Divorce and Dating

This is the story of my divorce, and my ensuing endeavors in dating life. Our first day of marriage counseling is at the top, and the last of my dead-end dates is at the bottom. The date with the farmer is, of course, the one that panned out. And the story of my courtship with the farmer is here.

Sep. 2007 My first day of marriage counseling

Sep. 2007 My own marriage and the myth of the stay-at-home dad

Nov. 2007 Five communication lessons learned in marriage counseling

Dec. 2007 A case study in staying resilient: My divorce

May 2008 Why you should never complain about your company

Mar. 2009 When women get power at work, do they use it like men do?

Mar. 2009 Consistently successful careers stem from consistent personal decisions

Apr. 2009 Does it work to mix work and dating?

Apr. 2009 Gold digging, Web 2.0 style

Sort-of-Love-Story of Me & the Farmer

This is the story of my courtship with the farmer. When he almost dumped me — twenty times — he almost married me, and I almost lost my mind. Our first date is the post on the top. The bottom post is when we get married.

June 2008 New Way to Measure Blog ROI

June 2008 How I started taming my workaholic tendencies

August 2008 Vulnerability is the key to likability at work (and on the farm)

Oct. 2008 Self-sabotage is never limited to just one part of your life

Nov. 2008 How to go to a meeting when you want to sit home and cry

July 2009 The sign of a great career is having great opportunities, and saying no

Sept. 2009 How to deal with an insane commute

Oct. 2009 How to deal with doubt: Take a leap

Nov. 2009 First, be honest about what you want

Dec. 2009 There’s no magic pill for being lost

Dec. 2009 How to put blog comments to good use

Jan. 2010 How to make yourself more likable

Feb. 2010 Almost a review of Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin

Feb. 2010 Five ways to make telecommuting better

Mar. 2010 Announcing a webinar, and I’m marrying the farmer

April 2010 Turning point

Startup Life

I founded my company in March 2008. This is the story of what it was like. Hopefully there will be a happy ending to come…

Mar. 2008 Announcing the launch of Brazen Careerist

Apr. 2008 Startup skill: Find people who compensate for your weaknesses

Dec. 2008 Startups are still fulfilling, even though getting funding in a recession stinks

Jan. 2009 Seven things to consider before launching a startup

Feb. 2009 For a startup, money doesn’t solve problems, it just changes them

Apr. 2009 Six tips for being a CEO without ruining your kids’ lives, I hope

May 2009 Tips for coping when your startup is out of cash

Sep. 2009 How to face cash flow issues in a startup

Aug. 2009 All-new launch for my company. Hooray!

Sep. 2009 How to find the right job for you

Asperger Syndrome

Asperger Syndrome is a form of autism where the person has a high IQ but deficient social skills, among other things. That is actually a terrible summary of Asperger’s, but here’s a summary from Wikipedia. I have it, my son has it. My dad has it and my ex-husband has it. Many other people in my family have it as well — people with Asperger’s like being around other people with Asperger’s. Anyway, here’s my writing about Asperger Syndrome.

Apr. 2023 Revelation: Parenting is a social skill too

Mar. 2023 Autism research that fixes your life

Feb. 2023 If autism means genius why do I stay in bed? 

Dec. 2022 Autistic women have brains that are built for writing memoir

Sep. 2022 Your partner isn’t a narcissist. He has autism. And so do you. 

Aug. 2022 Friends vs. special interests which is more fulfilling?

Jul. 2022 Autism is a label that means “I’m interesting”

Jan. 2022 What if girls aren’t oppressed

Sep. 2021 What a good coaching session really looks like

May 2021 Gender fluidity and autism open gats of power for women

Dec. 2020 How to tell if your friends have Aspergers. The Christmas card edition.

Apr. 2020 Aspergers of ADHD? The answer will surprise you

Jan. 2020 Why the final blow to feminism will be Aspergers 

Dec. 2019 Read this if you think you don’t have Aspergers 

Dec. 2019 Here’s why there are no women over 40 in your office 

Oct. 2019 And now, I teach you all my tricks for dealing with Aspergers 

Aug. 2018 This is a test to see if a girl or woman has Asperger Syndrome

Mar. 2018 Stop telling me that I don’t have Aspergers

Feb. 2017 The secret weapon for helping people with Aspergers succeed as adults

Apr. 2016 How to be a better friend, even when you’re busy

Jun. 2015 What your co-workers with Aspergers wish you knew

Feb. 2014 How to build a career if you have Aspergers

Oct. 2013 3 Things you need to know about people with Asperger’s

Aug. 2013 Homeschooling helped my son be more social

Jan. 2013 Here’s how to ask for help

Nov. 2012 Interview tip: How to talk about your weakness

Oct. 2012 I think Marissa Mayer has Asperger Syndrome

Aug. 2012 Don’t miss diagnosing Aspergers in young girls 

Nov. 2011 How Successful People Deal with Asperger’s

Nov. 2010 What it’s like to have sex with someone with Asperger’s

Dec. 2009 Why I need a sick day to register my car

Nov. 2009 Five ways to be less annoying

Oct. 2009 Why I’m difficult at meetings

Sept. 2009 How I deal with sensory integration dysfunction

Sept. 2009 How to deal with Asperger Syndrome at work

Nov. 2007 Stop thinking you’ll get by on your high IQ

Jan. 2007 Dealing with social awkwardness at work; insights from the autism community

How to be more creative at work

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My current favorite blogger is Dave Portnoy at Barstool Sports. (Not safe for work.) His topic, as far as I can tell, is smut and snobbery. I think that even though my blog is pointed at the intersection of life and work, I wish it were at the intersection of smut and snobbery. Because I am an aficionado of smut, and I could use a place to show off.

