Writer and artist Emilie Wapnick says you’re not a quitter or flaky or waiting for your real passion to show itself. Instead, if you’re a polymath or Renaissance man, you bring three superpowers to your multiple interests.
Tag: do what you love
Michael Carroll, business coach and author of Awake At Work, suggested five ways to create balance at work, making work a more pleasant environment as an important part of our lives instead of only something to be shoved back to make room for life.
John and I recently mailed our last batch of New Year’s cards, which we do instead of Christmas cards. Every pile of hand-addressed envelopes we dropped in the mailbox made my heart feel good, sending good wishes to some of our closest loved ones and some new friends. So when I saw this call from my friend Lauree Ostrofsky to reclaim the elementary…
It breaks my heart every time I hear someone just biding time until retirement — not only because it’s a waste of the here and now, but also because stories of people who die just as retirement arrives seem a bit too common. What if you suffer for decades in a job you hate, waiting for deferred happiness, but never…
It’s not just what you do, but where you do it — and the people with whom you do it — that determines how you feel about your work. A recent column in the New York Times with the provocative headline Why You Hate Work is not surprisingly the Times’ most emailed article. In it, Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath of consulting firm The…
Like many people, it’s easy for me to get caught up in my aspirations for more — a bigger home, more money, greater success. Harvard Business Review‘s article, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, challenges that. Instead of more [fill in the blank with whatever you are chasing here], focus on the right things. Author Greg McKeown starts by defining “the…
I’ve read many articles about the value of saying yes — but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in financial terms as clear as this article by Susan Gregory Thomas on Daily Worth: This March when I moved to Philadelphia, I was broke—25 years of living in New York, the past five of it as the breadwinner for my…
If you spent Sunday evening dreading the arrival of Monday morning, this post is for you. If you spend eight hours a day at work, not even including time spent commuting or eating lunch, you probably spend more time at your job during the week then you do at home, with your spouse or with your kids. So if you…
Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012. I did not grow up in a musical family. My parents didn’t sing or play an instrument, and didn’t…
I like contrarian advice — not that I always agree with the devil’s advocate view, but I think it’s useful to challenge conventional wisdom and reconsider whether you still believe it’s true. For example: Do you really need to drink eight glasses of water a day? Is eight hours of sleep best for you? Should all couples be monogamous? Are…
Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012. I first started blogging in 2006 with a limited goal: We were going to spend a month subletting a New York City apartment, giving us a chance to test…
I recall hearing a story years ago that one of the drivers of the technology revolution and dot-com boom was the hard economy of the 1980s — facing shaky job prospects, the best and brightest were more inclined to strike out on their own and innovate instead of serving corporate bosses. I haven’t seen data proving the recession forced people…
Money can’t buy love. Money can’t buy happiness. We hear these clichés frequently, but I loved this article from investment firm Vanguard that suggests you can, in fact, buy happiness — if you spend your money on the right things. A snippet from a Q&A with MP Dunleavy, author of “Money Can Buy Happiness: How to Spend to Get the…
I kept seeing people post this photo on Facebook but only recently stopped to read the poster. I encourage you to do likewise — it’ll just take a minute and with luck, it’ll make your heart feel good like it did for me. Mission for this week: ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your…
Some of the decisions I have made this year — choosing a part-time job over full time so I could launch my own business in a tough economy, spending two months in New Orleans when we have a cozy place in a great Brooklyn neighborhood — don’t make sense to some people. Ditto our choice not to have children, not…
Picture someone you really look up to — someone who goes beyond an important mentor, someone you idolize as very talented or successful in your field, perhaps the person you wish you could grow up to be. Got someone in mind? Now imagine getting an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with that person. Not just an “I love your…
This post continues an occasional series on writers — how and why they write, what inspires them and how they overcome challenges like writer’s block and rejection. Previously we’ve heard from Jim Tobin, Jim Ottaviani, Lara Zielin, Bruce DeSilva and Jennifer Worick. Today’s Q&A features a baker’s dozen questions with Margaret Yang, an Ann Arbor-based science fiction writer whose first…
A mutual friend introduced me to Heather Newgen when Heather was moving to New York from LA last year. After trading several messages, we met for the first time in New Orleans — I was there on our semi-sabbatical and Heather was shooting a TV pilot she’s pitching called The Voluntourist. I was impressed by her passion for this new…