Wake up!” Unless you’re planning on doing something as specialized as brain surgery – and even then – there is no such thing as starting from scratch. The world does not work that way. If you look and think hard enough, you’ll be able to identify skills that you already have that carry over to other jobs, professions, companies, industries. I’ve worked in the fashion, restaurant, medical, finance/insurance, and IT industries in as many roles, and I have always found that a big chunk of my experience and skills carry over. Knowing that regardless of what I choose to do I’m never starting from scratch is in large part what has given me the cojones* to change jobs and careers as many times as I have.

4. Be open and able to learn quickly: Learning is an inevitable part of the change process. Heck, even if you stay at your current job you need to learn new things. Of course the requirement to learn increases significantly when you change jobs (and companies) and yet again when you change industries and even more if you change careers. I’ve done all of those in the past decade and I can tell you that the steepest climb takes place during the first three months. I’m not exactly sure why, but almost on the dot, like clockwork, things begin to feel better at the end of month 3, and then again at month 6. What this means is if you can endure 3 months, max 6 months, of intense brain stimulation, you’ll make it over the hill. Trust me. And by the way, I’ve found that sleeping 8 hours every night usually helps my brain take it all in during those times when it’s being bombarded with new information.

5. Be open to learning from mistakes: Mistakophobia (intense fear of mistakes) is up there with cancer as one of the worse afflictions in our society. It’s those who are afraid of making mistakes that never learn and consequently never grow. It’s those same people – the mistakophobic – who tend not to change. The reality is that when you step out of your comfort zone, the risk of making mistakes increases. It follows, that to be able to change, a healthy attitude to making mistakes will go a long way. Being able to accept your mistakes, learn from them and get on with things quickly is crucial. The key is to be able to recognize what went wrong – with the sole purpose of preventing the mistake from happening again – and to be able to quickly get back on the bike again.

6. Have an open mind: It’s vital that you’re able to accept that when you change courses, things may feel uncomfortable at first. Trust me, given time (and I mean 6 months tops), things will feel more comfortable. In the mean time, keep it lite. Nothing is the end of the world. Not even getting fired from a new-found job because in my book that would be an opportunity to learn something new.

I say, keep the change, the lessons and the experiences coming!

What do you have to say?

*cojones: Colombian Spanish slang meaning to have courage, chutzpah or guts

-- Visit Silvana's blog, www.SilvanaAvinami.com

9 Tips to Ensure Your Renovation Doesn't Go Awry

DIY (“do it yourself”) kits abound at Home Depot and Lowe’s. These days, people are so used to doing things themselves that, when it comes to retaining a contractor to do home renovations, many homeowners – and lots of professional women among them -- decide to make the selection and retention of a contractor a DIY project too. Sometimes all goes smoothly, and sometimes things go awry.

One friend who moved out of her home with her three young sons (the oldest being 5 years old) for a major renovation project called for advice recently: “There has been no activity at my house in 2 weeks, there is no siding or windows on the second floor, it is raining and the dumpster in the front yard has been overflowing for weeks. What should I do?”

My friend is a professional with experience in real estate and contracts and she felt comfortable negotiationg her own contract with the contractor. As we began to discuss the contract, she immediately apologized for the terms of the agreement, saying she had not gotten many of the provisions she wanted. I was not surprised. Even people who are great negotiators in business settings can become less so in personal situations. And, when it comes to people’s homes, I see this all the time. In my friend’s situation, this was true also. She admitted that she should have known the contractor might not perform well because the contractor’s reference for the most recent project raised questions – apparently, there had been work stoppages, late payment of subcontractors, etc. However, she ignored what the reference indicated because she liked what the contractor had done to two other houses in the neighborhood and she felt she could control the contractor on her project.

To make sure that your home or office renovation goes as smoothly as possible, here are some tips:

1. Have a plan. Know what you can do in your space. Measure it. Review your lease, condominium, co-op or homeowners’ association by-laws and regulations, deed restrictions and local zoning requirements to understand the limitations and requirements of construction in your space. Consider whether, based on the scope of the proposed renovation, you can remain in your space during construction.

2. Have a budget. You may have a general idea as to the estimated cost of your project and how much you want to pay. To come up with a realistic budget and fine tune the scope of your project, get competitive bids from at least two (2) contractors, preferably more, with detailed breakdowns for each phase of the project so you can compare bids. Then, decide what should be included and excluded from your project. If you plan to vacate your space during renovation, remember to include in the budget the cost of the alternate space. Do your homework by researching and pricing vendors for lighting, millwork/cabinetry, carpeting and appliances.

Understand also that any subcontractors or vendors recommended by your architect or contractor will come at an additional cost. Architects and contractors get mark-ups on subcontractor services. You can minimize this mark-up by (a) selecting your own subcontractors and/or vendors; (b) putting a cap on the mark-up (percentage increase over material and subcontractor cost which goes to the contractor) in your agreements with the architect and contractor; and (c) taking control of portions of the project that do not require “construction” expertise. One caveat to hiring your own subcontractor is that your bids may come in higher if the subcontractor is not sure that you as the general contractor or the general contractor you have hired will schedule the job so that their work will be done efficiently. For example, both electricians and plumbers have work that continues through several phases of construction starting with rough carpentry and have to wait in some cases until sheet rock, tiling and flooring are complete before they can finish their installation. If they believe their work will not be scheduled efficiently, they will charge a premium in their proposal.

3. Get the right architect/designer for the job. Select an architect or designer who specializes in your type of project: home improvements, co-ops/condos, office space, etc. If you have a lease, co-op or condo, make sure you hire the professional who will meet the requirements of your landlord, building or association for renovations. For example, many buildings require licensed professionals with insurance certificates provided in advance of starting any renovation project. When interviewing architects, you will want to be sure the architect is listening to you when you describe your goals and desires for your project. You want your space to be designed for your life, work and use, not for an Architectural Digest spread.

4. Research contractors. Ask your architect, co-workers, neighbors, friends and family for recommendations of contractors. You can start your research right now even though you are not ready to start renovations by keeping your ears open when friends and colleagues are doing renovations. Once you have identified potential contractors, ask the contractors to provide you with references and call the references. Before calling the references, put a list of questions together to ask each reference and take notes of the responses. Confirm your contractor has a state license to perform renovations (if required in your state), and check with the state department of consumer protection and local better business bureau to confirm whether any complaints have been filed against your proposed contractor.

5. Have a contract which keeps the contractor focused on your job. Relationships with contractors are similar to “partnerships.” It is better to have a written agreement that deals with the potential of things not going as planned and have it reviewed by a neutral third party (such as an attorney) before signing. You may use the attorney review of the contract to give yourself time to think about the terms of the contract. The timing and amount of progress payments in the contract can keep the contractor focused on your job. When deciding on the scope of the work to be done under the contract, let the contractor do which he does best (build, electric, plumbing, paint, carpet, etc.) and hire other vendors for “finish” items such as cabinetry, telecommunications, computer and home theatre installations.

6. Get a list of suppliers and subcontractors and their contact information from the contractor at the outset of the project. Then if the project does not progress as planned you have the list of subcontractors and suppliers who have bid your job.

7. Get a building permit (or require the contractor to do so) if one is required. Make sure each trade pulls the appropriate permits as the job progresses and, if you are in doubt, call your local building department to confirm. At the completion of the project, be sure that the contractor gets the certificate of occupancy issued (if required) before getting his final payment as many times the “final” inspection for the certificate of occupancy highlights several items which need to be completed for the certificate of occupancy to be issued. The certificate of occupancy is important for resale and compliance with building (lease/co-op/condo) requirements.

8. Document the Progress of your Project. Keep on top of the contractor during the project making frequent site visits at different times of the day. Keep a notebook with notes of daily activities at the site and take digital pictures as the project progresses. In your notebook keep track of which subcontractors are on the site each day and when materials are delivered (this may be helpful if a mechanic’s lien is filed).

9. Deposits and Payments. Before you give anyone a deposit, make sure they are in good standing with their suppliers and have a good reputation in the business community. Deposits for cabinetry, countertops and appliances are sizable. If your vendor who is “holding” a deposit goes “out of business” before your materials are delivered, for all practical purposes you have lost that deposit. Similarly, you don’t want to double pay for the same work. If you give your contractor payments in advance of work being completed, there is a chance the work may not be done and you will have to hire someone to complete that work. If the funds requested by your contractor (or progress payments under the contract) are for deposits on large material orders, require a copy of the order placed with the supply house (and call the supply house to verify a deposit has been made on the order) before giving the contractor a large payment.

Whether it is your home or office (your home away from home), a renovation is a very personal project. You want to be sure it is done well, on time and within your budget. So make your plan, and then work your plan.

The Baby Train – When Will I Get My Ticket?

I was at the gym last week and after my workout I went to the locker room to change and shower as usual. In the 30 minutes I was there, three different pregnant women came and went. On my way home that same day, I stopped at the grocery store and saw a pregnant woman in every aisle I traveled down. Is it just me, or are there pregnant women everywhere right now?

OK, so I’m almost positive that pregnant women aren’t turning up with more frequency these days. It does seem that way, though. You see, I’m 32 and I have yet to have a child of my own. My biological clock is ticking faster and louder than ever—so loud that some days I’m certain my boyfriend can hear it, too. But getting on the baby train just isn’t in the cards right this moment and it just chugs on by while I wave and force a smile for friends, acquaintances and complete strangers who’ve climbed aboard.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that if I really wanted to I could buy my ticket for that train anytime; I can have a baby whenever I choose (so long as my body is willing and able). But the reality of the situation is that I want to be married (or at least in a fully committed co-habiting relationship), financially stable and well on my way to a successful writing career before I get on that train. I struggle regularly, going back and forth between my desire to get pregnant immediately no matter what situation I’m in, and the reality of the responsibilities and challenges that motherhood will bring—especially if I’m on my own. Thankfully, my career is moving along well, and things with my boyfriend are serious and seem to be headed toward marriage in the near future. This quells at least some of the anxiety I feel as that baby train passes me by. One day soon, I reassure myself, you’ll be on that train. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if there was no sign of a stable relationship in my future? Or what if, God forbid, I was unable to have children? How would I handle my desire then?

I fear I wouldn’t do well. I’ve wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember and every dream I have for myself includes children as a part of it. Even now, when I know there’s hope for children in my near future, I still find myself glossy-eyed and drenched in envy when I spend time with friends who have children. I see pregnant women and I fanaticize about what my body might look like at five, seven, and nine months. Even pregnant animals on the Discovery Channel fill me with jealousy.

I try to hide my envy, at least around my friends, but I’m certain it peaks through my happy-to-be-childless front sometimes. To quiet the jealousy beast, I remind myself that motherhood isn’t all baby powder and butterfly kisses, and I hold onto the hope that I’ll be a mother one day soon. In the meantime, I try to enjoy my childless life as much as possible and use my time to invest in me, my relationships and my career. After all, as my friends with children often tell me, I’ll wish for these days of freedom when I finally do have kids.

Now where did I put that train schedule?

Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her. You can also check out her new writing blog, Write Out Loud, a place for writers looking to free the stories inside them.

Stress: Is it Spinning You Out of Control?

People with high stress levels are more likely to have heart attacks and strokes, respond poorly to flu vaccines and catch colds more easily than those with low levels of work or interpersonal stress. To sideline stress, you need to learn to shift your perception and the impact of stressful situations. Here are some hints on how to do that.

Take a chill pill. High anxiety can put a damper on your performance levels, so take psychological steps, like prayer, meditation, and positive imagery, to reduce your anxiety level. Or just forgive someone who's slighted you.

Actively counter stress. Your stress won't go away by itself; you may have to use effective stress management techniques to ease it. A massage, listening to music, and even crying can help you release built-up tension.

Seize control in small ways. You can't control a traffic jam, your company direction, or Mother Nature. Identify things you can and can't control in your daily life. Once you've done this, you can work on the things you have some control over, and let the rest go.

Turn off work when you're on personal time. You can't let your job take over your life. Re-erect the personal boundaries between home-time and job-time that electronic devices have so recently eliminated, or you'll be eaten up by stress.

Take full advantage of company-sponsored benefit plans. Don't let a desire to impress your employer keep you from taking advantage of your company benefits. There are valid reason for daily breaks, sick time, vacation, and the rest, and a smart boss will realize they're instrumental to recharging your batteries.

Avoid crises by working ahead of deadlines. Procrastinating can force you to do everything at the last minute, which just ratchets up the stress, sucks away your energy, and adds to the difficulty of getting things done.

Lose the Type A Personality. Type A personalities tend to be competitive, aggressive, dominant, ambitious, acquisitive, self-driven, and hardworking. Ultimately, these traits can have effects on your body far beyond energy drain. Seek help before the physical effects overwhelm you.

Don't stew. If you're stuck somewhere where you can't get anything done -- say, in a line at the bank -- it's better to occupy your mind than to stew. Pull out your handheld and answer email, or work on a Sudoku puzzle to keep your mind sharp.

The physical effects of stress are so wide-ranging and common that some experts estimate that almost half of all doctor visits are stress-related. So do what you can to take it easy; in particular, stop trying to control the uncontrollable, and instead focus on what you can control -- yourself and your reactions.

-- Visti Laura's site, www.TheProductivityPro.com

5 Tips for Getting Behind the Communities that Support You

I was in Adelaide last week presenting to the CPA Women in Business network. Apart from the diverse backgrounds and interests of the participants, I was most impressed that on a cold winter's evening (and trust me, it was COOOOLD in Adelaide!) more than 70 women turned out to network and interact with me in what was a fantastically meaningful dialogue.

What's so impressive about this? Well this winter in Sydney, where I call home, I've noticed that event sizes have shrunk and many of the women's groups I'm part of or have spoken at have had difficulty filling the room. In a city of 4 million people, I've turned up to similar industry and professional events where only 20 or 30 women have been in the room - despite memberships numbering in the many hundreds or thousands.

I've written about networking events for women before and I know that it's hard to please everyone. One thing I know for sure, is that it's tough for the event organisers trying to put together these events: you will never please all the people all the time. But thank goodness, that's not enough to stop them from trying.

Because the one consistent message I receive from most working women and particularly women in leadership roles, is that they feel like they're alone.

Well here's the news... while we're all sitting home or at our desks at work late at night, feeling alone and isolated, we could be getting together with members of our professional body or a networking group or even just a group of friends who know us well enough to know there's times when we just need to purge and let it all out!

So for the sake of people trying to coordinate these events so that we can get together and vent collectively (as women can!) here's my 5 tips for getting behind the communities that support you:

1. RSVP. It's tough enough securing venues and speakers, without knowing how many people to cater for.

2. Turn up! If you say you're gonna be there, then honour your commitment. Even if it's a cold winter's day! It's not only rude to event organisers when you do a no show, but also to the guest speakers (who all talk - so it's going to be hard to secure speakers in the future if members do the no-show)

3. Encourage others to get involved. I know, we're all busy, juggling our work and home commitments. Which is why sometimes we need a gentle reminder or an incentive to go along to an event. Take it in turns with your friends or colleagues to organise the bookings so it doesn't always fall to one person.

4. Connect with other women when you're there. Either with the people you've gone with - or make new friends. I'm a big fan of taking the opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues I haven't seen for a while. But I know that some of you prefer meeting new people. Whatever works for you. But I promise you, it will be more fun once you hook up with a few of the other people there, rather than sitting on your own and relying on the speaker to entertain you.

5. Give feedback. Whether you like the event, or not, make sure you let the organiser know. This is the only way they'll know how to please the membership in the future. If there's no feedback forms, then email them afterwards. It will take 2 minutes out of your day, and who will benefit from your efforts? You - of course!

Being part of a community has to be a 2-way street. That's the principal of every healthy relationship.

And when you are part of a thriving community, there's no need to ever feel isolated and alone.

When Promotion Gets Personal

I want my work to speak for itself…but actually, what I really want is my work to market, publicize, and promote itself, leaving me to just, well, work.

But the reality I’ve been learning to accept in the past few months is that small business owners and first-time authors (and anyone launching a new product, service, or idea) need to bring on the hustle. However, there’s also a fine line between shameless and tasteful self-promotion, and lately I feel like I’m constantly stumbling back and forth between the two. With my first book Seventeen’s Guide to Getting Into College coming out next week, I feel the impending pressure to spread the word to high schools and teenagers the world over, but to do so gracefully.

Anyone who knows me might think I would have no problem pounding the pavement with my latest projects—I mean, I’ve practically spent more than a decade as a cheerleader in the both the literal and figurative world of marketing and pr. I love telling people about great films, books, restaurants, shops, and musicians. But when it comes to my own stuff, I dread the inevitable moment when I become not just creator, but self-promoter.

And I know there must be others out there who struggle with this delicate balance, so I humbly submit some of the lessons I’ve learned from my mistakes and awkward fumbles.

Get Over Yourself: If I’m really honest, it’s not so much that I don’t want to tell others about my projects, it’s that I don’t want to face the rejection if they don’t happen to think it’s super awesome. But the fact is, I’m excited about my creative efforts, and even if others disagree or it’s not their style or they don’t even get back to me—that’s okay.

Promote Your Competition: Sounds backwards, right? But the truth is we’re all in this together, and by promoting your competition with an endorsement, review, or ping I’ve found the karma usually has a way of making its way back with awesome returns.

Keep it Succinct: Sometimes my passion for education gets the best of me, and in my excitement I become long-winded. So I’ve had to work on refining my pitch to the main points whether in an email or conversation. And I’ve found that brevity has done wonders for getting responses.

I would love to hear any other tips you fabulous women use to navigate the tricky waters of self-promotion, and thanks for indulging mine!

To see Jaye’s attempts at tasteful self-promotion, check out her website and advice blog, Guide & Seek™.

9 Tools to Brighten Your Financial Future

Whoever said ignorance is bliss couldn’t have been referring to bank account numbers and gas prices. No matter how hard I try to ignore them, the numbers (or what I imagine them to be in my state of ignorance) loom over me as my once-healthy savings account steadily shrinks. To combat the tightening feeling in my chest, I’ve decided to stop ignoring my numbers and, instead, figure out just what I need to financially survive and (fingers crossed) thrive now—and in the future. Turns out, the figuring is a lot easier than I thought—there are all kinds of online calculators out there just waiting to do the work for you. You can calculate everything from whether you should buy that car you’ve had your eye on, to how much using public transportation would save you, to what your personal budget should be … plus a whole lot of stuff in between.

Will public transportation save me money?
Every time I turn on the news, they’re talking gas, gas, gas. But when I get on the subway, the dollars seem to creep up just as fast. This site had me enter some basic information about my commute, my car, and local public transportation, and it spit back how much I can save each year on the subway ($3,214!). Bonus feature—it breaks down different public transportation options in your area.

How much should I expect from the government when I retire?
That depends. The official Retirement Estimator, found on the Social Security Web site, asks you when you want to retire, your earnings history, and what you plan to earn in the future. Input these—along with stats like your birthday, place of birth, name, and (sort of scary) Social Security Number—and the calculator pulls up an estimate of the Social Security benefits you’ll receive during your golden years. And if the initial estimate doesn’t seem too golden, it’ll create some additional scenarios for you to check out as well.

Speaking of retirement, how much should I be saving?
If there’s anything that the Retirement Estimator accomplished for me, it was jump-starting a new dedication to my savings accounts. Looks like I’m a member of the generation that can expect, well, just about nothing in terms of Social Security. Whether you are in the same boat, or you just want to make sure you’ll be prepared, this calculator tells you how much you will save switching from a brand-name service to the generic one by the time you retire. (For me this means bye-bye to HBO and a bunch of fancy movie channels.) I could be saving $840 each year and $25,200 extra dollars by the time I want to retire. Time to call the cable company.

How do I make a monthly budget?
Making a monthly budget is one of those great ideas that never actually becomes a reality for me. Making a budget entails tracking every expense, and that always turns out to be not only incredibly meticulous, but a bit depressing—sort of like food journals. This calculator does the hard work for you—all you have to do is enter a few numbers and click “calculate.” Mine still turned out to be depressing (I shop way too much), but it’s nice to see it all laid out in a colorful pie graph. I’m printing it out and putting it on the fridge.

Should I rent or buy?
This all-things-mortgage calculator will break it all down, whatever your mortgage dilemma is. Enter how much you’re paying in rent, and it’ll tell you what you can buy for the same amount over a certain amount of time. If you’re already considering buying, check out the Affordability Calculator to see what it’ll really cost you or save you—and the taxes you’ll be paying. Other useful calculators on this site fill you in on whether you should refinance or pay a little more every month.

What’s the best car payment option for me?
This calculator allows you to start with the car payment you’re willing to pay every month and then shows you what you can afford—or you can enter the car price first and it will break down different payment plans.

How can I finance school for the kids (or myself)?
Whether you’re paying your way through school or you’re looking ahead to financing your kids’ degrees, these calculators let you explore college savings plans and goals, how much school will cost when you plan to enroll, and financial aid and loan options.

For me, planning is at least half the financial battle. But these sites make planning a lot faster and less painful … and actually kind of fun. Here’s to leaving ignorance behind.

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DivineCaroline.com is a website where career savvy women like you can read and contribute stories, reviews, and forums. Please visit our vibrant community soon.

The Making of a Mentor

I recently joined a group of women writers who are starting a mentoring program for teenage girls. We plan to meet a couple of times a month with girls who are interested in writing and support them in their exploration of the possibilities that writing holds. We'll do exercises, discuss each others' works, practice reading our own writing, and just spend time writing together.

I was hesitant to join at first. Who am I, after all, to be a mentor? I'm not a big-wig in the writing industry. I haven't written any bestsellers yet. I'm just me. But eventually I decided to participate in this group because I wanted to encourage young writers to follow their hearts, practice their craft and explore their abilities.

When I was a teenager, my creativity wasn't exactly encouraged. It wasn't discouraged, either, but I was gently guided away from my creative pursuits and toward skills that would make me money in the future. At 13, instead of putting effort and time into writing, which I really enjoyed, I put away my journals and started preparing for college and medical school beyond that. This wasn't a bad thing in itself--I was good at science and math and enjoyed those things, too--but following my guidance counselor's lead caused me to put away any dreams of a creative life. It was a decade before they finally resurfaced. Because of this, I want to help young women find their dreams and hold onto them, make them real.

Becoming a mentor has made me think about my own mentors. Yes, I have mentors, too. Some are my friends. Some I've never met. Some aren't even writers. I have a business mentor, a financial mentor, a group of peer mentors that help me polish my work and pursue my dreams, and plenty of fellow writers who have done something I want to do or who have a skill I want to learn. They may not know they're my mentors, but when I'm around them, I glean as much as I can from them. Mentoring can happen anywhere, at any time, by anyone. You just need to be open to the possibility.

You don't have to be part of a group to be a mentor, and the person you mentor doesn't have to be a teenage writer. Do you know someone who's just starting out in the writing business or someone who writes for fun? Why not send him an email and offer to chat over coffee about your experiences as writers? Or maybe you know someone who's looking for the support of a writing community. Give her a call and set up a meeting. If you write, if you read, if you have learned anything about the process, business or experience of writing, then you have plenty to offer.

If you're thinking about mentoring, here are a few things to remember:

    * Anyone can mentor. You don't have to be uber-successful, prize-winning or rich. You only have to love what you do and do what you love. There is always someone out there with less experience or knowledge that could use a hand up, some motivation or a little encouragement.
    * Mentoring doesn't have to take a lot of time. Although commitment to the person you're mentoring is important, you don't have to dedicate hours each day or entire days each week to provide effective support. Be consistent, but don't overstretch yourself. Mentoring should be fun, not a chore. Maybe your mentoring occurs spontaneously and only on occasion, or maybe you meet regularly for dinner. Whatever the case, make your time together productive and it won't matter if you spend and hour together or a full day.
    * Mentoring doesn't have to be one-on-one. You might not live near the person you're mentoring, or your schedules just might not click, but that doesn't mean you can't be her mentor. You can provide encouragement over the phone or by email. Or you might start a website where you can provide support to multiple writers at once through encouraging and informative articles. And if you know of several people looking for mentors, you could start a workshop or mentoring group where you can support one another at whatever writing stage you're at.
    * You might get something out of it, too. It feels good to know you're helping someone else reach her dreams. And providing encouragement for others can inspire your own writing. Besides, you never know what good stories, ideas or opportunities might come out of your conversations.

Are you a mentor to others? Do you have any mentors? What does your mentor-"mentee" relationship look like? Do you think mentoring is beneficial to your career?

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This post was originally published at Ami's writing blog, Write Out Loud. While it's aimed at writers who want to be mentors, it can be applied to anyone looking to mentor others in their own areas of interest or expertise.

Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her. You can also check out her new writing blog, Write Out Loud, a place for writers looking to free the stories inside them.

Mandatory Lockdown

A coaching client called me for emergency support. She was understandably freaked out over an unfortunate--but all-too-common--"dope" mistake.

She frantically told her tale:

“I was venting to a coworker about a heated phone discussion I’d just had with my boss about the way he wanted to handle a project. Well into my rant, to my horror, I saw that my cell phone had called back my boss’s number. I’m not sure if he heard my trash talk, or if his voice message recorded it. I’m basically screwed, don’t you think?”

My advice? I shared this story with her, along with some damage control--and future prophylactic--tips:

My friend, Tam, a successful attorney, was due in court. On the way to the courthouse, she calls the case coordinator (whose office is right outside the judge’s office) to confirm the time and place of the hearing. So the last number Tam calls before arriving at the courthouse and meeting her client is that number.

While on the elevator, Tam warns her client about how unreasonable the judge is, how he’s unfair, how sometimes he follows the law but sometimes he doesn’t. “I said all the worst things you could possibly say about a judge,” she recalled to me. “I think I probably even called him an asshole.”

She and her client arrive. Tam says, “We’re here for the hearing,” and the case coordinator says, “Yeah, we know.” Tam says, “Really? How did you know?”

The coordinator says, “On the way here, your phone dialed back our phone. We put you on speaker. The judge heard everything.” Tam told me, “They were laughing their asses off at me. I’m not sure he [the judge] was laughing, but the rest of them were.” Tam says to the coordinator, “Okay. Thank you.”

The judge convenes the hearing. In front of the clients and her opposing counsel, he opens with:

“So, I heard you say that you think I’m unreasonable, Ms. G.”

Tam’s reponse (gulp!)?

“Yes, I think you’re unreasonable sometimes, and that you can be unfair, and that sometimes you don’t follow the law. And I may be the lawyer and you may be the judge, but I’m entitled to my opinion—though I suppose I should keep it to myself.”

Telling this story, Tam said to me: “What else was I going to do? I was about to pee my pants, but I stood up there and admitted to what I’d done. And the judge ended up being okay with it.”

My advice to my client?

1. Feel better? You’re not the only one that this happens to. And note how refreshing it is to hear that someone caught with egg on her or his face owns up to it.

