There’s a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill – “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.” Unfortunately, in all of Churchill’s voluminous writings and speeches, no one can find the quote. But, if Churchill didn’t say this, he should have. Because, in many ways, it…
Life Thoughts
Thoughts about life - careers, relationships, successes, failures, twists and turns. Big and small.
What Can We Learn from the Pandemic?
What Can We Learn from the Pandemic? The last three months have been hard for everyone. I’m fortunate to not be a front-line worker; nor am I an essential worker. I can stay home whenever I want and, aside from running and a few trips to coffee shops and grocery stores, that’s mostly what I’ve…
Feeling Stuck? Ten Ways to Pivot Your Career
Learn more about my writing- on life, work, and running – and my new book Ten Marathons: Finding the Soft Ground in a Hard World at http://www.dougschneider.net. I’m also co-hosting The Big Life Questions Show podcast, with Chris Nerney. Are you feeling stuck in your career? Are you unsure how to get ahead? Are you torn…
How to Make Grit Work for You
I just read Angela Duckworth’s excellent book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. The book makes a very compelling, evidence-based case that grit- the combination of passion and perseverance – is a more likely determinant of your success than talent. And Angela Duckworth makes it clear that, while she is talking about your career, she’s…
How is Working Like March Madness?
I’m a big college basketball fanatic. This time of year, I watch WAY TOO MUCH sports on TV. This isn’t so much a choice, it’s more of an annualized addictive habit. Watching college basketball on TV seems to get in the way of everything else that I might be doing this time of year, of…
How Great Teams Actually Work
For the last three years, I’ve taught a class at a local university called The Changing Workplace. A reasonable chunk of the student’s grades are determined by group projects, and I give all students in each workgroup the same grade for the project they are on. Which freaks the students out, and I understand why….
How Do You Know When It’s Time to Go?
Photo by Rupert Baynes-Williams on Unsplash I’ve spent a good chunk of my career wondering if I should stay at the place that I am working or leave. I often fretted and worried about this. With a bit of hindsight, I can say with confidence that it was all a waste of time. I would have been far better off…
10 Ways that You Can Be More Creative
Back in 2013, Adobe did a survey of 5000 working adults in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Japan and found that only 25% of these folks believed they were living up to their creative potential. This is consistent with my anecdotal experience from thirty years of work in high tech, much of it spent…
Want to Make a Difference? Find Your Zone of Indifference
Early in my career I went and got an MBA at Stanford. It wasn’t exactly like I knew where I was going professionally, although I didn’t really say that on my program application. But I did know that I didn’t want to be a software development manager my whole career, not that there is anything…
Do the Thing That Makes You Feel Most Alive
There are lots of ways to make career decisions, and in today’s world there are more forks in the road than ever before. Yesterday I talked to someone who upon graduating from college went to work for a Fortune 500 company and figured he would be there for quite a while. Six weeks after he…