Author Archive

Unlocking New Horizons: How Women Can Expand Their Careers and Personal Growth

Across industries, women continue to redefine leadership, creativity, and impact. Yet many still face systemic and situational barriers—limited mentorship, career plateaus, and the constant balancing act between personal and professional ambitions. True progress requires intentional strategies: identifying new opportunities, building supportive networks, and pursuing education that empowers change.

What You’ll Find Here

Shifting From Aspiration to Agency

Career advancement starts with shifting from hoping for growth to designing it. Women often wait for recognition that never comes—or downplay their readiness for leadership roles. Instead, clarity and visibility are critical: articulate what you bring to the table, seek sponsorship rather than passive mentorship, and connect your career story to measurable outcomes.
When a woman claims her narrative and aligns it with her organization’s priorities, she transitions from being seen as a contributor to being understood as a catalyst for progress. That shift changes everything: it moves conversations from “What role can I have?” to “What impact can I make?”

Education as a Force Multiplier

Pursuing advanced degrees or credentials remains one of the most powerful catalysts for reinvention. For women balancing career, family, and growth, flexible learning models open new possibilities.
Enrolling in an accelerated online EdD in leadership program allows ambitious professionals to develop advanced strategic, organizational, and research skills—without pausing their current careers. These programs are designed for real-world impact: graduates lead school systems, nonprofits, or corporate learning initiatives that shape the next generation of leadership.

The Network Effect

Collaboration is the real engine of advancement. Networks—formal or informal—magnify opportunities, visibility, and resilience. Women who connect across industries often discover lateral moves that unlock unexpected doors.
Before the next opportunity arises, ask yourself:

A network built on mutual growth doesn’t just offer professional connections—it creates psychological safety and belonging, both essential for sustained success.

Common Barriers—and How to Navigate Them

Women still encounter structural obstacles and cultural expectations that slow career progress. Yet proactive navigation strategies can mitigate many of them.

Imposter Syndrome
Work-Life Balance

How to Identify and Seize New Opportunities

Sometimes, opportunity doesn’t arrive neatly packaged. It’s discovered, created, or reframed.
Try this short checklist for proactive career expansion:
Scan your environment: Where are unmet needs, untapped audiences, or inefficiencies you can solve?

Prototype action: Test a small-scale initiative that demonstrates capability beyond your current scope.

Ask for feedback, not permission: Share results and insights to build momentum.

Quantify the win: Convert impact into measurable metrics (time saved, revenue gained, satisfaction improved).

Document the story: Turn outcomes into case studies or internal presentations to position yourself for future roles.
The most successful leaders don’t just fill roles—they create new ones through demonstrated value.

Key Habits That Sustain Long-Term Growth

A few behavioral anchors separate those who progress consistently from those who stall.
Continuous reflection: Schedule quarterly self-reviews as you would a business audit.

Skill stacking: Pair technical expertise with communication, strategy, or design thinking.

Visibility hygiene: Keep your professional profiles, publications, and bios updated.

Mentorship loop: Mentor others; it reinforces your authority and expands your network.

Boundary literacy: Sustainable success depends on saying “no” as decisively as “yes.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are a few of the questions that often arise when women explore new career and growth pathways:

Conclusion

Growth doesn’t happen by waiting—it happens by positioning yourself where opportunity meets preparation. For women ready to lead, reinvent, or influence change, the path forward is both personal and systemic: cultivate clarity, pursue education that fits your life, and surround yourself with allies who amplify your ambition.
Every time a woman claims her leadership narrative, she reshapes what’s possible—not just for herself, but for every woman who follows.

Emily Graham

Emily is the creator of MightyMoms.net. She believes being a mom is one of the hardest jobs around and wanted to create a support system for moms from all walks of life. On her site, she offers a wide range of info tailored for busy moms — from how to reduce stress to creative ways to spend time together as a family. You can email her at emilygraham@mightymoms.net. She lives in Arizona.

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Two Thoughts” A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom by Jim O’Shaughnessy with Vatsal Kaushik captures insights from 250 of the world’s most influential minds. These pages capture the essence of human thought and experience. These quotes will challenge, inspire, and illuminate as they provide a lens through which to view your own life. Put a copy on your desk and open it to any page to find a companion for your thoughts, a catalyst for your aspirations, or simply a moment of clarity in your day. Thanks Jim and Vatsal.

Preface

• It all started with a tweet from Jim O’Shaughnessy on December 28, 2020. It contained two quotes from Buckminster Fuller. This started Jim’s Two Thoughts series that became a daily institution. What is important is not what is said or who said it, but it’s what you do with it. Try to make some of these quotes your own. As you read, scribble, go on tangents, and find weird relationships. This should be a book or action, not only of thought, so try not to read it cover to cover. Good luck and have some fun.

Introduction

• Consider that the human mind contains two characters, the thinker, and the prover. After some effort, the thinker decides that something is right or wrong and then shuts off. The prover’s job then is to look at the beliefs delivered by the thinker and get to work proving them right. The prover might firewall information counter to what is supposed to be proved. Once the proving is done, most people stop thinking on the matter and go on to something else. (Doug: From what I’ve seen, many people let the media they consume do the thinking, and perhaps most, if not all of the proving.)
• The authors encourage you not to accept the quotes here as gospel, but rather to use them to get you thinking, proving, and thinking again in an endless cycle. Weigh these quotes, but don’t worship them. Be entertained rather than exalted. Chew on them, but don’t swallow.
• The next five chapters contain two quotes from 250 people followed by a brief biography. Rather than try to summarize them, I will give you some of my favorites. Yours will probably be different, so BUY THIS BOOK!