2. Unless your boss raises the issue, pretend it never happened (and hope/assume that he didn’t hear); this is what men do. Women, on the otherhand, often point out an error that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

3. If your boss does confront you, or gives you the unmistakable cold shoulder, it’s simple: don’t excuse your behavior. Tell the truth. Don’t obfuscate (e.g., don’t say, "Well at least your acid reflux was in remission when I bashed you.")

4. Cop to it. “Yes, I was upset. Yes, I strongly disagreed with your decision. I still respect you as my boss even though I still think you’re wrong. And I was wrong for venting behind your back. Obviously, you have final say, so I’ll get on board. And perhaps schedule a therapy session to deal with my mortification that you heard me.” (A little humor never hurts.)

Overarching Lessons?

1. Be careful about venting; Karma can bite.

2. Religiously use the lock function on your phone. Prevent embarrassment and command performance backpedaling by exercising this technological due diligence.

Can You Afford To Start a Small Business?

Let me guess. You can’t afford it. You’d really love to [start a home business/spend time with your kids/give money to charity/adopt a child from China], you really would, but you just can’t afford it. If I hear that phrase one more time, I’m going to do something drastic.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re lying. You can afford it. You’re just choosing not to. In your case, that could be a wise choice or it could be a stupid choice, but it’s yours and you’re making it.

I could tell you about Christine who spent time hanging out in the upper echelons of homelessness. I could tell you about Harri in Finland, busting his ass and saving like crazy to work from home with his two little boys.

I could tell you about the time I spent six months in a homeless shelter. I could tell you about rolling pennies to buy a half-pound bag of generic rotini.

I could tell you what it feels like to have no money for baby formula. To fill the empty can with flour and return it to the store, claiming it tastes funny. To lie and steal to get free milk for your kid. To be 20 and single and totally unprepared for motherhood and dirt ass poor.

You don’t care and I don’t blame you. But don’t tell me you can’t afford it.

When I had Jack, Jamie took parental leave. In Canada, we get 55% of our salary for 50 weeks, up to 35 of which can be taken by the father. People looked at him like he was crazy. People came right out and said he was crazy. “How can you afford it?” “You’ll never be able to afford it!” “I wish we could do that but we can’t afford it.”

Here’s my open reply. We did not have a car. We did not have a house. We did not have cable TV, or a Best Buy account, or a shoe habit. We did not take vacations. We did not have a gym membership. We did not drink non-negotiable morning cappuccinos.

We sacrificed a damn lot and we got six blissful months of doing nothing but getting to know our new baby son.

Is this for everyone? Absolutely not. Are there things I will not give up? Hell, yes. But if I don’t do something or buy something or go somewhere, it’s not because I can’t afford it.

It’s because other things are more important.

When you say you can’t afford something, you are giving away your power. There might be damn good reasons for you to keep your day job. You want to save up some money first. You like the security. The health benefits come in handy. You can’t stand the sight of your husband. Hell, maybe you actually enjoy it.

Those are all choices, and they may be good ones, but they’re yours and you’re the one making them. Stop wimping out and start telling the truth.

Marriage and PR

Being married is a job. Even if you are totally in love, there are days when you have to work at the relationship. People grow and change and if you don’t stay up to date, you may find yourself miserable or even alone. Having a successful PR career is very much like a successful marriage, or any relationship really. It requires certain fundamental rules regarding social engagement and personal development. Here are a few tips I have picked up along the way.

1.Never take anything for granted – This I have learned the hard way. Just because your spouse loves you, doesn’t mean they should have to put up with a lifetime of bad behavior or neglect. Do this one too many times and you will lose big time.

PR takeaway – treat your clients the way you would a spouse/good friend. Never make assumptions based on past decisions. Your approach/campaign may be based on outdated company opinions, which just equates to wasted time and effort (read $$$). Always touch base and never do something “because that’s the way it has always been done.” Also take the time to catch up with clients other than a hurried email. A personal phone call can reap big rewards when it comes time for them to renew a contract or refer you to someone else. That personal touch may be what puts you over the top.

2.There is always room for improvement – Maybe you came into your marriage with the idea that you would handle all the finances because after all you have the MBA and that your significant other would cook because well, you can’t. Again, don’t assume. There are always opportunities for growth in a relationship, and maybe the love of your life can help you with that tricky financial problem you can’t solve. There is always room to improve and allowing others to help, even if it is “your” area of expertise can make you grow closer.

PR Takeaway –Don’t freak if your client comes back after you busted your butt with some critical feedback. Becoming defensive will not help your career and may alienate you from the account. Understand that constructive criticism, even if it comes from someone you consider to have NO knowledge of the subject matter, can be useful, often for that very reason. In PR we strive to understand our public. In my particular job, that means knowing what average Joe blow is thinking – so that means I do want to know what the bathroom attendant and the AC repair guy think. Even if I don’t agree.

3.Keep an open mind to new experiences – I never really thought much about foreign cinema and music until I met my husband. It isn’t that I actively disliked it or anything; I had just never been exposed and kind of had the idea that it was probably a little boring. Well, I was wrong. Now everything from Akira Kurosawa to Sigur Ròs fascinates me. I have learned that having an open mind has really allowed me to enjoy my life more fully, because of the incredible range of experiences that I might have missed had I not been willing to try them.

PR Takeaway- You (or more than likely your boss since you are reading this!) may be from the “old school” and may be hesitant to try new things such as social media technologies such as blogging and Youtube. They may worry about the long-term effectiveness of something they think of as “new-fangled”. Be patient and show them concrete examples of what being open minded can do for your company and for your clients. If you remain open minded and continue to learn and grow, your enthusiasm may begin to rub off on those with a narrower frame of reference.

4.Not everything is logical or fair – My father always told me that life isn’t fair, and he wasn’t kidding. There have many times in my relationship that I felt like stomping my foot or shaking my fist from frustration and screaming “It just isn’t fair!” Why does he make more money in an hour and I work seven days a week for less? Why does she get to sleep in everyday and never gains weight and I can look at a cookie and gain five pounds? Well, if you can get past the anger, you can start to look at what appear to be unfair situations as learning experiences. I know that may be a stretch for those who are hot-headed and emotional (with me among you) but if you can manage it, viewing these times that challenge our mental and emotional stamina can become a positive rather than a negative.

PR Takeaway – So you lost the account after you worked around the clock for three straight months; that sucks. Your budget was just yanked, a month before the project was supposed to happen and you have to be the bearer of bad news, rather than the higher-up who did the cutting; it’s awful. What can you learn from these situations? How to be a better leader, how to hone your communication skills, especially in crisis situations, and how to let go and move on. No, it isn’t easy, logical, or fair. But it is what it is and at the risk of sounding annoyingly Zen, you can affect it or direct it, so just accept it. Tomorrow is a new day.

5.Bad news travels faster and has more impact than good news – You forgot to pay a bill, pickup the kid’s prescription or write a thank you card you promised you’d write. Oops. Even if you scramble, your spouse will often know (it’s magic I swear) when you screw up much quicker than when you get it right. (Refer to tip #1 to avoid taking the good stuff for granted!) Bad news also has greater weight often – just look at the news. It is always the exceptions to the rules of society that are in the headlines; at least that is what we remember (if it bleeds, it leads right?) even if there is breaking news about the nonprofit that just reached their goal of reaching two million children via new books and school supplies. Nope, you will remember the killer in the woods. Same with marriage – during an argument, it is all the bad stuff you remember and none of the good stuff, even if you or your spouse is a saint (which you wouldn’t be arguing if you were.)

PR Takeaway – Know that bad news will get out and that it will spread like crazy, more so if you try to squelch it. A good PR person knows that admission goes further in helping you retain credibility than denials. (Remember Tylenol?) Always be truthful and take the time to remind your clients why they came to you in the first place. There is no shame in reminding them of all the things you have done right. Do not get bogged down though. Just like a good fight, let the anger go and the next day you may not even remember what you were arguing about. Move forward and continue putting out newsworthy information and just maybe as this guy says, people will quickly change the subject and you will be off the hot seat before you know it.

Hopefully these things will help you to become a better PR professional. I am by no means an expert, but these tips are certainly helping me to become a better communicator, both at work and at home. Think I missed one; want to add to the list? Post a comment!

Park Perfectionism

“I’m a perfectionist. It keeps me from meeting deadlines and working up to my potential. But I’m so young and new at this company, I’m afraid of screwing up and not being as good as everyone else.”

I hear countless versions of this lament from a ton of clients, friends—and from that little voice inside my own head. Sound familiar? Join the club.

Perfectionists are so focused on their belief that a project or task or goal isn’t perfect that they never finish anything on time — or at all.

The inability to execute is a major energy drain, but not only because of the actual effort you’re exerting by working on the project. More importantly, constantly thinking about what hasn’t been completed saps a huge amount of mental air time. A classic psychological study, “The Zeigernick Effect,” found that uncompleted tasks weigh heavily on our minds; once they are done, we quickly forget them.

For perfectionists, the list of incomplete tasks just gets longer and longer; the energy drain is endless. You lie awake in bed at night; you use your leisure time, always obsessing about what you haven’t completed.

Contrast this to people who are able to get it done — even if it’s not perfect — and then move on; they enjoy the benefit of having energy that was formerly deployed for an unfinished project now freed up for new ideas, creativity and passion for their work. Think about this, and you have the perfect motivation to park perfectionism. Here’s how to do it.

1. Adopt the mantra “good enough.”

When a project is 85 percent good enough, move it off of your desk. What’s the worst possible outcome? You make a mistake, you learn from that mistake, and you do it better next time.

The benefit? You’ll create more opportunities to challenge yourself on the job by risking turning in that good-enough assignment; by moving more quickly and nimbly from one project on to the next, you free up temporal and mental space for fresh projects and challenges to make their way into your “inbox.” Accept that you’re sometimes going to fail. Mistakes equal learning opportunities.

I heard a powerful woman say, “You can’t make the basket if you don’t take the shot.” Do your research, then execute. At the very least, you're giving yourself a shot. Tell yourself each and every day that good enough is the perfect goal. And you just might make the shot.

2. Embrace your expertise.

My interviews with 500 high-achieving women for my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams, revealed that 95 percent of those women periodically feel like impostors in their fields, that their colleagues and competitors know more than they do.

Recognize that the fraud police Are Not going to show up at your door.

How to get this through your head? Write down your accomplishments (for your eyes only). Brag; don’t be modest. The majority of the women I work with who do this exercise are surprised by just how much they have accomplished, surprised by how many of their achievements they’ve forgotten about or minimized (“Wow! I’ve done all that?!”). Remind yourself of your track record to give yourself a more objective perspective about how skilled you really are.

3. Invest in lifelong learning.

Keep your mind filled with fresh, cutting-edge information to fuel your confidence. Read your industry’s trade publications and books that are getting buzz. Scan the headlines of major business papers on a daily basis. Take brief, intensive classes once a quarter; do a Saturday workshop or conference.

Buy high-quality CD or MP3 courses. Listen to them while you drive. Or subscribe to www.Audio.com, then, for example, do daily downloads of the Wall Street Journal then scan headlines and listen to articles that interest you each morning while you work out.

Most of all, give yourself permission to be imperfect, because that’s just being human.

Getting Along in the Office: Being Friends with Co-Workers and Employees

You probably spend as many hours at work as you do awake at home. Thus, you spend as much time with your co-workers as with your family.

It is nice to be able to tell people at work important things that are going on at home. Sometimes it is nice to gain the insight of a co-worker about a personal problem. As a result, it is hard to determine where to draw the line with business friendships. Should you be sharing all kinds of intimate details about your home life, or should you keep totally quiet about what goes on away from work?

Sharing too much can make others think less of you

One of my first supervisors had problems with her husband. She began to come in to work late. Then she would sit and tell her assistant all of her problems. As time went on, she did no work, and neither did her assistant. When she decided to move out on her husband, her assistant took the day off and helped. From that point on, her assistant no longer respected her, and no longer worked very hard.

When you are at work, you would like to be judged by the quality of work that you do. If you are a wonderful worker, but share with everyone that you cannot control your home life, they will include that in their estimation of you.

The main goal of work

At home with your family and friends, your main goal may be to socialize. The main reason that people go to work, is to work. People sometimes forget that.

How much should you share?

Some people believe that others are very interested in all of their problems. Perhaps others show concern, but most likely they don’t really want to be totally involved.

Keeping a distance between your work life and your home life is a good thing.

Here is a list of things to keep to yourself:

*Details of an illness
*Details of your arguments with your spouse
*Details of your financial problems
*Details of your vacation
*For women, details of their monthly cycles
*Details of romantic conquests
*Involvement with what your child is selling from school

Here is a list of things you can share:

*That you were sick and are now well
*That you are buying a new house
*That you are going on vacation
*That you are having problems at home, but not what those problems are

Supervisors should not socialize with their employees

Imagine a situation in which the supervisor and several of the employees have a weekly poker game. Imagine that it becomes apparent that one of the employees in the poker group is not working effectively, and should be fired. The supervisor has a very hard problem. If she fires the employee, the poker group might fall apart. On the other hand, if she keeps the employee and the weekly game, she will have to do the employee’s work to ensure that it gets done. Supervisors should not socialize with their employees.

When You Feel Like a Raging Failure

You’re not alone. I’m typing this in bed, on the new laptop my IttyBiz readers bought me. (By the way? Thanks for that.) To my right, on the floor, on Jamie’s side of the bed, sit two Macintosh computers. They belong to my mother. For those of you who are new, I’ll take this opportunity to mention that my mother moved to Europe in 2005. I have yet to get off my ass to put them in storage. To my left is a floor full of books. They used to live in my busted chipboard bookshelf, but Jack likes to play with them, taking them down and putting them back in an order he feels is more appropriate. The last time he played this game was about 10 days ago. The books are still on the floor. Neither of us can get into bed from the sides, so we come up from the foot.

Jack is covered in a rash from ankle to neck and scratches himself every hour of the day and night. My bathtub is full of baby sleepers and cold water where I tried, and failed, to get the blood out of his clothes. He is crying in his room and Jamie is trying to comfort him — nothing I was doing was helping and I am now under my covers sporting silent headphones, trying to drown out the noise so I can cry and type in peace. I fear he either has or will shortly get an infection from the cuts that don’t heal, and all the doctor does is tell us to try Aveeno. Because I guess we never thought of that.

I missed a client call. I want to reschedule but everything is so up in the air, I don’t even know when to tell them. I feel horrible, guilt-ridden and sick. I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like my home business, doing what I love, is a fabulous sparkly present and I’m stomping on it daily. I feel like every time I fuck something up, little bits of sparkle wash down the drain and soon I will be left with nothing. I don’t know how in the hell I’m ever going to deliver on all of the promises I’ve made — promises I want to keep, promises I had every intention of keeping, promises that I didn’t think would be a problem.

There is no how-to in this post. I do not know how to dig my way out of this. Sometimes when something is wrong, it’s helpful to pretend that the problem belongs to someone else and you can think of the advice you’d give them. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, my advice would be trite and ridiculous. I would tell people to plug away, item by item, list by list, until they had fought their way out. I think we all know that’s delightful advice in a vacuum, but it doesn’t account for emotional states that include bursting into tears watching Ellen give away $100 gift cards to Trader Joe’s. Overwhelm does not occur in a vacuum and vacuum advice doesn’t help worth a damn.

The only thing I really hope to accomplish with this post is this: If you feel shitty, you’re not alone. If you feel like, now that you’ve got your itty bitty business off the ground, you’re furious with yourself for not skipping with glee every moment, it’s not just you. If you feel like nobody on the goddamn planet understands what you’re going through, at least I do. If you feel like, now that you’re at home full time, you should provide your children with home-cooked meals and wash the sheets every other day and only show quality, commercial-free programming on your television and have sex with your husband six nights a week and have a floor that’s more carpet than ground-up-Cheerio, you’re not the only one.

Preparing for Promotion - Acting the Part

Are you happy in your current position? Or are you expecting to climb the ladder or rise in your career to a higher position? If you’re happy where you are, if you’ve reached the pinnacle of your career or you’re doing what you love with no desire to move up or move on, then this article isn’t for you. But if you’re hoping to get a promotion or a new position, then read on. Today we’re talking about preparing for a promotion.

The best advice I’ve ever heard in the business world was, “Dress for the position you want.” What I really want in life is to be a full-time freelance writer who works from home and wears her pajamas all day, but for now PJs won’t cut it in the corporate world. I’ve worked at jobs where jeans and a t-shirt was the standard uniform, and to be completely honest, wearing a business suit or even dress pants and a blouse would have been the most idiotic thing I could have done (think preschools and ice cream parlors). When I started working in the business world, though, I realized my clothes meant more to my job.

I learned to dress the part I’d been cast in, and then I learned to dress the part I was hoping to land. This mentality didn’t stop with dressing, either. Every time I realized I wanted something new—a promotion, a different position altogether—I started acting the part, too. I would get involved in projects that would stretch my abilities, I would take on responsibilities that were reflective of the position I wanted, I would ask questions and put the answers to work. And when the opportunity arose, I would slip seamlessly into the role I’d earned.

If you’re ready to move on up the ladder, here are a few ways you can start acting the part for the position you want.

Know where you want to go. A large part of getting to your destination is knowing where you’re headed. Working toward the position you’re hoping to land obviously won’t work as well if you’re unsure of what you want.

Try on new hats. Whether you know exactly what position you want or you’re still not sure what you want to be when you grow up, taking on varying responsibilities or trying out new roles can help you figure out where you’d like to go and how to get there.

Stretch yourself. While I’d never recommend taking on more than you can handle, I’d highly recommend taking on challenges. Don’t just raise your hand for the tasks you’re sure you’ll be good at. By volunteering to help with projects you’ve never done before (so long as you have the basic skills necessary) you’ll learn something new and you might just discover you have talents you didn’t realize you had.

Volunteer to lead. If there’s an opportunity to take the lead on a project you know you’ll do well at, step up to the plate. Don’t wait to be asked, either. Taking initiative shows you believe you’re ready for the responsibility and indicates to management that you have the ability to take on a challenge.

Recognize your strengths—and weaknesses. No one is perfect. Recognize that you’re not going to be good at everything. Then accentuate your strengths by taking on tasks that illustrate those strengths to others.

Keep track of your accomplishments. Having a list of the projects you worked on when your yearly review comes around will provide plenty of ammunition when you ask for that promotion (or a raise). Your manager can’t argue with your achievements if you’ve got them all on paper.

If you work hard and work smart, any job that you want can be yours. You just have to act the part until the right people take notice.

Be a Productivity Role Model

Have you ever taken an honest look at how you are perceived around the office?  Your behavior, attitude, and reputation play a huge role in how you interact with coworkers and subordinates.  Others may listen to you because of your job title, but if that's the only reason, you have a serious problem on your hands.

I’m not talking about superficial issues like dressing well or keeping a tidy office. It goes deeper than that—to your attitude towards work and your attitude towards personal productivity.

Do you have a reputation of exceptional organization, follow-up, and time management?

Or do people dread sending you an e-mail, because they know there’s a slim chance that they’ll ever hear back?

Is your desk a black hole, where papers and requests go in, but never come out?

Does it take you thirty minutes to find something that you would expect someone else to find in thirty seconds?

The bottom line is that to be an effective leader and coworker, you need to be a good role model that others will choose to emulate. Your employees and coworkers might pay attention to what you say, but they’ll ALWAYS pay attention to what you do. You’re a role model—good or bad—through your image.

Take a personal inventory of how others see you in the workplace. Your goal is to identify—and correct—your own personal productivity demons. Need help getting started? Begin by asking yourself these questions:

Are you the bottleneck?

The only thing worse than the person at the office who seems to do nothing is the person who tries to do everything.

Say it with me folks, “I can’t do it all.”

The sooner you come to terms with that troublesome fact, the better off you’ll be. In pursuit of being the undisputed office superstar, you may in fact be buried. The more you try to do everything, the less able you are to do anything.

Sure, the business world can be demanding, but nine times out of ten, helplessly buried office workers put themselves in the overworked situation they’re in. As a leader (and as a human being) you need to understand how to prioritize, which means understanding how to say “no.”

If you constantly accept additional responsibilities, without being able to keep up with what you’ve already committed, you will eventually be unable to devote proper attention to any one of your many duties.

If you think that being overextended and perpetually frazzled sounds bad, imagine reporting to someone in that situation. Being spread too thin generally leads to missed deadlines, poor response times, and a constant source of unnecessary stress.

Do your subordinates, coworkers—and yourself—a favor. Keep your priorities focused and your schedule realistic. You need to be able to work as hard for your people as they do for you.

If it takes you days to respond to a voicemail or weeks to review a proposal, you aren’t setting others up for success. Don’t be the bottleneck!

Do you micromanage?

You have a staff at your disposal…so why are you still doing everything yourself? The best thing you can do as a manager is to put people in place whom you can trust—and then trust them.

Always remember, however, that your way isn’t the only way and that sometimes “good enough” is, well, good enough. Does that mean that you keep slack standards and let people get away with sub-par work? Of course not! It just means that you pick your battles and allow your team to do their jobs without having to constantly worry about your “helpful” interventions.

There will always be some things that absolutely need to be done a certain way and kept to a certain standard. These are the tasks and priorities that you should keep a close watch on to ensure that they are completed properly.

But what about the others? Just ask yourself what would happen if a given task was completed adequately, instead of perfectly. Or if a project was done correctly, although perhaps not in exactly the same way you would go about it if you were to do it yourself. Most of the time, you’ll find that it really isn’t that big a deal. In these cases, it is important to step back, let go, and focus your energies on more important initiatives.

Is your schedule realistic?

Take a look at your schedule for this week. Are you booked solid, running from one meeting to the next all day every day?

If you’re overbooked, not only will you leave yourself no time to accomplish important, high-priority tasks, you’ll also make yourself unavailable to your team. It doesn’t do any good if a project is completed on deadline if it takes three days for you to have a moment to take a look at it.

Besides, what does it say about the value of your time if you are booking yourself silly day in and day out? By accepting every invitation you receive, you are letting others control you time and determine your priorities. That isn’t what leadership is about!

Don’t attend any meeting where the organizer can’t clearly articulate the objective. And make sure that when you do attend a meeting, others understand why you are there and know what they can expect in terms of your involvement. If you regularly find yourself in meetings “just in case” you’re needed, you aren’t placing much of a premium on your time.

What are your other productivity demons?

Everyone has their downfalls, and the ones discussed above are just a starting point. Take a good, hard look at yourself and come up with a fair assessment of the impression you give others at the office. This is no time to tell little white lies or shy away from the truth. The only way to fix the problem is to tackle the issue head on.

Whatever your demons are—too much socializing, excessive email surfing, time management problems, over scheduling your time, responding slowly to e-mail, dealing with personal issues on work hours, or procrastination—identify them and then work to put them to rest.

That’s the beauty of it. You really can fix many of these problems right away. If you’re honest with yourself, you know the right things to do. You just need to listen to that nagging voice in the back of your mind and make it happen.

-- Visit Laura's site/blog, The Productivity Pro.

Do Your Really Love Your Job?

The search for the perfect job is a difficult and complex journey littered with variable life occurrences and expectations. It is not an uncommon thought to be excited one minute and downtrodden the next over your current or future position. From my discussions with employed professionals of all ages, it is a shared view that sometimes they "just aren't sure" whether or not they love their job. Most of the time I hear, “I love the people at my job..." or “I love parts of my job..." but it seems a special rarity these days for people to say "I really really love what I do," especially young women.

Well, if you are feeling “just not sure" about your career, you are not alone. In a study of career longitude and labor market activity, the US Department of Labor found that persons born in the baby boom generation held an average of 10.8 jobs from the age 18 to 42. What is even more significant is that two thirds (7.2) of these jobs were held during the ages 18 to 24. A similar study is currently in process to analyze career longitude for persons born between 1980-84.

Changing jobs is a right of passage that can help a young person grow toward a career path of real opportunity and professional development. But sometimes, understanding that your current role doesn't have that opportunity can be difficult due to factors like friends, fear, and money. Don't get me wrong, I think putting your time into a place that you are not sure about has its benefits as well. I have learned a lot from places that were not right from me, but took the time I needed to learn and recognize that, and then happily moved on. Sometimes that "unsure" feeling is really a self-editing tool that we (women especially, I think) default to when we aren't sure we measure up. That's a whole other issue that we won't get into, and it relates back to giving it your best and believing in yourself - things that are sometimes easier said then done, but that we always strive for. To put this into a simple perspective, you always need to look out for yourself in life, love and work. We know this; and even if it sounds selfish - it's not. If you really loved your job, isn't it safe to say you would perform better, be in a better mood and contribute to the longevity of your firm with enthusiasm and passion? I think so.

Lastly, isn't your perfect job really about you getting what is best for you?

Here are some quick Job Audit steps that will help you determine whether or not its time to leave or stick it out:

1. You can't get up in the morning, struggle to make it in on time and can't wait for a lunch break.

A relatively intuitive sign that something is amiss.

Take a cue from your inner self here and ask why you can't get up in the morning or struggle to make it in on time? If it's because you had too many glasses of wine at the industry event, that's one thing. But if it’s because you can't stand the thought of a uninspiring work day it might be another. Take some time to meditate on your feelings towards your boss, the work you are doing and the environment. After you clear away the superficial things like they never have wheat bagels and the sound of your boss's accent, you'll start feeling the reality of your situation: Do I feel challenged? Do I feel satisfied when I accomplish a project? Do I feel happy when I am given a new project?

If you can't answer those questions with solid, prosperity filled answers, it might be time to rethink this particular role.

2. You don't receive helpful feedback from your leadership team, and are treated as a service provider not a strategic partner.

This is a big issue that I hear a lot of, “They don’t listen to me, and I’m never included in the decision making process which would help me do my job better.” The first question to ask your self is, “am I making myself heard?” And I don’t mean just sending out a short email and waiting around for a reply. I mean sending the email, talking openly and simply to your manager about wanting to know more, and asking questions about strategic objectives that could be relevant to your project.

Those in management don't see your capabilities - but are you making yourself heard? If you are making yourself heard, engage in a polite and meaningful way and those in management still treat you as someone to be tasked rather than engaged, take a second look at the role.

3. The culture makes your cringe.

There are a variety of cultures in organizations, and according to the Goffee-Jones model of cultural organization most companies fall into 1 of 4 quadrants: Communal, Networked, Fragmented or Mercenary; which is informed by their levels of solidarity and sociability. All of these cultures have various degrees of pros and cons, and I won't discuss them in too much detail here. But here is an example about culture to think about:

If you have an attitude that teaming and collaborative participation is important to effective decision making, but the culture dictates that only senior level managers be involved in decision making meetings, there might a cultural disconnect to how you work and the company is organized.

4. Your Boss and you just don't see eye-to-eye.

Sometimes a healthy difference in opinion is a career provoker; it can help you see the other side of an issue and deepens your perspective. This is only helpful however if there is truly a "give and take." That is, you and your boss may not see eye-to-eye but you find a way to come together and solutions are based on the best one at the time, not seniority or ego. If this is not the case and it's always a one-sided solution with limited contribution from you, then it seems you may not be getting the opportunity you need.

