We worry putting our family first means we'll be forced to abandon our careers. We're afraid if we pause our careers, we'll be forever off-track. This thinking is outdated—forget what you've heard about how pauses are career limiting, about how those who pause lack ambition, or that if you do pause you won't be able to re-enter the paid workforce. That's a flawed reality, one that doesn't reflect the truth of the careers of some of the most successful women in this country. Author Lisen Stromberg knows this success firsthand. After the birth of her second child, she did something she never imagined she would do: she opted out to focus on her family. But her career didn't end there. Lisen paused then pivoted to become first a social entrepreneur and then an award-winning journalist writing about women, work, and life in Silicon Valley. Along the way, she learned she wasn't alone. Lisen met many highly successful women who told her they never "opted out" but who had, in fact, temporarily downshifted or paused their careers. Their hidden journeys revealed alternative nonlinear paths to the top that enabled them to achieve their personal and professional goals. In Work PAUSE Thrive, Lisen shares their stories. Deeply rooted in social science research, cutting-edge data collected from nearly 1,500 women, and through 186 first-person interviews, this book reveals how trailblazing women have disrupted the traditional career paradigm. What worked for them can work for you. In this book, you'll learn: Who pauses, how they do it, and why How pausing can enrich both your career and your life How to innovate your own nonlinear career path What we can—and need—to do as a society to make it possible for more people to achieve their personal and professional goals Work PAUSE Thrive also reveals new and exciting trends in the workplace and offers targeted solutions for companies to help ensure they have cultures that will enable you to lead the life you want, a life in which you can build both a career and a family, and ultimately your own version of a life well lived.

Feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or stuck? Discover the power of the pause. Sometimes life throws you for a loop. You’re stressed out at your job; you’re torn between work and family; your motivation and productivity are taking a nosedive. Your impulse might be to lean in and tough it out, but what you may really need to do is take a step back. Reassess your life with a clear head and dive back in with purpose and poise. In this enlightening book, Rachael O’Meara guides you through the steps of your own pause journey: - The signs that you’re in need of a meaningful break - Planning your optimal pause—whether it’s as short as a day or as long as an epic journey - Reentering the world with renewed clarity and purpose. Incorporating the latest findings from psychology and neuroscience and peppered with inspiring stories of successful pauses, this book will show you that the fastest way to happiness is to slow down. Whether you pause by taking a five-minute walk outside, spending a day unplugged from digital devices, or taking a few weeks off to yourself, Pause will give you the tools to find what “lights you up” and the ability to lead the most satisfying and fulfilling life you choose. As seen in The Washington Post.

Back to Business makes returning to the workforce accessible for anyone who believes that finding a decent job after taking a career break is impossible. When on the hunt for a job, make sure your LinkedIn profile is just as polished and updated as your resume. If you aren’t getting responses from recruiters, chances are your profile is missing pertinent keywords that bots aren’t selecting. In addition, dress codes have changed too, so you’ll need to know new technologies such as Slack and Google+ Hangouts. If you have no idea what any of this means, YOU’RE NOT ALONE. You’re one of the forty-five percent of women who, after taking a career break, quickly discovered that the job search has changed rapidly in the last decade. With new modes of communication, rules of discoverability and expectations, this book lays out a clear path for anyone ready to re-enter the workforce. Getting started is much easier when you know what the first step should be. In Back to Business, career coaching and re-entry experts Nancy McSharry Jensen and Sarah Duenwald, have put together a guide for women returning to the workplace. Practical and easy to understand, Back to Business teaches you how to: Identify and talk about what you want. Understand your personal brand and how your skills translate to your new career. Become professionally relevant and gain confidence in returning to the workforce. Look for job opportunities while being productive and intentional with your time. Nancy and Sarah understand through first-hand experience the anxiety of returning to work. They have helped hundreds of women facing the job search process to overcome the anxiety of what is often overwhelming life change.

A guide for individuals and organizations navigating the complex and ambiguous Future of Work Foreword by New York Times columnist and best-selling author Thomas L. Friedman Technology is changing work as we know it. Cultural norms are undergoing tectonic shifts. A global pandemic proves that we are inextricably connected whether we choose to be or not. So much change, so quickly, is disorienting. It's undermining our sense of identity and challenging our ability to adapt. But where so many see these changes as threatening, Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley see the opportunity to open the flood gates of human potential—if we can change the way we think about work and leadership. They have dedicated the last 5 years to understanding how technical, business, and cultural shifts affecting the workplace have brought us to this crossroads, The result is a powerful and practical guide to the future of work for leaders and employees. The future can be better, but only if we let go of our attachment to our traditional (and disappearing) ideas about careers, and what a "good job" looks like. Blending wisdom from interviews with hundreds of executives, The Adaptation Advantage explains the profound changes happening in the world of work and posits the solution: new ways to think about careers that detach our sense of pride and personal identity from our job title, and connect it to our sense of purpose. Activating purpose, the authors suggest, will inherently motivate learning, engagement, empowerment, and lead to new forms of pride and identity throughout the workforce. Only when we let go of our rigid career identities can we embrace and appreciate the joys of learning and adapting to new realities—and help our organizations do the same. Of course, making this transition is hard. It requires leaders who can attract and motivate cognitively diverse teams fueled by a strong sense of purpose in an environment of psychological safety—despite fierce competition and external pressures. Adapting to the future of work has always called for strong leadership. Now, as a pandemic disrupts so many aspects of work, adapting is a leadership imperative. The Adaptation Advantage is an essential guide to help leaders meet that challenge.

Indispensable: How To Succeed At Your First Job and Beyond is the young employee’s guide to excelling in a new job. This is the advice you wish a mentor gave you Day One.

We live and lead in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. But paradoxically, Kevin Cashman contends that leaders today must not merely act more quickly but pause more deeply. He details a catalytic process to guide you to step back in order to lead forward in three critical growth areas: personal leadership, development of others, and fostering of cultures of innovation. You and your organization will learn to move from management speed and transaction to leadership significance and transformation.

Do you feel frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed as a parent? Here is an inspiring guide to help parents move from the often overwhelming anxiety that raising children guarantees to the steadying power of calm connection so they can enjoy strong, healthy relationships with their children. You CAN feel calmer, more confident, and truly connected with your child! Raising children can leave you exhausted and emotionally spent...and with the guidance of PAUSE-from the author's thoughtful insight and encouraging stories to the do-able action steps-a parent can feel the positive and relationship-building difference practicing "pause" brings. PAUSE helps you look for the anxiety provoking moments that invade your daily life and respond to them with the calm confidence and clarity you need in order to help your children truly learn and grow in healthy ways. PAUSE goes further to help you feel the calm connection in all areas of your life-truly helping you and your family to thrive. As with her first book, Parenting Inspired, Alice Hanscam has designed her work to leave all readers feeling supported, encouraged, and empowered to parent and live well.