Michael Melcher - Executive Coach

The paradigm of work from my parents' era - find a career you're good at and stick to it for 40 years - has not been true for several decades. But we don't have another paradigm to replace it. So most of us are making it up as we go along.

There are no easy answers but there are best practices and insights that will generally help you define and achieve what you want, attain greater career satisfaction, and have a positive influence in the world.

A Year In Review - With Yourself
This was originally published in the Shifting Careers blog of The New York Times, and was one of the most emailed business articles of 2007. It grew out of a realization that

the greatest obstacle for many people in creating career and life priorities was
not "How do I get what I want?" but rather, "How do I figure out what I want in the first place?"

Hillary Clinton, Misunderstood INTJ
Myers-Briggs type theory is a useful tool for understanding how we are different from others, and for finding ways
to bridge those differences. In this article, written during the 2008 election season, I applied type analysis to Hillary Clinton.
I've always been a political junkie, and often wondered how people could have such dramatically different views of the same person.

Why Thinking Like a Lawyer is Bad for Your Career
In this article, I examine how lawyers keep themselves stuck in unhappy situations by misapplying their analytical thinking skills to their hopes, interests and careers. This is a problem because, as it turns, out, career progress usually does not come from logical analysis. It's not just lawyers: academics, bankers, journalists, scientists and consultants create the same problem for themselves.

What to Do When Your Friend Writes a Book
When my friend Gretchen Rubin published her book, The Happiness Project, I bought a bunch of copies and told all my friends to get it. I also remembered all the things people said when my own two books came out - some helpful, and some decidedly unhelpful. This article is a tip list of what to do and what not to do. It ended up being widely circulated and retweeted - especially in South Africa, for reasons that escape me. Who knew that writers around the world had such simmering resentment!

Have You Been Cocooning?
The single most useful idea I've gotten from coaching literature is the idea of "cocooning," a term propounded by Frederick Hudson. In brief, cocooning means that sometimes your feeling of inertness or blankness may be a sign of growth. This article gives more details on how this process works.

Sorry for Saying That (Not Really)
Sometimes I receive emails and public comments from people who tell me that I am a bad person and that my writing is terrible. In this post, I wrote about how women limit their power in the workplace by apologizing too much. This is a topic I've discussed with many female clients and I assumed it would be noncontroversial. But not everyone detected the ardent feminism that underlay my post.

A Zagat-Approach to Your Career
Not sure what you should do for your career? Try asking your friends, relatives and distant acquaintances. Here's a specific method of interviewing people about the world's most interesting topic - you! - in a way that will get better answers than casual coffees and late-night phone calls.

A Board of Advisers - for Your Life
There's no rulebook to careers. On the other hand, there is a sort of wisdom in crowds, especially if the crowds consist of thoughtful people. One way to get good advice is to ask people whose opinion you respect for guidance - a personal board of directors.

My virtual assistant becomes famous, and stands up for her industry

And just in case you'd like to know what really makes me happy