Its not just your Job...

Remember, sometimes feeling a funk in the work-life is subject to what’s going on in your personal world as well. Don’t discount the happiness you feel in your friendships, activities and social life from the work spectrum. Everything is connected – they don’t call it a work-life-love balance for nothing. If after these steps you feel like something is still not adding up, take some time to reevaluate how all those parts and pieces work together. It might just be that you need to reorganize your closet, find an outlet like running or yoga, or do lunch with your best friend more often. Allow yourself to be aware of how you feel in the environment and take stock of your level of opportunity in a thoughtful way. It will always open up doors to career happiness and personal / professional development.

A summer (job) to remember

While out at a baseball game last week, my older brother and his friend got into a heated conversation about golf. After much discussion they turned to my younger brother, Lee—a senior in college—to gauge his opinion.

“Do you golf?” my brother asked.

“No,” he answered, shrugging. “Do you?”

“No,” he said. “But you should learn now. In the business world, it’s not just a sport but a skill. I wish I knew how to play.”

I listened to this conversation and smiled. I can’t play golf well, but I know enough to be able to hit a few over the fairway, and I could putt if I had to. I’ve never had to put my skills into action, but I’m certain that even if I missed the ball completely, I wouldn’t feel out of place on a course. This is because the summer before my senior year of college I had the best part-time job a girl could ask for. I was a beverage cart girl on a golf course in my hometown.

I got the job through a friend who’d been doing it for years. When she first suggested it, I remember looking at her skeptically. In our short college lives, Jess and I had started down very different career paths. She’d been gathering tips as a waitress since she could hold a tray. I’d worked in the campus tutoring center. She was a PR major who could talk her way into any party on campus. I was an English major who had already lined up a summer internship with the university’s research magazine. But when she looked at me with her convincing green eyes and said, “Trust me. Best summer job ever,” there was no way I could refuse.

During the interview, I talked with one of the managers, Jan, the most confident guy with a good tan I’d ever met. Like any service job, I’m sure that part of the interview was to ensure that I was personable, could hold a conversation, and talk to people—like I’d be expected to do on the golf course daily. The other part was no doubt to check out how I’d look in the uniform.

But what began with a skeptical glance and an ugly seersucker skort ensemble turned out to be an enlightening experience. In addition to learning how to maneuver a golf cart with two huge coolers of beer on board, the beverage cart job forced me out of my comfort zone and into the social world of business. Each day I was confronted with “clients” who wanted a cold beer, a water, or just a friendly wave from the beverage cart girl. These golfers were almost always older, business professionals, for whom talking to people was more than easy. It was their job. For a shy girl who’d never dreamed of serving plastic Budweiser bottles to a Who’s Who of businessmen and women in her hometown, the job gave me confidence and even a little bit of attitude—which I realized isn’t always a bad thing. I quickly learned that there’s no one more powerful than the woman with the beer cooler.

So as the summer passed, I began to appreciate my job as more than just an hourly wage. There were many moments when I loved the course, the out-going golfers, and the opportunities that the sport offered on a hot summer day. There were also many days that I couldn’t stand to hear another flirty remark, smell Nip Cheese crackers, or watch on in horror as a golf ball smashed into the windshield of my cart. The end of each day signaled another round of happy golfers, a darker tan, and a wad of cash tips going home in my pocket. I even gained a few free lessons after hours.

But more than the cash and the tan that job was my first foray into what the grown-up business world can be like at times. It's not all sitting in offices and around intimidating board tables, always in a pressed suit--like we're led to believe as children. Sometimes it’s just a few people, on the golf course, having some beers. And holding your own in that situation (or at least being able to laugh at yourself) can be equally as important.

Top 5 Things You Should Never Discuss at Work

SSHHH.......I am a very lucky individual, meaning that I am fortunate enough to have one of those jobs that I actually enjoy, even look forward too.

I know how rare that can be for young people so I do not say this lightly. When I was hired I can honestly say I was thrilled and looked forward to a long career with the agency. Since that time, I have had some of my idealism dampened but I continue to look forward to the everyday anticipating what I will learn while coming to the realization that this job may not be my final resting point.

I have however learned a few things on the job these last seven months that will no doubt continue to help me navigate my way through the world of PR for years to come, whether or not this job becomes a long term career or not. I share these things with you in the hopes that you will perhaps have a slightly smoother path than the one I took through the world of government public affairs.

There are some things you should NEVER talk about at work. There are just some topics that no matter how well intentioned you may be or how close you think you may be to a co-worker, you will lose in the end, and sometimes it can even mean your job. This isn't rocket science and by no means NEW, but some people need the refresher.

1. Religion – This should be a no-brainer for most. There is just too much volatility and too many people who will not think twice about arguing ‘till they are blue in the face to convince you just how wrong you are.

2. Politics – some people can’t even live in the same household and discuss politics, so it makes sense that this should be off limits at work.

3. Personal Finances – Do you really want people to know just how broke you truly are? In my opinion whether you are wearing designer shoes or scrounging to buy a soda, the only one who needs to know what is in your wallet or bank account is you.

4. Sex Life – I don’t care how hot you think you are, nobody in the office wants to hear about your escapades between the sheets, whether it be your husband or wife or whoever. There is nothing worse than becoming the office slut or player. You might think you are cool, but I guarantee people are either laughing or disgusted whether they say anything to your face or not. Bragging about your after hours excursions will not gain you any points with the boss or anyone else that actually matters so do yourself a favor and keep mum while within the confines of the daily grind we call work.

5. Personal Medical Maladies – Yes you may have legitimate issues you need to make your supervisor aware of but that is not the kind of thing I am referring to here. I am talking about the things such as ulcers and migraines and chronic fatigue that may make the powers that be a tad bit nervous about your ability to do your job. Unless your issue seriously compromises your work flow, keep it to yourself.

Are there other taboo topics in the work place? There are certainly many things you don't learn in college, but after nearly a year in the work force are there other things we should just know by now? Of course, but these are the main ones I have discovered since stepping into the crazy working "real world" of PR. Have a thought or want to add one to the list...post a comment.

Can Blogging Affect Your Job? What Employees Need to Know

Former Senator John Edwards faced a problem while running his presidential campaign that many businesses of all sizes can expect to face in the future. After Mr. Edwards hired two employees for his presidential campaign staff, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, he later discovered that they were both well-known bloggers who had frequently expressed views diametrically opposed to the opinions he has publicized as a part of his campaign for presidency. Mr. Edwards was confronted with two options: fire or retain the bloggers. His solution: keep Ms. Marcotte and Ms. McEwan on his staff, but distance himself from the views espoused on their blogs.

This might have been an appropriate response by a candidate seeking voter approval. But, would other companies have been so lenient? Would an employee be able to sue for retaliation if he were fired in connection with a comment he posted on a personal blog from home complaining about harassment at the company or sending a union organizing notice? Would an employer be within its rights to fire an employee for bragging that he was having an affair with a direct report on his personal blog? There are no easy answers to these questions. Solutions can only be suggested based on a case-by-case analysis. The issues these questions raise, however, highlight that employee blogging is at the forefront of tough issues that both employees and employers must navigate together.

Not all speech is protected.

A brief perusal of postings on various blogs reveals that people feel free to say whatever they want on blogs, and in some instances, without giving much thought to the fact that information on blogs is published immediately to a potentially infinite audience, including their employers. Or, maybe many bloggers realize that their employers may discover their blogs and feel protected by the concept that this is a free country where individuals have a right to freedom of speech.

Generally, an employee cannot be fired for engaging in legally protected activities. For example, an employee complaining of discrimination by a colleague or supervisor on her personal blog would most likely be protected from any adverse employment action in response to the complaint by federal, state and local anti-discrimination statute. Similarly, an employee opinion on a blog that the pharmaceutical company she works for had destroyed research suggesting that one of its drugs could be fatal might be protected from retaliation under a whistleblower statute. Finally, an employee blog post related to the benefits of unionizing a work force would most likely be considered protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act.

However, this is not to suggest that employees are entitled to unlimited protection for all statements made on blogs. Although this is an emerging area of law with little guidance from case law, it is likely that an employee who blogs or posts a comment encouraging customers of his employer to move their business to a competitor could be legally fired for breach of fiduciary duty, whether or not the employee had posted the statement from home or work. Also, an employee cannot harass, discriminate or intimidate a fellow co-worker via a blog. If something is illegal to communicate in the office, it is also illegal to write it in a blog.

Does your employer have a blogging policy?

Like policies regulating employee e-mail, instant messaging and Internet usage, a few companies are beginning to develop policies and procedures for dealing with employee blogging activities, both personal and business-related. As employee blogging becomes more pervasive, many companies will likely implement new policies.

Companies are permitted to regulate business-related messages, including comments that are damaging to their reputation, that are being disseminated by their employees on blogs, both during work hours and outside of work. Additionally, companies must also react to any harassing messages employees post on blogs. Finally, companies can regulate and monitor employees’ use of company telecommunications networks and equipment – including when company equipment is used to maintain personal blogs.

Employees should find out if their company has a blogging policy to determine if they are permitted to blog during working hours or using company equipment. In an abundance of caution, employees may want to limit personal blogging to after work hours using a personal home computer.

Can Blogging Hurt Your Chances of Being Hired?

Perhaps Mr. Edwards might have avoided much unwanted media attention had he discovered Ms. Marcotte’s and Ms. McEwan’s blogging activities before offering them employment. On the other hand, had Mr. Edwards known about their blogs, would he have been within his rights to fail to offer them employment? As with many legal questions, the answer depends on the specific circumstances.

Along with creating new blogging policies, some companies are developing procedures for confronting the issue of employee blogging head-on during the interview process. Most information on the Internet is publicly available and companies do not need authorization to research employee blogs; however, employers may begin to include a question about blogging activities on applications. Such a question provides a good opportunity to proactively discuss any blogging activities an employee participates in. Also, when commenting on blogs or posting to your own blog, it is important to remember that while your current employer may not have an issue with it, you never know what type of job you may be seeking later on in life.

Conclusion

While most employee blogging is not a problem for employers, it is important to remember that employees do not have unlimited free speech rights when it comes to blogging. Accordingly, employees should keep the following in mind when blogging:

*Employees should not disclose confidential or proprietary information or company intellectual property on a blog;
*Employees should be mindful of the fiduciary duty they owe to their company when blogging;
*Most employers restrict use of company computers for business-related purposes only and Internet usage of company network and computers can be monitored; and
*Employees should never use obscene, discriminatory or harassing language in communications from the company’s network or equipment.

However, employees have the same free speech rights when it comes to blogging as they do in other aspects of their lives, including the right to religious and political speech. Most importantly, employers cannot retaliate against an employee for exercising his or her free speech rights. Using common sense and being mindful that the Internet captures an instant and diverse audience will help all employees navigate the potential pitfalls of blogging.

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Adapted from an article published in The New York Law Journal. Reprinted with permission from the April 9, 2007 edition of the New York Law Journal. © 2007 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.

Writers Block

It's been such a long time since I've posted on this forum. Partly because I've been busy finishing up school work and taking care of my family, but mostly because I started to feel lost in the sea of success and insightfulness that everyone else seems to have brought to the table.

I mean what is it that I can offer you that you don't already know? I've been trying to come up with the best answer for that question, but I'm still drawing a blank. Can't I just tell you how my day has gone or maybe tell you how awesome I think my sociology class is and just leave it up to you smart women to figure out the hidden message in it (because, seriously, there's one somewhere)?

In being honest and upfront about this, I have to tell you that I don't read that many articles concerning women in the workplace so my thoughts and opinions aren't in depth or extremely well thought out as some that I've read here and do you really want to read a post by someone that overuses the comma (we're thisclose - the comma and I) and has somewhat poor grammar? Just checking.

I'm doubting my abilities because I'm comparing myself to the rest of you while keeping in mind that we are all completely different individuals. It's something I've done my whole life and was hoping that at some point after puberty I would stop and just enjoy the gifts that I possess and not worry so much about what other people are doing. I'm still learning that lesson.

Window Shopping Inspiration

With the bombardment of headlines forecasting doom and despair in the economic sector, it’s hard for a freelancer and small business owner to keep her head up and stay positive. But recently I found inspiration in the most unexpected of places: a little online shopping destination called Etsy.

You may be familiar with the site. I, however, was not until my recent stint as a casting director for Project Runway Season 6. My job was to scour the internet for talented, unknown designers when I stumbled upon the world of Etsy—a marketplace for thousands upon thousands of artisans to sell their wares. We’re talking stay-at-home moms fashioning jewelry, college students crafting unique handbags, and 9-5ers churning out reams of cute stationary (my personal weakness). Besides the fact that I now have a mile-long birthday wish list, not to mention an arsenal of designers to throw in the mix for Project Runway, the unexpected take-away was the inspiration and encouragement of seeing these fabulous women (and a few men) putting their talents and passions out there with lots of texture and flair.

I get excited when I see people taking a risk to do something they love—whether it’s starting a new t-shirt line or standing up for social injustice. Watching others take their passions to the next level inspires me to do the same with my own.

The other week I found myself in a conversation-turned-monologue (on my part) about increasing access to college for low-income students—a subject that has been the catalyst for many of my career endeavors to date. While I was catching my breath after a long ramble, my friend asked me, “Why do you care so much?”

The question caught me off guard for a moment—it had been a long time since I’d thought about why it was important, I just knew that it was. But her question brought me back to the time in my life when I first realized that I wanted to make a difference in education. I was working in the admissions office at my alma mater, Columbia University, and as I traveled around the country recruiting students it became apparent that the majority of the schools I was visiting all had something in common: they were filled with students for whom going to college was a given.

And that’s when I decided that I wanted to reach a different audience: the ones who didn’t think college was a possibility and needed some extra help to get there. It was important to me because I knew how to help those students. And if I didn’t try to do something with that knowledge, I thought I would be missing out on an awesome opportunity to make a difference.

So what does the handmade goods site Etsy have to do with all this (besides being an awesome new shopping discover)? Well, as someone who has turned down a lot of stable jobs to carve a still yet-undefined career path, it is encouraging to find an abundance of independent artisans who have cultivated their talents into tangible business ventures. For many it may not be their only source of income, but the inspiration is in the fact that their ideas have taken root and they’ve seized the opportunity to share them with others.

Shopping was never so inspiring!

To browse Jaye’s latest business ventures visit her website and the First Generation blog.

Believe It - Claiming Your Dreams

Despite the fact that I was in my mid-twenties by the time I started writing regularly, and despite the fact that I was almost thirty by the time I had my first official writing job, I think I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. I loved writing anything and everything. And I loved reading—always thinking about how the story was formed, what the writer was imagining as she created a new world or learning as she reported on a recent event.

Unfortunately, despite my interest and aptitude for writing, I never believed that I was cut out to be a writer. When I started writing regularly, even publishing a few pieces in non-paying publications, I still rarely called myself a writer. I was a behavior therapist, a special education coordinator, a student, but never a writer. Eventually, I was hired to write professionally, but I continued to hesitate every time someone asked me, “What do you do?”

Over the last year or so, something has changed. During a recent walk in the park I met a woman that lives in my neighborhood and we walked together for several minutes, talking along the way. Only after the conversation was long over and I was home by myself did I realize that when she asked the Big Question, I answered, “I’m a writer.” There was no hesitation, no qualification, no embarrassment whatsoever. A simple answer: I am a writer. When, I wondered, had I begun to believe those words so completely?

Though I can’t prove it scientifically, I’d bet that the moment I began claiming that title as my own, the moment I began believing in my dream of becoming a full-time freelance writer and a novelist, was the moment I started seeing those dreams come true. When I recognized myself as a writer, I started looking for opportunities to write, and those opportunities always showed themselves. I’m not a full-time freelancer yet, and I’m still working on that manuscript, but I’m well on my way. That moment of bold proclamation in the park was just another step along the path I can now clearly see for myself. As soon as I started believing I was a writer, I became a writer. Even before I got my first freelance paycheck.

What is it that you’re hesitating to believe for yourself? What goals are you striving for? Whatever it is you want to be or do, start talking about it like it is already yours and see what a difference that belief makes in your ability get there. Try that new title on for size. Practice giving that acceptance speech. Take that freelance job. Believe in your dreams and begin to live them—even if it’s just in your imagination for now—and watch where they take you. The adventure is just beginning.

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Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her. You can also check out her new writing blog, Write Out Loud, a place for writers looking to free the stories inside them.

Left Behind in a Layoff: Getting Ready for What's Next

The pink slips have been handed out, the severance checks cashed, and the farewell drinks consumed. Everyone has offered their condolences to those who were let go, yet you’re still here, reeling in your cubicle, wondering if maybe you’re the one who really deserves the well wishes, sympathetic words, and free rounds of strong drinks.

As a four-time layoff survivor (and two-time victim), I’ve experienced all the panic, depression, fear, and anxiety that comes with staying on the job when others have been let go. There are some things you can do to ease the stress; they’re fairly common sense courses of action, but when you’re in the grips of anxiety and worried that your next paycheck may be your last, sometimes it’s hard to think clearly. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned after surviving a few layoffs, it’s that more are usually not far behind, and being ready when the next ax falls is crucial—just in case.

1. Get Up-to-Date on Your Doctor Appointments?. You can elect to continue your healthcare coverage through COBRA, but the sticker shock of COBRA prices alone may kill you long before any health-related issue. Thanks to COBRA’s high cost, many people opt to go with an emergency-only plan when they’re unemployed, which depending on the plan, means that procedures like teeth cleaning and mole removal may be out. Scheduling your annual doctor visits, updating prescriptions, and getting lab work done while you’re still covered gives you roughly a year before you have to make all the rounds again—hopefully plenty of time to find a new job and new healthcare coverage.

If you’re certain that unemployment is looming around the corner, it may be a smart time to drain your flexible spending account. Most plans allow you to use the money for things like contact lenses, braces, and over-the-counter medicines, which includes cold and allergy medicines and aspirin (which you’ll undoubtedly need after a layoff for either stress-related headaches or layoff party hangovers). Take advantage while you can—if you don’t use it, you lose it, and that might cause a queasiness that no flex plan medicine can cure.

2. Retrieve Personal Files and Contacts from Your Work Computer. ?Layoffs or no layoffs, it never hurts to do a periodic backup of all the unfinished screenplays, random party pics, Shins downloads, tax papers, and other documents that have found their way onto your work hard drive. If you’re fortunate enough to work for a company who will give you limited access to your computer and some time to collect your things after the unsavory notice of your forced termination, good for you. But the time allotted to you may be rushed, or simply not enough to get everything you need. Many employers don’t give employees the luxury of access back onto your computer, and relying on someone else to retrieve your documents once you’re gone can prove challenging. Email yourself important files, burn them onto CD, and make sure to get all your professional and personal contacts out of your work email. It’s also smart to periodically clear your cache—just to avoid the embarrassment of having managers and colleagues learn about your dailypuppy.com or Perez Hilton addiction.

3. Create a Layoff-Ready Budget?. There’s nothing like the pending doom of potential unemployment to help you reevaluate your savings plan. Now’s the time to batten down the hatches on your spending to ready yourself for any cutbacks you’ll need to make in the event of another round of company cuts. Take some time to write down every single expense you incur in a given month, being completely honest with yourself about how much you spend. Once it’s all on paper, you’ll probably find some easy places you could spend less money, like bringing your lunch to work a few days a week instead of eating out, or opting for a movie on Friday nights instead of the happy hour that turns into five delirious hours of overpriced drinks and appetizers.

This is also an ideal time to pay a visit to your financial advisor if you have one, and to potentially get an advisor (if you can afford it) if you don’t have one. He or she can help you assess your current financial strategy and whether or not you should make any changes, and can also help put together a plan for accessing more money should a layoff occur.

4. Update Your Resume and Start Networking. A previous manager once told me that she always updated her resume within the first week of starting a new job. Her rule—always be ready for anything. Most of us aren’t that industrious, though, so if you haven’t updated your resume with your latest position—or if you haven’t revisited your resume in a while—now is clearly the time to do it. Once you’re done, give it a test run and send it to friends, family, and perhaps a few trusted business contacts to see if they get a good sense of what you do, what you’re looking for, and what you’ve achieved after reading it.
Now is also a good time to start networking like crazy. Beef up your LinkedIn profile; change your contact settings to include “career opportunities” and “getting back in touch” as things you’re interested in, and perhaps ask a manager or colleague to write a recommendation for you. Make it a goal to reach out to a certain number of friends, old coworkers, managers, clients, or other business associates each day. Perhaps contact some recruiters and begin perusing job postings online. You ultimately may not want or need to find another job, but it never hurts to get the momentum swinging in your favor sooner rather than later in the event that you do.

5. Be Good to Yourself. ?The phrase “survival guilt” is often associated with traumatic events like airplane crashes, earthquakes, and twenty-car pileups. But believe it or not, survival guilt is a very real phenomenon for those who remain after a layoff, and the range of emotions people experience isn’t that different from other traumatic events. Remaining employees often feel guilty for not being laid off, sadness for the coworkers and friends they’ll miss, and sometimes even anger for the increased workload they may experience now that their team has been reduced.

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is one of the best ways to cope with survivor guilt, which sounds counterintuitive to logic given that most people feel compelled to increase their work hours in an effort to secure their jobs in the event of another cut. But arriving and leaving at a decent hour each day allows more time to enjoy the things that really nourish our souls and ultimately help us perform at a higher level and make us better, more productive employees—dinner with family or friends, an invigorating workout, going to a concert, pursuing a hobby or taking a class, or just relaxing with a book and a glass of wine.
Besides, working until midnight every night will eventually cause burnout, and ultimately doesn’t guarantee that you won’t be part of a layoff anyway since most cutbacks are about decreasing expenditure, not about performance. As the Donald says, “It’s not personal, it’s business.” You can bet your last dollar from your last paycheck that your employer will exercise that logic when adding names to the layoff list, so you should keep it in mind too.

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Provided by Rebecca Brown for DivineCaroline.com, a website where career-savvy women like you can read and contribute stories, reviews, and forums. Please visit our vibrant community soon.

Does Wanting It All Make Me a Bad Mom and Wife?

A reader sent me this question: "I have a cherished baby and a husband who is willing to support me. Women in my new mothers group pressure me to abandon my established small business any time I complain about exhaustion. They say I’m selling myself and my family short trying to do it all, but I love my work. –Torn"

My answer?

Around the end of the third postpartum month, most women start feeling like themselves again; many describe it as a sensation of resurfacing after feeling as if they’d been underwater. Don’t panic; don’t make impulsive decisions. As you ease into the transition to motherhood, be gentle with yourself and trust what you want, not what others pressure you to do or to think.

Unapologetically following your career dreams is the surest way to be the happiest individual, the best mother, partner, and community member. Staying true to your ambition allows you to live your best life. But society holds a double standard: ambitious men are go-getters; ambitious women are the b-word. I’ve worked with thousands of woman and each possesses the same fear: if she goes wholeheartedly after her dream, she'll be seen—or she'll regard herself—as selfish, bitchy, a bad wife, or a bad mother. It's exactly this fear of ambition that has forced women to leave our dreams and our great talents by the roadside, rendering us half of what we should be in every area of life. If we buy into the message that we should put our ambitious dreams at the bottom of our priorities pile, to be nurtured only after everyone else's needs have been attended to, our turn never comes. Our joie de vivre dries up.

Find a new, supportive mothers’ group that espouses this message: You can and should honor your ambition in the face of social sanctions—without guilt and without sacrificing the rest of your life. Give yourself permission to make the choices you deem appropriate, without second-guessing yourself. Check in with yourself daily, tuning in to what you want. Trust your own timetable, listen to your body and heart, to your baby, and partner with your husband to keep yourself in the game while taking care of your and your family’s needs.

You deserve to love your work, to be as ambitious as you wish, to earn your worth, and to find personal and professional fulfillment.

Giving a Great Speech

I’m one of those people lucky enough to be comfortable speaking in public. I always have been, so I don’t have any useful tips on how to overcome that fear. I can tell you this much - there is nothing quite like the joy of giving a great speech. I don't manage to be great every time, but I have started to figure out what makes a speech great.

Five way to be a great public speaker:

1. Don’t use notes. Notes are for wimps. Take the time to memorize your major points, and then fill in as you go. You'll be a hundred times more engaging. If you do have to use notes, put them on note cards or paper. Never ever read from an open laptop.

2. Take your content seriously. Don’t rush through it, or imply it’s boring. If the topic has been assigned to you and you have no choice, go over your material until you can find the interesting parts of it. Everything is interesting if you look at it right. Find the interesting angle, and share it.

3. Move around. Don’t hide behind a podium or sit behind a desk. Stand up in front of the group, and then move around as you talk. If you can, ask your audience questions and pick people to answer them.

4. Don’t use a Powerpoint presentation. Powerpoint is the devil and it leads to shoddy thinking. Presenting without Powerpoint is unfortunately unusual now, so make sure there is no blank screen behind or next to you drawing everyone’s eyes.

5. This last one is situational, and therefore a little tricky. If you’re giving a public talk, with media coverage, avoid using large hand gestures. It’s very easy for a photographer to get a picture of you doing something ridiculous-looking as you gesture. A photo much like this. If there are no photographers, or if they are friendly, use a lot of motion as you speak, to giveyour audience something dynamic to focus on.

6 Steps to Becoming a Better Manager

Typically, no one is trained to be a manager. We all have to learn how to manage people on the fly, after we are promoted into a management position. It is helpful, when learning to be a good supervisor, to keep in mind the things that past supervisors have done that you liked and those that you have not liked. You can use these experiences to guide your decisions. Here are six steps to follow to make sure that you become a leader that others will remember in a positive light.

1. Tame yourself – You have to begin by understanding your personality and taming it. If you are too quiet, you will need to work on becoming more outgoing and decisive. If you are too decisive, to the point where you scare people, you will need to work on toning yourself down. You want to become a thoughtful, considerate leader who knows where they are going.

2. Have a goal – If you don’t know where you are going, you will never arrive, and no one will be able to follow you. Your goal can be as simple as “providing every customer with the best service” or “no injuries, no deaths on the job” or “make a profit.”

3. Have a “clear, simple message” – You must be able to convey your goal in a sound bite. People can understand and retain clear, simple messages. You have to be able to repeat the message at meetings, in newsletters and in general conversations. If your people know the message, they will be able to follow.

4. Look and act like a leader – People have a much easier time following someone who looks as they should. Your clothes should be clean and pressed. Your shoes should be polished. You should walk with confidence.

5. Be trustworthy – People won’t follow you if they don’t trust you. You must be ethical and honest at all times. People trust people who are clear about what they are doing. People don’t trust people who say one thing at a meeting, and then say or do something different outside of the meeting.

6. Care about your people – You can’t supervise people if you don’t like them. You shouldn’t become best friends with your staff, but you should know them and know what their problems are. Because you care, you should attend their weddings, and the funerals of their close family members. Because you are their leader, you should not attend more personal functions, such as their birthday parties. You need to keep yourself concerned with your staff, but not intimately involved with them. If you are really not a “people person,” consider another, non-managerial position in your organization.

