Are you a morning person? I am. I have trouble waking up, but once I’m up, I’m ready to go. My energy lasts for a while as I power through my morning walk and workout, taking care of some personal tasks, and then starting my workday. In my morning meetings,…
Smart friends and self doubt
I’ve told you about a time I created more work for myself when I cheated on an essay assignment in high school and a time I let perfect be the enemy of good on what should have been a fun project in middle school. Now I’m back with another blast from…
BASIC programming for decision-making
I took BASIC programming in high school. I wasn’t very good at it, but something that I think about a lot are the IF…THEN structures. Basically (heh), an IF…THEN structure allows you to tell the program that if a certain condition is true, then it needs to execute a certain…
Wisdom from Jason Sudeikis
I recently read this thoroughly enjoyable GQ interview with Jason Sudeikis. I recommend reading the whole thing, even if you don’t watch Ted Lasso (I sadly don’t thanks to a lack of Apple TV), but I wanted to share this part: [Sudeikis] acknowledged it had been a hard year. Not…
An unexpected lesson from a work step challenge
There’s a part in Steve Martin’s novella Shopgirl where a character (Ray Porter, which Steve Martin plays in the film adaptation) is navigating his kitchen, preparing a meal in the most efficient way possible. (I tried to find it to paste here—no such luck, sorry! Just know that it is…
Pas de deux
I was fired from my first job. I was 16, and I worked as a receptionist at my dance studio. I would check tiny ballerinas in for class, collect tuition from parents, and occasionally sell a leotard or a pair of tights. It was a great job for a high…
The brightest bulb in the box
If you’ve ever had an a-ha moment, where the answer was suddenly clear or you came up with a brilliant new idea, it might have seemed like a lightbulb switched on right over your head. But what had to happen to get that bulb to light up? For me, it…
Self-taught
What have you taught yourself to do? Really on your own—no instruction, no classes. Maybe it was something big like how to play the piano or ride a bike, or something small like how to do a VLOOKUP in Excel (small but mighty!). That question came to me the other…
Maxxed out
I used to be a Maxxinista, but until last weekend, I couldn’t tell you the last time I set foot inside a TJ Maxx. But last week, we had some neighbors over for a doggy playdate and drinks (for the humans), and they were talking about a recent shopping trip…
Do you wear your politics on your thigh?
Perhaps a timely follow-up to my last post about originality in a market that seems saturated, last week, my LinkedIn newsletter included the latest Axios-Harris Poll on most reputable companies. According to John Gerzema, CEO of The Harris Poll: “In the case of both Patagonia and Chick-fil-A, Americans praise them…