Blogs

As a congenital connector, I make introductions all the time. Usually I have good results. I've had an uncountable number of successful career matches and even ignited a few romances (one of which resulted in a strong marriage.)

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Happiness is having its moment in the sun. And the darkened economy doesn't seem to have cast much of a shadow over it.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I joined a packed auditorium at the Hilton New York for a lecture on positive psychology by Shawn Achor, a popular professor at Harvard. (This was part of One-Day University, a cool program that assembles a group of lecturers from top universities for a day of public lectures in major cities.)  Achor took the audience through the greatest hits of the science of happiness, covering a wide swath of material in his alotted 70 minutes. He explained how positive psychology developed as a field of study. Instead of focusing exclusively on mental troubles like depression, psychologists like Martin Selgiman started focusing on people who are happy to figure out what we could learn from them.

Achor took us through a host of nifty experiments, like this one: Read More »

In a black silk blouse with skinny jeans and stylish black boots, Jessica DuLong doesn't look like she spends her days in the bowels of a 78-year-old fireboat. That's because I met her on a day when she was inhabiting her other job, that of the author of a newly released book.  A former dotcom executive and freelance journalist, DuLong had an accidental career change after spending some time volunteering on The the John J. Harvey, a retired 1931 New York City fireboat that has become a living museum. Now one of few female fireboat engineers in the world, DuLong's newly published book, “My River Chronicles,” is both a tale of career transformation and a compelling narrative about a time when working boats and industry played a large role in America's economic and civic life.
 
DuLong never left the world of words. And she is using her new book as a vehicle to get white-collar and blue-collar folks to talk to one another.  DuLong isn’t the only one thinking about this subject. Another book praising the virtues of making and fixing things, “Shop Class as Soulcraft,”  has been getting a lot of buzz lately.
 
I had tea with DuLong to talk about class divisions surrounding work, why she left her dot com job to work in the engine room of an old boat, and why she thinks the perfect career is one that mixes brains and brawn.
Here is a condensed version of our chat: Read More »