Category: Breadwinning Mom

5 Tips for Career Success

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Five Career LessonsWhen I think about my career, five moments stand out as game changers. I never forgot the valuable lessons I learned and how each one taught me a way to manage to stay away from a career meltdown.

1) Avoid cardiac arrest with a side order of divorce
One of my first corporate jobs was at a start-up. It just went IPO, but still operated in start-up mode. People worked 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on weekends. The perks of Silicon Valley companies come with strings attached. Don’t let the free food and dry cleaning fool you.  Continue reading →

5 Ways Stay-at-Home Dads Are Changing the World

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Stay-home Dads RockWhen we lived in Silicon Valley, we did what a lot of what Silicon Valley parents do. We had the double income, two mortgages and two car payments. We also had two kids with two childcare bills. The American Dream, right?

We struggled. We were miserable and knew it wasn’t for us anymore. It was hard to let go because we were both born and raised in San Jose, before the term “Silicon Valley” became so popular. We wanted something different from the norm and California was too expensive to raise our kids on our terms. It took us a few years to decide to relocate. We relocated to Arizona before we had kids and then moved back to the Bay Area. After we had kids, we realized we couldn’t make it work there and the costs were a constant struggle. Continue reading →

A Week Without Facebook

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FacebookFacebook. Some people love it and others hate it. As a marketer, I find the amount of information collected about each user fascinating. As a user, it seems really creepy. We still use it though and many are addicted to it.

Viewing Facebook is such a habit that many don’t realize how often they do it. The constant scrolling of the newsfeed, stalking of friends and burying the face in the phone. We’ve all done it. We’re so used to Facebook being a part of our lives that it’s shocking when someone doesn’t have a profile. Continue reading →

5 Ways to Thrive as a Breadwinning Mom

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5 Ways to Thrive as a Breadwinning MomDid you know that moms are the sole or primary breadwinner in four out of 10 households with children? According to the Pew Research Center, women make up almost half (47%) of the U.S. labor force today, and the employment rate of married mothers with children has increased from 37% in 1968 to 65% in 2011.

The role of women in the workplace and home is constantly changing and the old tradition of mom stays home is being challenged economically and socially every day. Continue reading →

Your Conference Survival Kit

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Your Conference Survival KitDo you attend conferences and events as part of the job? I went to the Digital Summit in Scottsdale, AZ for the second year in a row. It’s a great event for digital marketers or any type of marketer.

I went for a day and drove to the event. Some of the people I met flew in from other states and had much longer travel time than I did.

One thing is for sure, I rarely head out to an event without these items.

 

Continue reading →

Lean In… You won’t fall over

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Book Review: Lean In by Sheryl SandbergOn the heels of the Yahoo! work from home ban by Marissa Mayer, Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In was met with a hefty amount of backlash. In just under a month, gender roles and flexibility in the workplace came to the forefront. Debates flared and blogger keyboards burned up!

My first reaction to the book title was similar to most. The reality of leaning in more could certainly mean I’d fall over and hard. Who wants to lean in when you are already maxed out, right? Not the intended meaning of the title though. I started reading with both excitement and an open mind. Continue reading →

My Corporate Skin

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I’ve been in the corporate world for many years. I have worked at a couple of large corporations with very recognizable names and a handful of small firms.

The interpersonal interactions in both large and small companies have always been fascinating to me. Now that I have little ones, I can see how easily comparable it is to kids playing in a sandbox.

Sometimes kiddies behave for the greater good, like building a sand castle all together. And others may have a different plan that doesn’t involve all that much teamwork and includes throwing a lot of sand.

So when I completed a fairly large project and another manager received the credit for this accomplishment (and gladly took it), I was forced to take a moment to pause before I reacted with a temper tantrum as a 3 year old would do in the “sandbox.” Continue reading →