Insights

We’re strung out. Restless + Burnt Out = Strung Out. I’m seeing it everywhere. With my clients, in conversation with my colleagues. There’s a desperate feeling that people so want to move on, but the energy to do it isn’t quite there. Thing is, if you keep pushing, which is what the forces around you […]

Last Saturday my husband and I ventured out into 11 degree cold to attend an event that turned out to be canceled. Leaving the venue, my husband paused on the sidewalk to track down the email that confirmed the cancelation (it was in junk mail). As I stood shivering, I half noticed a classic sad […]

After weeks of hearing variations on burnout, last week saw a wave of green blossoms on the tree branch — pent up positive, productive energy that wants to find an outlet. I’m calling it progress, or hope, on Bambi legs. We’re ready to move ahead. So ready, we’re practically bursting. So how do you harness […]

Last week I caught up with a client I worked with last year. She’s doing great. She’s had a huge shift in energy that was a joy to see. She had hired me because she wanted to up-level her leadership skills. She’s a star performer who’d enjoyed multiple promotions and once created her own job […]

Last week I got the usual slew of “New Year, New Career!” calls.  But this year there’s a common denominator: Severe burnout. Here’s what it sounds like: “A lot of people have been really affected by Covid, but I’ve had it a lot easier than a lot of people. I just don’t understand why I […]

I have powerful hyper-achiever and restless saboteurs. They conspire to make me want to do GREAT THINGS….NOW!! Needless to say, the new year is a trigger-happy time for these two. Maybe you can relate. You want to reach goals. So you hit it hard in January. But pretty soon the pressure, plus the doubt about whether you’ll get […]

Yesterday morning, and by morning I mean middle of the workday, I was walking to exchange something at the Gap after dropping clothes at the Goodwill and popping into the post office.   I started humming,  “It’s the most (______) time of the year…”  and wondering, “What word sounds like ‘wonderful’ but means totally distracted, at loose ends […]

Last week a client told me that she knows that her ambition came from parents who loved her, but also asked a lot. It felt like conditional love. She had to win, and while that’s made her very successful for 15 years, it’s also led to burnout. She hasn’t felt motivated in a while. “Great […]

Yesterday my friend Valerie sent me a video that blew my mind — it completely explained the last year and a half.It turns out that while optimism is a powerful force for well-being, there’s something equally powerful that we overlook: Flow, closely related to joy.In this video, Adam Grant, famous for making “languishing” a household […]

There’s a feeling in the air right now and I see it everywhere — with clients, my friends, even on the news.  People are desperate to pursue their post-Covid bliss, but are in a lingering funk.What makes it worse is that people try to escape the funk by forcing themselves through it, which is the least effective […]