I was one of those bosses. Not because I was cruel or misguided, but because I didn’t understand how much more my words weighed as a manager.

I thought being direct was helpful. Sometimes it is. But when a peer says the deck is off, it’s a note. When the boss says it, it’s a verdict. Same words, different weight.

That’s the fundamental asymmetry,

I was on a call with a client, walking through some feedback she’d gotten on a presentation. Nothing especially catastrophic: a few notes, the kind everyone gets. But watching her, you’d have thought the verdict was on her whole life.

I said something I’d never quite put into words before // when we get feedback on a presentation, we collapse the

On Tuesday, I wrote about the ambition dial — how ambitious do you actually want to be?

I teed it up that way on purpose, because it’s the rare question you can’t answer by saying “yes, and.” You don’t get anywhere by accepting the premise and piling more on top. It isn’t a question of how much. It’s a question of how you calibrate your work

A year into my time at Bain, I was invited to sit on a consulting panel at Yale SOM. I wasn’t there for anything I’d accomplished. I was there because I was the only SOM alum at Bain at the time.

Low bar, cleared.

I don’t remember the exact question we were asked — but I do remember my answer. I said, a little too dryly, that the first thing to

Yesterday, I wrote about two flavors of career bitterness: envy and regret.

It’s tempting to compare yourself to others, or to ask what if. But neither of those paths leads anywhere useful.

That your college roommate now runs a hedge fund has no bearing on your success.

That you got laid off when that tech unicorn hit a wall has no bearing on your

Four weeks ago, I wrote about the Four Horsemen of Career Doldrums: Obligation, Inertia, Fear of Change, and Shortsightedness. Four forces that keep capable people stuck. Four horsemen, four posts.

It was a clever conceit — but there is a Fifth Horseman. And it is the worst of the five.

I left it out. Intentionally. Because this Horseman does not

That’s what one of my clients said when I asked her why not now. It’s not that she wasn’t ready– she just didn’t think she was.

She’s an incredibly talented writer. She’s considered applying to MFA programs for a while now. But somewhere along the way she convinced herself that she wasn’t ready.

What if she only gets into a good program, not a

They say a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Sound advice, usually. Apply it to your career and it starts to look like an excuse.

Most people who put off the hard work of figuring out their next step aren’t lazy. They’re not avoiding it, exactly. They’re just choosing the thing with a guaranteed return.

Over the past few weeks I’ve written

Thursday Thoughts // It bears repeating: change is hard

They say that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And that if it wasn’t hard, everybody’d do it.

A while back, I had made up my mind that I was going to start a coaching practice. But I had a small problem: I wouldn’t actually tell anyone I was a Coach.

Because verbalizing

They say the grass is greener on the other side. Maybe it is. But change is hard. For people considering a career change, the more apt way to describe the choice is: the devil you know vs. the devil you don’t.

Two weeks ago I introduced the Four Horsemen of Career Doldrums: Obligation, Inertia, Fear of Change, and Shortsightedness. I’ve written