Keeping the joy in your work will make you complete

Dark light bulb

Don’t let a promotion steal your mojo What gives you joy in your work? When do things feel right? Pay special attention to those details. You’ll need to ensure that promotions or changes in your career don’t extinguish that joy. It can happen subtly over the years and you won’t recognize it until it’s too late. A…

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How to carefully plan your monumental career ascent

Mountain range in the distance

Maybe it has something to do with moving up into the Sierra Nevada mountains after spending over 20 years of my Tech career in Silicon Valley. But, I keep thinking about the similarities between successfully navigating a lifetime career and climbing a mountain. As you are just getting started, from a distance, the mountain looks…

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How to be a Humane Leader in 7 Surprisingly Simple Steps

A spark floating above someone's palm

Your power and influence must be carefully managed Promotion into leadership isn’t just a reward for doing great work. It’s a serious responsibility. You are now accountable for the work of your entire organization. You are now responsible for the careers of your employees and their livelihood. You may not realize it, but you are also now…

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What Do I Actually Mean by “Career Freedom”?

Lady with arms open wide facing sunset over ocean

Freedom is one of those words that gets tossed around so much that it sometimes loses meaning. In addition, freedom is an entirely subjective feeling. What provides and feels like freedom to one person can be absolutely oppressive to another. And the pursuit of freedom by one can sometimes lead to a loss of freedom by others. We’ve…

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Larry Cornett podcast interview on Build Live Give

Larry Cornett - Build Live Give Podcast interview

I was recently a guest on the Build Live Give podcast with the founder, Paul Higgins. I talked about my own career experiences over the past 23+ years, shared some startup pitching and funding advice, career tips, some of my favorite tech tools as an entrepreneur, and even a little about the age discrimination I’ve seen…

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Career interview with Mike Tschudy, Head of Design at Mint.com

I had the pleasure of talking with Mike Tschudy about his career path recently. Mike is the Head of Design for Mint.com. He shared a ton of good advice about intentionally planning your career, finding good sounding boards, and taking a step back occasionally to reevaluate your path. The full transcript of our discuss is below…

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I make myself rich by making my wants few

I make myself rich by making my wants few - Henry David Thoreau

The best way to achieve financial independence and gain your freedom is to attack it from both sides. 1. Improve your income sources. 2. Simplify your life to reduce your expenses. It’s really hard to achieve this if you only focus on the income side. But, that’s what most of us do. Better jobs Raises…

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Ready for the Thumb Tribe?

Young child with smartphone

If you’re building a consumer experience, I hope you’re familiar with the Thumb Tribe because that is where your future customers are. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the younger generations are heavy mobile users, but you may not be aware of how extreme it is unless you’ve looked at your users’ demographics and analytics lately. These two screenshots are from…

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You don't need to create a "unicorn" to be successful

Unicorn and Young Girl painting

It is easy to get caught up in the “next hot startup” frenzy as you read about the insane growth and valuations of “unicorns” like Uber, Airbnb, and Snapchat. But, not every business can be, or should be, a runaway tech startup. When you live in a tech-centric area like Silicon Valley you tend to…

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