I graduated with a liberal arts degree and absolutely zero understanding of how to frame my skill set. My skills felt like a useless, random, confusing tangle of vague concepts that failed to point me in a clear direction.

It took years for me to understand that, even as someone without specialized expertise, I did have a solid skill set that was marketable, transferable, and valuable—what I didn't have were the right tools to help me articulate and understand it.

Read more about the skills are actually the most valuable and tools in your toolbox—and the ones that you can most easily take with you from job to job.

Resource Friday 5/14/21…

Today's Friday Resource: How to find a workplace that values & delivers psychological safety.

Tucked into this Harvard Business Review article by Cindy Gallop and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic (excellent read!) is a list of fantastic questions to ask your interviewer or a current employee about the psychological safety of a potential work environment…

One of my amazing clients, Alanna, wrote this incredible article on her best tips for informational interviewing as an introvert.

The discomforts of networking when you're not *super duper outgoing* was a hot topic at this week's Leadership Lab on creating your own professional opportunities—because building relationships is so essential, but there so many worries that can hold us back from putting ourselves out there.

Alanna's guidance will steer you in the right direction—and her two key questions to ask at the end of each meeting are *chef's kiss* so useful.

“Let’s start with some introductions,” he says, getting the meeting going.

Cue the cold sweat. My mind starts racing.

Instead of listening to everyone else share their backgrounds, I'm internally panicking about how I'm going to communicate who I am as a professional.

Does this happen to you?

I hear it from my clients all the time—they're not really sure how to articulate who they are professionally.

Our default is to blurt out our job title and company, but we're so much more than that…

Listen in as Muriel Wilkins coaches client Daniela on how to show up to her leadership role as confident, calm, and credible in this episode of HBR’s podcast: Coaching Real Leaders - Finding Your Leadership Voice.

It doesn’t come just by thinking “act confident!”—it comes with supportive mindsets, skill, and physical preparation…

One of my clients was laid off from a job she loved last summer. She was constantly on the lookout for new roles, but few postings felt like the right fit for her—and the ones that did weren't leading anywhere.

In one of our coaching sessions, she said: “I think I need to Good Will Hunting this whole thing.”

I laughed. “What does that mean?”

She explained: “Write my own role and cast myself.”

I groaned, because I felt such a visceral YESSSS bubble up from my core.

Burnout is not an individual problem that can be solved with self-care—it's an organizational issue that needs to be addressed at the company level.

"In reality, no yoga app, candle, or day planner can make up for an impossibly large pile of tasks, a day-long string of meetings that requires you to do your 'real work' at night, or a workplace where you have few true connections or friends."

@Harvard Business Review's latest issue of Ascend takes on this topic. Check out this article on why millennial professionals are especially susceptible, which includes a downloadable guide to diagnosing and managing burnout…

"The five-year plan may be dead, but our capacity for doing our most impactful work and live into the goals that we set for ourselves is very much alive." We long for a sense of control over the future, but planning in uncertain times can feel confusing and futile.

This article from Kate Northrup on Harvard Business Review shares how micro-planning can help you navigate your career with purpose and adaptability, no matter what twists and turns lie ahead…

When I was in my early twenties, I watched a lot of my peers go to graduate school.

It mystified me because I always believed that investing time and money in an advanced degree meant knowing for sure that this right here is my specific thing, having a clear sense of direction.

I sure didn’t have that. And I didn’t know how others my age did.

More often than not, I suspected that my friends went to grad school not out of clarity of purpose but rather out of fear.

Education can enrich us—it can be a catalyst that propels us.

But it can also hold us back—it can be a place to retreat to out of fear.

Here are five types of fear that drive us to learn…

In a world where we often feel pressured to zero in on a specialty, having a wide variety of skills can feel more like a weakness than a superpower.

Here's something affirming for those of us with more than one skill set: having a dual career can actually make you happier…

Toughing through the hard stuff is part of our work as mission-driven leaders. But too often, we push it too far.

