Chances are that you have a career switch in your future. Maybe changes in your professional field will force you to look for something new. Or maybe you will elect to step off the treadmill and find a career that is less stressful or more personally rewarding. Perhaps, like me, you’ll keep things interesting by reinventing your career several times.If you are beginning to think about a new career direction, but don’t know...

If you are a professional, chances are that communicating ideas is an important part of your job. Whether you are speaking to a single colleague or planning a major campaign, your success may depend on your ability to communicate in a persuasive way. And even beyond your career, your ability to be convincing can impact your opportunities for leadership and success in many areas of your life. Whenever you are planning a comm...

Our routine practices – our normal ways of doing things – shape much of our time, even though we may not be conscious of these habitual patterns. But we have the power to transform our lives by examining our own activities, and replacing some of our habits with a new set of practices that are both mindful and rewarding.This kind of mindful “practice” is close to the conscious, regular activity you might undertake if you pur...

In a regular U.S. News & World Report feature called “Second Acts,” Kerry Hannon writes about Americans between the ages of 44 and 70 who have launched “encore careers.” For more than three years, she has been interviewing some of the estimated 8.4 million Americans who have moved from a corporate or other traditional job track to an entirely new career that combines income with personal meaning and social impact. In “Wh...

In a dog training ring it can be easy to see that our success depends on how we move our bodies. With practice we discover that every movement, and even each shift in our attitude, may change the way our dogs respond to our commands.Although we are less conscious of it, the same thing can happen in a business meeting. When we are with other people we send a constant stream of nonverbal messages. Body language can signal far...

Benjamin Franklin had only two years of formal schooling, but he educated himself to become a leading American thinker, an extraordinary innovator and a major Enlightenment figure. As a teenager, Franklin methodically taught himself to write and speak well. He read essays in leading English journals, took brief notes, then later recreated the essays in his own words. Franklin found ways to develop his skill sets and later h...

A business friend I’ll call Sam is now a very wealthy man, and he seems to be very happy as well. Sam has had several careers and pursued many entrepreneurial projects. Our paths have crossed for close to 30 years, but most often when Sam’s career has been in a tough patch. I have seen Sam when his business has been crashing, his industry has been cratering and his personal life has been in stress. I have watched him fight...

Lately I’ve been teaching quite a few seminars on leadership. Each time I start to put together a program for a new group, I rethink the best way to introduce the topic.There are so many great books out there (many of the 50 or so favorites reviewed on my website touch upon the topic). But leadership is like love – sometimes we know it when we see it, but it’s complex, slippery to define and challenging to study or teach.Wh...

Management guru Peter Drucker wrote repeatedly that a manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant. When employees’ strengths are understood and well aligned, he said, weaknesses won’t matter so much. Research demonstrates that on this point – as on so many others -- Drucker was absolutely right. Managers can often improve productivity by worrying less about how to correct weakne...

Email overload is an issue for a growing number of knowledge workers. For many, the challenge may simply be to develop habits and techniques that allow us to communicate a little more effectively in a little less time, with a bit less stress. In some cases, however, the crushing weight of email, phone mail and other constant demands may lead to a kind of neurological breakdown.Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and e...