December 5, 2014 // September 24, 2020

Greetings Team:

A bit of an intro for the first monthly installment… humor me this once, if you wouldn’t mind…

Together we are going to go on a journey of becoming not just excellent professionals, but excellent people. The first few steps of our journey are contained here below. I hope you have your oven mitts on, because you are about to pull some hot tips out of the oven. I also hope you are ready to hit the professional “gym” to strengthen the muscles (figurative, literal) you will need to advance. …

Tip №1: Saving minutes a day, hours a lifetime

Avoiding unwanted formatting when you cut and paste

Ever find yourself bringing a lot of “junk code” from Microsoft Word into an email, or from a highly-stylized website into a Google Doc? To strip the text of its formatting commands, first do the usual “Command plus c” (to copy), but when you go to paste, make sure to simultaneously hit “Shift plus Command plus v”.

Only works when pasting into a web document or an Adobe Suite program; does not work when pasting into word.

Also, does not work in Safari browsers; best in Chrome, Firefox.

(h/t Brad Cohen)

Tip №2: Know proper use of the dash thingees

Generating en (–) and em ( — ) dashes; knowing when to use which

For Apple computers, simultaneously hit “Option plus regular hyphen”…

Sine qua non

What on earth does it mean?

Without which nothing. Evokes something even deeper than essential, elemental.

NB

What does it stand for?

The term NB is an abbreviation for nota bene, which translates to “note well” and which we take to mean “pay special attention to what follows; this is to be noted well”.

i.e. // e.g.

When should I use ‘e.g.’? Are they interchangeable? Do I need punctuation?

• The term i.e. is an abbreviation for id est, which translates to “that is” and which we take to mean “that is (to say)” in the sense of “that means”, “which means”, “in other words”…

Foundation: 4 things for your Professional Excellence journey to be a success…

• №1: Permanently (and forever) set your north star to being a person of: integrity, character, your word, follow-through, and authenticity. Resolve to have a positive attitude and a strong work ethic.
• №2: Believe in things, entities, and ideals higher than yourself and monetary gain. Be empathetic, it is one of the most important traits you can have (and entrepreneurial powerhouse Gary Vaynerchuk agrees).
• №3: Treat everyone you encounter with: dignity, respect, and kindness. Take an extra moment to thank people, guide people, help people. It will warm their soul and yours.
• №4: Admit your faults, say you are sorry, ask…

№1 Stop putting yourself last

To be professionally excellent, it starts with your mind and body. They both have to be at peak health in order for you to advance (and consistently maintain; then to advance further yet again — ad infinitum). There are some outstanding learnings and tips in the two articles linked below (NB: some of which I’ve already cited and will refer to again, for certain). For now…

Action Items

• Read (and learn from): “I came undone: One woman’s horrifyingly real experience with burnout” (by Glynnis MacNicol, journalist and co-founder of TheLi.st)
• Read (and learn from): “How I gained and lost 60 pounds as…

Gender Studies Undergraduate Thesis, Highest Honors 2004 [Introduction]

Over three decades ago, Gayle Rubin opened her essay “Thinking Sex” — now the sine qua non of sexuality, queer, gender, and women’s studies — by exhorting her reader: The time has come to think about sex.(1)

Disengaging herself from the other approaches to the topic of sex, Rubin puts forth the bold and original project of reexamining and questioning the ways that sex, sexuality, and all of their expressions and variations have been understood, interpreted, framed and even regulated over time.

She implores that we shift our thinking from the traditional…

“And I jotted each of these items down in a little notebook so I could remember them later on, because that whole week I never lost the feeling that I was participating in world event and was linked in a tiny invisible way, to everything that took place everywhere.” (The Mystery Guest by Gregoire Bouillier, p. 38)

As someone who has been journaling since I could write (age 5? 6? 7?), when I cam across this passage in The Mystery Guest, shared with me by a friend, I couldn’t help but put it as my new tagline/sub-header above.

It was…

Originally posted on my now retired WordPress on January 2, 2008

I know, I know… a slightly cheesy title, but in all honesty, I really think it fits. First the back story, then the top 4 (I like the number 4, it is solid and stable… again, go with me here).

* NB: Times are approximate and added for dramatic effect.

December 23, 2007 // 07:32:12 AM: Cab arrives… whisks me away to DCA. … Look out into the foggy abyss. Wonder if the flights are leaving.

December 23, 2007 // 08:12:44 AM: Check in at American Airlines desk — carry on suitcase, drop the other off at screening (right…