by Jacqueline Liebergott

THE BALANCING ACT

My first job was as a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh. I worked for a woman with a PhD who also juggled her responsibilities with a husband and two children. She was an important role model for me in terms of my own life and my future. She taught me how to work hard and work smart–and she showed me how important it is to get others involved in shared responsibilities. I carry those lessons with me today.
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By Jessica Guff

FAT Like Me

I did a documentary for ABC in 2003 called Fat Like Me. Childhood obesity is a topic that’s really close to my heart, and it was a one-hour special on the childhood obesity epidemic. I put a thin girl–the daughter of one of my closest friends–in a fat suit and she went to school with hidden cameras in her glasses and her backpack. She recorded the way people treated her as a fat person and went back as a thin person and revealed how differently they treated her. It had about eight million viewers on ABC in primetime, and we won the Gracie Award and the Front Page Award. We were also nominated for an Emmy Award.
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WHAT’S THE CASE FOR PROCRASTINATING?

You can’t do everything at once, and many things aren’t worth doing, especially those that don’t closely fit your own unique set of personal values and objectives. I’ve seen so many clients beating themselves up for having to-do lists that were so unreasonable and punishing. Yet they were hard working productive people who just needed to embrace some new “procrastivity” habits, including letting go of a lot of those to-dos that weren’t serving them yet were making them feel miserable. Giving these up allowed them the freedom and confidence to pursue those initiatives that evoked more of their potential, and resulted in more meaningful and satisfying successes.
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The women: Rebecca Thorman, 24, is the executive director of Madison MAGNET, an organization dedicated to attracting and retaining young leaders in Wisconsin, and blogger for Modite. Alexandra Levitt, 31, is the author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, and blogger for Water Cooler Wisdom. Sandy Lish, 43, is the principal/founder of the Castle Group, a public relations firm that is ranked as a top-100 woman-led business in Massachusetts. Peggy Klaus, 54, is a Fortune 500 communication and leadership coach and the author of BRAG!.

What do you think defines a leader?
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by Vicki Salemi

“I’m having too much fun in my life and my job,” says Laird, who runs the Trenton (N.J.) Downtown Association, which helps revitalize core downtown businesses.

The new position would have meant more prestige and money, but longer hours and less time with her fifteen month-old daughter. Laird said it was a simple call: she didn’t want to miss her daughter’s wonder years by taking on a more demanding job. “The more I thought about it, the more I found other reasons to turn it down,” she says. “I had just recruited an assistant who is one year out of college and she took a pay cut to work for me. We landed a new consulting assignment with a government agency. I could go on.”

THE POWER OF NO
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by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher

Here are just three reasons it pays to lighten up:

• More memorable communication:

Whether you’re about to make a presentation to senior management to get funding for your big idea, to pitch a sales prospect who could make your year, or trying to engage a troop of distracted Campfire Girls, great communicators know that a little humor goes a long way toward making you and your messages more memorable.

• Bigger, better ideas:

The work world isn’t suffering from a dearth of tedious, go-nowhere, stiff, brainstorming sessions. Research shows you can boost scores on standardized tests of creativity by exposing people to humor or other conditions that establish a playful atmosphere.
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