Jul 15, 2013
Some people bounce back from failure or setbacks better than others. When you’re still reeling from being laid off or feeling dull and burnt out from clinging to a job that is no longer a good fit, what can you do to get your mojo back? In Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success,...
Jul 12, 2013
A recent Financial Post article about the early jobs of big enchiladas on Wall Street reminded me of something. Most powerful people do not start out that way. In fact, early on, many held humble positions that bore little relation to what they do now. Charles Schwab, founder and chairman of the Charles Schwab Corporation,...
Jul 10, 2013
I recently discovered Scandal, the TV show featuring Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope, a fixer for the elite. Pope specializes in damage control, mending public images and keeping secrets from leaking out. In the first episode, one of her employees asks a young lawyer whether she wants to be a gladiator in a suit. She...
Jun 26, 2013
When President Obama tapped Sally Jewell to be secretary of the Department of the Interior, she was CEO of Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI). Her zigzag career made her an especially attractive candidate for the position, which involves an $11 billion budget, 70,000 employees and stewardship of one-fifth of the nation’s lands, according to The New...
Jun 15, 2013
We don’t often hear about the work habits of those who are good at what they do. Or when we do, they are misleading. In recent years, the press has focussed perhaps too much on people who made names for themselves while still quite young with seemingly little effort. Mark Zuckerberg comes to mind. Perhaps...
May 27, 2013
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...
May 19, 2013
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...
May 17, 2013
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...
May 16, 2013
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...
May 16, 2013
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...
May 13, 2013
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%),...
May 12, 2013
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...