Is it your project? Make sure you own the pen.

I recently had a coaching session with a woman who is the owner of a very high profile project. The project has been plagued with delays and issues and on some days she gets more help then she could ever possibly use. In fact, it seems dificult to sort through all the voices. I shared the story of the pen with her. I thought I'd share it with you as well.

"The rule of the pen: The one who owns the pen owns the meeting." – Ancient adage

The most important thing is that if you own the project/program, make sure you step up and really "own" it. On many occasions, I've seen presentations where the program owner does not present the material. Does this mean that you don't take input from key partners, implementers, stakeholders? No, absolutely not. You must, however, know your program at a detailed level. You are not just a coordinator… you are an owner. On those all important presentations, inputs are sent to you. You roll up the final presentation, you send it out to the stakeholders, YOU deliver the message. As a great team leader, make sure that, as appropriate, team members are recognized for their work during a presentation and present the areas they are responsible for. But YOU own the pen.

"The reciprocal rule of the pen: Don't accept or take a pen that doesn't belong to you." - Ancient adage

Have you ever had someone ask you to present something that you don't own? Perhaps even something that you aren't entirely on board with? The reciprocal rule says that you do not take a pen that doesn't belong to you. It's not yours. You don't like it when someone takes YOUR pen, so don't take someone else's. In the worst case scenario, you become the scapegoat for a poorly created strategy.

Keeping the pen can be challenging, especially in a scenario where there are major issues (i.e. schedule slipping, technical issues, etc.). Everyone seems to want to jump in and "help." They keep stopping by and taking the pen off your desk. You must maintain your cool. You must continue to own communications in all forms. You'll find yourself chasing down and squelching rumors. You'll be telling people who are panicking about potential schedule slips that unless they hear it from you, it isn't so. You'll be showing up at meetings they "forgot to invite you" to. Have a well thought out communications strategy. Make sure you know who your key management support is. Don't wait for a meeting… communicate by walking around, on IM, in email, on the phone. And if for some reason the pen leaves your possession? Go and get it… and take a bottle of whiteout with you… just in case.

Don't Forward That Email to Me!

We live in a world where speed is key. Everything has to be bigger, better, faster and so on. Time is money, so no one can afford to wait for anything. Unfortunately this development has enabled e-mail to become ridiculously over-used(abused?).

We all know that e-mail forwards can get you in trouble. Everyone has heard about the person who forwarded a nasty e-mail about their total drip of a boss to all their "close" friends only to have that person forward it to another person , who forwarded it yet again until that cute little note lands right in the boss's in-box and the next thing you know there is a cute little pink slip in yours.

Overly dramatic? I don't think so. Here is a list of some of the worst spam I get forwarded to me:

1. Political rants - I for one and really sick of getting other's people propaganda. Yes this is an important time to be involved in the political process, but hey, as a fully functioning adult, I can make my own decisions.

2. Scary Chain emails - You know the kind I mean - forward this to 10 million friends in the next thirty seconds or a house will fall on your sister! (Sorry Margaret...) I do not have the time or the desire to sift through these barely veiled threats to my eternal happiness. They fill up my in-box, carry viruses and are just plain annoying!

3. Religious requests - I know this might strike a nerve, but hey, I don't need religious instruction from random folks. I am pretty comfortable with my mortality and can make my own decisions about my eternal resting location. Don't send me forwarded prayer requests for little Susie in Guatemala who has X disease that can only be cured with my thoughts and prayers. If you really want to make change, volunteer, vote and be an advocate for a legitimate cause. Don't send me spam.

4. Ridiculous or inappropriate YouTube Videos - I love a good laugh as much as the next person, but most of the videos I receive are downright stupid. Also, most of these videos have been forwarded numerous times so that you may never know who the original sender was.

**A note about email privacy: Please check your send to list. If you put your contacts in the CC line then everyone can see every address you send it to. Before you hit that forward key stop and think, do you really want your boss, or significant other or even your grandmother to receive something you thought was funny but may be entirely inappropriate for them? Do you want them to see your entire contact list? If you must forward be discreet - use the BCC function!

Lessons from the Networking Trenches

I realized this month, during a conversation with one of my closest friends, that I’ve unknowingly surrounded myself with people who compliment me. I’ve been lucky enough to meet these women (and men, too) at school, various jobs, and through friends and family. Without even trying, I’ve created a network of professionals who have been willing to mentor me and support me where I’m lacking in skills, motivation or knowledge. They share lessons learned, trade services, recommend me to their acquaintances, and generally support me, and I return the favors. It’s a symbiotic relationship for all. It’s not just about what I need, and that’s the networking key.

It turns out that the purpose and importance of networking is not solely to make connections that you can cash in on later. Instead, networking is about meeting new people, supporting others and allowing them to support you when you need it. The goal of networking should always be about bringing people together to meet needs and get things done. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned about networking the right way.

Be aware, be kind and don’t be shy. Everywhere you go, there’s an opportunity to meet someone new. Smile at strangers, introduce yourself to that woman next to you on the train, and be kind to everyone. You never know who you might meet, and how you might be able to support each other. What do you have to lose? The least you’ll get out of it is a nice conversation to pass the commute time.

Think of others. Networking isn’t all about you. Instead of always wondering how a person can meet your needs, or how you can sell your services, consider how you might be able to help the people you know. Who might benefit from meeting this person? Or do you know someone who might be able to meet this person’s need?

Tell everyone you know about your business. It may sound simple, but if people don’t know what you do, they’ll never know if they need your services. That woman on the train might know someone who could benefit from your product. Your sister’s boss might be looking for someone who does what you do. Remind people often that you have services to offer and they’ll be much more likely to hire you.

Carry your business cards everywhere and hand them out! Again, this seems like a no-brainer, but you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been caught empty-handed in a situation where a business card might have sealed the deal. Even if the person you meet isn’t interested in what you have to offer right now, when she’s digging through her wallet a month from now and finds your business card, you might be exactly who she needs.

Networking has clearly never been my forte. I’ve only recently become comfortable striking up conversations with complete strangers, and I still sometimes forget to mention “what I do” when I meet someone new. But I’ve learned that networking doesn’t have to be a chore. Meeting new people is fun and eventually, handing over your card when you shake hands or say good-bye will become second nature. Think of networking as weaving a net that connects people of all different walks of life and ensures they’ll have what they need when they need it, or that they’ll at least know who to call to find it.

Visit Ami's personal blog or her professional website to learn more about her. You can also check out her new writing blog, Write Out Loud, a place for writers looking to free the stories inside them.

Clear the Clutter in Your Life

Look around you, at work and home. Do you feel overjoyed or annoyed? Your environment affects your moods, attitudes, emotions, and energy level. What things sap your energy? You need to figure out ways to reduce, eliminate, or change your environment, so that it lifts you up rather than brings you down. These tidbits might help.

1. Clear the clutter. This requires effort and can be time-consuming, but the real reason people dread clearing clutter is emotional attachment -- and because you no idea how to organize what you keep. Focus first on the areas of the home that are most important to your health and vitality, especially the bedroom.

2. Thin out the incoming stream. We all have a constant stream of mail and new possessions coming into our lives. If you don't develop a regular habit of thinning it out as it walks through the door, it'll pile up and zap your energy in no time.

3. Create space with the right layout and equipment. If you get buried in clutter simply because you don't know where to put things, learn to make creative use of the space you have -- including vertical space.

4. Learn to live more simply. Instead of piling on new possessions until you just have to many, stop buying and take a hard look at what you have. Don't equate material possessions with wealth or happiness, or -- worse yet -- self worth.

5. Get rid of it. If you don't learn how to get rid of things, you'll be overwhelmed with your possessions. Unworn clothing, unwanted gifts, ancient paperwork -- get rid of it. If you haven't used it in two years, ditch it.

6. Accentuate the positive. Separate the trash from the treasure. You don't need to keep unwanted gifts simply because they're gifts. And don't be afraid to get rid of things that are dragging you down with emotional baggage: there's a reason women burn photographs of their old boyfriends.

7. Keep your office desk organized. No, a clean desk isn't the sign of a simple mind: it's the sign of an efficient, energetic mind! The more space there is, the less crowded your energy is. File rather than pile, and gather up those sticky notes!

8. Make a list of the home improvement projects you want to accomplish. Nagging, incomplete projects not only create clutter, they also drag your mood down because another thing on your to-do list is staring you in the face. Dispatch routine tasks as soon as possible, and work to get the others off your calendar.

Clearing away clutter may seem like too much work, but you need to learn how to do it effectively for your own benefit. Once you cut down on the clutter in your life, you can move on to more productive levels of emotion and energy that put you ahead of the game.

-- Visit Laura's site, www.TheProductivityPro.com.

Social Gaffes and Cocktail Party Blunders

I recently attended a formal charity fundraiser in NYC and found it to be a most enlightening experience. During the cocktail hour, I was standing with my husband and a number of other attorneys making small talk. At one point, the young man to my right, a first or second year attorney, began telling my husband a story that involved some legal terms and subject matter (titillating cocktail party chatter). He turned and started explaining the words and concepts he was using to me as if I would not have understood the conversation. Luckily for me, I AM AN ATTORNEY and I both understood the conversation and found it quite boring!

I respect that this man was trying to include me in the conversation rather than pretending I was not there, but his assumption that I would not understand the topic still amazes me and makes me wonder why he would think such a thing. Is it because I am a woman? Is it because I am the wife of a successful attorney? Is it simply because I look young? Is it because he somehow knew that I work in a different industry other than law? I must say that this same thing happens very frequently when I meet people who know my husband professionally -- they often speak to me as if I know nothing about the law and they feel they need to explain things to me in cocktail party conversation. Each time it happens, I see my husband cringe and try to interrupt the speaker to inform them before they go too far that I, too, am an attorney so that they won't condescend and get me all fired up.

Later that particular evening, I found myself seated at a table with a number of my people I did not know. The young woman next to me was a junior level attorney who was born, raised and educated in New York City. As we conversed, she asked me where I was from. When I replied that I have lived in New York for 14 years but that I am originally from Cape Cod, she looked stricken. She replied, "Cape Cod. Wow. Did you have to be home schooled?"

My poor husband probably wanted to hide under the table when he heard that one.

What?????? Talk about getting me fired up! Home schooled? I am sure there is absolutely nothing wrong with home schooling and, in fact, my one friend who was home schooled went on to an Ivy League university. However, I took this comment to mean that this woman's impression of Cape Cod was that of a place where there are either no schools or terrible ones so that my only option would have been home schooling. I couldn't help myself. I replied, "Actually, I went to Groton School. You may have heard of it. It is one of the finest prep schools in the country." There are plenty of good schools on Cape Cod and I went to a few of them, too! It amazed me that a woman who has an advanced degree and a highly competetive and sought-after job and who was raised in a very sophisticated place would be so naive and uninformed as to life outside her little orbit. I was offended and confused by her question, and I wondered when that painful evening would ever end.

These two incidents have stuck with me over the past few weeks. The lesson I took from each was that we need to be very mindful of our audience when we speak. Within five minutes of meeting me, these two people made incorrect assumptions about me or my background that put me on the defensive. I will try to remember that the next time I look at someone and think I know who they may be without even asking them. Perhaps the answer lies in listening more than talking.

The Non-Profit Crisis Isn't Just About Leadership

With baby boomers approaching retirement, I have come across many articles offering advice on what to do to prepare for the next generation leaders. The advice focuses on ways to make the field more appealing to young people: offer more mentorships, allow for the usage of social media, create more opportunities for advancement, and encourage a laid back environment. However, all of this ignores that nonprofits face an even greater crisis aside from the impending shift in leadership: its public perception.

Even though I am entering the world of fundraising I find it odd that the existence of a sector that provides vital necessities to the public is predicated on whether or not people deem their cause worthy that year. The money issue is remarkably complex yet the lack of funding to support the people who bring services to the public (i.e. non profit employees) is appalling especially when we realize that the conditions many employees endure, even funders would not tolerate for themselves.

Additionally, a hierarchy of needs is constantly being made by the public in a way that inadvertently puts people and issues against each other: how can we worry about the environment when there are children to feed? How can we worry about children in Harlem when there are children in Africa that need an education? Why spend money on HIV/AIDs when child birth is a major killer? As a result nonprofits have to constantly prove their worth to a society that doesn’t realize where they would be without nonprofits in the first place. Even though I believe that is plenty of money to go around and fund every cause, increasing pressure for nonprofits to have a quantifiable bottom line results in a competition for sources.

To make matters worse, the work done by nonprofits is simply not taken seriously. For example, throughout my time last year as program coordinator where I provided leadership training to teens, I can’t tell you how many times people said, "Awww that’s nice." As I have vented here, not only am I professional trying to master my work but also the work I do is vital to this country's well being. Is not education the great equalizer? Do we not believe that education in addition to caring and concerned adults can change the life of a troubled teen? Then why, when I explain what I do, do I get "Awww, that's nice." You would never say that to a doctor, a lawyer, a journalist, or any other profession because they command respect. Why is education any different?

The belief the nonprofits are easy or not as important as for profits is seen in people's approach to the field in general. Why do people believe that starting a nonprofit is easier than starting a for-profit? Why do people switch to nonprofit careers because they want something that isn’t stressful? Even last year when I asked my peers what they wanted to do, too many said they would teach or work at a nonprofit until "they found something real to do." And finally, why aren’t the trends of the nonprofit field--with over $600 billion in assets and over 7.1% of the population employed-- featured prominently in the pages of our newspapers? I’ll learn all about real estate, cars, and art in the New York Times, but you won’t tell me trends in volunteering and donating? We are taken for granted and this is evident in how many of us are funded, treated, and discussed.

The ultimate goal of non profits should be to attract as many people as possible to social justice work. However, this cannot be done if we aren’t respected or funded adequately. Many nonprofits were created by young people with a passion for change, helping those in need and enhancing the cultural, spiritual, and political life of this country. In order to continue with this we need to reevaluate how we do business.

1. We must generate our own revenue: Museums do this via membership and entry fees, for example. However, we may need to go a step farther. Social entrepreneurship--described by someone as the ability to harness the markets to achieve a social mission--is growing as a viable way to help the community, while generating a profit.

2. We must get our voices into mainstream media: We can’t allow the work we do to be put on the back burner. Organizations like the Red Cross may have national attention because their involvement in crisis assistance, yet many organizations never receive attention (unless it's a scandal). Supplements in newspapers about local organizations or TV segments that show the work these organizations do will not only give them more attention (and probably more clients), but it will also get people thinking about the nonprofit world perhaps sparking discussions and making it clear what role this organizations play in people's lives.

3. We must create a stronger culture of philanthropy: While I am unsettled by a reliance on others to give, I still recognize the importance of having a nation in which giving back to your community is fostered. However, philanthropy must extend beyond the giving and receiving of funds--when this happens, a serious disconnection forms. For example, often times, fundraising exists in a bubble with the people leading fundraising initiatives having no connection to the neighborhood in which the organization is located and sometimes, the organization itself. The push should be in terms of community investment in the well being of an organization rather than money controlling the mission.

We need a makeover, not only to attract young workers but to increase public investment in our work. Perhaps this is another issue for the new generation of leaders to take on.

Choosing Gender Roles

"KRUJE, Albania — Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.

For centuries, in the closed-off and conservative society of rural northern Albania, swapping genders was considered a practical solution for a family with a shortage of men. Her father was killed in a blood feud, and there was no male heir. By custom, Ms. Keqi, now 78, took a vow of lifetime virginity. She lived as a man, the new patriarch, with all the swagger and trappings of male authority — including the obligation to avenge her father’s death."

So begins an article in today's New York Times, which discusses how, in the current age of advancing women's right, the "sworn virgins" of Albania are disappearing. According to Dan Bilefsky, because regular women are allotted more privileges and independence now than they were even twenty years ago, they no longer see becoming a man as a necessary option for autonomy.

What is really interesting about this cultural gender switching is that it is based on economics and hierarchy, rather than personal gender choice. In Transparent, Cris Beam explores the ways in which transsexuals are physically one sex, but internally identify with the opposite gender. Beam also mentions some cultures, including Thai and Native American cultures, that allow for a "third gender" of transsexuals. But what separates these instances from the Albanian "sworn virgins" is that in Albania, a woman who has become a man is completely severed from sexual activity. These women have chosen to become men, not because of internal feelings or sexual attraction to women, but because it gave them standing within their villages.

As I read about the Albanian "uncles," I thought about gender politics here in the West--particularly in the workplace. Women in the office are seen as weak and incompetent, but if they change their tactics to act like men, they are deemed too tough and unfeminine. As Lisa Belkin notes, "women can't win." While in the Albanian village, it is accepted for a woman to assume the role of a man, in the Western office, women are not allowed to do the same. Think of how many people tarred Hillary Clinton with the word "mannish."

Imagine for a moment that a woman in America could be allowed to dress and present herself as a man, and gain respect from both men and women around her. (It's not a solution to the issue certainly; the real solution is for women to be valued for what they offer instead of being labeled by their gender.) But this situation wouldn't happen. If a woman dressed as a man in the American office, she would be labeled a freak. Even women who work hard to act like men (i.e. aggressively) are not safe once they reach the executive level; think of the spectacular fall of Zoe Cruz at Morgan Stanley. Were Zoe Cruz a man, she would have been considered a great success, or perhaps the template of an Alpha Male. But because she was a woman, she was called names like Czarina, Wicked Witch, and Cruz Missile behind her back. Furthermore, even though she had a proven track record in financial leadership, she was constantly being undermined by the men in her company:

Jay Dweck, a former Goldman Sachs executive who had switched over to Morgan Stanley was surprised to see the level to which Morgan Stanley employees went to undermine their female boss. When Ms. Cruz voiced her opinion that the company should pull out of its investments shorting subprime mortgages and going long on higher quality triple-A mortgages that were previously considered to be stable, the company did not immediately back her decision, but instead devoted precious time to questioning her judgment. Mr. Dweck was overheard by several people saying, “At Goldman, this isn’t happening. When they say get out, they get out. At Morgan Stanley, when Zoe says get out, people start negotiating.”

One of the criticisms leveled against Cruz is that she was "hard as nails" and "unsympathetic" to subordinates. What makes her any different from any number of high level Wall Street male executives? Would Cruz have risen to the role of Morgan Stanley's second-in-command if she had been more feminine? Organized office parties? Worn more pink? Of course not.

Back to the Albanian sworn virgins. Obviously choosing the male path is not a decision to be taken lightly. For one thing, these women no longer belong to the female social sphere, and for another, they are forswearing any sexual identity or expression. They cannot marry, have sex, bear children, and so forth. It is a huge choice to make. But what they gain is respect and power. Is it worth it? In the face of women's advancement, there are no new sworn virgins. If Albania is making this leap forward in valuing its women, perhaps American corporate culture could as well?

Get to It and Do It

"Get to it and do it." It's a statement I heard plenty of growing up. Chores to be finished? "Get to it and do it." Math homework? "Get to it and do it." Whatever the task to be done, if I was procrastinating or avoiding the activity, “Get to it and do it” would be my mother's response.

The mantra never seemed to become second-nature, but with a long laundry list of to-dos covering everything from household chores to writing projects that I've been meaning to start or complete, I realized this was simple advice I should be living by. With plenty to do, I should be getting plenty done. Instead, I putz around doing odd jobs or filling my time with less-than-productive activities like watching movies and taking naps. This procrastination only makes the list longer, as new projects pop up and deadlines loom. Stress abounds and I start to feel overwhelmed. Then I hear my mother's voice in my head: "Just get to it and DO it, already."

In an attempt to stop procrastinating and start doing, I've come up with some strategies for dealing with the biggest roadblocks to completing my to-do list.

Divide big tasks into smaller ones. Just the thought of tackling a large, time-consuming or elaborate task can be overwhelming. Instead of feeling pressured to complete a big task in one sitting, break it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. That novel you’re working on? Think of it as a collection of chapters instead. Dreading painting the dining room? Paint one wall at a time. As you divide and conquer, those overwhelming tasks start to look like no big deal.

Set deadlines. That presentation you have to give at work next week comes with a non-negotiable deadline set by your boss. Get it done, or pay the consequences. But for those task s that aren’t handed to you with deadlines, like that novel you’re writing just for fun, or the room you’ve been meaning to paint, setting a deadline and sticking to it will ensure it gets finished.

Hold yourself accountable. Deadlines mean nothing if you don’t stick to them. Write them in your calendar, post them on your bulletin board, or ask a friend to check up on your progress each week. Do whatever you need to do to make sure you’re getting those projects done on time.

Prioritize. Not every task can be number one on the list of things you need to get done. Organize your to-do list based on deadlines and focus on tackling the things with the earliest deadlines first.

Don’t forget the little things. You’ve broken your tasks into more manageable pieces and the tendency may be to let those lower priority tasks slip through the cracks. But keep in mind that these smaller tasks add up to that bigger one you were dreading. If you don’t complete it piece by piece over time, you’ll be faced with an overwhelming project later. So schedule that interview or work on that draft now and you’ll be well on your way to a finished article by the time the deadline for your final draft rolls around.

With a plan for getting things done, I might finally start making some check marks. How do you “get to it and do it” when you find yourself overwhelmed or procrastinating?

--Visit Ami's site or blog.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Young Professionals

In an age where wunderkinds are making millions in back room internet start-ups and an entrepreneurial attitude is heralded as the “it” factor, many young professionals feel the pressure to perform to the expectations of their peers, their families and themselves. It is not enough to strap on a suit and be content to grind out an entry level position. Today’s new workforce is obsessed with early success and wants to have fun while doing it. For these twentysomethings, a “Quarter Life Crisis” is neither welcomed nor expected, but it is this paradigm shift where learning to balance the vicissitudes of Work and Life become harder than a young professional’s will to thrive in your company. What these young professionals need more than ever is effective management and mentoring for their lofty career goals, because otherwise your workforce will be lackluster, withdrawn and unmotivated to support a company’s growth, especially if they can’t see their own.

The new work force needs a set of achievable goals for success, and more often than not they are looking to their managers as teachers. As both a manager and mentor, getting the most out of your Millennial workers requires attention to the following 3 “R’s”:

1. Respect: The quickest way to get lackluster results from your young professional is to treat them like a child; and nothing irks the young professional more than being talked down to. They may not know how to develop your company strategy, but they are eager to learn. They will fully admit that they don’t know everything, and most of the lot actually look for and want your push in the right direction. So talk with clarity and openness, and encourage them to give their perspective from where it is today and then again after they complete a goal. You might just be surprised in their fresh, forward insights.

2. Responsibility: Young professionals are eager for success, and in order to gain success they need to have responsibility. Don’t be afraid to give them open-ended tasks where they have some freedom to develop their process. Co-generating a hierarchy of goals will also encourage your twentysomething to steer towards a path that you both are comfortable with while giving them the confidence to make themselves and you (as their senior manager) proud.

3. Reward: Incentives are an easy way to motivate new workforce and they don’t have to be about money or as irreverent as the proverbial “gold star”. Instead, think of incentives that will help build trust and confidence between you and your Millennial staff. When a goal is achieved with excellent results, take that member to lunch and have a one on one, ask them their perspective on a new initiative and suggest they write up some thoughts. Have incentives based around their ideas, inclusions and the opportunity for advancement – even if that “advancement” is just to be recognized as a leader among their peers.
Young Professionals and Millennials are some of the hardest working but misunderstood generation in the workplace today. They can be fickle and delicate, but with the right touch and pushing can be your best asset towards keeping a company fresh, alive and innovative.

Too happy? Your wallet could suffer.

Having a family and being young and broke to boot, I am constantly on the lookout for ways to either save money or to increase my bank account. I am dabbling in investments, have a savings account and a 401K through my employer. I never thought however that my personal happiness might have anything to do with the size of my purse. Wrong! at least according to the latest issue of Money magazine.

In an article titled "Want to be Rich? Don't get too happy" columnist and money coach Jean Chatzky spells out why too much happiness can actually be a bad thing in the financial department. She is not the first too broach the topic.

She points to a study done by Ed Diener of the University of Illinois which shows that there can be too much of a good thing even happiness. Apparently being blissful can lead to overspending and less attention to wealth building [read complacency]. Those who rated an 8 or a 9 on the happiness scale versus a 10 were more likely to strive to increase their wealth and to hold on to what they had, probably because they had worked for it to begin with. These slightly less happy folk were also more likely to go to college and to vote.

So does that mean the eternal optomists are doomed to a cheerful but broke life? Not neccessarily. Chatzky gives a couple of tips on how those glass half full types can ensure that they too will approach retirement with a fully developed nest egg.

1. Surround yourself with the right people. It is all about balance. According to the article if you are having financial woes you may need new friends. If you tend toward pessimism then find a few optimists, swing the other way, add a pessimist to the mix. Either way you will balance out your personality and possibly help out your financial situation in the process.

2. Challenge yourself. Super bliss can make even the most intelligent person become complacent. Even of your approach to life is working, you should always be prepared for the worst, simply because nobody can predict the future, no matter how hard we try. You also may become so caught up in "your way of doing things" that you fail to notice when it is no longer beneficial. Ever hear the expression "having blinders on?"

Okay, so maybe I really don't have anything to worry about seeing as I don't really count myself among the blissfully unaware. (At least not since puberty.) But I will take the article to heart lest I become complacent in my miser-like ways.

Do you find that too much happiness impacts your ability to build wealth? I know that many Brazen bloggers are looking to increase both their wealth and their happiness, so I open up the discussion. Is it possible to have both?

The Mommy Balance: Gen@Work

Gen@Work is a monthly column looking at career through the prism of generation. If you have a question for our Gen@Work panel, please send it in care of the editor at cwilbert@realgirlsmedia.com. Never miss a Gen@Work column again. Just click on the author’s name at the top of the story, then select “Be notified when writer publishes” at the top of the page. We’ll send you an email as soon as a new column is published.

Dear Gen@Work,

I am considering going part-time after the birth of my first child in a few months. My husband makes more money than I do and with a little belt-tightening, we will be able to make ends meet. My concern is that it will be tough for me to recover my earning potential long-term. I don’t want to derail my career. What do you think?—Future Mom in Illinois

Generation X Perspective: Magan Crane

Dear Mom-to-Be,

First, congratulations on impending motherhood. Getting ready for such a dramatic change is so exciting, but there are lots of difficult decisions and they all seem terribly momentous. And of course, none seem as momentous as working. Full-time, part-time, stay home? Sometimes the luxury of choice seems like a burden, right? And any choice seems to thrust you right into the middle of the dreaded Mommy Wars. Ugh. But fret not. The right solution for your family (not your sister’s family, your neighbor’s family, or your boss’s family) is out there and you will find it.

