The Russians have a saying: Work is not a wolf; it will not go back into the forest. In other words, don’t work so hard, because work will always be there. Yet we are often at odds with our work lives and out of balance from the stresses and complexities of earning a living. Office politics can be exhausting, and…
I was introduced to “brainstorming” when I worked as a copywriter many years ago. Most ad agencies consider it an essential tactic for creating new campaigns. In the advertising world, brainstorming involves a copywriter and an art director sitting together in a room, where they lob headlines and images at each other in search of the perfect ad. When the…
I recently attended a lecture on “Unleashing Your Voice,” about recognizing who we are. It brought me back to the first time I met my Buddhist teacher, Dr. Joe Loizzo. He and I discussed the way people think they know who they are and what they want in life. Who are we, really? Do we robotically follow the standards that…
My independence from in-house imprisonment quickly ended when my freelance writing business dried up in 2008 while the bills continued to pour in. I landed a job as a copywriter at a pharmaceutical ad agency and girded myself for the adjustment to a 9-to-5-and-then-some world. But I was caught off guard by the age gap, made apparent during my first…
Last week I wrote about starting Zen’tinis, a conversational salon. Maybe, like me, you’ve been to enough cocktail parties, networking events, and informal hangouts and you long for the substance of real stimulation. You wish you could have it in an environment where you can learn the thoughts of the folks around you and share one or two of your own.…
