The Peppermint Mocha November 8, 2017“What’s the peppermint mocha?” I recently asked a beloved client. He was describing workplace conflict and hostility. He looked at me blankly. So I told him a story. “I was at my kid’s Frisbee game,” I explained. “It was cold. Raining. Early.” The coach came over and asked me how I feel about peppermint mochas. I told the coach I feel pretty good about coffee in general. The coach wandered back to the pre-game warm up. I bought the coach…
Handshakes and First Impressions August 1, 2017(The following is the script I prepared for an on-air interview on the KING5 New Day show. I guessed what questions the host would ask me (in bold) and wrote out — and memorized! — my answers. Although I appear to be talking extemporaneously and confidently on the video, this script reads like a transcript.) Why is a handshake important? How can you put your best step forward with a handshake? Your handshake is important because it’s often part of the…
Don’t Drop the Baby! August 1, 2017Sometimes my coaching clients tell me they need to improve their confidence. I tell them not to drop the baby on TV. My office phone rang recently and I found myself talking to a producer for the KING 5 New Day talk show. He invited me to come on the show as an expert for National Handshake Day. In two days. I thought to myself, “I don’t know anything about handshakes.” I thought to myself, “I’m not an in-front-of-the-camera person.”…
Garbage Happiness June 22, 2017I’m going to be that crazy old lady picking up garbage off the street. Middle school these days requires five volunteer hours per year to graduate – which doesn’t sound voluntary but whatever. My 7th-grade son decided to fulfill the requirement by picking up garbage in the neighborhood. This was bliss for me. I get to go on a dog walk with my kid. He has to come with me. I point out garbage and he has to pick it…
The Rabbit Hutch June 21, 2017Making that career transition is like finding a rabbit hutch. I was recently talking with my lovely neighbor. She had a friend over, a nice person I’ve met once or twice over the years. As the three of us were talking, I happened to mention the bunny drama unfolding in my backyard: I had just rescued a very small baby bunny and was trying to introduce the wee thing to my backyard farmyard. My four giant rabbits were trying to…
The Bikini Mistake June 20, 2017This is a story about a mistake. That wasn’t. But it took a while to figure that out. At business school some 15 years ago, I competed in a business case competition. My idea was a woman’s swimsuit that didn’t reveal your crotch or the particular shape of your ass. A swimsuit you could wear on a boat, for example, with your male boss, male VP, and male coworkers. This was 15 years ago, when designs like this didn’t exist…
The Terror of Conferences June 21, 2016I admit it. I was filled with dread. I so regretted registering. I could have had a lovely, quiet day at my office. Instead, I was driving to Bellevue, to the Meydenbauer Center, during rush hour, for at least eight hours of keynote talks, training tracks, networking breaks, and other horrors. I’m fiercely introverted. It’s getting fiercer as I get older. But I had signed up and paid my money and organized childcare: I was going to that conference and…
Stepping Stones January 8, 2016(I met with Heather as part of a Seattle Times “Career Makeover” series and wrote the following summary of our conversation for the journalist writing the story.) Heather was feeling dated. She was sitting in my office, a Seattle Times Career Makeover subject, and worrying about the eight-year gap in her resume – a gap filled with raising kids, earning her B.A., and working retail to help pay the bills. “I have eight years of intellectual property paralegal experience,” she said, “But…
My Daring Greatly December 7, 2015An old friend asked me what I thought of Brene Brown’s book Daring Greatly. I stumbled, trying to be insightful, and then gave my copy to someone who needed it. This is what I should have said. Her book has given me a new vocabulary. It has given me a linguistic shortcut that describes what is happening when I dare to be open to being hurt, to being laughed out. To being vulnerable. I discovered this in the middle of…
Covert Rehearsal: Using Scripts July 24, 2015I often coach my clients around preparing for difficult or challenging questions — and was up at 6 a.m. this morning doing just that. I work with my clients on writing out the story they want to tell, then revising it until it is conversational and direct and focused. And then practicing it. I’ll often tell my clients, “Practice it on the tree outside your door, on the dog, on your friends, on your sweetie. Get to the point where…
