It’s probably a weird thing for a vocal atheist to quote, but there is something about the famous prayer that has been resonating with me more and more lately. Well, maybe not the “God” part of it, but the recognition part. Grant me strength to accept the things that I can’t change, the courage to [ Read More ]
The hardest thing about leaving JetBlue last year was giving up the travel benefits that helped ease the difficulty of living 3,000 miles away from my family and so many of my friends. One of the things I’ve realized lately is that, even though I am really loving being in Austin, I have been horrendously [ Read More ]
Today seems to be the opposite of my previous two days. After deliberately taking everyone’s advice on taking a ‘go with the flow’ approach to the SXSW experience, somehow today has proven crazy-ass busy. 10:30 panel: Beyond Aggregation This was a great panel where we got to hear wonderful speakers, including blogger Louis Gray, discuss [ Read More ]
As with most major life lessons, it has been many years of gradual recognition that have allowed me to finally begin to understand the full impact of growing up in a family-owned small business. As with most other major life events or conditions, the lessons I thought I was learning at the time often evolved [ Read More ]
The words every man dreads hearing from his wife: “Does this dress make me look fat?” I’ll skip past the endless stream of jokes that have arisen regarding this quintessential battle-of-the-sexes cliche, and cut to the chase: what are you looking for when you ask someone for feedback? And, just as importantly, what do you [ Read More ]
One of the biggest lessons I learned from working for Dave wasn’t just what I learned from him, but that I came to understand the importance of timing because of him: there were so many things I learned from Dave only because I was at a point in my life where I was open to [ Read More ]
For the past four years, I’ve kept a sign over my desk that reads: “I don’t have time” = “I haven’t made it a priority.” I’ve written about this before, but never to explain the origins of this epiphany. The credit for this lesson goes to a sharp, good-humored, understatedly charismatic man named Robert. As [ Read More ]
WordPress’ database isn’t big enough for me to list off everything I’ve learned from John over the years: about business, about change, about leadership, about being a workaholic, about managing clients, about corporate politics, etc. You name a topic, and I can probably find at least a handful of lessons I learned from him. I [ Read More ]
Last week I wrote that we are rarely good about telling the people in our lives how grateful we are, and, realizing that applied to me as well, I figured that this was as good an opportunity as any for me to correct that when it came to three important influences in my life. As [ Read More ]
I have recently gone through a series of interviews/screenings where the net result was, “I’m sorry, but you are just over-qualified for this position.” In response to that highly frustrating designation, I propose the following: Being classified as “over-qualified” is usually less “You cost too much” and more “I’m afraid you’ll be bored and leave [ Read More ]
I recently got a phone call from a dear friend who found herself very conflicted about an unexpected career opportunity that hit her from out of the blue. After a few minutes of talking, I was a little confused why she seemed to be so conflicted, because — with one or two minor exceptions — [ Read More ]
This week a dear friend and mentor commented to me that he had become “a poster-child for social networking fatigue” and that was why, while catching up by phone, he was giving me the last six months worth of updates on his life, many of which were pretty dramatic and a little surprising. I had [ Read More ]