To your question, I think the idea of working part-time is a great option; you are lucky to have it. There is not that much meaningful part-time work out there and if can find a position that allows you to keep your skills fresh and maximize your Mom time, that’s great. You are right that your long-term earning potential will be hurt. But it might be worth the hit to spend more time at home during the precious first few months or years of your baby’s life. You can minimize the impact by proving yourself committed to your career by giving work your full attention while you are on the job. Let your boss know—both in words and actions—that while you are at work, your mind is at work. Dress for success. Try to keep personal responsibilities, like doctor appointments and errands, to your days off. Also, if you intend to return to a full-time schedule in at some point, let them know. That is probably the best way to avoid ending up on their “Mommy track” forever.

Boomer Perspective: Marilynn Mobley

Dear Future Mom,

Congratulations on your first baby! I hope you enjoy being a mother as much as I have for the past twenty-two-plus years.

You didn’t indicate what line of work you’re in, so I don’t know how realistic or practical it is to work part-time. Still, I would certainly encourage you to be creative. Ask whether it’s possible to work at home while your child is young. Many companies are open to this idea, especially for their best employees. Also, look into job sharing or perhaps even consider how you might continue your career as an entrepreneur, rather than working for someone else.

I worked for IBM for fifteen years, and then started my own company specifically because I wanted to spend more time with my children. Owning my own company enabled me to be an involved mother and still satisfy my financial and professional goals. Then when I did decide to rejoin corporate America nine years later, I was actually more valuable than if I had stayed at IBM all those years.

If you do decide to stay home full-time for a while, make it a point to keep your skills up-to-date so when you do want to reenter the workforce, you will be more marketable. Many managers would actually welcome the opportunity to hire a woman who has the maturity, patience, discipline, and multi-tasking skills often associated with stay-at-home moms. So don’t just assume staying home will reduce your long-term earning potential.

When I consider how much the workplace has changed since the birth of my first child, I’m optimistic that you can benefit from continued progress.

Millennial Perspective: Traci Tsai

Hi Mom-to-Be,

This one’s a tough one for me—as I haven’t been in this situation yet or had many people seek my advice on this topic. However, I have had a number of co-workers go through this process, so I’ll do my best to share some of my limited insight and some of the thoughts I’ve had when thinking about it in the context of my own future.

Investigate with your boss as well as your company if there are flexible, work-from-home options for you after your maternity leave is over. This has worked out well for a number of people I know. They are able to work more hours and therefore keep their income at (close to) a full-time level and their career on track. With help at home during working hours, they also are able to be with their children during the early years.

I know that personally, I want to be able to maintain a strong work/life balance when the time comes for me to start a family. I am not close enough to the situation now to provide any personal experience-based advice, but one option that I have seen a number of people explore is to go the consulting route. This is something that I will definitely explore when I find myself at this juncture. With this option, I feel it’s possible to continue building a base of contacts and work experience, but in a flexible manner that allows time for family. I will (hopefully) preserve my earning potential and keep my career on track so that whenever I am ready to return to full time work, I will be in a good position to do so.

DivineCaroline.com is a website where career-savvy women like you can read and contribute stories, reviews, and forums. Please visit our vibrant community soon.

Working at Home Just Doesn't Work

Recently a co-worker of mine batted around the idea of working from home one day a week. The idea was great in theory. Our work is done primarily on a computer or on the phone (gotta love the communications industry) and so we are lucky enough to be capable to complete many of our tasks without actually coming in to the office.

The most obvious benefit that jumps to mind of course is saving money. Even one day of not driving means less gas to buy, which is a big one since most of us here around the office drive big gas guzzlers even though we of all people should respect our natural resources...but I digress.

Less driving also means less cars on the road, less pollution, less dependency on oil, etc which is obviously good from an environmental standpoint.

Another selling point is the obvious convenience of rolling out of bed and working without the need for removing your pj's or brushing your hair. I get very little sleep as it is since I can't seem to convince either the baby or the toddler that their beds are much better than mine. Trying to look impressive for the office is often given a much lower priority than five extra minutes of semi-sleep.

Lastly, well who wouldn't prefer to work on their own schedule without worrying that the boss is going to poke her head into your office at 3:30 to discover you took a late lunch...right when she needs you of course. At home as long as you have the Internet and a phone you are always accessible and can eat your PB & J whenever you feel like it.

Now the downside.

If you are single and or married with no children, or maybe married with children and a splendid nanny then you could probably stop reading as this will more than likely not apply to you. You want to work at home, more power to you. Save the planet, one gallon of gas at a time.

I on the other hand have three children. Two of them are not yet in school....thankfully only 60 more days till there will only be one crazy toddler roaming around the house! hooray for pre-k! It is also summertime now and the one child who I gratefully send off on the bus every morning during the school year is now moping around the house complaining of boredom and that his annoying little brother is trashing his video games again. (go outside already! I'm working! or as my father always told me.."I'm not your entertainment committee!")

While that in itself may be reason enough for many working moms (or dads) to want to be out of the house, I actually do have more.

Working at home is nearly impossible for me. There are simply too many distractions. I am just one of those people that just can't leave things undone. If I am at home then there is laundry to do, dishes to wash and little hineys to wipe unfortunately. (Lord I hope it is true that girls train easier than boys do..) I can never sit down long enough without noticing something else that must be taken care of. I tried having the whole home office environment thing, but somehow life still creeps in, even if you lock the door. How does a three year old learn how to unlock a door with a hot wheel anyways?

My kids also assume that me being home means it is either a weekend or a holiday.See how well I have them trained by my work schedule? Wish I could get them trained to pick up their rooms when they know I am on my way home (kind of like the cat in the hat story), now that would be impressive. Where can I get one of those picker-upper machines anyways?

So just being in the house virtually guarantees that no work of any substance will be accomplished unless I have a sitter, which kind of nullifies the whole saving money idea in the first place.

If I choose to work at home I also tend to work way more than the eight hours required. I know this kind of contradicts what I have been saying so let me explain. If I am running around fixing sandwiches, folding laundry and wiping noses and hineys then the few moments I have when they are napping, eating, or otherwise occupied means I dive in to work. Maybe it is only ten minutes here or an hour there, but when you get an email from your supervisor telling you to go to bed because you just sent your latest marketing plan to them at 1am (they finally went to sleep!) then you realize that you have really gone above and beyond, despite all the crazy distractions. While working at home I keep a log of my hours and it really does add up.

So maybe rather than try to save fuel or the environment by working at home, I will just get a bike. It's only 33 miles right?

Dreaming Through Obstacles

I think a lot about the future. About how I want to make my mark on this world, do something of significance, and find that perfect intersection of talent, passion, and opportunity. And I’m not just dreaming—I’m working constantly to do everything I can to make those aspirations my reality.

I’ve experienced a few successes that seem to indicate I’m on the right path, but lately it seems like there are more roadblocks than gateways—and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it’s discouraging. I wonder if I am taking the right risks, if I’m running out of time (yes, the baby clock is ticking), or if I’m just kidding myself into believing that my dreams are actually possible to achieve.

As I encounter a season of unforeseen obstacles, I think about the hyped-up motivational phrases I often see emblazoned on coffee mugs and office posters and inspirational calendars that say, “Forge your own path. Don’t take no for an answer.” Sometimes that’s what I need to hear, but when all signs in the universe seem to indicate otherwise, it’s hard for me to keep moving forward.

I can’t imagine how emotional it must have been for Hillary Clinton to stand on the stage giving her concession speech when you know she believes she’s still the best person for the job. A year ago it seemed she was an unstoppable force, a lock for the Democratic nomination. Even when Barack Obama started gaining momentum and tightening the gap, she and her campaign kept up the positive attitude and sincere belief that she was going to clinch the presidency. And a few weeks ago when her campaign was millions of dollars in debt and it seemed painfully obvious her dreams of becoming commander-in-chief (at least in ’08) were nothing more than dreams, Hillary still soldiered on with a smile on her face.

Whether you are a supporter or not, I think there is something to be admired in the way Hillary ran this race. Even though she ultimately didn’t win the grand prize, she saw it through until forces beyond her control grounded her. She didn’t stop until she didn’t have a choice. In my own life, I consider throwing in the towel just when I encounter minor speed bumps or detours—things I can probably surmount. I think about how it would be so much easier and comfortable to take a stable 9-5 job with health benefits, than to continue working freelance and start an independent production company. I wonder if I have the strength and confidence to see these dreams through to either their success or failure. And if the latter occurs will I have the energy or desire to dream again.

I hope I do—since I can’t imagine a life absent of dreaming. It’s just exhausting sometimes, this long road to an uncertain destination. But it helps to know I’m not alone in the striving, that others have attempted and failed and tried again and succeeded and reshaped their goals around unforeseen obstacles. And wherever this journey takes me, I am blessed to be surrounded by good friends and family who are there for me no matter what.

Jaye's new book Seventeen's Guide To Getting Into College is now available for pre-order on her website, and keep up on her latest dreams at First Generation Documentary--The Blog.

Risking It All On The Internet

There are plenty of responses to Emily Gould's Times Magazine write up of her life as a Gawker blogger. Some people have taken the opportunity to reflect on why they blog, or how much of their lives have been invested in their blogs. Gould's article has stirred up fears and neuroses.

For those who missed it, Gould began as a typical blogger with a small following on her personal site, and then became part of Gawker, a mega-blog, that took her to a new level of visibility. In the process, her writing about her personal life pushed her into the public eye in such a way that she alienated friends, colleagues, and herself.

Gould described blogging as a type of addiction--an addiction to attention. I can understand this; attention, even from perfect strangers on the Internet, is flattering. When I began blogging, it was just after I moved to the city, and I had very few local friends. I was looking for a community to join, someone to talk to. And I found one. Like Gould, I overshared, and I got into trouble, and for a while I stopped.

And then I came back for more, because I missed writing. I made a resolve not to share as much of my personal life. I made a resolve to talk more about news articles that interested me, issues I cared about, like gay rights, education, and environmentalism.

When I read Gould's story, I have to say, I didn't really feel sorry for her. I felt that she made a series of bad decisions, and that she should have seen more of the red flags along the way. I talk about my blogging with my husband, but I don't write things about him without him knowing about it. If he didn't like something, it wouldn't go up in the first place; I wouldn't argue about it, as Gould did with her boyfriend. And I follow what I consider the Cardinal Rule of Internet use: don't publish anything you wouldn't be proud to wear on a sandwich board sign in Times Square. I used to think of it as "don't write anything you wouldn't want you parents to see," but really it's not just your parents, it's colleagues, potential employers, friends, enemies, anyone. And it's very easy for your words to be taken out of context.

My takeaway from Gould's experience is the need for self-control. In writing for an unpredictable population, you can't know how your words will be perceived, and therefore, you must tailor your content accordingly. There is a line between public and private, and Internet writers should know exactly where that line is, and be aware when it is crossed. There is no such thing as anonymity on the Internet; at some point, you will be found out, so be certain that what you publish is something you can live with being attached to your name.

Clearing Out the Clutter: Three Strategies for Keeping Clutter at Bay

A couple of weeks ago I was struggling for energy. After a long, relaxing holiday weekend visiting my family, I drove home energized and refreshed. Then I stepped into my house, and the feelings of exhaustion returned.

It occurred to me that what was waiting for me—piles of papers on my coffee table, stacks of books in my office, boxes of miscellaneous items that I had yet to unpack after my move over a year ago—might just have something to do with my low energy. Being surrounded by clutter makes me feel uneasy and restless. So, harnessing the energy remaining from my trip, I decided to do something about it.

It turns out that sometimes clearing out your mind can be as simple as clearing out a closet. Over the next few days, I sorted through my clothes and got rid of the ones I no longer wear. I packed away my sweaters, making room for my spring and summer wardrobe. I reorganized and minimized, and things started to look up. So I kept going. I put away invoices and bills in my office, filed papers and cleared my desk. As I ordered and organized my mood lightened. No, my house wasn’t exactly spick-and-span. There was still dust coating my entertainment center, and a pile of things to give away, but it had a sense of order that hadn’t been there before. I felt a little lighter and the energy started to return.

With plenty of writing projects to be done, I know that my house will never be spotless. I’m learning, though, that physical clutter often translates into mental clutter. When things become disorganized in my physical world, my mind becomes unfocused and distracted. To try to ward off what I’m now calling “Clutter Head,” here are three things I’m trying to do to keep the clutter at bay:

1. Take a few minutes to _____ now so that I don’t have to do it later. This applies to all those “little things” that we often put off, like recycling that junk mail or hanging up those freshly washed clothes. A few seconds to put that shirt on a hanger today will save me from spending 15 minutes on Monday ironing it for work.

2. Think twice about buying that _____. Fill in the blank. Whatever it is, do I really need it? Where will I put it? Will it help me save time/money/energy in the future, or will it be just another “thing” added to my space? Will it bring me peace, or will it bring me more stress?

3. Make a place for everything. From my unread magazines and my reference books to my bills and paperwork, everything needs to have a place. Organization has never been my strong suit, but I’m finding that this one tip is extremely important. If it doesn’t have a place, that book, pair of shoes or hair clip will end up cluttering whatever surface it lands on. Finding or making a place for everything allows me to save time when I’m looking for it and know exactly where it needs to go when I’m done with it.

With these new strategies, I’m managing to keep the clutter from taking over my world for now, but I’m wondering what strategies you use. I know there are organizational geniuses out there who can give me plenty of other tips, so please comment away! I’m sure I’m not the only one who could use the advice. And if you’re like me and are organizationally challenged but have discovered ways to tame the clutter madness, please feel free to share your strategies, too.

Being Imperfect Can Help Your Career

There is a great article out in this month’s edition of Body and Soul magazine. The column by staffer Terri Trespicio details why it is important to cut yourself a little slack now and then.

Suffering from perfectionism myself, I was drawn to this article with a kind of fascination usually reserved for writing and re-writing and then writing again my blog posts.

The point of the article is that there are steps we can take to break out of the perfectionist mind-set in order to empower our decisions so we can move forward with our lives both personally and professionally. Thanks to Terri for the great article.

Hopefully these things will help you as much as they did me.

1. Remove your mental filter. – Perfectionists often only hear the negative news, letting the positive reviews go in one ear and out the other. Try readjusting your mental sieve and allow some of the good stuff to stick

2. Discover the joys of getting it wrong. – Start looking at your flaws as opportunities for personal and professional growth. Nobody likes to be wrong but being able to accept and learn from mistakes will make you a better person both in and out of the boardroom. Dan Baker, Ph.D and co-author of What Happy Women Know, says this, “Think of making a mistake as paying tuition, once you’ve paid, you might as well learn the lesson.”

3. Compare yourself to others, realistically. –Maybe you do enough of this, but you probably don’t see others with the same foggy filter you see yourself with. Try taking notice of your peers. Do they take shorter/longer lunch breaks, make the occasional typo, and lock themselves out of their cars? If they are not perfect then why should you be.

4. Put people before things. – Put the people in your life before your stuff. This may seem like a no-brainer, but how often (and be honest here) do you find yourself late getting home again because you just had “one” more thing to get done at the office? How many relationships fizzle because one person is already married…to their job? It happens all the time so take a good look around now. If you log more hours at your desk than say the average mouse pad, you need more face time with your friends and family. Even if you are a busy CEO, taking some quality time will pay off in more ways than one as it is well established that happy workers (with happy families) are much more Productive, efficient and effective.

5. Prioritize your perfectionism. – This too is hard to hear, since with all perfectionists, of course we want to be great at everything. The article states this however, “Instead of trying to master everything, pick some things you want to excel in.” As Penelope Trunk once stated in her book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, (and I am most definitely paraphrasing) specialization is a wonderful thing. Being a little good at everything (or half-assed at everything) will not win you any awards and will definitely not fatten your wallet. Pick a few tasks/topics/subjects etc. you really excel at and work on them. For me it is persuasive advocacy writing and graphic design particularly in regards to wildlife publications. I am by no means a scientist and can’t list the statistics of every endangered species but I can create a really pretty picture with words and photos that will make even the most hardened ant-environmentalist want to read more.

6. Let a dirty sock be just a dirty sock. – Ahhh... the joys of a clean house. I admit that I am severely embarrassed to have people over to my house without say a month of advanced notice. Ok so maybe I am not that bad, but hey with three kids and both my partner and I working full time there is not a whole ton of time left over for house cleaning. The article claims that seeing small-scale messes as a personal failure is actually a cognitive disorder (do they make a pill specifically for the racing heart and cold sweaty palms I feel whenever I open my 10-year-old’s closet door, right before the entire contents come crashing down on my head? Probably) Anyhow, I take great pride in my work and my family and am starting to let go of the dirty sock as global disaster mindset. All three of my kids are turning out pretty darned well and I am succeeding at work and in my personal life so I must be doing something right, even if it’s not the laundry. Rather than react emotionally, see things like socks, dishes and dust for what they are, everyday facts of life that need tending to, not evidence of your incompetence.

7. Focus on wellness not weight. – Another big one for me. After three kids I will never pass as a super model but being okay with myself is a constant challenge. In addition to personal (sometimes unrealistic) goals, there is also the added pressure of working is a somewhat public industry. Appearance does matter in public relations, however taking care of your self, having trimmed neat nails and clean suitable clothes are a heck of a lot more important than being the one on the office with the tiniest waist.

8. Age gracefully. – A few wrinkles does not make you a bag lady, it adds character really! According to Baker what makes us truly attractive is more about confidence, carriage and hard-won wisdom rather than firm skin or how much you resemble a fashion model. And just a tip from me, those women who do go all out to look 20 years younger often come off as unprofessional or unapproachable or worse “that old woman from accounting with the peel on face and skin tight leopard-print skirt who gives me the creeps.” Don’t be that person.

9. Counter the negative with a positive. – This goes back to number one on the list. Often perfectionists only hear the bad things and assume they are doing it all wrong. In order to stop this kind of thinking, try to automatically counter your negative thoughts with three happy ones. As corny as it seems, even having a list works wonders when you are at risk of sliding into the dumps. My list is wallet sized and changes periodically, but serves to remind me that I am a good mom, a good writer and a successful businesswoman.

10. Kick black and white thinking to the curb.– Last of all get rid of the all or nothing mindset. There are shades of gray in just about every situation on Earth. Remind your self those temporary moments of insanity (having an extra dessert, a bad hair day or being 15 minutes late) does not mean you are fat or lazy or an incredible slacker. Give yourself credit for all you do right and understand that in the end we are all just human.

What do you do to beat your perfectionist tendencies? Does any one have some creative ideas or feel more should be added to the list? Send me a comment!

To read the entire article check out the June edition of Body and Soul Magazine.

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Read this author's blog.

6 Steps to Gaining a Promotion

Traditional wisdom tells us that to get a promotion, you have to ask your boss. However, most people don’t get promotions by simply asking for them. In fact, asking may be the worst thing you can do. Here are six steps that will help you to get that increase in responsibility and hopefully an increase in your paycheck.

1. Do not directly ask for a promotion. Instead, you need to create an environment where you are the only logical person for the job.

2. Dress as if you have the promotion. If you already look like you can do the job, your boss is much more likely to give it to you.

3. Know all of the staff, especially those in charge. You should make yourself aware of everything going on in the office. Don’t be constrained by the organization chart, figure out who is REALLY in charge. Then be aware of any empty slots in the organization that you might fill.

4. Participate in meetings. Your boss has to get used to hearing the great ideas that you have. Your participation should be in the form of well-thought-out concepts. They should be ideas that help projects go forward, with the current players.

5. Volunteer for special projects. While I was working at a natural history museum, I noticed that the visitors were often complaining about the Planetarium shows. I noted that no one on the full-time staff even knew astronomy, much less how to run the Planetarium. I volunteered to learn astronomy and the Planetarium operation. In a few short months, I was put in charge of the Planetarium and its staff.

6. Sell yourself. Be sure that people know what you have done. This should not be in the form of bragging, but rather as casual mentions. For instance, imagine that someone is saying, “That was the greatest thing, when we changed our work schedule.” If you were responsible for this, you would say, “I was just driving to work when I got that idea; I’m glad it is working so well for you.”

-- Visit Ruth's blog.

Why are we debating a woman's right to run for president?

I’ve been disturbed by two male cartoonists depicting Sen. Hillary Clinton taking her campaign to Mars. On one, the tagline is “The woman never quits.”

Why is this funny? It’s only funny if you think her campaigning in primary elections is wrong. Why would it be wrong for a person winning millions of votes and winning big victories in key states to continue campaigning? Why would a fierce competitor with impressive credentials who is running a close second quit?

In 1980 Ted Kennedy challenged an incumbent president for his own party’s nomination, creating friction within the party. Ted refused to withdraw and went into the convention with 1,225 delegates to Carter's 1,981, with only 122 uncommitted. There was nowhere near the outcry and outrage in the media for Ted to get out of the way that there is now for Sen. Clinton, and the stakes aren’t any higher now for the D’s than they were in 1980, where we saw the tide turned to the Reagan revolution.

There’s no doubt that viewing Sen. Clinton’s daring to stay in the race and be taken seriously as laughable is sexism. It simply hasn’t – and wouldn’t – happen to a man of her stature. If we treat women differently than men in the same situation, that’s a double standard. That’s sexism. Acknowledging sexism doesn’t make you a feminist – it makes you fair.

Last I checked, the U.S. Constitution sets certain minimum qualifications for the presidency, but being a man isn’t one of them. So why is it, then, that much of the cultural and media debate during this campaign since early on in the primary has been over whether Sen. Clinton is entitled to run at all?
The Constitution is not a barrier – it’s people’s attitudes, both of women and men.

A male commenter to my blog quoted a woman who thinks Sen. Clinton should get out as some kind of proof that it’s not a sexism thing. It’s true women are joining the call – I’ve seen women columnists refer to Sen. Clinton’s staying in the race with the same disdain as the male cartoonists, calling her “embarrassing,” “shameful,” "shameless," “full of hubris,” and my favorite from the ever reliable mean girl Maureen Dowd, “unseemly.”

The question is not whether it’s sexism because it is. Some of my commenters have written better descriptions than I have about why this is sexism. See Ann Drist's blog for some thoughtful writing on this topic, from someone who isn't personally a fan of Sen. Clinton. The question is what does it say about women and men that they want to view a competitive woman as somehow unseemly and embarrassing.

The supposedly progressive columnist Bob Scheer has written several pieces in the San Francisco Chronicle arguing that because he believes women are by nature more peaceful than men and because Sen. Clinton may have some hawkish tendencies, that she somehow isn't advancing the cause of women and so women shouldn't vote for her. I can't make sense of his claim and don’t know what kind of mother issues Bob may have, but I’m no more peaceful than my male friends. The question for men like Bob is – what is it in their construct of their own identity that requires them to pigeonhole women into traits they see desirable?

As for women who call out other ambitious and competitive women as "shameless," I've written before about internalized sexism. I could quote volumes of scholarly work on this problem, and I also know it when I see it. (See good description in comment from Lexia below.) Maureen Dowd, with her pen as an opinion writer for the New York Times, holds one of the most powerful journalistic positions in our country. Yet she repeatedly writes pieces ridiculing powerful women as "manly". During Howard Dean's campaign, Dowd wrote a piece cutting apart Dean's wife, a busy and successful doctor, for not wearing makeup and styling her hair to help out her husband's campaign.

Dowd is an ambitious, powerful woman who writes pieces suggesting it's unseemly for women to desire power. I leave it for the psychologists to unravel that.

A year ago I didn't believe we were living in a country not ready to elect a woman president, as predicted by an African cabbie in Manhattan. Now I see he didn't go far enough. We're not even ready to allow a woman to run for president.

How to Look Like a Workaholic in a 40-Hour Workweek

In a perfect world, we would be judged solely on our results, regardless of what others thought about how or when we got our work done. The good news is that this type of “results only” mentality is catching on. Some companies and managers are beginning to realize that there are better ways to manage performance than by counting hours at the office. Organizations are responding to the changing needs of workers everywhere by offering arrangements such as flex-time and telecommuting.

The bad news is that, like it or not, corporate mentality is what it is. The 40-hour week is not just an expectation; it’s the minimum, especially for salaried professionals. Self-proclaimed workaholics advertise their twelve hour days like a badge of honor and wouldn’t be caught dead leaving the office before 6:30.

Just because it’s the norm doesn’t make it right. Ready to take a stand? You don’t have to defy your boss and coworkers in a dramatic five o’clock showdown. Here are some practical ideas that can help you on your way to regaining control over your time.

Workaholics don’t get ahead. There will always be work that needs to be done. There will always be more to be done than there is time to do it. That’s why the classic workaholic will never get ahead. As they work to accomplish more and more, their task list will continue to grow. At the same time, as they become tired, stressed, and overextended, the quality of their work will suffer.

Frankly, the workaholic’s energies would be better spent finding ways to get more out of a forty-hour week than by burning the midnight oil five (or six, or seven) nights a week

Get noticed in eight hours. Unfortunately, workaholics exist for a reason. They tend to be well-respected for their efforts and praised for their dedication to their jobs. But that doesn’t mean that you need to smash the 50-hour barrier every week in order to command the recognition and respect that you deserve. This is where productivity comes in. When most people talk about workaholics, the discussion usually revolves around how much time they spend working. It is rare to get a clear idea of just how much these people accomplish in a given day.

Anybody can spend a day keeping busy. It takes real commitment to remain actively productive during working hours. Just keep in mind that real productivity pays off, big time. You don’t want to be noticed because you log a lot of hours. You want to be noticed for what you accomplish. And if you really are putting forth the effort necessary to milk your 40-hour week for all it’s worth, your stellar results will not go unnoticed.

The early bird gets…a raw deal. Let’s say you work from eight until four while your boss works from ten until six. Which one of you is going to get noticed? Your ten to six boss can work the same amount of hours but still look like she’s putting in extra hours at the end of the day. And if your boss works and extra hour or two, she’s walking out of the building while the sun sets—another corporate rock star.

In general, workers tell me that staying late gets noticed and arriving early tends not to be. If you are the type that likes getting to the office first thing in the morning and heading out an hour or two before the crowd, it might take some attention to detail to make sure that you don’t end up being penalized for having an early riser’s schedule. Just make sure that your coworkers realize that while they are still at home in a bathrobe, you are at your desk, getting a head start on your day.

Handle your correspondence first thing in the morning. Your e-mail time-stamp might be the only way someone realizes that you don’t just cut out in the late afternoon because you feel like it. When you leave early, you’ve earned it. Those that leave the office at six or seven at night will also be sure to notice that you have gotten back to them with an answer to their question before they’ve even managed to sit down at their desk the following day.

Get out the door on time. Make a commitment, even if it is only to yourself. Maybe you have to pick up the kids. Maybe you just have a standing early-evening date with the gym. Whatever it is, a regularly scheduled post-work obligation can do wonders for getting you out of the office at a reasonable hour. Block off the last half-hour of your schedule and don’t hesitate to inform your coworkers when it’s time for you to be on your way.

Have coworkers abide by your schedule. You shouldn’t expect others to come and go at the same time you do. Generally, their schedule is their prerogative. You do, however, have the right to make sure that their schedule doesn’t interfere with your ability to get work done. Make it clear that you expect to be out the door at a certain time each day, and stick to it. If you need a report in your hands by the end of the day, make sure that everyone knows that you mean the end of your day, not theirs.

