Category: Career Advice

A fat salary can lead to a comfortable life, and it can make switching jobs oh so appealing. Who doesn’t want to make more money, honestly? But the one thing you should consider before saying yes is—at what cost?

“People think money makes you happy…and yet, we give up happiness every day in the pursuit of money, thinking that will buy it for us,” entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk says in a video that, at first glance, seems ironically titled The Fastest Way to Make Your First $100,000. (Also, full disclosure: The company I work for is owned by Vaynerchuk’s company, VaynerX, but my opinions here are my own.)

It’s a crossroads I’ve faced three times in my career, and the one time I jumped at the money, ignoring a nagging voice that told me the role wasn’t right for me, I spent the next year regretting the move. Even if it did mean more money, a more prestigious title and, sure, a better flex on social. In news that surprises no one, a little extra income and an enviable title didn’t make up for the late nights and weekends spent doing something I hated.

Vaynerchuk argues that you should strive to find a level of pay where you can be content with the life you have, doing something you truly enjoy.

For me, what really resonated about that quote was the idea of trading your time for money—but if you’re truly miserable during those hours you’re working (and/or so dead tired after work that you can’t enjoy your—or even have—downtime), is the salary worth it? In my case, that extra money I made largely went toward paying for extended hours for childcare, because I was working so ’round-the-clock that I basically had enough time to get her ready in the morning and tuck her in at night. That wasn’t the life I wanted for us, and things needed to change.

Of course, how do you know what kind of job you’ll be walking into? That’s where conversations about the company culture become critical. Here are a few ways to get an honest sense of the work environment:

1. Try to chat with 1-2 employees

Talking to current employees is huge. If you don’t know anyone who works there, look up reviews of the business*, and during the interview process, if you become a finalist, ask if you can speak to anyone who might be a peer at the company. Ask about what they love, what they don’t love and—if they’re tight-lipped on the latter—where they think the company could improve.

*It’s worth remembering that most company reviews are written when somebody’s on a high or very disgruntled with where they work, so you’ll probably experience the extremes.

2. Establish your career values

Knowing what matters most to you at this stage in your life—flexibility, work hours, finding meaning in your work, remote opportunities, opportunities advancement, you name it—can also help you determine whether a job feels like the right fit for you. Maybe pay is the most important thing for you right now, so you’re willing to have a less-than-thrilling job to pay the bills or get your foot in the door (aka paying your dues). Maybe you’re a parent and working from home is a major appeal because it means you can spend the time you would’ve been commuting with your family.

Craft your top three values before you walk into an interview so they’re top of mind.

3. Watch out for interview red flags

Ask anyone you’d be reporting to or working with about the company culture, what their days/weeks are like, and what kind of boundaries they have in their own roles. I’ve found that asking, “what’s the biggest challenge you have in your role, and how do you perceive the person in this position to help with that?” can be immensely insightful. (Are they on call 24/7 and are expecting this new person to do the same? Are they overwhelmed and looking for a savior?)

While companies are hiring because they have more tasks to get through than people to take them on, there’s a big difference between “we’re hiring a social media manager because the owner is doing it all herself and needs dedicated help” and “we’re hiring a social media manager, but we’re also looking for someone who can [insert the workload of three full-time jobs here].”

Lead photo: Candace Braun Davison

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I get strangely excited about back-to-school season. Long after I left college behind—and before I became a parent—I loved scoping out the school supplies as soon as they hit stores. I didn’t have a reason to buy them; I just liked the idea of a fresh start. And it turns out, that’s a thing. Known as the fresh start effect, it’s a moment in time that signals to your brain an opportunity to redefine yourself and start over.

Or, as How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be author Katy Milkman told Women’s Health, the effect refers to “psychological fresh starts where nothing has changed except the calendar,” like the start of a new school year, a new year (hence our obsession with resolutions) or even a new week. What’s amazing about it is how we tend to think of these dates as a new chapter and process time differently. It’s like it creates a clear before/after—Women’s Health cites how we feel more distant from our “former” selves when we think about who we were on Dec. 27 vs. Jan. 1, compared to ourselves on Jan. 1 vs. Jan. 3.

