Most of us tend to spend our days scrambling from one event to the next, be it work, meetings, or extracurricular events. We live in a time of slotting activities in and striving to accomplish our daily tasks. Although I attempt to let daily situations dictate my priories, whether it’s work, family, or play, often, the lines blur—is it more…
Hardwork, Hustle, and Grit
In life, we tend to see the finished product—a book, a presentation, a company that is successful, a car driving along on the road, runners crossing the finish line of a race. Unless it is your book, company, creation, or race, one rarely glimpses the effort or intensity of an endeavor. As a society, we are not privy to the…
On Being Great
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. – Mark Twain I’ve noticed a trend on social media these days in which some professionals regularly publicize how many followers they have, or promote their rankings, or note why they are…
Making College Years Count
(originally published in Huffington Post) Making College Years Count Years back, a college degree, which only a subset of society pursued, was the route to employment. If you obtained a bachelor’s degree, then you were almost guaranteed a job upon graduation, and that job was typically the stepping stone to one’s career. Times have changed. During the 2017-2018 school year,…
The Movement Miracle
(originally appeared in Huffington Post) In my early twenties, while working in publishing and pursuing my first graduate degree, I discovered running. At first, two miles was as far as I ventured. I ran the twenty blocks from my apartment on Manhattan’s upper east side up to 90th street and 3rd avenue and back. I loved the feeling of passing…
Embracing Change
(originally posted in LinkedIn Pulse) Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. – Stephen Hawking The last 1.5 years for me have been about change: leaving corporate America, starting up my own company, witnessing its growth through hard work, experimentation, taking risks, and a little luck. Then, amid it all, I accepted a full-time associate professor role, which led…
Brooklyn Girls
(originally appeared in Huffington Post)First, it was me and my mom. We were the original Brooklyn girls. From my earliest days, my mom was my partner when it came to navigating Brooklyn and its eccentricities. She had a no-nonsense and straightforward disposition that taught me that if you didn’t speak-up for yourself, then you risked living your life on someone…
Temporary Solutions: meditations from a 100-mile journey
(originally appeared in Huffington Post) A day after landing in Florida upon completing Badwater 135 this past July, my cat and I boarded a plane to start our next chapter in Washington, D.C. A day after that, I started my new job and I haven’t had a minute to look back. Everything has been new, different, and nonstop without much…
Keys 100 – 2017: The Way Back
Looking Back For the past few decades, Key West has signified a starting point and an ending point in my life. So much of my history is wrapped up in the Keys. My first venture to Key West was about Ernest Hemingway, whose writings and life I devoted almost a decade of graduate school to exploring. There was the Key…
IMPACT
The past year, in my life as a professor, I asked myself daily before I walked into each class what my goal was. That kept it real for me. It helped me to get out of my own way, forget my to-do lists, and set the tone for each session. The goal, always, was to engage my students, share knowledge,…