Inspiration for creative types
Several blog posts ago, I mentioned how music can help energize you and totally change your mood. I would add that it can also inspire you to create something that did not exist before. I was recently lucky enough to see Hamilton, the new hiphop musical that’s all the rage on Broadway. One person, Lin-Manuel...
It’s okay to be obsessed
On Quora.com, a reader wanted to know what goes into the making of a great entrepreneur like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Richard Branson. Justine Musk shed light on what it takes. As a former wife of one of the “extreme entrepreneurs” mentioned, she should know. “Be obsessed,” she wrote three times. “If...
Finding your place
Decades ago, I first realized that getting a job felt like becoming a contortionist. It was all about fitting into a pre-cut slot. Mushing yourself in. Compressing yourself to fit a company’s needs. The only way I fit into the world was by changing myself to fit holes in the work world. It wasn’t at...
From the life of an intellectual polygamist
Carl Djerassi (1923-2015) did not like being reduced to one label. He is best known for synthesizing a hormone that became the main ingredient in the contraceptive known as “the pill.” In fact, he was just one of several scientists who worked on creating the chemical roots of the pill. But Djerassi, a self-proclaimed intellectual...
Writing on the side
Never assume anything. I used to think anyone who did something well had to spend all his or her time doing it. Someone like Emily Dickinson comes to mind. All she did was sit around in a room and write. But not everyone has that luxury. Now I’ve begun to think that if I assume...
Should you ditch your job?
On a recent episode of “Real Biz with Rebecca Jarvis,” I heard Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-hour Work Week, spell out five things to consider if you’re wondering whether to quit your job. Create a dreamline. This is basically a timeline of your goals and dreams. What do you want to have, do, and...
The route to Car Talk
Tom Magliozzi, 77, was a co-host of one of my favorite public radio shows, “Car Talk.” He died this week. He was known for his infectious laugh and his ability to suss out the real issues—sometimes related to relationships or moral quandaries—that brought callers to his show. I think parts of his life story may...
On another person’s inner voices
I recently heard something that gave me pause. At a panel on freelancing at the Asian American Journalists Association meeting in Washington, DC, a writer who has a nonprofit job by day, but does travel writing on the side implied that she wasn’t a full-time travel writer, although she loved doing it, because it wouldn’t...
On the power of music
If you’ve ever had one of those days or weeks when you feel blah or a shadow of your more energetic, productive self, consider the power of music to speak to your inner core. Not only can it wake you up and change your outlook, it might even get your inspiration flowing again. If you’re...
Listening to nudges leads to new path
Andrea Kay has always been a visual artist. But it was never her main work. By day, she is a career consultant, writer of a syndicated career column, and author of 6 career-related books, including Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers. She is also a radio host and appears on TV. About 10...
Elements of a quarter-life breakthrough
Two years ago, Smiley Poswolsky was wrestling with a brutal quarter-life crisis. When he went home and told his roommate that he hated his job and wanted to move across the country, write, and support social entrepreneurs who were going after their dreams, his roommate would say something like, “Dude, everyone hates their job. That’s...
The case against playing it safe
Avoiding risk in your work life could be harmful to your health. We’re so focused externally on what’s going to sell, what’s hot, what will move, and what somebody else wants that we don’t listen to ourselves. We lose touch with who we really are and what we can give, said career coach Tama Kieves....