But it can also apply in smaller increments, like the week ahead. When the Sunday scaries or gloom sets in, for example, you can choose to reframe it, making Monday your fresh start—a new chance to be a better you (and have a better week).

How to Improve Your Mondays Using the Fresh Start Effect:

1. Define your core values.

Feeling like you’re doing something meaningful—even in the tiniest doses—can improve your week overall, making you feel less like a cog in a wheel. You only need to do this seasonally or annually, since your values will likely stay the same for a while, unless you’re going through a major life change.

In Own Your Morning, author Liz Baker Plosser suggests asking yourself a few questions (How would you describe your ideal day? What lights you up? What are you most proud of?) and looking for any common words or threads that can clue you in to your core values. With a core value defined, you can seek out ways to incorporate it into your week, whether that’s through a project at work, a volunteer opportunity or even just scheduling 30 minutes a week toward a passion of yours, like baking something new or knitting.

2. Create a mental dump of everything that’s on your mind.

This is one of my fave end-of-the-workday or I-can’t-sleep activities: Just jot down everything that’s on your mind, stream-of-consciousness-style. Getting everything out onto the page makes it feel like it’s contained somewhere, so you won’t forget it, giving your brain permission to focus on other things.

3. Organize it into a to do list.

Looking at your brain dump, you can start to organize it into work and personal categories, organizing things by order of importance. Or spread them out as to do’s to tackle in your planner for the week ahead, working through a little each week so it feels less overwhelming.

4. Highlight the top 3 things you want to achieve in the week ahead—two that need to get done, one that’s purely for yourself.

You won’t get through everything on your mental dump list—or, realistically, even your to do list—so tighten your focus with the top three things you’d like to achieve. They don’t have to be big wins; whatever would make you feel a bit lighter at the end of the week. Two may be “have to do” things—obligations you just need to tackle, like delivering a presentation or scheduling a dreaded appointment—but one should be self-care related; something that brings you peace or joy, like catching up with a friend, working out or, hey, making your own candles (just me?).

Viewing Monday as an opportunity for a fresh start, rather than a return to the monotony of the daily grind, can be a game-changer. At the very least, it’s worth a shot, right?

Lead photo: Candace Braun Davison

You’ve felt it before: Someone eyeing you up and down, whispering to another—and you can’t help but wonder if they’re judging you. And since we’re all human, I’m sure you’ve been there, too: Going all who does he think he is?! over something someone’s doing. It’s natural, but what makes people judgy? How can we avoid it? And can anything good come from it?

Author and artist Amber Rae offers a powerful answer in her book, Choose Wonder Over Worry. We become judgy when we’re put face-to-face with something we’re denying or repressing within ourselves. That person or thing we’re reacting harshly to? “It’s a map, pointing you to the place that you’re afraid to accept within,” Rae writes. “As Carl Jung said, ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’” Oof.

Rae recalls enjoying a drink at a rooftop bar, when a woman nearby started dancing wildly, all by herself. She jokingly told someone nearby, “She must really need the attention,” but after uttering the put-down, her friend Wanda’s voice rang in her head: “You cannot judge someone and love yourself at the same time.” Double oof.

In that moment, she realized she wasn’t actually judging that woman, she was judging herself. She realized the woman’s carefree dancing reflected how much Rae cared about what others—even total strangers—thought of her. “I feared that if I were to freely express myself in public—like this dancing woman—surely I’d be rejected and laughed at,” she adds.

At the core of it, most judgment seems to come from this place: an outsized concern that if you were to do that same thing, others would reject you. It’s a fear of not belonging, and the sense that if you call out the “outsider” first, you’ve somehow buffered or protected yourself from secondhand embarrassment. Or shifted the lens of judgment toward them, so nobody’s noticing your flaws.

