Michelle Goodman

As a child, I had a recurring nightmare that I was being chased by Nazis. It was nighttime in the dream, and I was alone, barefoot, and dressed in thin pajamas.
Once I reached adulthood, I chalked up my childhood nightmares to an overactive imagination and having been raised by anxious, overprotective parents. But the more I learned about epigenetics, the more I wondered if the persecution my Jewish ancestors experienced in Europe and Russia had something to do with it.
My family history is a...

Half way through the year is a good time to reflect on your business performance to date and reset goals for the remainder of the year. Small business owners should consider these strategies gauge mid-year performance.
It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the daily grind of running a company that you skip business performance reviews. But the goals you set for your business at the start of the year won’t do much good if you don’t check whether you’re meeting them.
The year’s midpoint ...

It doesn’t matter if you’re designing coffee mugs or starting a web design boot camp. The sooner you can interact with potential customers to gauge their interest, the better your chances of creating something people will actually want to buy. Here are five ways to ask customers for feedback.

Many small business owners skimp on customer service due to time and financial constraints. This is a mistake. A majority of customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience, and 72% of customers who have a positive shopping experience will tell at least six people about it. Here are seven ways to improve your customer service.

Nothing stirs up professional envy like the start of a fresh year. Understandable, given the tendency of all our online “friends” to publicly recap everything they’ve accomplished in the previous 12 months — and their maddening vows to top that list by summer.

If you’re anything like any other human, you’ve probably experienced a handful of less-than-charitable thoughts toward these oversharing overachievers. After reading all those humbly self-congra...

Small businesses play a leading role in the growth, economic development and personality of their surrounding communities. Besides being a major source of revenue for local governments, they’re a significant contributor to regional employment markets, values and politics.
Below are eight ways small businesses help enrich the districts and neighborhoods in which they operate.
Create local jobs
Small businesses are a massive source of employment. The Small Business Administration (SBA) reports ...

The change of seasons offers a great excuse to organize your workspace. But decluttering your office, Marie Kondo-style, isn’t the only way to improve your efficiency and contentedness at work.
Trimming the unnecessary fat from your workweek can be equally liberating. So can keeping boundary-pushing colleagues and self-defeating habits at bay. Here’s how to do so while still fulfilling your employer’s expectations.

If you’re like most driven freelancers, you probably want to work on more lucrative, rewarding gigs in the coming year. But there’s no need to wait until January to start strategizing.
Now is the perfect time to evaluate your current client list and come up with a game plan to improve it. The sooner you dive into this exercise, the closer you’ll be to your ideal freelance career. Here’s how to get started.

Much has been written about how employees can negotiate telecommuting privileges or remote positions. Same goes for the abundance of advice about how off-site workers can keep their supervisors happy.
But managers also bear some responsibility in ensuring the success of remote-work policies and the employees who use them. If you supervise people who occasionally (or often) work in a different physical location, you need to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Here’s how:
Set expectations. D...

If you're like most online retailers, you probably make a significant chunk of your annual revenue during November and December. In fact, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reports that as much as 30 percent of all retail sales occur during the holiday season.
Of course, brisk sales translate into more work. But that doesn't mean you have to forfeit your personal life until January.
Here are eight tactics and tools to turn your eCommerce business into a well-oiled machine this holiday seaso...

With all this election fever in the air — and all the trepidation people feel about the results we may wake up to on Nov. 7 — it’s inevitable that some political talk will seep into the workplace. If you work at a nonprofit, social advocacy group or government agency, talking politics on the job is probably par for the course. But for the rest of us, talking politics at the office can be a professional landmine.

Following are some suggestions for navigating the current political climate at work.

It’s not even Wednesday afternoon and you’re already exhausted and pining for the weekend. What’s more, you’re not even sure what you’ve accomplished since the week began.
It doesn’t matter if you work for yourself or someone else: without a solid time management strategy, it’s far too easy to let the week slip away from you.
As a long-time writer of workplace and entrepreneurial tips, I’ve spent countless hours reading time management books and interviewing high achievers for silver-bullet p...

Before you register, ask yourself these five questions.
There comes a point in the career of every high-achieving professional where we’re tempted to take a class. I’m not talking about graduate programs, professionally mandated coursework or training needed to change careers. I’m talking about signing up for the evening course, online seminar or weekend intensive that promises to propel you to the next level of your vocation.
I’m certainly no stranger to professional development. And I’d lik...