Wordsmiths: Writers, Playwrights, Poets, Satirists, and Cartoonists

• The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. Dorthy Parker
• Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy people trying to find easier ways to do something. Robert Heinlein
• You don’t have the right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the cards you’re holding. Cheryl Strayed
• There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. Ernest Hemingway
• Children aren’t coloring books. You do not get to fill them in with your favorite colors. Khaled Hosseini
• You’re twice as biased as you think you are (four times if you disagree with that statement). Morgan Housel
• Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. Franz Kafka

Scholars: Researchers, Psychologists, Economists, Academics, and Executives

• When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Viktor Frankl
• My advice is to read widely and think for yourself. We need more dissent and less dogma. Camille Paglia
• Self-improvement comes mainly from trying to help others. Sir John Templeton
• Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. Charles Darwin
• It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time. Yuval Noah Harari
• To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail. Abraham Maslow
• You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him. Booker T. Washington
• The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. John Kenneth Galbraith
• When supporting others, we need to offer the comfort of Kirk and the intellect of Spock. Ethan Kross

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Think Wrong: How to Conquer the Status Quo and Do Work That Matters by John Bielenberg, Mike Burn, and Greg Galle, with Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson provides a battle plan for taking on the status quo. Included are six principles and eighteen drills you can use to get out of your own way. Regardless of the kind of organization you work in, this book is for you, but only if you want to make big ass changes that will improve your world.

Introduction

• Our human default is to defend and maintain the existing state of affairs also known as the status quo. Thinking Wrong is conquering biology and culture to change how things are to how they might be. Throughout history, the true innovators and pioneers were the ones who thought wrong and often suffered for it, at least in the near term.
• This book will help you move beyond your biases, imagine many solutions, and expand what’s possible. As we age, the synapses we use most get stronger while others are pruned away. It’s time to challenge your brain and your culture at large and learn to Think Wrong.

Who Cares?

• There are five basic types in each organization. Some people can occupy multiple roles. Outlaws are innovators and disruptors who explore new possibilities. They are happy taking risks and aren’t concerned about cultural norms. Shepherds protect outlaws and provide cover while they explore. They help get outlaws’ work to market. Scouts Help the former navigate uncharted paths and locate resources. They often have unique expertise of new territories. Sheriffs enforce law and order and see that the rules are followed. Posses can be deputized to enforce the cultural norms. They help keep things running well. At times the can also support the actions of the outlaws as they mark out new territory.

The Elements of Thinking Wrong

• Your brain’s synaptic pathways control everything you do, which causes us to repeat what we have done if we don’t stop to think about other possibilities. This is compounded when a collection of brains work together, which produces group think and group beliefs.
• The authors have recognized six principals. 1. Be Bold: Dare to make a big difference. 2. Get Out: Find fresh inspiration for non status quo solutions. 3. Let Go: Stretch beyond assumptions, biases, and orthodoxies. 4. Make Stuff: Gain insights through making prototypes. 5. Bet Small: Discover what works without risking it all. 6. Move Fast: Be open so others can help you improve your solutions. For each principal the authors provide three drills so you can pratcice.

The Think Wrong Universe

• Here is the story of the Pie Lab. Thanks to a lot of wrong thinking by five designers, they obtain a building in downtown Greensboro, Alabama and start selling pie, with the rule that the pie must be eaten on site. It quickly becomes a community center hosting many events. It even wins a James Beard Award. It was the first new business on Main Street for years. Other new businesses soon started and it is now a popular tourist stop were people of all races come to what was a segregated location.

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Writing for Busy Readers: Communicate More Effectively in the Real World by Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink spells out the six principles you can follow to increase the probability that people will read, understand, and respond to what you write. Be sure to add it to your professional development library.

Introduction

• This book sets out the six fundamental principles of effective writing. It should have a well-defined purpose, help the writer and the reader, not be beautiful writing, have a rigorous science underlying its rules, and have a real context. Busy people tend to skim, postpone, or ignore complex messages. The average professional spends nearly one-third of their time reading and responding to email. If messages are ineffective they impose a tax on the readers’ time. Voters, for example are likely to skip ballot questions that use complex language.
• Much of what we learned in school is irrelevant or counterproductive in the real-world. The principles in this book are derived from the sciences of cognitive psychology, social psychology, behavioral economics, neuroscience, marketing, and time management. The authors draw on randomized studies and have worked hard to make this book easy to navigate. (Doug: I think they have.)

Part I: Engaging the Reader – 1. Get Inside Your Reader’s Head

• Our brains have a limited ability to attend to and focus on multiple things, which also limits our ability to act. Unfortunately, we all tend to multitask, which is really task switching. When we switch from one task to another we are less efficient at both tasks and are more likely to commit errors. Even if we focus on a single task, we tire over time. Our writing, therefore, has to respect this landscape of stress and distraction.

2. Think Like a Busy REader

• Readers first have to decide to engage. This usually depends on the envelop, which is the subject line for an email or the importance of the sender. They also need to decide when to engage. Most readers tackle things first that appear to be easier. They need to decide how much time to engage where the decision to skim or scan comes in. Scanning involves reading things like headings and the first sentences of paragraphs. Finally, they have to decide whether to respond. To increase the probability the request has to be clear so the reader knows the task and how to do it. Make it as easy as possible. Above all, know your goals.

3. Know Your Goals

• Effective writing is about transferring key information from writer to reader. What is the most important information you want your reader to know? You cannot achieve your goals as a writer if you are unclear on what those goals are.

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