It’s something to sit with, to reflect on and weigh whenever it strikes within you, or within someone you love. It’s only then that you can push past pettiness and uncover your own blind spots.

Psst: You can find more insights like this in Rae’s book, Choose Wonder Over Worry: Move Beyond Fear and Doubt to Unlock Your Full Potential. It’s a great read when you need to refresh and recenter yourself. (Not an ad, just a book I’d recommend, though the post does contain affiliate links.)

You ever look back at life—say, when your brain pings you awake at 3 a.m.—and cringe as you relive a season of your past? No? Just me?

Well, when I think of my first two years as a manager of a team, I wince. And want to reach out to those direct reports with a formal apology. That’s how bad it is. So what is this fail that replays itself over and over again? My inability to invest in junior editors and delegate to their strengths.

Working in media at the time, I had really gotten into the “content velocity” models that had taken over digital: Produce as much content, as fast as you can, to scale as quickly as possible. As a result, we were all working round the clock, nonstop, trying to churn out as many stories and videos as we could to get eyeballs (which would convert to ad sales and affiliate deals). There was no time to teach people the ropes! You had to jump on this speeding train, get it together, and go, go, go, because none of us had time to breathe, let alone stop and develop a writer. If you couldn’t keep up, I judged you, because I had one cookie cutter archetype of the “ideal employee” and how much content they could produce in a day, and I thought we all had to fit it completely.

Anyone who couldn’t produce the six to ten stories a day—or three to four features—that had been dictated as “normal” was someone who needed to figure out how to be more efficient. But I didn’t have the time to teach anyone how to do that! I had my own content quota to hit! As a manager, I should have pushed back and scaled back the content I produced to focus on my people. Deep down, I knew strengthening new writers’ reporting skills would mean I’d spend less time editing each story, but I kept thinking that I should just tackle this story first or slam through these edits now, then I could invest in people later. But later never came, because I didn’t make time for it.

On top of that, I considered ‘delegate’ a dirty word. I wanted to prove to my team that I was a team player, never afraid to roll up my sleeves and do anything they’d have to do. “Delegating” as a manager made me feel like I was slacking, when really, I was looking at it all wrong.

It took me a while to realize I was a bottleneck, insecurely trying to prove my worth by doing as much as possible.

The editor who could only write one feature a day? She had an excellent eye for design and packaging; I should have reduced her writing workload and pivoted her role to focus more on improving the design of stories across the board.

The intern who needed reporting help? She could write lightning-fast; I should’ve committed to regular one-on-ones to focus on interviews and sussing out quality studies and research for stories. Instead of churning out as many stories as she could in a day, that time could have made each piece have more depth, insight and provoke better conversations with our audience.

It took me a while to realize I was a bottleneck, insecurely trying to prove my worth by doing as much as possible—to the detriment of my team and the brand as a whole. It was a tough pill to swallow; harder still to jump off the hamster wheel of CONTENT ALL THE TIME and focus on building up those around me.

I actually had to take a drastic measure, changing jobs just to reset myself, break my bad habits and finally get out of my own way. While I regret I couldn’t seem to do this without leaving, when I walked into a new role with a clean slate, there weren’t any preset expectations of me or how I should act.

I wasn’t the machine editor, so I took things a little slower, focusing on people first. What did they need? What were their goals and challenges? Could we streamline their workload through subtraction, being more efficient overall? Most importantly, what was each person’s secret superpower, and how could we play to that to achieve our goals?

That last question has been crucial; it’s what I come back to whenever I start feeling the itch to obsess over metrics alone, judge or hustle for self-worth by doing, doing, doing. And you know what? It’s been freeing.

Lead Photo: Candace Braun Davison

As much as I know I can’t please everyone, I still try. I’ve agonized over whether people liked me, whether I offended them, whether they hated me—and why (or what I could do to change their mind about me). It’s a classic Type 9, people pleaser tendency. I’ve been working on letting go; realizing I can only do so much, and if somebody dislikes me for a random reason (say, how I look or talk or my love of kitschy accessories), it’s probably a reflection of something deeper going on with them.

