DRIVEN Blog
Staying on the Wagon: The Virtues of Dieting
When asked to write this post, I enthusiastically agreed, feeling a bit virtuous having cleansed my diet of both sugar andKristiMcKee2 wheat almost entirely for six months. Early last May, I woke up one morning and decided to eliminate sugar and cut way back on…
Cold, Rain & Snow: Utilizing Down Time
The middle of last week saw bitter cold weather like New York hasn’t experienced in decades; you know what else it saw?….Me, making my way into the city from my toasty-warm suburban home, only to find Manhattan’s streets practically abandoned, and most of my…
Self-Compassion: My Word Of The Year
I’m savoring Olivia Fox Cabane’s book, The Charisma Myth. It’s like preaching to the converted. We totally see eye-to-eye on so many practices. My favorite: being present is a key to executive presence. Non-verbal communication is SO important…
Corporate Matchmaking: Polishing the E-Introduction
Aside from its convenience factor, email can be a substantial networking device. But the “substantial” part depends upon how thoughtful your strategy is. Think of how often you’ve used email…
Auld Lang Syne Language: Let’s Talk Bubbly!
Welcome to your year’s-end mission to celebrate in style. If you’re like me, you look forward to times like these to cast austerity aside for a few days, and treat yourself and others to the finer things. Sometimes though, there is apprehension in deciding just what those finer...
Angry at Work: When Emotions Interfere with Progress
The workplace can be a fascinating study in emotion, principally in relation to anger. There are those coworkers who appear void of any angry tendencies, and those who seem to be the embodiment of rage, flying off the handle on a daily basis. We’ve all witnessed the…
Holiday Cheers: The Stress-Reduced Christmas Wine Shopping Experience
The holiday shopping frenzy is fully in progress, and if you’re the host of a Christmas gathering, you’re on double duty. Factor in that you may not feel confident walking into a wine shop and choosing just the right accompaniments, and…
Poppin’ Corks! WAC’s Sparkling Wine Event Bubbles Over with Insight
If you were one of the lucky participants of last Thursday’s Women’s Advancement Compact “All That Sparkles” wine event at Appellation Wine & Spirits in Chelsea, you would have walked away with not just a euphoric wine buzz and the flavor of…
Tool or Torment? Making Email Work for You
Ah, email etiquette. We read articles and hear talk show segments about it all the time, but how many of us truly put such thoughtful advice into practice? This special function has revolutionized the way we communicate in business but to our…
The Office Holiday Party: Same Folks, Different Rules
Office holiday parties are right around the corner. For some, it’s just another networking event. For others, it’s the one chance per year to socialize with colleagues. While it can be said that we spend more time with these folks than with our families, being…
Getting Inside Your Boss's Mind— To See Yourself More Clearly
Now that you’ve taken the first big step and opened your Johari Window, you may want to consider what you’re up against when freeing the channels of communication between your boss and you. The mind-twisting exercise that Deborah Howard guided us…
Talkin’ Turkey Too: A Feast of Fizz
If you read our Thanksgiving wine blog post from last week, you hopefully dialed down your holiday stress level a bit, and narrowed the field for yourself on Thanksgiving wine choices. So, I’m back this week to complicate things all over again by letting you in on secret…
A Window of Opportunity for Anyone With a Boss
When I was first introduced to a self-improvement exercise named the Johari Window, my instinct was to group it in with the countless gimmicks associated with the self-help industry, and just move on. The name alone seemed a contrived attempt to tap into our hunger…
A Word on Scaffolding
Even a visitor to New York on her first day in town would agree: You can’t stroll 3 blocks down the streets of NYC without walking under scaffolding. In recent years, it seems like every façade in the Big Apple is undergoing a facelift, and maneuvering through…
I’m Only Human, and Sometimes It Sickens Me
It can be argued that I am one of those people who inadvertently preach “do as I say, not as I do”. Evidence of this can be pinpointed in my advice to my colleagues, blog followers, friends and family that we all should make a strident effort to accommodate others, but…
MoMA Mia!
Undoubtedly one of the treasures of NYC is West 53rd and 54th Streets’ Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Its November 2004 makeover and grand re-opening put this vital landmark back onto my radar after many years, and today, I’m consistently making excuses to drag Deborah over to see…
The “I”s Have It. Or, Do They?
Author and career planner Kathleen Brady’s clever NAIL acronym for the challenges involved in personal energy management contains a resourceful message, both for the enthusiastically responsive attendees of Women’s Advancement Compact’s September 18th…
Energy: A More Powerful Resource Than Money
People often think they could achieve their goals if only they had more time, money or luck. While all of those variables may influence the outcome of any objective, none of those things will ensure…
Climbing The Corporate Stairwell: A Cause Worth Stepping-Up For
Last Thursday our small but mighty Women’s Advancement Compact team joined hundreds of other courageous people to scale a NYC skyscraper from the inside, Story by Story, and in the process raised big bucks for the important not-for-profit InMotion. Now, I’ve climbed…
Sliding Into Autumn, Fork In Hand
Farmer Market's are decadent with produce right about now! Visiting the Union Square Farmer’s Market always adds to an adventurous Saturday in New York. If you haven’t yet experienced this vast bazaar…