Go the extra mile. Remember, all of this doesn’t mean that we should be petty about watching the clock and focus only on making sure we’re in the parking lot by 5:03. We’ve pretty well established that we don’t want to make it a habit, but sometimes it is appropriate to put in a long day or week. It shouldn’t become your standard mode of operation, but being able to come through in a pinch is a major asset in the business world. Valuing your time is a good thing, but if the demands of the job call for being a little late for dinner every once in a while, it is okay to step up to the plate. Just make sure that it’s the exception, not the rule.

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Visit Laura's site, The Productivity Pro.

Lessons from the Edge (of a Large NYC Law Firm)

Not only did I learn things at Vogue, but I picked up a few things as a young litigator at a big NYC law firm as well. It was not nearly as "sexy" of an environment as in the movies (there was no Tom Cruise at my Firm, no Jimmy Smits or Harry Hamlin either) but there was still a lot of drama and a whole lot of work to be done. In addition to the more obvious things one learns while working as a big firm attorney, such as how to do ones actual legal job and to begin building experience and expertise, I learned some useful lessons which have come in handy in my other endeavors:

1. Avoid the stapler. I tell you from experience that some tightly wound lawyers get very upset when you staple a group of papers that were not "final" since a paperclip would have sufficed, thereby allowing you to replace just one sheet. I have made this mistake, and I can tell you that it was not well received. The dialogue on that one was priceless. They don't teach that in law school.

2. Nobody at work cares that you have plans for events outside the office, be they for vacations, holidays, dates, major family events or simply a doctor's appointment. If you accept this from the beginning, you will have a much smoother ride. Then, you are left with two choices to avoid major disappointments. One, make no personal plans, ever, and always expect to be at work, leading you to be pleasantly surprised once in a while when you have a free weekend or evening. Two, make plans fully cognizant of the fact that there is a fifty percent chance that you will not be keeping them. (This percentage changes depending on the economy, which department you are in, and the other large matters currently being worked on in the firm.) Don't forget to beg forgiveness and understanding of everyone in your personal life that also has to put up with these scenarios. Okay, unrealistic you say. Then you will just have to be disappointed and cancel your plans from time to time.

3. Always over-prepare. I have heard so many people say this in many different contexts but, as an attorney, it could not be more true. You could be the smartest person in a room, but if you are not fully versed in every aspect of a potential situation and you are not prepared in front of a judge, a client or a potential client, you will lose (the client, the case, or even your job).

4. Avoid the holiday party. I have no personal horror story to impart (thankfully!) because I followed the lead of my more senior friends and went for a single drink at best before feigning an absurd workload and running home to enjoy a nice glass of wine without the fear of reprisals and gossip mill mania aimed at me for the next two weeks. Judging from the indecorous things I often heard the day after in the stacks of the library, that was the right call. Lots of alcohol and a giddy holiday feeling often make for regrettable dance floor moves and mistletoe maneuvers.

5. If you simply must have an office romance, then be open about it. Those who think they are being sneaky while having a secret office affair too often turn out to be wrong. These not-so-secret liaisons are revealed in innumerable ways, not the least of which is that, for some reason, law firm doors (at least in NYC) tend to be made of semi-transparent frosted glass rather than solid, opaque wood or steel. Passersby often get more than they bargained for. Mail deliveries, which often involve the sudden throwing open of office doors to drop off an envelope or two, are also most revealing. It seems to work out much better if you just admit to dating someone and keep it clean at the office.

6. Don't be afraid to get dirty. And I do not mean in the romance department. A law degree does not mean that you are now on a lofty, erudite plane and exempt from the more mundane tasks. I have seen the occasional junior associate digging through a trash can in a critical, life-or-death, career breaking kind of search for a missing document while a senior attorney stands over him/her shouting, grabbing what is left of his/her hair and demanding (repeatedly) to know if the piece of paper has been located yet. You might also be asked to drag a partner's luggage through an airport and around a hot city in mid-August like a Sherpa in your high heels and crisp white blouse. (By luggage, I mean these ridiculously heavy, big, boxy bags known as litigation bags or boxes of documents or laptops and printers, etc. all of which are heavy and unwieldy.) And, last but not least, out of desperation you might be called upon to use your hosiery to wipe off an over sized trial exhibit which fell out of the cab and into a dirty puddle due to your own carelessness. (Don't ask.)

7. It is okay to throw up. At least, it is okay to throw up as a result of nerves before a major hearing or public speaking engagement. Once I found out that a senior partner whom I very much admire does this from time to time and still somehow looks cool and collected when he "is on." I decided that a case of pre-theater jitters, no matter what form it takes, is par for the course and does not make you weak, just nervous.

8. Be kind to the cleaning staff. They are the only people who will be kind back to you when you really need it. Once the majority of staffers and lawyers have gone for the day, the housekeeping staff begins to make their way around the semi-darkened office emptying rubbish bins full of papers and vacuuming up the remains of the day. In the beginning, the woman who cleaned the 16th floor looked repentant for opening the door to clean my office when I was still there or for making too much noise in the hallway, not realizing I was at work. I noticed that some people barely noticed that the cleaning staff were present and did not acknowledge them. I always did, though, and I must say it was nice to see a friendly face late at night who would smile back at me and say hello. I loved her the most when I arrived at work one morning and found my favorite earring (which I had lost the day before) taped to my desk blotter with a note saying that she found it under my radiator while vacuuming.

9. Curb your appetite. You don't need to eat anyway, especially if you have been in a meeting since 9 am and it is 5:45 pm and the partner you are working with still has not broken for a snack or called for food to be delivered. You simply can't ask for food or it would show weakness. You also can't leave the room because at any moment you might be called upon to produce a vital document or take notes on a critical point. I recall more than once fantasizing about sneaking into the bathroom to wolf down a granola bar to get rid of the dizzy, empty feeling that had taken over my deprived, starved body but alas, I would have to wait.

10. Never use the "reply all" feature on your email. It quite simply leads to too many embarrassing disasters. I can't tell you how many times an email recipient hit "reply all" on an email to the entire firm when he/she meant to send the email just to one friend and made an inappropriate joke -- to the entire list of partners and lawyers. There is no way to recover from this gracefully, and it makes just about everyone cringe and want to hide under their desks. There is nothing you can do to make it go away except to NEVER do it.

These lessons are those that, as I say, are somehow left off the law school curriculum but which make for valuable lessons in practice.

Punch the clock!

While I was considering leaving the practice of law, I sat down and made a list of what I wanted out of my next job. My list consisted of things like flexibility, autonomy, creativity, the ability to do more writing, and colors and shapes (my husband has been laughing about this one for years). I toyed with a few ideas of how to parlay my love for fine art into a career choice that would satisfy my needs for the things on my list, but, in the end, there seemed to be very few things out there that met these criteria in an obvious way. I recently came across my old list and was amazed to find that in starting and running my art consulting firm I have met each of these criteria in just a few years.

I was born to be self employed. My first words, for example, were "No! I'm mother." My father ran his own business, and I grew up accustomed to the notion that though my father works really hard, he has always answered to himself. He has not had a big, bad corporate boss man hanging over his shoulder or a time card to punch. When I was starting out in my first few jobs there were many things that I had to learn (and many time cards to punch) and I took on even the most demeaning of tasks without complaint (okay, I complained to my friends but not to my bosses). Yet in those starter positions I was generally fortunate enough to work for generous bosses who made it it easy for me to shine. But, even then I always craved being the boss. I fantasized about it. I always knew exactly how I would do things if I were were in the boss's shoes. So, now I am the boss, of myself at least.

Being an entrepreneur also allows an incredible amount of flexibility in terms of schedule and hours. It is not that entrepreneurs have less work to do than other workers (in fact we probably work more hours because we can't afford to hire enough help!) but we can determine our own schedules. I love that I can work on a Saturday morning at 6 am if I am so inspired and then go to the dentist on Monday at 2 pm when others are stuck behind their desks. There are certainly times when clients want to meet with me at 8 pm or on a Saturday afternoon (in their free time), and I have to be available for them. However, I otherwise find that I am more productive for working when I want to rather than at set office hours. It is wonderful that when I have something personal to attend to during the traditional "business day" I can just go do it and make up my work later on without having to fill out a form justifying my time off as a "personal day" or half of a vacation day. This is my life, not a personal day.

Creativity in running a small business comes in all guises. Creating an advertising campaign, designing a website, business cards and logos, writing your marketing materials and figuring out how to achieve your business goals on a limited budget, for example, all require endless amounts of creativity. When I was finding the practice of law dull (imagine that!) people used to try to convince me that legal brief writing was creative because you could craft your legal arguments work with facts to tell stories. Anyone who ever said that to me has no idea what kind of creativity I desired. I can now happily report that I have my colors and shapes -- I look at artwork all day long!

Between my own fine art blog and magazine writing assignments, the Damsels Forum and the art history book I am finishing this month (after a winter of writing) I have been able to do more writing over the past few years than I would have guessed possible. I also write for fun and have found ways to do it both as a hobby and professionally.

For me, the value of being an entrepreneur is the ability to challenge myself every day and to explore all of my personal goals and desires. Of course these goals have not all played out exactly as I had envisioned a few years ago, but the basic qualities that I was looking for in a job are now part of my everyday life. I continue to add new goals to my list all the time, so I will never be all the way there. In the meantime, however, I have satisfied some things that were very important to me and found happiness in doing so.

An Activist Contemplates the Big 3-0

There are a lot of things that I had hoped to accomplish before I turned 30. And although I seriously doubt I will become a millionaire or develop amazing credit in the next twelve months, I am proud to say that there are a number of other things on my list that I have managed to cross off.

I have a job that I look forward to, rather than the grind that you just dread every waking moment. I get to learn new things nearly every day and I experience in a week what some only dream about doing. And I get paid for it!

My family has grown. I may not have lost the baby weight yet but my daughter is fast approaching the one-year milestone while both my sons are growing in leaps in and bounds right before my eyes. Some days it is hard to imagine that I have been a parent for over ten years. All three of my children are so unique, different from each other but connected through their strong sense of family and their shared love of all things nature. I am so proud to have such compassionate children.

I have taken risks. I know what Lava Falls looks like from both the top and the bottom and what Phantom Ranch looks like at sunset; I have done flips of joy in mid air at 15,000 feet up and hung from the face of a cliff; I can tell you just what a right whale calf looks like when it checks your boat out from less than a foot away and 700 acres of natural area on fire at night is a beautiful thing to behold. I have seen the wonders of Stonehenge and Ayers Rock and climbed the Eiffel Tower and the Snowy Mountains. I can tell you what it’s like to feel the spray from the bow of the Maid of the Mist and what a Grouper looks like when it “smiles” in your face underwater.

I finished college…. with honors despite having three kids, a full time job and being the oldest one in the room after the professor.

I survived a bad marriage taking with me only my son and the knowledge that I would try to do better the second time around. I did. (Thanks for your patience sweetie)

I am an aging activist. Smart enough to recognize when you cross the line to becoming part of the problem, and still enough of an idealist to want to change the world for my children’s sake. I have stared long into the abyss and am not afraid of what I see.

I have made peace with many of my demons, including my mother. I am thankful that we both have mellowed. I am not afraid to look into the mirror.

I still have so many things I want to do with my time here on Earth, but I think I have reached a point where I can finally say that I am happy with all that I have accomplished. This post may be a bit sappy, but who cares. We all need a little goo now and then.

Today is my birthday.

Damsels In Success. But, sometimes in distress.

I currently belong to two blogging forums: DamselsInSuccess.com as well as Brazen Careerist. Breezing through a few posts on these forums there’s one pretty difficult to miss theme: the “how-to” blogs. Brazen Careerist is full of how-to lists for Gen Y-ers while Damsels is all about empowered women. So where do I fit in here? I guess you could say I’m an “empowered” woman, and I’m definitely a recent graduate. I’d love to say that I’m a recently graduated woman, working diligently at a stellar PR firm, and then I could post hundreds of “how-to” blogs for all the other stellar and empowered women out there.

Sadly, I DON’T work for a stellar PR firm and am lame enough to have been on the job search since February. So to give any advice in some sort of pretentious how-to article would be a little, well, silly. So instead of trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about, I guess all I can really do is relate: relate to all the other present, past and future job seekers out there who thought it was totally within reach…almost…there....

Before I can “relate” I have to give the obvious disclaimer: to all of you who transitioned easily from college to career – good for you. For all of you who feel like there’s a stick taped to your back with a proverbial job hanging ten feet in front of you that you just can’t reach – I get it.

It starts out the same – you’ve got that diploma and you feel oh-so qualified. Maybe you even started job searching before you graduated, and maybe you even did a few internships and you feel like you’ve got a heads up on the graduating class. You crank out those cover letters, you fine-tune that resume and you apply to those jobs you find at Career Fairs, through Craigslist…wherever. You send email after email and….no one emails you back. You make some phone calls and are transitioned to voicemails. Annoying.

Eventually you get a couple of interviews…maybe you even make it to the second or third round, but then the company decides to “move forward with other candidates.” It’s like getting dumped – “it’s not you, it’s me” – the classic lines of rejection. Ouch.

After more unreturned emails and phone calls than you can count and two or three interview rejections, you maybe start to get down on yourself. By this time you’ve gotten a part-time job at Starbucks or maybe selling toothpaste or something equally awesome and you say “I’m so glad I’m thousands of dollars of debt for this.” It’s probably not a happy time.

For me, that’s where the story ends – a book maybe halfway through that I’ve been neglecting. Maybe some of you who have been here can finish the book with a positive spin, with a happy ending where the perfect job finally comes after 4 or 5 months of reading. For any of you who are where I am and want to create some kind of support group or posse or something, I’m down. For any of you who went through it, your comments are appreciated to help get us to the light at the end of the tunnel.

How to Handle Being the Youngest Person in the Room

In the past year I have had the privilege of attending a variety of conferences and sitting in on some pretty important meetings ranging from nonprofit fundraising and marketing to curriculum development and student recruitment. While the topics may vary one aspect stays the same: I’m always the youngest person in the room.

To a certain extent this is to be expected. After all, I’m 22, fresh out of college, and am intent on making a name for myself. However, walking into a room full of people who have decades on you in terms of both age and experience can leave you feeling tongue tied and anxious. Over time, I have been able to get a grip and become more comfortable in this scenario.

1. Be clear on the shared purpose: Who is hosting? Why are you all there? What issues are being addressed? In other words, do some homework before you attend a meeting/conference so that you able to stay on point. Don’t be clueless—it shows.

2. Understand what you can offer: Once you have a handle on what will be discussed, reflect on why you are there and what ideas/perspective you can bring. For example, I notice that more and more people are interested in getting our generation involved in programs and organizations yet aren’t sure on how to grab our attention. This is great for me since Im always reading and writing about how our generation approaches life and work. This perspective is what I offer.

3. Be confident: Never ever preface a comment with “well I’m only one year out of college but...” Horrible. You’ve basically just said that you’re too young to have a full understanding of what the meeting/conference is about. Instead, say something like, “From my experiences as a recent college graduate…” that way you being insightful and sharing a unique perspective.

4. Make suggestions: Honestly, I hate comments like this “I just want to say that I completely agree with you” and the person proceeds to rehash what has already been said. What a waste. The assumption is that if there are no objections then everyone agrees. Besides, you sound like a suck up. Also stay away from constantly being critical to make yourself seem like an authority. Instead, make specific constructive suggestions or offer to take the lead on something.

5. Introduce yourself to at least one person: Don’t get stuck in the corner, wide eyed and confused. If you are shy or nervous go up to one person and have a genuine conversation with them.

6. Make sure to do a follow up: If you’ve been asked to take the lead on something, keep people abreast of your progress. If you have learned something new, put what you have learned into practice as soon as possible and thank the person who shared. At the end of the day it shows that you not only pay attention but also that you are eager to excel.

Exhausted

Something strange is going on. I'm tired. Drag out, knock down, tired. All. The. Time. I guess it's not really all that strange. I think there are many reasons for this exhaustion, including the fact that no matter what time I plan to go to bed, during the week or on the weekend, I end up getting much less sleep than I meant to. Also, I'm drinking a lot of water which makes me have to go to the bathroom multiple times during the night. My mind won't stop churning with to-do lists, worries and questions that keep me unfocused and unsettled. And I feel extremely busy, although it never seems like I'm getting anything done. I'm all wound up, but relaxing seems like just another thing on my long list of stuff to do.

The good news is that I'm working out pretty regularly, and eating relatively healthy (most of the time). You would think those things would make a positive difference in my energy level, but they don't seem to be helping. I can't imagine what I'd feel like if I weren't exercising and eating well.

As a hypochondriac of the highest order, I've suspected everything from depression to a thyroid disorder, but when it all comes down to it, I think I'm just tired. As a single, professional woman who owns her own home, not only do I have part-time freelance writing projects to complete in addition to my full-time job, but I also have all the responsibilities of keeping my house in order set squarely on this one set of shoulders. When I'm not working, I'm spending my precious time washing the pile of dishes that never seems to shrink, cooking healthy meals, putting away clothes that I keep having to clean, dusting and vacuuming and tidying up, all the while worrying that I'm not finishing that novel or sending out more queries or writing those blog posts and articles that I should be writing.

My body is not taking this well. I'm run down and even when I have available time these days to check things off that to-do list, I'm too physically and mentally tired to get moving. I think it's time to filter, to focus on the important stuff and not worry so much about getting all the little things just right. Do I really need to download that podcast? Is it really necessary to read that long list of feeds every day? Can the dishes wait until tomorrow? Will I regret not having seen this week's episode of some show or another?

I'm one person. I can't do it all. I need to pare down, get centered, find my priorities and leave the rest behind. Otherwise, I'm likely to fall apart. And it won't be pretty.

Are you a Rapunzel or a Ladder-Kicker?

There’s a great divide emerging between two categories of working women. Have you noticed it? No, I’m not talking about the working mums versus the non-parents – though the working mums might like the world to think that. Or the full-time-career-obsessed woman versus the flexibility-focused-have-a-life ladies who define their success by more than just the floor space of the corner office they occupy.

No, what I’m talking about here goes much deeper than that. I’m talking about the Rapunzels versus the Ladder-Kickers.

In my work as the SheEO I spend countless hours every week facilitating women’s events and group mentoring sessions, speaking at conferences and meetings and writing for online forums around the world on the issues women face in advancing to leadership. A big part – and perhaps the most fulfilling aspect for me – is connecting women with role model leaders via the sphinxx group mentoring programs.

Now we all know the stats about how few women are making it to key leadership and decision making roles in the top companies all around the world. With men holding at least nine out of every ten C-level roles in almost every developed nation across the globe, finding successful female role models for women to aspire to can be tough.

It’s even tougher when the few women in these roles are Ladder-Kickers.

You know who I’m talking about. They’re the ones who, having done the hard yards and battled their way to the top “on their own merits” (which they’re always mindful to point out!), they kick the ladder out from beneath the women who follow in their footsteps. They reckon if they had to do it tough, so should every other woman. They reckon it’s about every woman making her own way, and they wear their disdain of affirmative action programs like a badge of honor.

These are the kinds of women who, when approached to be guest mentors in the sphinxx group mentoring programs, either don’t respond to the invitation at all or have their secretaries decline on their behalf, saying their diaries are already too overcrowded to possibly fit in a 1-hour conference call with a group of aspiring women leaders. Of they question the benefit of the program - after all, no one offered them such an opportunity all those years ago, and they made it didn’t they?

The Rapunzels, on the other hand, sit at the other side of the spectrum.
Rapunzels are the women who, when they make it to the top, throw down their golden locks and help other women to ascend to the top as well. They recognise that the more women who make it as leaders, the more our collective roar can be heard. They realise that in the psychology of the minorities, it can be tough to hold true to your integrity, values and beliefs. So the Rapunzels do what they can to increase the number of women making it to the top, for the collective good of us all.

Rapunzels are the first to volunteer their precious time in my group mentoring programs, or to share their experiences via online forums, or to speak at conferences and forums about their experiences as a woman who’s made it to the top. And they’re special because they reveal their vulnerabilities and take off their coats of armour to share the untold stories of just how tough it is to make it, and of the need to make careful choices. Not because they want to scare other women off, or to lessen the competition like the Ladder Kickers do; but because they understand the importance of setting realistic expectations and managing to them.

So why am I writing about this great divide?
Because what we observe, we learn. So if Ladder Kickers are prevalent in your workplace – be careful you don’t turn out to be one too. Forward this article to those Ladder Kickers as a not-so-subtle message that you’re over their attitute! And if you have the choice – choose those workplaces and networking forums where the Rapunzels hang out.

And if you're a leader, think about the message you're sending to the women who look up to you. Would they think of you as a friend or a foe? What sort of example are you setting and are you doing your part to help other women on their journey?

When all is said and done, I'd much rather be a Rapunzel than a Ladder Kicker. After all, life’s too short to wear steel capped boots!

Women Helping Women: Gen@Work

Gen@Work is a monthly column looking at career through the prism of generation. Never miss a Gen@Work column again. Just click on the author’s name at the top of the story, then select “Be notified when writer publishes” at the top of the page. We’ll send you an email as soon as a new column is published.

Dear Gen@Work,

I have ten direct reports. Three are women. Do I have a greater responsibility to mentor them and talk up their accomplishments within the company?—Mentor Wannabe in Washington DC

Boomer Perspective: Marilynn Mobley

Dear Mentor Wannabe,

In a word—no. Your responsibility is to provide an environment in which all of your employees can grow and achieve results. When they do, you should recognize their efforts with no regard for their gender. It isn’t fair to the men—or the women—for you to show favoritism. Above all, don’t assume the women need your support more than the men.

If you believe your employees would benefit from a mentor, offer to help them find one, but it shouldn’t be you. The best role you can play is to show genuine interest and share your knowledge with every employee so that each person benefits from your tutelage. What each person does with the information and encouragement is up to him or her.

Whether you realize it or not, you’re always mentoring—for better or worse—simply because of your position. Your reach is not limited just to those who report to you.

(Check out Marilynn's blog, Baby Boomer Insights.)

Gen X Perspective: Magan Crane

At first blush, I’m all about sisterhood. Think back to the women who gave you a hand up over the years. You don’t want that chain of support to stop with you. Madeleine Albright, once the highest ranking women in U.S. government ever, often said, “there is a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women.” If she recognized the importance of mentoring other women, we all should.

Research shows that women are not very good about getting their work noticed. They do lots of career-killing stuff without even realizing it, like mothering everyone or asking permission to ask a question. (I know I’m guilty of the last one.) Seeking out and mentoring the bright, ambitious women who report to you is a great way to give back. Is there someone whose brilliant proposals are being sidelined because she just keeps her head down and doesn’t know how to get them noticed? Is there someone whose frequent personal phone calls have gotten her labeled lazy?

That said, I think your primary responsibility is to be a good boss and highlight the successes of everyone who reports to you—men and women. You don’t want to be labeled one of the girls. Because you aren’t just one of the girls, right? You are a professional, and the most successful leaders I know recognize the value of all of their employees.

Millennial Perspective: Traci Tsai

The short answer? Only if they deserve it.

I understand the motivation for the question; the business world of old favored men, so as a successful businesswoman, you want to ensure opportunities and recognition for businesswomen of future generations. However, if you begin to mentor and praise your female reports more heavily than their male counterparts when they haven’t earned it, you will be committing the same crime of bias in a different way.

You should mentor and praise all your best employees based on their performances. As soon as you start praising your female employees for achievements for which you would not praise your male employees, you have lowered the bar for those women and you have created feelings of inequity among the male members of your staff. You are actually limiting the initiative and drive of all your team members, reducing the overall quality of work from your team. The females on your team may come to expect praise for lower quality work and the men may lose their desire to produce out of pure frustration. The intentions may be right, but the action would be counterproductive on a number of levels.

Gen@Work is a monthly column looking at career through the prism of generation. If you have a question for our Gen@Work panel, please send it in care of the editor at cwilbert@realgirlsmedia.com. Never miss a Gen@Work column again. Just click on the author’s name at the top of the story, then select “Be notified when writer publishes” at the top of the page. We’ll send you an email as soon as a new column is published.

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If you have a question for our Gen@Work panel, please send it in care of the editor at cwilbert@realgirlsmedia.com.

DivineCaroline.com is a website where career savvy women like you can read and contribute stories, reviews, and forums. Please visit our vibrant community soon.

New Girl on the Job

Over the past six months, I've begun reading career advice books. I used to think self-help books of any stripe were ridiculous, but I've really gotten to like some of the books I've picked up with tips and tricks for career management.

I'm currently working on New Girl on the Job by Hannah Seligson, and wishing that this had been available to me when I first got out of college. It's an excellent introduction to the working world, and unlike other books I've read, such as the Girl's Guide to Kicking Your Career Into Gear, it's specifically aimed at younger women--women my age. I picked it up after reading about it at Eve Tahminioglu's Career Diva.

Perhaps the most important intangible advice that I've read so far is the "Don't Take It Personally" segment. This is something that I'm still working on. I know I can be overly emotional, and sometimes, I won't be able to just take criticism at face value and move on. For example, someone alerted me several weeks ago to a website that exists to take snarky potshots at bloggers like myself, and there was a whole discussion about Defending Pandora. I was most inclined to ignore it, but with visions of Kathy Sierra dancing in my head, I decided to have a quick look.

Some of it was easy to dismiss. Comments about how Nate and I have been together for so long and how we've only ever dated each other--that's stupid. Who cares? And the remarks about my fibromyalgia being fake, well, those were stupid too. I know I hurt all the time, and there are plenty of people who already don't believe me. But then there was a person purporting to be a college writing instructor who was disparaging my writing. That hurt. Writing is my greatest strength; and aside from my academic success in writing, I meet people all the time who like what I write. And there was a post saying that I was writing in a style that this person was teaching students to "unlearn." It's hard not to take that personally.

When you look at it closely, sites like that one are really just outlets for cyberbullying. And even though it's done behind my back by people I don't even know, it's still hard to just ignore it. I should have listened to my gut and not looked. But I'm going to use this as an object lesson, not to take it personally, not when there are plenty of people who think my writing is great, like my mentor, the Brazen Careerist network, and the women in my professional network. They are the ones that matter.

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Visit Kate's blog, Defending Pandora.

Optimize Your Space for Maximum Productivity -- and Happiness

I made a big move this weekend, in the physical sense, as well as less literally. I moved to a new apartment in a new part of town, and it’s as if I’ve officially started a new phase in my life.

I don’t know if it’s my age, or the situation I found myself in, but I never really could find an apartment that I liked and that I could also afford. Plus, I was living with someone, so compromises had to be made (this place was closer to his work, that place was cheap enough for our budget, etc.). When we split, I had to find a place quick. The place I took was too expensive for my budget, so I downgraded severely as I tried to reign in my spending and get back on my feet financially after losing my job, my car, my dual income living situation and getting sober.

