Annabel Monaghan is a lifestyle columnist whose work appears regularly in The Huffington Post, The Week, and The Rye Record. She is also the author of two novels for young adults: A Girl Named Digit(2012), and Double Digit (2014). She is also the co-author of Click! The Girls Guide to Knowing What You Want and Making it Happen (2007). Annabel lives in Rye, N.Y., with her husband and three sons. But, what you REALLY need to know is that Annabel has a special gift for finding the humor in just about any situation, like the
How to Raise and Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success By Stanford University Dean Julie Lythcott-Hain. Parents, you heard it here, this one’s a winner! In her easy to read style the author offers up anecdotes of parents touring graduate schools, serving as mouthpieces for their shy, passive children, and submitting résumés to potential employers, sometimes without their children’s knowledge. In her book Lythcott-Hain argues, “these behaviors do more than mold kids into dependent beings, they corral and constrict their possibilities and their imaginations. .
So much has been written about finding a job or career you love. It’s become something of a cultural obsession, kind of like uncovering the professional Holy Grail. Honestly, who among us hasn’t thought, wouldn’t life be great if I could work at something I really enjoyed and in turn I became super successful doing it? I must admit I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time over the course of my professional life trying to solve this riddle. No doubt, like some of you I thought, gosh, if I could
Another graduation season has come and gone and, I have a confession to make. I realize that I’m oddly fascinated by commencement speeches. I know, that may sound strange but I have to tell you I love a good commencement speech. Maybe I’m drawn to the idea that it’ll provide me with a little inspiration or encouragement. Or perhaps I’m secretly hoping to uncover a few pearls of wisdom that have somehow eluded me all these years. More likely, and as my husband would say, it’s just that I have
The Most Important Thing About Launching a Product (Hint: You Learned in High School) Picking the “right time” to launch a new product is a lot harder than just studying the trends and crafting a sound strategy, don’t you think? After all, you may be worried that your product isn’t quite “finished.” And well, the current market may seem unpredictable. Oh and perhaps it’s a new market so there’s no historical data from which to learn. And surely you don’t want to rush and squander the opportunity to make the
“Things I hate. 1. Boring Business blogs 2. Lame attempts at Humor 3. Lists. – Especially Lists.” Why do I detest lists so much? Because. They’re unexciting. And, gimmicky. And over-used. And well, all sequential and business-y and stuff. Therefore, I vow, dear reader, to spare you the pain of reading another dull list. Err, well, until after this post of course. But, this one isn’t dull. I promise. It’s essential. Trust me, you need this. – Particularly, if you’re starting a business. You see, a lot of people who start companies
“When ‘Small’ is Not Enough” Do you have a small business that you want to be bigger? Do you ever find that servicing your current clients consumes so much of your day that you’re left with little or no time to work on growing your business? If so, consider this. Try raising your prices! You heard me. Do it. Now. Right now. Sound crazy? Scary? – Maybe even counter-intuitive? Here’s the thing: While the price of your service establishes a value for what you do, that value doesn’t have to
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein The genius in this quote is not just that it came from Albert Einstein who we all know is well, an actual smarticle particle. – Its real impact is in its simplicity and its ability to divine the essence of success. We like to think that people who are uber successful, are just freaks of nature; that they possess a superior intellect or extraordinary talent that results in their being “discovered” while the
Is Marketing Really Just Common Sense? People often say marketing is simple; it’s just common sense. After all, the thinking goes if we can understand a person’s attitude towards a topic (or product or service) then we can predict their behavior. For instance, if we know that a person likes top 40 pop music, and female singers in particular, then we ought to be able to make some predictions as to the music he or she will likely purchase. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But here’s the thing. Humans all too
I Fail. Therefore, I Succeed. As kids we’re taught that the key to academic achievement is to avoid being wrong. As adults we work in companies that stigmatize mistakes. In fact, we live in a society focused on mitigating risks. So then, is it really any wonder that we have a tendency to avoid failure at all costs? To me, the irony in all this is that in order for us to be successful we need to take chances. We need to be prepared to be wrong and, harder still