I speak with coaches, consultants, service providers, and small business owners (and corporate employees) every day who do great work, and offer high-quality products, services, and programs that are a cut above, but are failing to make any money. In studying this phenomenon, and living through it myself when I started out as a coach, I’ve seen that there are numerous critical factors behind a failure to generate sufficien...

In hearing from hundreds of professionals each year who are ready to chuck their jobs but have no idea what to do next, I’m finding that I’m having the same types of coaching conversations over and over. When that happens, I know it’s time to share some powerful tips to help address these challenges that thousands are facing. Below are the five steps to take now if you want to leave your job this year: First, stop dou...

As a 55-year-old former corporate VP turned career consultant and entrepreneur, I’m always fascinated to hear stories of “boomer” professionals who’ve achieved great success managing and collaborating with Millennial teams. As I know from experience, there’s inner and outer work and self-evaluation necessary for leaders to learn to adapt to working effectively with different generational groups . Flexible and responsive lea...

Part of the series “Building a Powerful Support Community” I’m not a LinkedIn guru by any stretch, but as a career consultant, leadership trainer and writer with over 140,000 followers on LinkedIn, I review hundreds of LinkedIn profiles each month. These profiles — of my clients, workshop attendees, and course members, as well as new connections — reveal a great deal information. Per the conversations I have about these,...

In the past few years, I’ve immersed myself in learning as much as I could about online marketing, product and program launches, and important sales and marketing strategies for building my small business. And I’m still learning every day, as the landscape, technology and challenges change daily. Throughout this process, I’ve also met hundreds of entrepreneurs doing the same, and we’ve openly shared our respective war stori...

As a career success coach, writer, and researcher, I’ve had the opportunity to observe key trends among thousands of professionals around the world, particularly about how they get stuck and stay stuck in careers they dislike, and how they effectively change directions to a new path that’s rewarding and successful.One challenge I hear literally every day goes something like this:“Kathy, I don’t like my career and I know tha...

Throughout the 18 years I worked in corporate America, at numerous organizations and in many different roles, there was one process that never changed – the annual employee review. Anyone who’s ever been reviewed in this way knows that it’s a lack-luster experience at best, devastating at worst. Unfortunately, managers rely on this one opportunity each year to tell employees how they are faring in the eyes of management, of...

Part of the series "Living and Working Better" As career coach (and former therapist), I've worked with hundreds of professionals who've shared the intimate details of how they live and work, day by day. In these vibrant and detailed descriptions, I can often catch glimpses of how they are operating that they cannot themselves see. For example, I can detect the signs of ADHD in adults who have been "diagnosed" or labelle...

Ever since I obtained my Master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and studied communication theory, I’ve been fascinated by how we communicate and, in particular, how much information we share through our body language that we don’t realize we’re revealing. So when my son and I saw Oz Pearlman working his mentalist magic on America’s Got Talent, we both were deeply intrigued. Dubbed as “The Wall Street Mentalist” b...

As a career coach and a career reinventer myself, I can confidently say that changing your career to something that is more suited to your values, needs, skills, and interests, is doable today, even in these tough economic times. But to switch careers effectively and achieve a positive outcome, you need four things: clarity, courage, confidence, and competence. Without these, you’ll most likely struggle hard and fail. Fur...