How to guides

Networking – How to Find the Next Career Opportunity

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find career opportunity

Last week, Sarah, a fellow Wharton classmate, asked me this question: “How do I find my next career opportunity if I am a generalist?  Do I need to figure out what function I want to specialize in first?.”  Here is the background of Sarah’s story.

Sarah loves working with people and she has worked in a varieties of roles leading many teams from marketing, HR, to project management and operations in the last 15 years.   Now she is wondering whether she is focused enough to keep progressing in the current company and how to find the next career opportunity. ...  read more

Career Break – How Long Can You Take?

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career break

Can you take a career break – time off from work to do other things like travel or be a full time mom?  If so, how long can you safely take a career break if you want to come back to work afterwards.  These are popular questions among new mothers with young children as well as from anyone who is burnt out by their career and need a break. ...  read more

How to Find More Time and Live a “Why Not” Life

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Do you ever find yourself wishing that you had more time to do the things you love?  I work almost full time, have 2 kids, a household to manage, and I write this blog and newsletter in my “spare time.” Since I juggle all of this, I ask myself this question often, wishing I had 30 hours a day instead of 24 hours.  If you can identify at all with this question, I highly recommend watching this 11 min video by Kevin Smith, who answers this exact question with humor and passion. ...  read more

How to Stop Lack of Confidence

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A reader recently asked, via email, “How can one make up for a lack of self-confidence?  How do I beat this nasty character flaw?” Having self-confidence is integral to building Inner Excellence, so I thought this would be a good time to address this question.

First, let me start by telling you a story: ...  read more

M.A.P. to Career Success

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map

As I look back on my career, I have noticed a pattern to my success — every time I achieved something, three components were in play: Mindset, Action, and erseverance – more easily remembered as a M.A.P..

In this article, I’m going to explain what each part involves, along with some examples of each. I hope this framework and my stories below can support you in your career success journey. ...  read more

How to Manage Millennials on Your Team

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It’s my distinct pleasure to introduce our first Executive Author, Kate Lin (pen name).  Kate has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and over 20 years of work experience.  In the last 2 years, she has had extensive experience managing Millennials (aka recent college graduates) in her operations team.  Here are her insights and tips on: ...  read more

How to Make a Change in Yourself at Work

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We have been talking a lot about the different soft skills we need to accelerate our career success, including self-management skills, which are needed to build inner excellence (like patience, persistence, confidence), and people skills (like communication skills, managing people skills, etc.).  Well, one thing is common between all of these topics: in order to master any of these skills, we need to make changes in our behaviors at work. ...  read more