It took me a year. Soon after I celebrated my one-year anniversary last month, I signed a one-year lease on a condo on North Padre Island (the beach!). The past two weeks have been downright unbearable as I waited and waited for moving day to come. And tonight, going back to the old apartment I had come to disdain so much to do the final cleaning, time crept so slowly I thought it would stand still. Finally, I drove off, and immediately called a friend to announce I was leaving the old apartment for the last time. Hallelujah!

I guess the point I’m trying to make in a roundabout way is how our surroundings affect us. I took my previous apartment because it was cheap. That was the only reason. I figured for the price I could stand just about anything. Not so. I grew to dislike it so much that I never wanted to be there. Even when I needed to do work or read, I would go somewhere else to do it. I’m not sure exactly what it was – it could’ve been the grey carpet, or the circa-1978 fixtures, or the unrespectable neighbors. It could’ve been merely what it represented to me – a time in my life where frugality was the biggest necessity, an era of character-building hardship.

Even only half-way unpacked, I love spending time in my new home so much, I look forward to returning to it all day, unlike my previous apartment, which I dreaded going home to. For the first time in my life, everything seems like it belongs. The furniture belongs, the paintings belong, and the towels match. I belong. I guess it feels like my space, my own home. It’s a wonderful feeling.

As I move my company into a new area – office optimization – how your space affects you is something that I will be focusing on. Certain colors soothe (blue), while others energize (orange). There is an optimal set-up to achieve maximum productivity in every space. As I move into my new apartment, I’m trying to achieve this with my own space.

It’s about more than just achieving maximum productivity though. It’s about being able to enjoy the space that you’re working in. One of the coolest office set-ups I’ve ever seen is at Pixar, and Microsoft Research has some pretty cool ones too. My offices at work are painted in two shades of green – bright grass green and cool pastel green. It’s energizing and somehow always makes it feel fresh in there.

The best offices, in my opinion, are wireless and paperless. Why not set up Wi-Fi and give everybody laptops? Make spaces that go beyond traditional cubicles and desks. I had the opportunity to redesign a previous company’s space, and that was exactly what I lobbied for. Instead of desks, there were tables and comfortable sofa chairs. Instead of a separate office for every employee, the rooms were separated by function. There was a meeting room, a brainstorming room, a library/”quiet” room, a multimedia room, and a break room. Each one had a different tone to match its function. The brainstorming room was looser, had brighter colors and rearrangable furniture. The library had bean bags and sofas and dimmer lights to suggest quiet; the multimedia room had large glass tables for projects and plenty of direct light.

When your environment is inviting, it will be hard to get people to leave it, kind of like my new apartment and me. When the environment is functional, things will get done. When the environment is optimized, things will get done faster. Faster, productive employees who want to be at the office? Sounds good to me.

Check out real people's cool home offices [hat tip: Lifehacker.com].

Handling My First Real Job

In an earlier post I talked about how my job doesn’t give me adequate opportunities to develop myself as a leader. My organization lacks structure and there is no motivation or inspiration resulting in me being less enthusiastic to be there.

Recently, I came across this great piece by Ryan Paugh over at Employee Evolution. He states:

It was only a year ago when I first stepped into the corporate world. Like any optimistic twentysomething, I walked into my first day and gave my new responsibilities undivided focus and attention, trying to learn the ropes and taking every chance to prove myself.

As the weeks went by, my frustrations grew. I became not such a go-getter. I just got through the days. I came to the only conclusion I could–my job sucked.

But all of my friends were complaining about their jobs, too. It was definitely the job–not just me. So I started searching online for better career options, while plugging away from 9 to 5 every day.

Right before I gave up on finding another job, in came the offer to start Brazen Careerist. After considering my options – either stay at a job I hated or try something new – I decided to take a leap. It’s been a rollercoaster ride that’s taught me the most valuable lesson of all: I never really hated my corporate job. Instead, I now know that I just hated the transition I was making into the real world.

Is it my job or is it simply where I am in life? I just graduated from college and make no money. I’m not liking Philadelphia and am trying to be there for my family who is going through financial turmoil (like most of the country). I know it sounds like I’m whining but when I take a step back I realize that maybe I am putting too much into my job.

The reality is that I am living life. I no longer have my dean to run to when I’m too stressed to get my work in on time (I miss deadlines, I get in major trouble); I don’t have my best friends living next door to make midnight runs to wawa when we’re craving a snack after hours of studying (we no longer live close to each other and have to be up early for work in the morning); I can’t just send an email to my boss telling her I can’t come in to work that day because I am not feeling well (those count as sick days!). Financial hard times aren’t washed away with an additional loan (I have my credit score to worry about); I can’t hide behind a paper when my family calls (time to talk).

I still hold that my organization needs some revamping. However, I am also benefiting from assessing non-work related issues that are affecting my view of my job and making some negotiations about the role of my job in my life.

1. My job doesn’t need to be end-all-be-all place of my development as a leader. In fact, it shouldn’t be—especially since this is my first job. I’m using it mainly as a space to feel out where I want to go professionally. For example, if it weren’t for this job I wouldn’t have realized that I love curriculum development and organizational development and plan on pursuing these fields. However, I need not wait for a development position to acquire key skills for these fields. That’s why I am enrolled in a non-profit leadership training program and am pursuing a certificate in fundraising while helping my alma mater implement a great social justice program.

2. My job shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all of my life. This is my first job! How can I not eat, sleep, and drink the office? I need to make a good impression! Well, for one: work smart, not hard. And second, boundaries are key to a healthy job life (especially those of us in nonprofit work). Work shouldn’t consume you, regardless of your position on the corporate ladder. If there is anything that I learned about college that I can apply here is that my academic life seemed more manageable and less overwhelming when I had an active and supportive social life outside of school. Yes. I mean hanging with folks who weren’t in college. Now I hang out with people who have lives beyond what their job dictates. I can better see what else is out there aside from work.

3. Company matters: the company you keep makes a huge difference in how you handle that first job. I’m a huge fan of having a “Bitch Buddy”: that person you can rant and vent to about how awful the world is. However, this shouldn’t be the only person in your life that you go to talk about your problems. It helps to have positive people in your life who can show you the good in a situation and who teach you the value of letting the chaos of life roll off your back. When it comes to work, I was only talking to people who hated their jobs. Now I see how silly that was.

Job Hopping: Gen@Work

Gen@Work is DivineCaroline's monthly column looking at career through the prism of generation. If you have a question for our Gen@Work panel, please send it in care of the editor at cwilbert@realgirlsmedia.com. Never miss a Gen@Work column again. Just click on the author’s name at the top of the story, then select “Be notified when writer publishes” at the top of the page. We’ll send you an email as soon as a new column is published.

Dear Gen@Work,

I started a new job three months ago. A competitor offered me 10 percent more money to do the same kind of job. Should I take it?—Newbie in Seattle

Generation X Perspective: Magan Crane

Dear Newbie,

Um, yes.

Of course, it isn’t really that simple or you wouldn’t have asked the question, right? So let’s ponder why you would hesitate. You said the work would be the same now, but are your future prospects as good at the competitor? Do you like the company culture? Are the benefits as good? You have to weigh all of the pros and cons—not just salary—and decide which job you want, just like you would if you hadn’t started the new job. You only have a problem if you’ve been jumping from job to job for a while. It could start to mar your resume if you seem unable to commit to a job for more than a few months, repeatedly. If that’s the case, you might want to stick it out a few years, even for less money.

But, if you are hesitating out of a sense of loyalty to your new job, then I think you are making a mistake. Do you think they would have the same loyalty to you? You need to look out for number one because you can be sure you are the only who is. I was taught that everyone in every industry should keep an updated resume on hand. You never know when a good opportunity is going to come along. Grab the brass ring when you get the chance.

Boomer Perspective: Marilynn Mobley

Dear Newbie,

Leaving so quickly for a few more bucks could hurt you in the long run. Unless you feel you’ve made a bad decision and your current job is not a good fit, stay put.

Leaving just for a raise in pay sends a message to both your current and new employers that you value money above all else and can be easily bought off. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust an employee who could be swayed that easily to leave a current job for essentially the same job. I would wonder if you have any appreciation for the investment that has been made in you by your current employer. Moreover, I may consider you impulsive. Ironically, the very employer who snagged you away may suddenly wonder if it was a good move.

Each time you change from one company to another, it should be clear why. Will you get more responsibility? Be able to learn something new? Work with different kinds of clients? Use your experience in a new way? Achieve a dream to travel or move to a new city?

Sometimes, it’s appropriate to change jobs for very pragmatic reasons, such as getting critical health coverage you’re currently lacking, or because your commute will be significantly less and you need the extra time for family reasons. A 10 percent increase is rarely going to make such a significant difference in your lifestyle that it’s worth risking your reputation.

When employers consider your work history, they’re also looking for patterns, especially those that indicate professional growth. Don’t hurt yourself down the road for a short-term, small financial gain.
You can sell your integrity, but you won’t be able to buy it back.

Millennial Perspective: Traci Tsai

Hi Newbie,

There are a number of factors I would consider in this decision. The pros and cons need to be carefully compared; while my instinct leans towards not taking it, there are specific details that may make the difference between one choice and the other.

First, are you happy at your current job and with your current manager? If you are currently happy, then there are a number of reasons to stay (see the next two questions). If you were actively looking to leave, then make sure you ask the right questions to determine if this new position would alleviate any of your current problems.

Second, is there any additional responsibility you would gain at the new job or any incremental career benefit? If not, a lateral move to a competitor is harder to justify. Thinking longer term, future potential employers will inevitably inquire about the three-month position on your resume. Will you have a good explanation? Also remember that leaving after only three months may render your current manager a less favorable reference for future jobs and opportunities. Unless you are gaining something that out-values these potential negatives, think about whether this move could become a detriment to your professional development.

Final question, is this industry one that you plan on building your career in long-term? Not only would you be leaving after an extremely short period of time, you are also going to a competitor, which may burn bridges. Even if you adhere to the strictest standard of confidentiality, your current company will naturally assume that you are taking trade secrets straight to the enemy. If you plan and want to stay in the same industry, remember that industries are small worlds, and paths often cross multiple times in a career.

--
DivineCaroline.com is a website where career savvy women like you can read and contribute stories, reviews, and forums. Please visit our vibrant community soon.

Own a Word

One of the things you try to do in branding is “own a word” in the minds of consumers. The word is the meta-narrative or overriding story of your brand. If marketers succeed, people will think of the brand when they hear the word, and vice-versa. For example, when most of us hear the word “overnight,” we think of FedEx, and when we hear the word “safety,” we identify it with Volvo (at least if cars are on our mind).

Owning a word helps self-brands too. Look at the current Democratic race. Barack Obama wants to own the word “change” - change in all its ramifications: from the old divisive politics, from how you run a campaign, etc. Hillary Clinton’s word was “experience.” And it’s a powerful position for her because she’s got a lot of it, and her opponent doesn’t.

Both are powerful positions, but it turns out that "experience" was not as powerful a word or position as "change" in the current political and economic environment. Most Americans are discouraged with the status quo. So, a change message was more powerful. Hillary changed her word or positioning to “twenty years of change” but that didn’t stick because Obama already owned change. He pre-empted her and she couldn’t take it away.

In recent weeks, Hillary has been presenting a more lively, engaged and combative image gravitating her toward a new positioning and word, “battle-tested.” This is turning out to be a more powerful word than experience because it sets up her experience in a positive way (she’s more prepared for anything that might occur as president) and points out Obama’s limitations.

Your word can be a positive attribute that defines you, your philosophy or your accomplishments. Smart business people use a defining word in defining key initiatives or the business philosophy at their company. Some people end up owning a word by writing a book, as Tom Peters did with “excellence,” Tom Friedman did with “flat,” and Jack Welch did with “winning.” The key is standing for something that’s distinct and relevant.

--
Catherine is the author of U R A Brand.

5 Tips for Juggling Writing and Work

I recently quit my full time job to write full time. When I was writing at night and working during the day, people always asked me how I found time to do both. Yes, it’s tough, but the thing to remember is that I don’t have kids, pets, or even houseplants. Writing is one of my top priorities. When you're passionate about something, you find a way to make it work. Here's how I did it:

1. Choose assignments carefully. I try to only take assignments that interest me (otherwise, it's not worth the sacrifice of time since I could be doing other things). And I learned the hard way that taking on too many source-heavy projects is a recipe for insanity. You can drive yourself crazy playing phone tag during your lunch break and running home in time for your 6pm interview. Instead, you could be writing in otherr forms. Essays and short stories are all about your experiences and imagination, so they don’t require formal interviews, making them the perfect genre for a part time writer. Quizzes, blog posts, and theater or restaurant reviews are also a safe bet (the last two usually require time beyond 9-5 anyway).

2. Try to do interviews over email. Some of my colleagues are probably laughing at the lack of journalistic integrity in this suggestion, but plenty of full time journalists do this, too. It’s probably not appropriate for a full-on profile piece, but it can work if you need a short quote for a service article. And hey, at least you know you’re not misquoting your source! (By all means, fix any typos.)

3. If you must do phone interviews, then find a source in a different time zone or someone who's available during off hours. Six o’clock is only three on the West Coast, so it’s perfectly appropriate to schedule a late afternoon phone call with someone in Oregon or California. Or if you're interviewing someone who's a night owl, they probably won't mind talking to you after 5 or 6 pm.

4. Ask for extensions before you start writing. I'm constantly overcommitting myself, but I'm not shy about saying "I'm really booked this week, could we push the deadline back a few days?" You need to be realistic about your other time commitments and ask for appropriate time up-front so you're not letting down your editor. Unless you're writing hard-hitting news (and you're probably not if you have a full time job), most editors will give you a few extra days if you ask nicely. In fact, I've done this with several high-profile pubs and still gotten repeat assignments.

5. Make friends with other freelance writers. They'll help you stay sane and they can share their own time management tips. Using the buddy system ensures that you always have someone you can email at 2am when you're freaking out because you still haven't come up with a clever headline for your article that's due at 9am.

Now, it's your turn. If you have a side business or a creative gig along with a day job, then leave a comment and tell how you do it.

Even if the race is over, Hillary has set new heights for women around the world

If the headlines of almost every major media outlet are accurate, Hillary Clinton's run towards the White House may be nearing the end. Despite her assurances she's still in the race, the political commentators seem to disagree.

It was always going to be a tough sell, convincing America they are ready for their first female President. But regardless of the outcome, I'm glad Hillary Clinton ran and dared to scale the heights of the highest position in the free world economy.

Thinking for a moment of another Hillary, it was always going to be a risk to attempt to reach the summit. But simply knowing no-one else had done it before wasn't a deterrent to Sir Edmund Hillary when he became the first mountaineer to reach the summit of Mt Everest in 1953. And since then, because of the path that he cleared, 1600 other climbers have been able to reach the summit as well.

Whether or not Clinton makes it any further, she's already disproved many critics who ruled her out from day one. Simply running has shown what can be achieved if you dare to be different. It will be a sad day for me if she rules herself out, but at the same time I'll be celebrating Hillary Clinton's success in setting a new height for women leaders all around the world.

Getting What I Ask For

I'm not a very confrontational person. I rarely argue, or even debate. In fact, I can honestly say that there are very few topics or issues on which I have a strong enough opinion to warrant the slightest rise of my voice. I listen and learn. I let others do the talking. I stay out of the ring. Sure, I stand up for what I believe in, if I believe in it strongly. But I've never been assertive about what I want or need. Until now, that is.

It turns out that life doesn't just hand out the good stuff. You have to be willing to get out there and take it, or at least ask for it. Most people (meaning anyone from your neighbor to the telephone company) won't offer up help or compensation unless they know you want it--and then sometimes you have to convince them just how badly.

So I've started taking baby-steps toward grabbing the proverbial bull by the horns. When my DSL service took weeks to go live despite multiple calls to Verizon for support, I called up the company and requested a refund for my first month of service. They gladly credited my account. But had I not called, the $15 wouldn't have been magically subtracted from my next month's bill. And when my old gym started charging me for a renewed membership I hadn't authorized, I called and asked that the membership be cancelled for good and the two months worth of charges be refunded to my account. They quickly obliged. I have to work for it, but it turns out that if I'm willing to make the effort, businesses in particular are willing to give me my due.

Than I took it a step further. I called up a friend that I've been doing some pro-bono freelance for and asked to get paid. As simply as that, I increased my monthly income. Mind you, it's a measly increase, but it's payment for my labor. And it's probably more than she could afford. But because I asked, because I'm worth it (and so much more) she agreed to send me a check each month.

Now I'm finding myself making lists of ways I can use my newly discovered powers. I'm looking forward to beginning my search for a house of my very own (more on that to come later) because I'll have ample opportunities to practice asking for more and flexing my bargaining muscles. And I can't wait until my next review at work. My boss doesn't have a clue what he's in for. Six figures, here I come! Ahem, ok, I'll still be at the lower end of the five figures, but forget that teeny-tiny 5% cost of living raise I'm used to. I'm shooting for the stars. Besides, the best lesson I'm learning about asking for what I want is that the worst that can happen is I'll hear that two-letter word, "No."

And the best that can happen? I just might get what I asked for.

-- Visit Ami's site or blog.

How to Avoid Burnout

Somebody I love very much is dying and he will probably pass away quite soon. I haven’t had a shower in about a week because the baby has been sick and Jamie and I have been run-off-our-feet busy. We’ve been eating frozen lasagna and pasta because it’s fast and easy and I would like nothing more than to just eat a salad. With fresh vegetables. Ones that didn’t come out of a bag.

There is a time, in the midst of all of this insanity, that you have to put your foot down and say, “Enough”. There is a point when you realize that if you don’t start taking care of yourself, both physically and psychologically, you will burn out. Hopefully my post today will help at least one person realize that time before it happens.

Think about the term “burnout” for a second. We throw it around so much, not even taking the time to think about what it means. Imagine a candle when you first light it. The flame is bright and solid and strong. It gives off so much light. It keeps you warm, it lights your room, it sets a mood.

Later on, when it has given us its best, it starts to drown in its own wax. It struggles and fights to keep going, to keep itself alive, but it can’t. It gives off a paltry light, doesn’t heat worth a damn, and sometimes you can only see the little blue bit at the top of the wick. This is what happens when you try to keep yourself going for too long.

What was effortless becomes a struggle. What was helpful becomes wasted.

The physics of candles indicates that when they have been burning for too long, they can’t burn any more. If you can’t burn anymore, stop. Just stop. Regroup. Do whatever it is that you need to do to get yourself to a place where you’re at your best again.

In The Four Agreements, Miguel Ruiz says that we should always do our best, but know that our best will change from day to day, from hour to hour. If you’re pulling an all nighter, your best at 4 pm will be very different from your best at 4 am. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that. But each of us has a point when we know our best really isn’t good enough.

At that point, we just have to quit for a while.

During your regrouping process, pay attention to the things you need to do in order to feel better. For me, trashy magazines and sleep tend to do the trick. As for Jamie, he likes video games. For Jack, he gets his downtime by smashing plastic blocks on his parent’s faces. Extended bathing rituals, whether you go in for showers or baths, are always a good idea in that you get to relax and you stop offending everyone in a fifteen foot radius with your stench. Eat some good food. Have a glass or six of wine. Whatever works.

Do your thing. Take a break. Come back refreshed.

I very fervently hope that none of you are experiencing burnout right now. If you’re not, count your blessings, and here are some ways to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Schedule time, every single day, to relax somehow.

Like in the list above, what works for my loopy neighbor isn’t what’s going to work for you, so put some time in and think about it.

Keep your reserves up.

I’m not talking about esoteric reserves, I’m talking about real, physical ones. Keep toilet paper in your cupboard, snacks in your fridge and casseroles in your freezer. Whatever you need frequently, keep a lot of it around.

Work towards a greater purpose.

Time that is spent working towards something bigger than just paying your mortgage is inherently less draining. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow, too.

Remember the point.

Why are you working from home, anyway? To die from the stress of it? Or because it gives you more freedom? A person working themselves into the ground at the expense of all else is not free. Take the necessary steps to experience that freedom you’ve been working so hard for.

--

Visit Naomi's blog, IttyBiz.

Things to Remember when You're the Boss

A few weeks after I started my first job, I began keeping a list: "Things to Remember when YOU are the Boss." Young, entry-level workers are most likely supervised by someone who hasn't been entry-level in some time, and it's easy to lose perspective when you aren't walking in those shoes anymore.

Some highlights from the list that I hope every supervisor will embrace:

When you don't think you need something, it probably means you do. If a local organization is offering a workshop on keeping your employees engaged and you don't think you need to attend, chances are your employees are already disengaged. If someone offers to help you increase buy-in to your strategic plan, and you don't think it's necessary, that's probably because there is very little buy-in. A person who is truly successful at something (should) always welcome the opportunity to improve this skill.

Be nice when it comes to hiring. You need to hire a new employee, but you have a hundred other pressing things on your plate. Try to remember what it was like when you were job hunting for the first time, or when moving to a new city - a time when the outcome of your job search was crucial and would greatly affect your life almost instantly. If you're going to be delayed in the interview or decision-making process, be curteous enough to let your potential employees know. If you told someone you'd have a decision on Monday, and now it's Thursday, your life probably hasn't been affected much, but there's a good chance that person hasn't slept in days.

Don't leave your employees in the dark. If someone hands you a large pile of tedious, boring work and walks away, that pile of work remains tedious and boring. If someone hands you a large pile of tedious, boring work and explains that the reason this report needs to be completed is so that X goal can be met which puts us closer toward achieving Y on the agency's strategic plan, the work suddenly becomes important and worthwhile. Let's hope that most work being done is done for a reason - make sure you tell your employees what that reason is!

Make your own list. Everyone has had experiences with great and not-so-great supervisors. Make your own list for when you become the supervisor, or if you are already in charge, let interactions with your supervisor remind you how to treat your employees. Most people receive very little training when they are suddenly throwin into supervisory roles, and remembering how things your boss did made you feel good, productive, worthless, exhausted, etc., will help you guage how your employees will react to you.

Your employees won't stay entry-level forever - if you take the time to supervise them effectively, you're teaching them how to supervise others in the future, in addition to helping them be happier and more productive. Let's hope the list your employees make is filled with more "dos" than "don'ts."

You Can Land a Job But You Can't Land a Man: Successful Women Remain Single

An article caught my eye earlier this week on MSN about the (apparent) amplitude of single, successful women who (gasp) may never find a man.

The article sites the following as the major obstacles these women are facing:
1. They want someone as successful as they are
2. Little time leftover for dating after work and other priorities

But there is one that stands out as the bigger issue:
3. They simply intimidate their male counterparts

I recently had a conversation with Guy I’ve Been Seeing about this very thing. I’m not exactly your prototypical hard-as-nails businesswoman. I don’t think they’ve existed since the ‘80s and the days of mandatory hosiery in the office, so let’s just kill that stereotype now. I am, however, very driven and motivated, like so many of my fellow successful Gen Y females.

Since high school, my intelligence and my inability to hide behind a pretty, artificially dumbed-down exterior has gotten in the way of my love life. I began to notice the trend in college, when one of my friends pointed out to me that guys were probably just intimidated by me. Me? I asked. I’m 5’ 3”, a buck-nothing. How is that intimidating? A boyfriend confirmed the theory. “You’ve always intimidated me,” he said. “You’re smart, but in a business way that I’m not.”

GIBS couldn’t believe this. “You? Intimidating? How?” he said. I explained to him about how most guys (I’m speaking from experience now) would rather have someone who is a little less complicated, a little easier, with a little more time on their hands… in essence, they would rather be the alpha. I don’t work well with that. I don’t like being the alpha either, though.

That’s where the real problems start to happen. It’s a difficult balance to find – a guy that challenges you would have to be at your level in some sense, pursuing his own goals, career, and success, who is also supportive of your success, and who is looking for that type of woman. Not to mention all the other little stuff people like in relationships, like compatibility, shared values and common interests, etc.

That’s not to say I haven’t had boyfriends. Up until the past year, I was in a string of long-term relationships since high school. The problem was that the guys I ended up with simply didn’t have the cojones to challenge me the way I needed to be back then. I’ve finally learned how to challenge myself, but I think I’d still like someone who is working on achieving his own big dreams and goals.

So, now here I am at 26, single for the first time since college and I’m being given a fairly bleak outlook. The more successful I become, the harder it’s going to be to connect.

But see, I don’t think these women are sitting around at home, crying into their Chardonnay about it. I think the article totally misses the point. These women aren’t willing to settle for anything less than what they want because the lesson their success has taught them is that they can achieve great things in spite of the odds. They are Whole People who aren’t okay with accepting anything less than another Whole Person.

Speaking for myself, I have accepted the idea that I could possibly never be married. Some people might say that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t think it is. Fifty percent of all marriages in divorce, remember? A very small fraction of married folk believe their marriage could in divorce. Who’s fooling whom here? If I can be okay with being single for potentially the rest of my life, then I am not going to wait around to do things. I’m going to charge full force. And somewhere out there, there is a guy who thinks that’s hot. He’s the guy for me.

--
Visit Holly's blog WorkLoveLife.

The Day My Son Almost Died

I make my living teaching women how to unapologetically own their ambition in a society that has a double standard. It’s our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are the b-word.

I define ambition as that which drives our creative existence, provides an outlet for our talents and passions, defines who we are, and allows us to earn our full worth without apology. I walk my talk.

But just like you I take hits.

In a moment of trauma, I too succumbed to those deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about how women are supposed to behave. It happened to me when my son almost died.

On July 14, 2005, two weeks before my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, was due to my publisher, I was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by a phone call. My seventeen-year-old son, Devin, had been hit by a car and was lying in the trauma unit of a hospital 2,500 miles away from my New York City home. His condition was unknown. I numbly threw some clothes into suitcases and barely managed to catch a 7 a.m. flight to the San Francisco Bay Area to get to him.

In between hourly calls from the airplane phone to Devin’s father at the hospital, I ticked off the items on the guilty mother’s checklist:

Dumped my child in daycare more than I’d have liked? Check.

Dragged him through a difficult divorce? Check.

Denied him the fancy bicycle and fancier private school while I earned my degree? Check.

Remarried? Check.

Moved away from my own teenaged son? Check.

But all that paled next to my biggest sin: For the last several months, I’d consistently put work ahead of family. The kicker: I’d bailed on the family vacation to finish my book.

Who cared that I’d logged a lifetime of being a good, sometimes great mom? Who cared that I loved my work with a passion, that I’d helped thousands of women realize their lifelong dreams?

Clearly, the gods were punishing me for being too ambitious, and Devin was paying the ultimate price.

Of course this was crazy, irrational thinking—but that’s what we women do, isn’t it? Isn’t a good mother one who has the grace to feel guilty about any choice beyond putting family first?

Like you, I understand on a deep, visceral level—one that can’t be duplicated by intellectual reasoning or academic polemics—what it means to live daily with the dialectical tension of loving your work every bit as much as your children and family, of trying to nurture mutually exclusive yet equally sacrosanct priorities.

I’ve lived a complex and non-formulaic life as a deeply devoted (and deeply flawed) divorced, single mother, as well as a determined, ambitious professional woman. Your story is doubtless no less complex.

