How a dog and some sheep led Patricia Elliott to the world of cheesemaking
An obituary in The Washington Post caught my attention today. When Patricia Elliott was in her late 60s, she began milking her sheep to make cheese. As she developed Everona Dairy, her artisanal cheese company, she became one of the leaders in the farmhouse cheese movement, according to a New York Times food writer. How...
Advice for a college student
Today an opinion piece in The Washington Post bothered me. A lot. A freshman at Columbia University described the summer job she had last year as the best experience of her life. Teaching middle-school students full-time was “exhausting, yet also rewarding and meaningful,” inspiring her to consider becoming a K-12 teacher. Great. But after her...
Annie Lennox on beginnings and endings
Annie Lennox’s musical journey began at age 3, when she began to pick out tunes on a small plastic toy piano. She loved to sing all the time. Luckily her parents realized she had a musical ear. By the time she was 6 or 7, she sang in a local choir every Saturday morning. She...
PT freelancers eye way out
Many part-time freelancers are planning their exit strategies. According to an online survey, 72% of those still at “regular” jobs want to quit to be entirely independent and 61% say they will probably quit in two years. Freelancers are on a quest for more flexibility in how they work, according to responses from more than...
A lie helped William Shatner snag his first job
After graduating from McGill University, William Shatner landed his first professional job in a small acting company in Montreal. “The bothersome thing was that I got the job as an assistant manager by telling them I got my bachelor’s degree from McGill, and that I was adept at accounting and banking,” he said in a...
Entrepreneurs never stop learning
Feeling moldy at work? Or bored out of your gourd, because you haven’t learned anything new in years? If so, you might prefer entrepreneurial work where the need to learn new skills is constant. Entrepreneurs are more likely than other workers to say they learned or did something interesting the day before (71% vs. 66%),...
How Al Gore turned obsessions into businesses
What do you do after you almost become president? I guess the answer depends on who you are. Al Gore could have moped around or simply settled for a lucrative career as a public speaker, commanding up to $175,000 per speech and being considered the “ultimate Davos man.” Not bad, right? Instead he did far...
Sotomayor and the mind of a detective
When it comes to choosing a career, some people begin to narrow down their options early. As a girl, Sonia Sotomayor wanted to be a detective, like her favorite fictional heroine, Nancy Drew. In her memoir, she reveals that she was convinced she would make a great detective, because her mind worked like Nancy’s. She...
The many pursuits of Rita Levi-Montalcini
Some of the happiest people manage to satisfy not one, but several interests. Consider Rita Levi-Montalcini, who was no ordinary scientist. Her scientific discoveries explained how nerves growing out from an embryonic spinal cord find the specific developing limbs they will innervate, or supply with nerves, according to The Economist. Her work proving the existence...
Introducing Project Otter
Whether you’re just starting out or looking for a second or third career, we’re here to help you find your way to work that feels like play. If you haven’t figured out what your ideal work would be, Starting Out will help you narrow down your options, by seeing how other people decided what to...
When Burt Bacharach branched out
It’s a mistake to assume that people who are standouts in their field were destined to become the stars we know now. The route we take to the work we like best may involve twists and turns. A final destination may not be clear at the beginning of the journey. Take Burt Bacharach. The songwriter...
Launching Project Otter
Welcome to Project Otter. Whether you’re just starting out or looking for a second or third career, we’re here to help you find your way to the work you love. How? Every week, you’ll hear the stories of people with great jobs who made or are making a difference in the world, because they figured...