Leaning In

If I haven't mentioned it before, I travel a lot for my job.  This means a lot of windshield time, but a lot of air time as well. In todays case, this post is brought to you by gogoinflight wifi from 30,000 feet. The past 5 days will have me at a total of  4 airports (SEA, LAX, MSP, IND), 4 states (WA, CA, MN, IN) and 2 airlines (Delta & Alaska Air).  Lots of air time means I have the opportunity to get some uninterrupted work time, but also some good reading time as well. 

After reccomendations from a slew of friends, I finally read  "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg ($12.99 on Amazon) and absolutely loved it.  A little background on Sheryl Sandberg; she is the COO at Facebook, and was named one of Fortune's 50 most powerful women in business.  I whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone in business and leadership (men & women).  Sandberg covers mentorship, leadership, work-life balance and some great common sense advice to women (and men) about how to shape the careeer they truly want.  She shares a lot of her own experiences as well as those from her peers, giving you a unique insight to both entry level and at a high leadership level.  She also challenges the idea that anyone has to choose between family and career (the old idea that you can/can't have it all) and why so many limits are ones we put on ourselves based on expectations, experience or perception.  Mostly, to Lean In to what you want instead of pulling back.  A few quotes that stuck with me:

"Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder"

"And what I saw happening is that women don't make one decision to leave the workforce. They makes lots of little decisions really far in advance that kind of inevitably lead them there."

Personally, parts of this book I agreed with and other parts made me absolutly irate.  But that's the point, and that will get people talking.  Sometimes the timing for a book is just right and I think the timing on this was perfect; I found a lot of useful info and think there's a lot of daily business application.  If you've read it, I'd love to hear what you thought; love it, hate it, think she's way off base or hit the mark? Leave some comments!

Golden Tidbit:

I am still kicking myself for not picking up a Gold luggage tag when I saw it on clearance at a Banana Republic a few months ago, but I found this one today that I think will fit the bill perfectly!  Leather and a sturdy buckle to make sure it doesn't leave your luggage; available on Amazon for $27

Golden Quote: 
"Fortune does favor the bold and you'll never know what you're capable of if you don't try.”  - Sheryl Sandberg