Career

What Should Your Legacy Be?

What Should Your Legacy Be?

My friend Carrie had escaped cancer. (hurrah!)  However during the surgery and wait to find out if the mass was malignant or benign there was time, too much time, to think. Legacy. Purpose. Love.   All the things we question when we face our own inevitable mortality....

Do You Really Suck or is it Imposter Syndrome?

Do You Really Suck or is it Imposter Syndrome?

My stomach lurched, my head felt light. I wanted to run into my bedroom and bury myself under the covers. No, I didn’t have a weird covid variant. I was about to present work to our CEO. Imposter Syndrome rushed through my body. “You don’t belong here,” my brain told...

Am I a Corporate Sell Out?

Am I a Corporate Sell Out?

Where should I do? What will fulfill me? I moved to San Francisco in 2004 to be a writer. Within two months of trying to pay rent, I became a management consultant. It was known as the great Heidi corporate sell out. To counterbalance corporate Heidi, Writer Heidi...

How Being Less Productive Made Me More Productive

How Being Less Productive Made Me More Productive

Everyone told me that once I had a baby, my brain would turn into jello pudding and I’d be as productive as a sloth on mushrooms. “Don’t try to get anything done,” they urged me. “Because you’ll fail.” I was determined to prove them wrong. The new me was going to...

How to Give ‘Real Time Feedback’ Without Being a Jerk

How to Give ‘Real Time Feedback’ Without Being a Jerk

“Oh, do I have some feedback for YOU,” Donna said. Donna had just been promoted to manager at a beverage firm and felt it was time to wield her managerial power. She was ready to tell her direct report, Jon, how he was messing up in ‘real time’. Jon, you see, had...

How Writing Weekly on Medium Changed My Life

How Writing Weekly on Medium Changed My Life

One year ago I gave myself a challenge to post one blog post each week on Medium. Why? I wanted to see if this writing hobby of mine had any merit. Nothing better than a self imposed rule with the hashtag #humpdayheidi. With friend and family encouragement, I...

Quantity or Quality? My Blogging Struggle

Quantity or Quality? My Blogging Struggle

I’ve let my readers down this week. My usual Wednesday post, ‘humpdayheidi’ is on a 7 day hiatus and it’s killing me. Writers aren’t supposed to take breaks, are they? They are the entrepreneurs of words, working 26 hour days and taking out second mortgages so that...

Books that Change the Course of Our Lives

Books that Change the Course of Our Lives

“Books change people’s destinies.” - Carlos Maria Dominguez, The House of Paper Good books have a way of getting into your bloodstream. They become a homeopathic treatment, imprinting new thoughts into your molecules, changing the core of who you are and what you...

Age 40 – Half Dead or Just Starting?

Age 40 – Half Dead or Just Starting?

I must regretfully inform the public that it is the last year of my 30’s. I just turned THIRTY NINE, which is almost 40. I used to think this was the time I would go over the hill, roll down and die. Although Instagram’s filters smooth my wrinkles into youthful...

Wanna Be Interesting? Write in a Bar

Wanna Be Interesting? Write in a Bar

Kafka was wrong. He once said that writing is “utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” If this were true, no one would write because they’d be too busy committing suicide to connect with their keyboard. At some point, you do have to chain yourself...

Why Don’t We Listen to our Gut?

Why Don’t We Listen to our Gut?

  “Don’t listen to your heart. It will lead you down painful paths,” an old gypsy once told me, reading the fractured love lines in my palm. “Don’t listen to your mind. Its calculations will turn you cold,” commented an investment banker, showcasing his ringless...

Choice-Make One and Don’t Look Back

Choice-Make One and Don’t Look Back

“Should I quit my job to travel?” asked a reader. “Definitely travel,” I replied. Like most people, I only dole out advice that justifies my own life choices. “I just don’t know what I’ll regret more,” she said. “Not preparing for a promotion or not taking time off...