My wife’s a lovely lady. You got to meet her. Today we visited the dean at the high school my daughter will attend this fall. Now you have to picture my wife. You get her talking about any one of our three daughters (one of her favorite topics in the world) and she’s on a role. You want details. She has them. You have to realize, she goes way back with these folks.

I wasn’t able to get a word in during today’s meeting, …

If you read my Love Dare article from a year back you’ll see how I dedicated 40 days last Spring to improving my marriage. It’s not that it was on the rocks and in bad need of repair. I just wanted to take a good thing and make it better.
In my Novena article I talk about a 9 day practice I followed to help get me re-focused and balanced. There are times when I get way out of whack and I need something like this to bring …

As we look for work, wait for that anticipated raise (in this economy…right!) or hope for the right opportunity to arrive, we are forced to be patient. We set some expectations for ourselves and sometimes even attach a timeline to it. If we opt NOT to be patient, we set ourselves up for failure. We tee ourselves up for the perfect dose of disappointment. And from there to anger and resentment is a very short hop.

I spent some time thinking about this and wondered, “What is it about waiting or …

Recently, a job hunter approached me at a networking event.  He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.  My first thought was maybe I had introduced him to someone that got him a job, but that wasn’t it.  He was still looking.
He told me he had heard me speak on a panel a few months back.  I remembered that presentation well.  It was held at a South Beach Miami hotel.  The venue was nice and included two other panelists.  It was well moderated.  The problem (for me anyway) was …

(Warning: Be prepared for some serious spiritual discussion.)

Those of you who follow Career Jockey may remember that in early December I published Five Steps for Beating the Christmas Bah Humbug Blues.  In step #1 of the article, I committed myself to 20 minutes of daily reflection. You may also remember I was hoping for an Amazon Kindle reading device for Christmas. (See Christmas Gift Ideas to Wow Your Job Seeker.)

Well both of these came together recently when my wife gave me a Kindle for Christmas and …

I ran into Salon Angelica written by Angelica Perez, a Latina, Ivy League educated psychologist with some valuable articles for women on their careers, mental health and other Career Jockey related topics.
She just published a great article called the “The Root of Workaholism.”   It covers the topic at length helping people understand some root causes that lead to it and how to gain insight into it.  Give this article a read and answer the 20 questions she poses to see where you stand.  You too many be a workaholic.
I’ve commented …

(Editor’s Note: Ken and I ran into each other recently and he told me this story. I asked if he would write it up and I’m really glad he did. Enjoy!)
Getting laid off is never an easy thing. I have been working since I was 15 years old, working is what I do. The last time I was out of work was the last construction down cycle in 1977 and that was for two weeks. I remember how hard that was then and it …

The lines Hugh Grant, as Prime Minister in the movie Love Actually, says when his sister (Emma Thompson) calls him while he’s working – “I can’t talk, I am a very important person, doing very important things”, to which she responds, “no you are not” as only a sister could, and proceed to briefly chat, reverberates with me.
During this job search phase, networking was instrumental. I reached out to very important people, and although they were doing very important things, like Hugh, they took the time to speak with me, …

I just ran into “Get the Right Balance“, a blog post written at a simple blog site”Welcome to the Occupation” written by Paul Smith. Paul identifies himself as “an HR manager at a non-profit organization in the Northeast.” A simple guy promoting a simple way of life per this article.

Paul’s article chronicles a documentary he saw on Arthur Kane, the bass player for New York Dolls. Back in the ’70s, the New York Dolls were a thing, but by 2004 things were much different. The …

I recently wrote my Devil Wears Prada article discussing the potential outcomes of the choices we make. Few of us go out and make an intentional life or career blundering decisions. I, however, have made a string of smaller decisions, or better yet, no decisions at all that over time got me someplace all together wrong.

I’ve done it with Christmas, too. I let Thanksgiving go by without giving much thought to what comes next. The time slips by and before you know it, I shorted myself. …