We hold resilience up as a virtue that we all need more of—we are rewarded for muscling through, for sacrificing in service of the mission.

Here’s how we’re getting the meaning of resilience wrong, and a more useful definition that supports sustainable leadership…

The title says it! 💪 . . This article is another (MUCH needed!) perspective on "imposter syndrome"—feeling like a fraud and doubting our abilities. . .

One of my clients is a skilled, strategic, transformational leader who’s the trusted right hand man to a high-level policy official in the education sector.

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When he came to me for coaching, he felt frustrated and exhausted in his current work but confused about how to move forward.

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It was clear that no matter how great his next job would be, if he didn't change his approach to his work, he'd end up with the same result: running himself into the ground.

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He didn't realize that he was letting an old story from his early work dictate who he is today—until now.

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We worked together to very consciously write new stories—stories that are true for where he is now—to guide the next phase of his work.

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Here are his new mindset shifts that replace the old stories that are holding him back ➡️➡️

I love this article from Harvard Business Review, which gives us a different way to think about preparing for professional growth: Promotions Aren’t Just About Your Skills – They’re About Your Relationships.

Early in my career, I worked primarily in data and analysis. Then I moved away from that into policy. But now I'm finding that I miss the data work. If I keep having this thought, what does that mean?"

⬆ This came up in a session with a new client this weekend.

He's tempted to look at the question with regret:
- I got off-track
- I wasted all of this time
- I have to go back and start again

If we look at the question through a linear view of our career paths, the only acceptable direction to move in is forward and up. Any looping back is a failure. The answer is: You made a mistake and missed the mark.

But if we look at the question through a non-linear lens—seeing your career as a rich patchwork of work rather than a singular trajectory—the question takes a shape that is far more interesting...

Mention the word "resume"​ and it conjures images of painfully seeking out bullet points to describe previous positions and endlessly tweaking font and margin sizes to squeeze it all in.

We often think of our resumes as a document of facts.

The question that drives us is: How can I represent all of the facts succinctly in a page or two?

This is where we get it wrong.

Your resume is not a list of facts—it is a story about who you are. And you, my friend, get to be the storyteller. Here are three questions to ask yourself before you revise yours...

I believe in the non-linear career path—challenging how we think of success as "forward and up" progress, all climbing the mountain in pursuit of the same peak.

In this week’s article, you'll find permission to stop climbing the ladder and an invitation to think about your career growth differently....

In January, it reached a fever pitch: I felt controlled by my email inbox.

I constantly felt behind and overwhelmed, and everyday was overshadowed by a frantic energy of trying to dig myself out.

Instead of managing my email, I've been letting it manage me.

It's time for an intervention. Here are eight steps I've taken to stop email 📨 from running my life.

They don’t take a lot of time to implement—but they’ve made all the difference.

I feel more proactive versus reactive.

I am taking control of my time and attention rather than allowing whatever shows up there to dictate how I spend my days.

And that helps me to be a more sustainable and effective leader.

When I found myself at a career crossroads two years ago, I polled about 85 people for their opinions on what I should do. I had been climbing the ladder in my organization for seven years—through five job titles—and had reached the point where something needed to shift. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what to shift: Do I scale back my hours? Advocate to reshape my role? Find another role in a larger nonprofit? Finally launch my own business?

I asked friend after mentor after trusted colleague for their guidance. Since I was feeling so wobbly about the decision within myself, I was stuck in a spin of wanting someone to tell me exactly what to do. But after the 85th conversation, I realized: no one could make this decision except for me. And I had no idea of how to do that.

Decision-making is central to the modern career landscape. That means that we’re in the driver’s seat; we are the decider of where we’re going. That gives us a lot of freedom to explore, follow our interests and talents, and grow in exciting ways. But it’s also a huge responsibility to be in control of our own paths. It means that we’re making more decisions than ever before—and we need to get better at making those choices. Here’s how.