Anne Hathaway knows this better than many. For years, she dealt with “Hathahaters,” who seemed to hate her simply because…she existed? She was earnest about her ambition and acting career? She has a face? In the November 2022 issue of Elle, Hathaway spoke about this directly, offering an empowering insight we could all borrow:

I have worked too hard on seeing myself with kinder eyes to give away my peace to those who haven’t found it for themselves yet. So I do my best to not be afraid of what others might say and just focus on enjoying my life.

-Anne Hathaway

I loved that perspective of seeing stressing over what people may say or think as ‘giving away your peace,’ because that’s exactly what’s happening. You’re trading contentment for worry, growing anxious over something you can’t control. (Often, it seems like someone who’s bothered by what another person’s achieving is really just frustrated with the lack of traction in their own lives, so again, it’s less about you—even if you’re the one they’re complaining about—and more about their unfulfilled dreams.)

Something to consider as you head into the week.

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Lead photo: The Devil Wears Prada/Fox 2000 Pictures

While everybody’s focused on how Gen Z ends their emails, these days, I’m much more focused on the beginning. One of the first things I learned after landing at PureWow is their strategic approach to crafting emails, both internally and externally, and it all comes down to four letters: BLUF.

Standing for “Bottom Line Up Front,” it’s a military acronym that encourages you to tell the recipient exactly what you need from them, then provide the background info. It’s a great way to tighten your writing all around, because it makes you state your thesis right off the bat. No long paragraphs to wade through; just here’s what we need and why we need it. The “how are you?” and “hope you are well” pleasantries can still exist; you can just move them to the end.

This one-liner is especially helpful when you’re looping someone in on a long email chain. Don’t make them follow the back-and-forth; give them a quick note (“Sandy, I wanted your take on whether this story should go live on Thursday or Friday.”), followed by a brief synopsis of the thread as a separate paragraph. If Sandy wants all the nitty gritty details, she can scroll on.

This snappier approach to email writing means I often get replies faster and I get exactly the info I need from people (even if sometimes it’s “let’s hop on a call to discuss further”). Small change, big results.

Lead Photo: Brooke Cagle/Unsplash

We all have that feedback loop: It comes in quiet moments, when we’re alone, when we suddenly start replaying some painful scenario, as if breaking it down one more time will help us understand it better—or finally move past it. Maybe you’re rehearsing it, as if talking to a friend about the experience. Maybe you’re full-on reliving it. Either way, the longer you ruminate on it, the less likely you’ll be to actually move forward. In fact, it may just darken your mood and start to make that pain part of your identity: the screw-up, the ne’er-do-well, the victim, the black sheep, whatever you ultimately label it.

That’s why it’s critical to interrupt the rumination cycle, Psychology Today reports, and in the magazine’s November/December 2021 issue, psychologist Alice Boyes, Ph.D., offers a two-step process for breaking free. Here’s what to do:

1. Find a distraction that requires your full focus, even for just a few minutes. It doesn’t have to be fun—it could be scrubbing the toilet, unloading the dishwasher or something genuinely enjoyable, like doing a crossword or Sudoku puzzle. This is the bridge that helps break you free of the playback loop, so you can then move to something more enjoyable, which will ultimately boost your mood. (Boyes argues that people rarely snap from playback loop to happy, so having a short activity in-between is crucial.)
2. Pivot to a productive activity or moment of self-care. Look for something that’s short (say, it takes 10 to 15 minutes) but will give you a little boost of accomplishment; something “you’ve struggled to get around to or have procrastinated doing,” Boyes writes, suggesting things like playing frisbee, following an origami tutorial on YouTube or doing 10 minutes of stretching that’s just challenging enough to require your concentration.

The tactic may seem annoying at first—what should I do for these two activities, and how will solving a crossword or folding a paper crane make me ultimately feel better?!—but it’s worth a shot.

Lead photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash