Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
The last two weeks have been teaching me a lesson I’ve resisted for most of my life: acceptance can sometimes get you further—and faster—than force. I’m not a naturally patient person. When something slows me down, my instinct is to push harder, fix it quickly, or work around it. But this time? My body had other plans. ...
Most of us start life with a perfect score in physical wealth. As kids, we bounce back quickly, brimming with energy, and assume our bodies will always keep up. But as we age, physical wealth becomes something we must actively protect—and if we don’t, the decline can be sharper than we ever expect. ...
If you asked me a decade ago what “mental wealth” meant, I probably would have stared blankly. For most of my life, I thought happiness was tied to achievement: get into the right college, land the prestigious job, earn the next promotion. Each milestone was supposed to unlock peace of mind. Instead, every success gave me maybe a week of relief before I moved on to the next goal. ...
A lot happened last week, leaving me with a tough decision. I received an unexpected invite from my big boss (let’s call him Richard) for a one-on-one meeting at 8:30 AM on Tuesday. The invite simply stated that he wanted to discuss “upcoming opportunities.”
Unsure of what it meant, I reached out to my immediate manager (let’s call him Sam) to see if he had any insights. Sam speculated that it was likely about me helping out with some risk-related work we had discussed plus some Chief of Staff responsibilities. ...
We’ve all been there—staring at our screen, replaying a mistake we made at work, feeling that pit in our stomach. It happens to the best of us. Just recently, I found myself in this exact situation.
I had an important meeting with my big boss, and I knew I needed to be concise. My leader had even advised me to focus on just one row of a particular slide, but for some reason—maybe pride in my work, maybe just being half-asleep on a Monday morning—I explained all six rows in detail. ...
I continue to be in awe of my older daughter, Isabel, as she tackles the challenges of recovering from her ACL surgery. This past week marked her return to school, which brought a whole new set of hurdles. With one leg locked in a straight brace and unable to bear weight, her determination has been nothing short of inspiring. ...
We had done everything we could to prepare: found an excellent surgeon, scheduled the procedure to minimize impact on her schoolwork, stocked up on medications, and followed every pre-op instruction. Yet, I felt powerless. I wished I could take her pain away.
It all started with a fluke accident during a casual one-on-one street soccer scrimmage in early August. At first, the X-ray suggested she had simply tweaked her knee, and we expected her to be back at soccer practice in two months. But when the instability lingered, an MRI revealed the truth: a completely torn ACL and a possible meniscus tear. The diagnosis meant a four-hour surgery, two grueling weeks of recovery, three months on crutches, and a year before returning to soccer. ...