Thoughts. Reflections. Intentions.

Navigating your career sometimes feels like a journey into the unknown. It’s something you approach with a mix of ambition and anxiety, expecting you’ll encounter both opportunities and challenges along the way. What you might not anticipate, however, is the nature of the barriers you’ll battle. Realize it or not, many of them are of your own making. Fears, insecurities, and self-doubt can emerge as unexpected saboteurs, hindering your progress and impacting your success. Breaking down these internal roadblocks is crucial to clearing the way for a fulfilling career that empowers you to achieve your full potential. Each one you Read more.

From a young age, we’re told we can be or do anything we want. The opportunities are endless, and a path full of possibilities stretches out ahead of us. But if that’s true, why do so many of us end up feeling stuck or unfulfilled? In most cases, the answer is fear. Something within us acts as a barrier to embracing those opportunities that await. Whether it’s the fear of failure, fear of judgment, or fear of the unknown, these internal barriers loom large, casting shadows over our purpose, passion, or aspirations. I recently stumbled upon this article that sheds Read more.

On any development journey, the starting point is within. Self-reflection and self-discovery are necessary steps toward growth—but it doesn’t have to be a lonely path to travel. As a leader and professional, you’re faced with a growing number of adaptive challenges—complex issues that demand a shift in your values, attitudes, or behaviors. Tackling these challenges requires you to evolve your mindset and capabilities. But that evolution rarely happens in isolation. The way many people approach development falls short of fueling real transformation. It’s a workshop, a book, or an article you squeeze into your busy schedule. And while those tools Read more.

I saw them every day. Stephanie was promoted to a senior-level role. Ann joined a new organization. Julie completed her MBA. Phil obtained another certification. Mike started a (third) business. And everyone was flitting from conference to conference, expanding their networks and accelerating their development. These updates flooded my LinkedIn feed like an unstoppable surge of reminders that my peers were doing more and better than me. Just clicking on a notification could send me into a panic. Should I be doing something else? Aiming for something bigger? I wasn’t racking up any of these accomplishments, so clearly, something had Read more.

Ask almost anyone, and they’ll probably tell you they’ve experienced a sort of turning point, a stage at which they said, “What am I doing? Is it right? Is it enough? Do I have to do or be something else?” It happened to me, and it was one of the scariest periods of my life. For years, I’d had a sense that I wanted (needed) a change. I liked the career I’d chosen, but I was weary of the path it had led me down. I was working too many hours, and my job was dominating my days, nights, and Read more.

Amid the “Great Resignation,” you’ve probably heard (and maybe said) that we’re all confounded. It seems employers don’t know why employees are leaving. And if you listen to feedback from the millions of people who have exited the workforce, things become even more perplexing. As it turns out, even employees don’t know why they’re leaving. A recent article from McKinsey explored the phenomenon in a new way, not for the sake of myth-busting but rather to apply a different lens to the way we’ve been thinking about it. The authors likened employees’ feelings to the feelings of soldiers returning home Read more.

In November 2021, a record number of people in the U.S. made a major change: According to the Labor Department, 4.5 million (about 3% of the workforce) quit their jobs. That’s nearly 1 million more than were resigning from their roles pre-pandemic. There’s a lot of speculation about what’s at the root of the “Great Resignation.” In our view, it stems from two big things people are grappling with at work: a sense of being stuck and a lack of fulfillment. Time and again, we hear from the professionals we work with that they feel like they’re spinning their wheels. Read more.

I can’t keep up. We hear this from the leaders we work with every day. Organizations are feeling the pressure to fill open roles, to make more widgets, to increase shipments—and more and more often, they’re leaning into technology to help them handle the volume. Technology and artificial intelligence have been creeping into the workforce for years, in ways and at a pace that’s sometimes alarming. At the end of 2020, it was estimated machines performed 30% of all tasks, with humans doing the rest of the work. And that balance was expected to shift to 50/50 by 2025 [1]. Read more.

When it comes to work, the U.S. is facing a crisis. It’s been referred to as “the great resignation.” It’s traced to a “demographic drought.” It’s predicted to be a “sansdemic.” No matter the term you use, the root cause you speculate, or the outlook you see for the future, this phenomenon is real. The post-pandemic labor market looks grim, with a severe shortage of talent to fill open roles. Millions of people have voluntarily left the workforce, and millions of jobs have gone unfilled. The triggers range from boomers approaching retirement to millennials shaping new work ideals to even Read more.

Every time I pass a car in a parking lot and see a dog sitting in the driver’s seat, it makes me smile. Sometimes said dog seems impatient or unnerved. They bark, jump, try to stick their head out of the crack in the window. Other times, said dog is calm, maybe even content. They sit straight up, look ahead, and almost seem to be smiling. I can’t help but think that dog is enjoying being in the driver’s seat (instead of in the back seat) for once! The last time I saw a dog in a car, it occurred Read more.