This is my favorite blog post ever by Dave: The Thong is Dead. (Maybe not safe for work.) He does so many great things in that post. He has genuine social commentary about who decides what is fashionable underwear. He shows us a glimpse into his personal life because he has an underwear discussion with his wife. And he provides a great photo of a girls's ass, in boyshorts. All this in 500 words.

For me to get all of that into one post would take about 1000 words. Seth Godin writes posts like that—dependably dense: really short but packed with value—but never as scintillatingly smutty as Dave. Where Seth makes a living as a high-paid speaker by republishing a compendium of blog posts every two years, Dave can make a living as the intelligentsia by repackaging other peoples' soft porn. Read more

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How to write about your life

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Agents contact me on a regular basis to ask me if I want to do a book about my life.

I say no.

I say no because I have no idea how to do a book about my life. I'm sure I have no idea because I already have had a six-figure book deal to write about my life that I'm not delivering on, and the editor has dumped me. (Read: Phone calls to collect on the large advance I've already spent.) So my qualifications to tell you advice about how to write about one’s life are questionable. But whatever; I have never stood on ceremony over qualifications.

Maybe the problem is that my life story needs a redemptive moment. This is what my agent-who-is-no-longer-my-agent tells me. And this is a warning to any agent who thinks they might want to be my agent: My past agent dumped me because (even though I did deliver on my first book deal) I am terrible at writing book proposals and I am terrible at following publishing industry rules. And her number one rule is that if you write about your life there must be a redemptive moment because people like that. “That's what sells,” is my not-my-agent's way of saying “That's what people like to read.” Read more

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Being an expert takes time, not talent

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I’ve been walking around with the July/August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review constantly, for close to three years. Sometimes, if I'm getting on a plane, I'll put it with the other heavy stuff into my luggage, and then get it out later. When my last car broke down in the middle of an intersection, I got the magazine out of the trunk before I abandoned the car.

The article that I'm attached to is The Making of an Expert by Anders Ericsson, Michael Prietula and Edward Cokely. I would not normally bother to tell you all three authors for one article in my blog. This is not a medical journal. But I love the article so much, that I want you to know all of them.

The article changed how I think about what I am doing here. In my life. I think I am trying to be an expert.

Being an expert is not what you think, probably. For one thing, the article explains that “there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant”?and they matter primarily in sports — are height and body size. ”

So what factor does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly is that successful performers “had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years.” Read more

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Workplace news you cannot use

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I collect data points constantly, and I index them by topic, and I always hope that they will come together in an interesting, useful way. Lots of times, that doesn't happen, and I just have to throw ideas away, because I have a rule for myself that I have to be useful in every post.

But today I'm trying something new. I'm doing a post that is useless to you. Here are four ideas I was just about to toss out as incurably useless, but instead, I bring them to you:

1. Law firms are making concessions for women.
One of the top law firms in the world, Allen Overy, just announced they are letting people become part-time partners. This would be news if no one had tried it before. But many firms that have already done this in response to the extreme brain drain in the legal profession due to women leaving law firms because they are so inflexible.

So now there is the idea that there can be a part-time partner. Fortunately, like most things in workplace reform, Gen X-ers have already been the guinea pigs. My friends, in fact, have tried this. And it turns out that if you give a lawyer a part-time job, she ends up working 50 hours a week instead of 80, and gets part-time credit, which isn't exactly encouraging.

2. People live together instead of getting married.
This is not news you can use because you already know it. This is what I said to Hannah Seligson, who asked me to write about her new book, A Little Bit Married: How to Know When it’s Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door. Read more

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How to make yourself more likable

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I am back with the farmer.

This probably is not surprising to you, because admittedly, it is absurd to be engaged one day and not engaged the next day. But there are exacerbating factors, and basically, the way I got him back was to be more likable.

I have spent most of my career overcoming my lack of social skills by studying research about what makes people likable. And I think the research I’ve applied so systematically in my career is finally helping me in my personal life.

Here’s what we know about being likable:

1. Don’t give ultimatums. It’s disrespectful. Instead, be a negotiator.
The farmer does not want to be in this blog. As you might imagine, we have this discussion a lot.

First it was like this:

Him: I don’t want to be in the blog.

Me: You have to be. I can’t live without writing my life.

Then the conversation was like this:

Him: I don’t want to be in the blog.

Me: How about if you can edit whatever you want? Read more

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My birthday post

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It’s my birthday. I’m going to give a gift to myself today. I’m going to post five posts that make me happy. I hope you will like reading them. I hope you haven’t read all of them already.

Also, maybe in the comments section, you will post your favorite post back to me. And tell me why it makes you happy. That would be a good gift.

Top Ten Jobs to Have, April 2006
I like this one because it is one of the first posts I did. It reminds me that each time I’ve tried something new I have been tentative, and largely terrible at it. This is not really a post as much as a start of a post. But I like the last line.

My financial history, and stop whining about your job, March 2007
My personal finances have been sort of a wreck since about 2001. It’s very scary to have a messy financial life. It’s even scarier to be a career advisor in a financial mess. I was so scared, all the time, that people would find out and then hate me. So it was a huge relief to write this post and come clean about who I am, and how I got here. And there were absolutely no negative ramifications from writing this post. It taught me so much about the value of being who I am, and trusting that it will be okay to be me. Read more

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