When You Rocked It
Twice in my career, when I felt lost, a mentor asked me to reflect on my work history and remember times when I was in the flow, in the zone, rocking it. Both of those women asked me to take …
covid-19
Conditions for Thriving
My friend Audrey in high school knew from our sophomore year that when she went to college, she wanted to study math. Like her father, a Bell Labs engineer, she had always loved math. When she got to college in …
Unappreciated Strengths
We tend to take our strengths for granted. If something comes easily to us, we tend to think it comes easily to everyone, and if it comes easily to everyone, then it isn’t all that valuable. But it doesn’t come …
Better
I’ve felt as if I’ve been vacillating between writing about finding our True Selves and navigating the pandemic of the coronavirus. But I’ve changed my mind. Instead of seeing these as two separate things, I now see them as related. …
Marshmallow Life
Last Sunday something scary happened to me that hasn’t happened in a long time—I had the blue thought: “What’s the point of my life? Maybe I should just leave.” It’s a familiar thought from when I was a teenager, when …
Structural Weakness
My house in Morton Grove, Illinois was built in 1954. It was a one-story ranch and I bought it from the estate of the original owners. The yellow kitchen was walled off from the living and dining rooms. I planned …
Change + Resources
This virus is changing us. We start our conversations with, “How are you?” and we mean it. We start our emails with, “I hope you are well,” and we mean it. We are being reminded of what matters and what …
Correction + Protection
I’m not yet ready to go back to our theme of finding our True Selves. This post is a continuation of the last one, there will be another one along these lines next Sunday, and then we’ll ‘return to our …
Calm in the Waves
Because of things that are swirling—coronavirus and financial markets—I want to interrupt our series on finding our True Selves and go elsewhere. We learned in US history class that when the stock market crashed in 1929, some people killed themselves. …