What we share as high-achieving women is the challenge of valuing our pure ambition in a culture that tells us that doing so is going to bring us down hard, sometime, somehow. We absorb the message that there will be hell to pay for loving our work with a grand passion.

For the first month after Devin’s accident, I did little but replay in my mind the details of his accident.

He’d been standing on a quiet neighborhood sidewalk when a speeding, out-of-control truck hit him, throwing him twenty-five feet.

His friends looked for him under the vehicle and then between it and the metal pole that it crashed into before finding him curled up in the fetal position in a driveway. Knocked unconscious, when he awoke his first thought was, “I’m going to die.”

He’d suffered a concussion, multiple pelvic fractures, and a separated sacroiliac joint. We didn’t know initially whether he’d be brain-injured or paralyzed. I stayed by his side almost constantly in that initial recuperative phase.

At last the doctors offered a guardedly optimistic prognosis—Devin faced an uphill climb through healing and long-term rehabilitation, but they believed that he’d come through fine.

I forced myself to get back to my writing (obviously, my editor had extended my deadline and advised me to take my time getting back to the book). As soon as I sat myself down, booted up my computer, and began to work, I felt myself take a deep, refreshing breath. I felt myself letting go by focusing on my work.

Getting back in touch with my ambition gave me a sense that our lives could get back on track. My ambition was what soothed me at a time when I was deeply traumatized.

Of course I welcomed the love and support of my friends and family. But I had needed something more. Something more than any prescription drug or running or yoga. Something even more than caring for my son 24/7 for six weeks during his acute healing process. And what I needed was to get back to my ambitious work, even as I was sitting in the same room with my son and his friends, on my computer, doing my own thing while they did theirs.

I want to be clear here:

My work here wasn’t merely a soothing routine, a distraction or escape that took my mind off my worries about my son, or a task that could restore my shaky illusion of control. It did serve those roles, but my work—and, more specifically, my love and passion for my work—did and does so much more. It brought me back home to myself.

Still feeling traumatized and guilty, I confessed to a friend that I was feeling good about getting back to work. “Still,” I rushed to assure her, lest the gods punish me again for daring to think about my career, “I’d chuck it all—my work, my business, everything—to have prevented this from happening to my son.”

But then it hit me, and I said to her, “But you know what? That’s a false choice; I don’t have to choose between my child’s well-being and my ambition. And that’s precisely what I’m writing about!”

I believe deep in my soul that returning to our sacrosanct ambition is what grounds us and stabilizes us when we’re rocked, personally or professionally. And we should feel unapologetic about having that guidepost and touchstone in our lives; we should resist feelings of guilt, self-recrimination, blame, and instead feel strengthened and sustained by our inner professional passion and drive to do the work and make the contribution we were born to make.

Your life, like mine, will throw you an infinite number of curveballs.

Your child gets hurt. You get promoted to a dream job that brings with it a steep learning curve plus a new team of high-maintenance talent to manage. Your husband has an affair. You get married. You get sick. Things outside of your control may let you down and frighten you, but the anchor of your ambition will help reground and center you. You will always have access to your inner belief in your business smarts and brain power and creativity and professional problem solving; you will always have that to come home to.

When things in my life are going my way, my ambition keeps me happy, fired up, and feeling young, vibrant, and fully engaged in every part of my life. Perhaps even more importantly, it is also the one thing that I can count on and come back to when I’m in over my head, when life disappoints or scares me or dares me to be stronger than I thought myself capable of.

Ambition is my anchor because it comes from within me, rather than from some external source—be it colleagues, promotion, friends, partner, boss, fat paycheck, mentor, or some mercurial other. As supportive and caring as others can be—partners, friends, children—I know I can’t necessarily count on them; I have only myself at the end of the day.

We cannot look to others to live out our dreams for us. We have to nurture the ambition in our own DNA. If we can’t find it in ourselves, we’ll have to pile up some kindling and nurture the first tiny flickers into a consuming fire in our bellies.

From this day forward, let’s make a pact as ambitious women. Let’s imagine that we live in a parallel universe where women have no more problem acknowledging that they are ambitious than admitting that they like chocolate.

Imagine this is a world where you treat and protect your ambition as you would a lover or beloved. In this universe, you can be a loyal friend and a great co-worker. Without guilt from within or judgment from without, you could be both a good mother and a woman with big goals, nurturing both your child and your ambition dreams.

In this universe, a woman’s ambition is not just a job. It embodies a conscious, deliberate, and mindful search for truth and meaning in her life, a return to her natural wellspring of passion and purpose—even when she is lost or off course, a letting go of the fears and doubts that block her path. In this universe she sees clearly for the first time how to free herself from the shackles that have, in the past, hobbled her ambition.

Visualize yourself in that world now.

You are there—you are ambitious. Believe it: your ambition is a virtue.

Hold the choices you make to fulfill your ambition precious, sacrosanct. Sometimes you’ll have to make tough sacrifices or compromises. Each of those decisions represents an acceptance and honoring of the fire within you. Regard them as gifts you give to yourself to protect and cherish your dreams—for your career, for your one life.

You owe it to yourself—and the world—to make the contribution you were born to make. Take the leap. Strive to be the best in your field, your industry, your niche. Promise yourself you will always earn your worth.

The life I dare you to lead is a life filled with hope, dreams, aspirations—and the expectation of having them fulfilled. When you make the choice to lead that kind of life, who knows how many others you’ll inspire?

One day when he was fifteen, Devin told me, “I don’t want to be one of those people who get up every day and go to a boring job they hate just to get a paycheck. I think that’s sad. I want to be like you, Mom. You have an interesting life. You work for yourself, you travel, you decide what you want to do and how you want to work.” It was deeply validating to realize that I’d given my son a powerful role model for prizing ambition and intention, for creating a life based on passion. That memory sustained me as I sat by Devin’s hospital bed, tapping away on my keyboard.

You deserve to love your work, to be as ambitious as you wish, to earn your worth, and to find fulfillment. Give yourself permission to be true to your ambition, to make the choices you deem appropriate without pause, without second-guessing yourself. This means you’ll need to check in with yourself daily, tuning in to what you want in your heart of hearts, staying true to your ambition as you define it.

When you build your life’s work from that place of sanctuary, you’ll be richly rewarded with lifelong intellectual and creative curiosity, evolving opportunities, and healthier, happier relationships with loved ones.

Our pact is to create a new cultural message that women’s ambition is a vital, irreplaceable component of their lives. Let’s each of us agree to be an ambitious woman—and to be her now. And to share our stories with each other.

Many of my women friends, colleagues, and clients find immeasurable inspiration and daily intention in this question posed by the poet Muriel Rukeyser:

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.”

Tell the truth about your life. Share your stories. Your world may just split open—in amazing ways.

# # #
Debra Condren is business psychologist, career and small business advisor, and founder of the Women's Business Alliance. She interviewed 500 women for her book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams. Visit her blog at: www.AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord.com.

Nonprofit Success Tip: The Nonprofit Field is HUGE - Find Your Place

Much to the field’s disadvantage, the image of nonprofit workers is as follows: people toiling away at soup kitchens or after school programs to eliminate a social problem that will never end or the executive director/president who has either taken an organization to new heights or plummeted an organization to new lows. I joined the nonprofit world seeking to move from the former to the latter (obviously not plummeting an organization to new lows!). However, what I have found is that there is enough diversity in professions and places to allow me to explore what I want to become and how I need to get there.

There are accountants, lawyers, fundraisers, bookkeepers, graphic designers, doctors, membership coordinators, educators, program analysts, and more. Some have PhDs or MBAs, others have professional certificates, while some have years of hands on experience. Some work in large organizations with billion dollar budgets (hospitals and universities) while others work at a small local organization with just under $500K (schools and community centers). Some focus on health and poverty while others work on the arts and non-violence. The diversity is exciting—it’s like when you realize for the first time that there is more to being successful in the working world than being a doctor or lawyer.

When I started my job I thought that I was going to be an educator working directly with youth. However, since my organization is so small I was exposed to different ways I can support youth outside of direct service. I’ve since taken a great interest in development (fundraising) and spend time talking to the development associate, taking courses, and reading about the field.

Idealist.org has a great activity to help you find your place in the nonprofit world. Collect 50 or more advertisements for jobs that interest you because of their a. mission or b. job description. After you have collected 50 or more clips, sort them by job and organization (and there will be some overlap). Look for patterns and synthesize the information: what kinds of issues interest you? What kind of approach to this issue are you drawn to? What departments in the organization piqued your interest?

This activity provided some guidance in figuring out what career tracks are best for me and the types of nonprofit organizations I would most thrive in. Further, it also allowed me to see what areas I need to strengthen in order to succeed in my area of choice.

In order to be successful, you not only have to know the context of sector you are entering but you also have to know yourself.

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Visit Allison's blog Entry Level Living.

Opening Lob in the Mommy Wars

I've watched the new phenomenon of Mommy Wars with intrigue the last few years. I always figured that women who are happy with their choices (whether to marry, their career, their life) wouldn't need to be taking shots at women who make different choices. And I've marveled at women who assume that child-rearing is exclusively a female responsibility; they completely absolve men, including their chosen husbands, and then go after other women a la Cruella de Ville.

I wondered how long it would be until I officially weighed into the debate. I'm barely into my 2nd trimester and now I receive the first lob from a stay-at-home Mom. I haven't even had the baby yet! Just when I thought I'd recovered from the 1st trimester nausea, now I have a mother trying to make me dizzy.

I joined a couple of parenting internet groups and a woman posted a question about nausea and what drugs to take for it. I responded that I'd felt like I'd been at sea for the last 5 weeks, but knowing that drugs prescribed in the past for pregnancy symptoms have caused defects in babies, I tried to be supportive by suggesting indirectly that if I could handle it, maybe she could too. I added that I've been able to continue working more than full-time. Again, I thought if she had the kind of encouragement my mother has always provided for me, it might help her buck up a little. (My Mom worked through the last four of her seven pregnancies and she tells me, "You just get through it.")

So the woman replies back, telling me how "impressed" she is with "women like you" who can keep working. She added condescendingly that she realizes some women have no choice but to work (as if working when you're 3 months' pregnant is some kind of sacrifice). Then she said she "could never" work full-time while pregnant.

A day later I couldn't get her response out of my mind. First the suggestion that women might work only because they "have to," and any woman with a choice would want to stay home. And her condescension suggests that somehow she is privileged and I am not. I don't consider staying home a privilege and don't care for the assumptions she flung my way. Why did she need to trot all of that out?

I wrote to her that I was equally intrigued with women who could stay home, since it's something "I could never do."

I have to admit that she apparently picked up on the "Just buck up" undertone in my email and took offense to it. She wanted commiserating, not tough talk. Where do these women come from? Washington Post writer Lonnae O'Neal Parker makes a similar point in her book I'm Every Woman. Parker writes that black women are proud of a centuries-old tradition of providing strength and financial support for their families. Parker notes that many of those lobbers in the Mommy Wars are upper class white women who were raised with the odd notion that women can be educated now but it's still "unfeminine" to have the kind of demanding careers that the men they marry do. I laugh at my local Bay Area upper class women (who by the way have married status husbands to provide for them) moan they could never work through their pregnancy nausea, meanwhile women in the Third world are out working the fields until their delivery.

Parker's book resonated with me because I also come from a long line of strong women, who crossed the country in wagons on the Oregon Trail and took up farming in the rugged Oregon Country. The women in my family are not only strong, but fertile. My Grandma raised five children while running a farm and a store, and my mother raised seven while working. If I whined to them "I just can't work" at only three months' pregnant, they'd laugh out loud. Not out of cruelty, but out of the knowledge that after the fourth or fifth child comes along you gain a little perspective. I'm grateful for the perspective they've handed down to me. If they could handle that many, I think I can handle one, and hopefully two.

My mother's thriving career in government forged a large part of my self-confidence and personality and I can't wait to provide that same mentoring for my baby. I know that's the right choice for me- it's the way my Mom did it and I've never seen it done better.

Balancing or juggling… the very fine line

With all this talk about work-life balance I decided it was time I learned some of the secrets. I’ve been looking for the Holy Grail of how to juggle all those important aspects of my life, without getting any one of them out of kilter. So off I went to a seminar led by a businesswoman extraordinaire. It was a working lunch actually, which was even better since I never seem to find time to step out for a decent lunch any more. Already I was in front!

For 45 minutes I heard this woman speak about raising her children as a single mum, while growing a business and keeping pace with a world growing more manic by the minute. I heard the messages about multi-tasking and work flexibility – which in her case involved taking work home to do on the PC in her kitchen after the kids had gone to bed.

I heard how she managed to “find” another hour a day by reviewing work while the kids were eating breakfast and getting ready for school or while they were at sports training, or by reading journals or listening to podcasts while pounding the treadmill at the gym. She encouraged us to think of times where we could add a bit more productivity to our daily processes so we too could find that elusive extra time we seem to need to get everything done.

So yesterday I decided to put some of the theory into action. The obvious target was my morning walk, which usually lasts about an hour. So I set off with the beagles, equipped with a range of business podcasts, ready to claw back some of the “white space” in my walking routine. (“White space” for the uninformed is the unproductive time we spend on tasks that don’t produce any tangible output. It’s a term that came from Japanese manufacturing philosophies and has been made famous by the lean thinkers around the world – including experts in work-life balance, it seems.)

Now walking 3 beagles in itself is a bit of a challenge, but it’s the highlight of the day for my pack and in the city it’s an imperative rather than an option – for all our sakes and that of our neighbours’ too! Fortunately I enjoy the walks and we’ve developed a pretty good routine so – as daunting as it may seem – the dogs have become fairly manageable. That was, until I introduced the added complication of the podcasts. You see it took my attention away from the dogs – which they noticed immediately and took exception to – and before long it was suddenly quite difficult to manage 3 scent hounds whose main purpose in life is tracking smells… wherever they may go.

Within a block and a half of leaving home we’d had 2 tangles; none of the pack were behaving; I almost had us all run over when I stepped off the curb engrossed in the advice of Rosabeth Moss-Kantor and didn’t hear the approaching car ‘til it ground to a halt in front of us. Needless to say the pups were not impressed!

So I took the ear buds out and decided enough is enough. I can enjoy my peaceful walk in the morning without the need to remove the white space. I don’t need to cram more into my day; I just need to get the most from what I do spend my time on.

The experts can have their theories. I’ve made my own ruling on work-life balance – as long as I can enjoy my work and my life, it’s good enough balance for me.

What's your take on work-life balance? What works for you and what advice have you binned?

Network with Flair

As the close of my freshman year quickly approached the one question friends, family and professors kept asking was, "So what are you doing for your summer internship?" Obviously flustered at the thought of not being prepared for this ever-so-crucial step, I immediately scheduled a meeting with my adviser. Being a clueless 18-year-old rookie in the corporate game, I went into the meeting thinking he was going to rant about on-line job searching or visiting the campus career center. So you can understand my shock when he opened with, "What does your dad do?"

Networking is absolutely essential when it comes to finding a job. And of course we all know the cardinal rules of the process — don't be afraid to ask for help, look for untapped resources and simply, just do it. But there are some things we often times overlook.

Here are some tips for successful networking that may not seem so obvious:

1. Throw expectations out the window. Our generation has a big issue with entitlement. A lot of us feel like we deserve the best and will settle for nothing less. We go into the job search with the feeling that any employer would be lucky to have us on their team. So when someone throws us a curve ball, like when you realized that you'll have to spend a year as a gofer before having any marketable experience, we can't hack it. Going into the job hunt without a sense of privilege and being open to less glamorous opportunities will pay off in the end.

2. Drop the "use them and lose them" mentality. Networking is about building relationships, not stepping on people to get what you want. Your professor called a favor in to his old stomping grounds and snagged you a killer internship? Treat him to coffee immediately to thank him and stop by his office regularly to say hi. People are smarter than you give them credit for. They know when they're being worked. Forging a genuine connection with your network will make for a more mutually satisfying relationship for all involved.

3. Bring something to the table. Networking is a two way street. A lot of Millennials think they are just supposed to call up an old boss or crazy rich uncle and have them jump at the chance to help them out. Not so much. If at all possible we should be looking for ways to benefit our benefactors in return. Maybe your sorority is looking for a corporate sponsor for a fundraising event — pitch to your boss how
lending her name will provide a boost to her corporate social responsibility kick and garner more community support. After all networking isn't just for finding a job, right?

4. Be polite. Good manners are never out of style. Always, always, always carry yourself in a charming and professional manner while networking. Maybe it's just my Southern hospitality showing, but I can't stress enough the importance of good etiquette. Asking for help instead of demanding it sending thank you notes to your contacts, even if they couldn't materialize a job for you, will make a huge impression on others.

On that note, you shouldn't forget the basics, but it's nice to network in a more sophisticated fashion. And it works too. I managed to score my very first internship by combining my wildly sensational talent with a phone call to a cousin in the media industry. Four years later I'm still in touch with several of those writers and editors, and I walked away a more seasoned and mature young-professional-in-training. As much as I hate to admit it, I guess my adviser was on to something — sometimes life really is about who you know.

How to Deal with Sexism in the Workplace

Sexism exists everywhere, and it always will, because the genders are different and those differences affect how genders think and act towards each other. Pretending that sexism will go away is like pretending we can stop teenagers from having sex, or college students from binge drinking. Not going to happen. So let’s talk about what sexism is and how to deal with sexism in the workplace.

What Constitutes Sexism?

Sexism is discrimination based on gender, and it comes in many forms.

It could be something simple, like my senior group project with four guys where they always wanted me to be the notetaker because I was a girl and I had the best handwriting. I think of these little comments and situations as “casual” sexism, because they usually stem from a lifetime of conditioning about gender stereotypes and are mostly unintentional. Luckily, simple situations usually have simple solutions: I handed the guys my laptop. Problem solved.

Or sexism can be serious, like in the case of the gender wage gap. For which I have no good advice because I believe a) in free markets and b) that the differences in pay between men and women are not caused by gender, but by other factors that correlate with gender. Like having children.

Sexual harrassment is part of sexism too, but I’m not going to touch on it in this article. You can read other women’s thoughts about it here.

As a woman, an important skill is knowing how to deal with career-limiting sexism in the workplace. Here are a few tips:

Find An Alternate Solution

When you experience “casual” sexism, there is usually nothing gained from pointing out that it is, in fact, sexism. It makes you look like a complainer. Instead, offer an alternate solution. For example, if you are always getting asked to complete a menial task, like scheduling lunches or meetings, suggest that the group rotates responsibility every month. Make it clear that the task is menial and the duty should be shared. If anything, people will respect that you are not their secretary.

Change Your Style to Match the Situation

It seems to bother people when I tell them they should change their style in professional settings, and that confuses me. We censor ourselves all the time in different types of situations, and I don’t see how this is different. So if you are at a meeting with all men who are ignoring you, speak louder and make your ideas heard. If everyone is interrupting each other, start interrupting to get your voice heard. It sounds crazy, but you will be much more successful in meetings and other workplace interactions when you adopt the dominate communication style. Yes, it’s out of your comfort zone, but I promise it won’t kill you.

At the same time, find a balance. Don’t completely change who you are, because that doesn’t work either. The key is to adapt by pushing your comfort zone outwards in every situation while still staying true to yourself.

Question If Gender Is Actually Important in the Situation

Everyone thinks that gender needs to balanced within organizations and groups. For example, women of all ages always try to convince me that young women should be working their way up the corporate ladders of Fortune 500 companies. “We need more women CEOs!” (Less than 2.5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.) But personally, I don’t want to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I want to be CEO of my own company.

And realistically, this works better for women. I see older generations of women who are finally starting their own businesses because they spent years chipping away at the glass ceiling with toothpick and a baby on one arm. And I want a family too, so working my way up the ladder just to hit a glass ceiling is unappealing; I’d rather skip it all together with freelancing or entrepreneurship, neither of which require sacrificing everything to borrow a sledgehammer.

So question why we must have 50/50 gender in every profession, organization, and school. Is it really important? Maybe genders are just attracted to different career paths because one’s gender is a factor in determining one’s strengths. Why aren’t we as a society okay with that?

Even the Playing Field a Little

Men disproportionately play chess, poker, and sports; so if you want to be seen as an equal with men, take up one of these hobbies. I chose (watching) sports, and the best way I learned to keep up with the teams and players every season is by joining fantasy leagues that my guy friends set up. You’d be surprised how easy and fun it is to pick up a hobby, and men don’t care if you are any good or not, they just think it’s cool you showed up to play. (Plus it gives you something to build a working relationship off of, which is always good for your career.)

What’s even more surprising is how competing against guys in one aspect of your life will bleed over to all other aspects. I first learned this lesson when my father put me in ju-jitsu lessons at age 13 and I had to spar boys during every class. It sucked, but I got very strong and very good at fighting in a short amount of time.

Know When To Leave

Honestly, I don’t think sexism (outside of sexual harassment) is a huge problem in the workplace, as long as women can learn to handle it. I don’t expect that to be a popular opinion because I’m overexposed to sexism by the nature of my profession and I’ve developed a high tolerance towards the stuff that bothers other women. (Plus sexism probably doesn’t affect my paycheck negatively anyway.)

But really, sexism is about drawing lines. Every person has their own line that they must draw, where on one side lie the things they will put up with and on the other lie the things they will not tolerate. Every time that line is crossed, that person has the choice to either deal or leave. And that person gets to pick the number of times they are willing to deal too.

So if sexism is out of control in your current workplace, by your standards, I would suggest leaving. And then stop working for companies that don’t draw their line where you draw yours. Stop working with bosses and coworkers that don’t draw their line where you draw yours. Find a company that aligns with your values, and you shouldn’t have any more problems with sexism.

And because I don’t want to be sexist, I’d like to open an invitation to the guys to write about sexism in the workplace. Sexism affects males too, but I can’t speak to the topic well because I’m not a guy. So if you send me a link for any past or present post or article about sexism from a man’s perspective, I will add it as a reference in this post.

I RESENT THAT

As women, how can we deal with male co-workers who are socially inept and make inappropriate comments, but aren’t harassing us, per se?

One great tactic is humor.

Franci J. Blassberg is a partner at Debevoise and Plimpton LLP and was named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. When I interviewed her for my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, Franci said to me: “Sometimes you can change the tone in the room in a minute—defuse it—with humor and a tiny amount of self-deprecation.”

Well-placed self-deprecating humor is a hallmark of emotional intelligence—the ability to interact effectively with others.

Sometimes you get hit with an insult. That isn’t the time for self-deprecating humor. But don’t necessarily swing in the opposite direction and look like a woman with a chip on her shoulder. I see many women with this attitude. They don’t accomplish as much as they could. Others don't want to assist them with their concerns.

Instead, if you’ve taken a hard hit, learn to use aggressive yet disarming humor—humor combined with “a slap without a hand,” an idiomatic expression from Uruguay meaning “a dignified act of revenge.” Here’s a great example.

Franci told me about something one of her clients said to her early in her career, when she first began representing his firm:

"He said, 'I never would have thought that I would have a radical, Jewish feminist as my lawyer.' I thought that he, at the time, was just getting acculturated. I thought he meant it as, 'My goodness, you’re a really good lawyer and even for someone like me I can see beyond all that other stuff.' So it wasn’t intended as a put down, although one could have interpreted it that way. So I said, sort of jokingly: 'I resent that; I’m not a radical.' I think using humor aggressively and both offensively and defensively, if you would, is a key strategy for women to use. It’s not clear if that joke was offense or defense. But you can take a lot of tension out of a room with humor. And women need to learn to do that do that, rather than seem to be uptight and ill-at-ease."

Humor is one thing we all enjoy. And it can be a great tool for disarming would-be detractors. Plus, nothing feels better than laughing—unless it’s getting a clueless buffoon or a hostile opponent on your side because you’ve shared a guffaw together. Laughter really is powerful medicine.

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Next week, I'll talk about what to do if you are in the line of fire of deliberate harassment or working in a discriminatory, hostile work environment.

As always, I love hearing your comments. Please weigh in! Let's keep the conversation going. Also, please e-mail me at debra@AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord.com about topics that are on your mind. I'll do my best to address what matters to you and your women friends, colleagues, nieces, daughters, sisters (as well as the men in your life) who have your back.

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Debra Condren is a business psychologist, career adviser, and executive coach. She interviewed 500 women for her no-whining/no male-bashing book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams (Broadway Books). E-mail your burning questions & great ideas to her at: Debra@AmbitionIsNotADirtyWord.com

Girl Power

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of a stubborn I-can-do-it-all attitude. I avoid asking for help, and I’m even worse at accepting it when it’s freely offered. For a long time I’ve subscribed to the idea that in order to be a confident and independent and successful woman, I need to handle my own…ahem…stuff.

But that kind of attitude and making an independent documentary don’t really mix. I can’t do it all on my own: the grant-writing, casting, accounting, legal paperwork, equipment rentals, cinematography, web design, sound engineering, directing, and I-want-to-shoot-myself-in-the-head tax structuring for limited liability companies. I’ve had to rely on the kindness of others to get from point A to Z (although we’re probably somewhere around D right now), and that’s been a tough lesson for Miss I-Can-Handle-It-On-My-Own.

Last month I was invited to speak at an online college conference, CollegeWeekLive. It was a great opportunity give advice to prospective college students while promoting my upcoming book Seventeen’s Guide to Getting into College. I’ve given tons of presentations on the subject matter, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal, except for the fact that it was on camera. On three cameras, in fact. And for someone who is used to being behind the camera, it kinda freaked me out.

Now I’ve had great girlfriends my whole life, women I could talk to about boys or family dramas and great shopping and club-going partners. But subconsciously, I never really let those women into my career circle of trust. The rest of my life could be a chaotic mess that I could share with them, but my career—that I could handle on my own or thought I should be able to anyway. Pre-documentary Jaye would have kept these nervous jitters to herself and probably developed an untimely case of post-pubescent acne, getting through the event without anyone knowing that her stomach was doing somersaults behind her smile. But instead I did something so unlike me: I told my girlfriends that I was freaking out and asked for their help.

Girl power to the rescue! Nicole, buyer extraordinaire, outfitted me with the latest accessories and shoes to boost my confidence. Lisa, sales and marketing maven, gave up her lunch break to do my hair and make-up. And then there were all the encouraging text messages and emails and phone calls that made me feel as if I had my own private cheer squad. The talk turned out to be a huge success, and thanks to the awesome host, after a few moments I even forgot there were cameras in the studio.

For a long time I’ve thought that doing everything myself meant I was in control. But in this instance as uncomfortable as it was for me to admit that I needed help, the overwhelming feeling of support from my friends gave me more confidence than I’d ever experienced just trying to do it on my own. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful damsels in my life, and while I may be a late bloomer in realizing the exponential power of a few good girlfriends, now I can’t imagine going through life’s career hurdles without them.

To order a copy of Jaye’s upcoming book, click here. To see what else Jaye tries to handle on her own, visit her blog.