NEWSLETTER

Burned Out or Just Bored? How to Tell the Difference (And What to Do About It) You wake up feeling drained. Work feels like a slog. Every task seems pointless. You wonder: Am I burned out? Do I need a break? Or do I need a whole new career? Burnout is real, and it can sneak up on you if you’re not careful. I’ve been there. I once pushed myself so hard that I ended up in the hospital. My toxic relationship with work nearly broke me, and I didn’t even realize it was happening at the time. So I…

The Art of Indulgence: What the Super Bowl Can Teach You About Going All In As this newsletter goes out to you, the 2025 Super Bowl is about to start – and I’m pumped! Super Bowl Sunday is more than just a football game; it’s a cultural phenomenon. It’s loud, excessive, and completely over the top. The ads are bigger, the halftime show is flashier, and the food is, well, more indulgent than usual. And I love every bit of it! For one night, I let go of self-restraint completely. I eat too…

Chasing Money? You’re Playing the Wrong Game Controversial idea: you don’t actually want more money. 🤯 You think you do. But you don’t. What you really want is what you believe money will give you. Security. Status. A sense of control over your life. The freedom to do what you want, when you want. But here’s the problem: most people chase money in ways that actually strip them of those things. Taking promotions they don’t want for bigger paychecks, trapping themselves in roles that drain…

How To Build Your Career on a Rock-Solid Foundation If you’ve ever felt like work just isn’t working for you, you’re not alone. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report shows that over 50% of people are disengaged at work, and many feel trapped in roles that drain their energy rather than fuel their potential. For many people, work feels broken. It’s something you endure rather than enjoy. If you’re spending your weekdays longing for the weekend, you’re wishing your life away. And that’s…

Passion or Paycheck: Which Drives Your Career? Do you dream of turning your passion into your paycheck? Or do you see work as a means to an end, a way to fund the life you truly want? These are two distinct approaches to work, and while neither is right or wrong, the path you choose shapes your career, your energy, and how you experience life. Let’s explore these strategies, their challenges, and how to decide which one fits your life best right now. The Two Approaches On one side is the idea…

The “Follow Your Passion” Advice Is Dangerous I’m sure you’ve heard a ‘guru’ giving career advice to “follow your passion”. While well-meaning, this advice can be dangerously simplistic. For many people, dissatisfaction with work is real. But abandoning everything to chase passion might lead to bigger problems — financial instability, burnout, or even deeper unhappiness. On the flip side, staying stuck in work you resent is just as harmful. Like so many things in life, the best path lies…

Why Writing Off Resolutions Is the Worst Advice You’ll Hear New Year’s resolutions are everywhere this time of year—and so is the hate for them. Scroll through social media, and you’ll see people declaring them useless, doomed from the start. And I get it. The data shows that the success rate on achieving New Year’s resolutions is terrible! I mean – really, really bad. approximately 80% of people have abandoned their resolutions by mid-February (link) only about 9% of people feel they…

Autopilot Might Work for Cars, But Not for Your Life As the year winds down and the new one looms on the horizon, many of us take this opportunity to reflect. But reflection alone isn’t enough. Without a plan, without intention, without action, those thoughts and dreams tend evaporate the moment January turns to February. That’s where life by design comes in. Unlike the usual scramble to set resolutions or vague goals that fade within weeks, designing your life is about making intentional,…

Reflect, Refocus, and Reach: How to Set Goals That Matter This past week, I did something I do two or three times per year: I took a day off work, not to run errands or catch up on chores, but to simply reflect. As the year winds down, it’s easy to get swept up in the hustle of the holidays and the scramble to finish what’s left undone. But I wanted to pause, take a breath, and really think about my year. What worked? What didn’t? Where did I grow, and where do I feel stuck? It wasn’t just…

Career Curveballs? Here’s How To Hit Them Out Of The Park Once upon a time, the path to career success was as predictable as the sunrise. You went to school, got a high-quality education in a specific field, and then secured a job where that knowledge was your golden ticket to a long, stable career. Information was scarce, but with it came an abundance of certainty. Your degree was not just a piece of paper; it was a map to a career journey with well-defined checkpoints. But here we are, in a…

Career Curveballs? Here’s How To Hit Them Out Of The Park Once upon a time, the path to career success was as predictable as the sunrise. You went to school, got a high-quality education in a specific field, and then secured a job where that knowledge was your golden ticket to a long, stable career. Information was scarce, but with it came an abundance of certainty. Your degree was not just a piece of paper; it was a map to a career journey with well-defined checkpoints. But here we are, in a…

Why You Should Embarrass Yourself More Often Yet another great article by a literal rocket scientist, Ozan Varol. In this article, Ozan talks about the difficulty involved in getting a new project (like a rocket!) off the ground. Any time that you are trying to do something new, something outside your domain of established expertise, something that is forcing you to stretch and grow; it is going to feel slow. For people that are accustomed to being high-performers, having to go slow is hard….

