CategoryLife Advice

Empathy is the Ultimate Superpower

I’m always grateful when someone takes the time to give me advice or constructive criticism as that’s where the real growth lies. A lot of the advice is stuff that is helpful and I end up following. On rare occasions, the advice, while well-meaning, ends up being wrong for us. In this post, I talk about a particular piece of advice I received early on in my career from a PR pro. I...

My Word for 2018 – Process

Sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of the Israeli countryside with a laptop open and a blank Google Doc staring back at me, I can’t help but reflect on all that’s happened in 2017 and think about what I want to accomplish in 2018. While the backdrop may be different, the process has been pretty similar the last 5 years. Every year since 2014, I’ve deliberately set aside some...

The Myth of Work-Life Balance and Why Chasing It is Making You Miserable

I have a tendency to think through and play around with big concepts. I can also be a rebel at times, as I like to turn common ideas that most people hold dear upside. The common belief I’ve been thinking more about lately is the nature of work and life. And, the single most played-out and written about concept – the elusive work/life balance. This idea that we all should strive for...

My Theme for 2017 – Choosing Honey over Vinegar (And Why 2016 Was Actually A Pretty Great Year)

Scrolling through my Facebook news feed over the last week, I saw a ton of people complaining about how crappy this year was. Every single one of them cite the crazy political environment and all the celebrity deaths. Everything points back to news articles and blog posts. The great irony is some of these posts they are linking to aren’t even real. #FakeNewsProbs. But, all of them are...

What I’ve Been Reading: My 11 Favorite Blog Posts From 2016

For the past few years, I wrote a post about my favorite things I’ve read over the last year.  This is something I do leading up to my personal review of everything that happened over the last year. The good, the bad and the things that I want to change for the year ahead. It sums up everything – personal, professional, relationships, travel, health, etc, and helps me set my theme and...

It’s never as simple as “us v. them”

This last week has been eye-opening, challenging and depressing. Like many others, I’ve been trying to process and make sense of what happened. I never realized how much I took for granted freedom in general . . . let alone freedom of speech, religion and the press until I started traveling overseas. Visiting countries where you can’t talk about news and certain topics without fear...

Why is change so scary

If you talk to any startup founder, entrepreneur or Silicon Valley entrepreneur, it is very hard to go more than an hour without hearing the words, “change,” “disruption” or “pivot.” It is kind of a rite of passage to pivot your business to go to a new untapped niche. In many cases, that’s pretty smart. Change is widely accepted in startup culture. Startups are supposed to...

Why It Took Me 26 Years Before I Started Traveling 

Travel plays a major role in my life, but it hasn’t always been this way. I suppressed my desire to travel and experience new places for 26 years. So, what changed? Today, I optimize my life and make a fair amount of sacrifices (think – living fairly minimally and not partying every weekend) so that I can experience new places on a regular basis. It has been the single biggest driver...

3 Life Lessons Learned From Brene Brown’s SXSW Keynote

A photo posted by Jessica Malnik (@jmalnik) on Mar 12, 2016 at 1:15pm PST For those who don’t know, I’m a huge Dr. Brene Brown fan. Two of her books, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong have fundamentally shaped my 20s to date. So when I found out she would be a keynote speaker at SXSW this year, I was more than a little excited. Her keynote definitely didn’t disappoint. This...

My Word For 2016: Mindfulness

What’s your word for 2016? It’s becoming an annual tradition to ask myself this question at the start of each year. Last year’s word was vulnerability.  And the year before were change and resiliency. Looking back, I feel like 2015 was finally the year that I gave myself permission to start living life on my own terms instead of blindly following the scripts that everyone else...