The Identity Crisis of Work: How to Thrive in Uncertain Times The world of work is in a full-blown identity crisis. AI is disrupting everything, the economy’s in flux, and institutions we’ve relied on for decades are crumbling. Sure, it’s chaotic. But panic or sitting idle won’t cut it. These are exciting and uncertain times, but it also means a wealth of opportunity for those willing to embrace the uncertainty and change. We’re naturally built to evolve—to adapt slowly over time to meet…

The 3 Hardest Words To Say (and Why They’re So Powerful) We’ve all heard the saying, “Knowledge is power.” But in my experience, there’s even more power in three other small words that many people struggle to say: “I don’t know.” Why is admitting this so difficult? For one, our egos get in the way. We’re conditioned to believe that our worth is tied to how much we know, how capable we appear, or how valuable we are to others. While expertise has its place, the ego often whispers, “You’ll look…

Forget The Election Noise—It’s Time To Focus On Your Future The madness of the American election cycle is finally behind us, and honestly, I feel lighter. While politics has its place, there’s only so much we can take before it chips away at our focus and energy. I’d rather put that energy toward something that matters—like helping you build a life and career that feels genuinely good. I rarely wade into politics—it’s a divisive space. I’d rather focus on what brings us together than on what…

Feeling Surrounded By Negativity? Here’s Why (you might not like the answer!) If you’re feeling like the world is unfair, you’ll find no shortage of things to confirm it. Life will present plenty of evidence that matches the way you feel. This idea aligns with the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or frequency illusion—a cognitive bias that makes something you recently noticed or learned about seem to appear everywhere. When you focus on something, like a particular model of a red car, it seems like…

Extinguish Burnout: 10 Proven Strategies For Keeping You Sane The state of the Western world’s workforce is in utter disarray. With so many trying to survive — yet struggling — in jobs that make them miserable, mental health issues are sprouting up like weeds. The situation is not sustainable for either employees or employers. In order to be effective in their work, people need to have a general sense of well-being and safety in the workplace. They need a stable foundation from which to work….

Your Job Title Doesn’t Matter. Who You’re Becoming Does. You need to figure out what you want out of work, other than a paycheck. For many, work is a central part of their identity. It’s ingrained in our culture. When you meet someone new, your job title is often the first thing you share. This feels normal—after all, it’s a social norm in much of the Western world. But this is dangerous. Your job isn’t meant to be your entire personality—at least not if you’re striving for an interesting and…

Manage Your Mojo, Not Your Time. Ever struggled with completing tasks despite knowing they’re essential? Or felt disappointed with your work, thinking it took too long for produced and wasn’t at the quality you’d have liked it to be? I know I have! So you’re not alone. Don’t blame yourself for being “lazy”; motivation, focus, and attention are scarce resources. It’s not just about time and task management; it’s about managing your energy. Why Managing Energy is Crucial For knowledge workers,…

Leading by Example: The Power of Prioritizing Self-Care I recently took some time off because I wasn’t feeling well. While I was laying in bed resting, rather than feeling like I could relax and recharge, I felt guilty. I knew how much work was in the hopper and I felt I was letting the team down by not being there to shoulder my portion of the load. I wondered why I felt that way. After all, I talk so much about intentionally designing a life and career that you can love, and here I was,…

I Gotta Be Straight With You: Last Week Was Rough Sometimes I need to remind myself of the messages I consistently deliver to everyone else: I need to take my own advice. As much as I love helping others design a working life that feels fulfilling, last week was a stark reminder that knowing this stuff isn’t enough—you need to live it. Last week, I fell completely off track. I gotta be straight with you—it wasn’t pretty. I felt swamped with work, overwhelmed by everything that was piling up….

Want to Be Happier? Stop Doing What You Enjoy Here’s a counter-intuitive idea that might blow your mind: the reason you’re as happy as you could be is that you’re spending too much time doing what you enjoy. Let me explain. I read an insightful article by Darius Foroux, titled Three Habits to Stay Healthy in a Hectic World, and one particular habit he mentioned stood out to me: “doing things when you don’t feel like them.” This struck a chord with me for a couple of reasons. Not only do I…

Desperation Can Derail You: How To Avoid Making Rash Career Decisions don’t make decisions that will do this to your career! Have you ever been so miserable in your job that you’d take almost anything just to escape? You’re not alone—I’ve been there myself. When work drains you, it’s easy to jump at the first opportunity, but that’s when you need to be cautious. Desperate times don’t call for desperate measures—not in your career. Decisions made in desperation often lead to regret, pushing…

In A Noisy World, Your Brand Is Your Voice The resumé is dead. (Good riddance!) What will help you land a new job or get promoted isn’t what you’ve got listed on your resumé, but what your personal brand is (even as an employee). While it’s true that many organizations still use resumés as a screening tool, many make hiring decisions based on past projects you’ve delivered on and how aligned your brand is with the work they need to be done. The world of work has drastically changed, in ways…