Check out the latest talks, interviews, and articles from Megan Bruneau. For hundreds more, check out her author pages on Huffington Post, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, Thrillist, Thought Catalog, Gaia, Entrepreneur, Verily and Quartz.
Believe what you want in the conversation around Miki Agrawal‘s leadership, but there’s no denying she’s an expert in resilience. Known for taboo industry innovation, controversial subway ads, and a publicly challenging departure from her role as CEO of THINX, she’s appropriately titled her second upcoming book, ‘Disrupt-Her.’
Read More“You know if your leg is broken,” Bobby Kim assures me with a laugh in the opening moments of our interview for The Failure Factor. He recounts how he recently “hit an edge skate[board]ing in the half bowl” behind his company’s California headquarters.
I cringe – flashing back to my own experiences with broken bones – yet I can’t help but feel slightly heart-warmed the founder is still embodying the culture his streetwear line was built around fourteen years ago. Since then, The Hundreds has become a worldwide brand, worn by celebrities Kanye West and Justin Bieber
In my 20’s, I hoped the proverbial “baby clock” just hadn’t kicked in. I’d always felt ambivalent about having kids, and this awareness was disconcerting for me. Not yearning to one day be a parent as my friends and clients did left me questioning my makeup – and my worth. So I desperately hoped something would shift inside of me. Life is seemingly easier when we want the things we’re “supposed” to.
But said “clock” has yet to turn on, and despite my extensive training in psychology and my non-conformist mindset, I still feel ashamed of my ambivalence at times. Logically I know there’s nothing wrong with me, and voluntary childlessness is on the rise; emotionally, though, I fear others will perceive me as cold, less attractive, or “flawed.”
Read MoreYesterday I returned from flying across the country to visit a dude I met for a few hours in Vegas. It was…less than ideal (shocker!); but hey, I think life is a collection of experiences and one day these’ll all go in a book. And today, as I sit with an oh-so-familiar hangover of disappointment, rejection, and shame, I call on the resources that keep me resilient in the face of #feelz
Read MoreDanielle LaPorte has mastered the art of building and scaling one’s personal brand: The inspirational speaker, writer, and entrepreneur created a top-ten iTunes app, a yearly planner system, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries from one of her bestsellers. Her site, which offers everything from content to candles, draws millions of viewers each month and brings in more than $4 million in revenue each year. And most recently, she’s released her third book, White Hot Truth – which is a refreshingly amusing beacon of spiritual wisdom (and humor) in a fog of oftentimes redundant, impractical self-help reads
Read MoreLauren Berlingeri and Katie Kaps have made it their mission to help people “get high” – but it’s not what it sounds. The team birthed HigherDOSE, the company that’s making infrared saunas mainstream (“DOSE” stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins).
In our interview for The Failure Factor, the women explain how they originally intended to install infrared heating systems in yoga studios – without much success: “We started presenting to investors without really having any data to back up how it would work, or any proof that New Yorkers would like that sort of thing.” Kaps explains. “The best advice we got from investors was ‘prove out the concept.'”
Read MoreIn my mission to help women follow their dreams, I interviewed Wendy Sachs, Author of Fearless and Free: How Smart Women Pivot–And Relaunch Their Careers. Revealing confidently she’s been fired more than once, Sachs dubs herself the “master of the career pivot:” She’s an Emmy-award winning TV news producer who’s worked at Dateline, NBC, Fox, and CNN; yet she’s also held titles of Capitol Hill press secretary, public relations executive, media and content strategist, CNN contributor, and editor-in-chief
Read MoreMy dad was a criminal lawyer for 43 years. He spent Monday through Friday between court and the office, escaping every Friday in summer to the lake, and every Friday in winter to the mountain. This highly privileged life (by most accounts) is traditionally appealing, but I feel panicked at the thought of replicating it.
The bust-your-ass-for-five, enjoy-life-for-two routine served my dad for those 43 years, as a similar version may have served your parents. Still heavily influenced by their parents’ trauma from the Great Depression and WWII, our parents sought the safety and security that accompanies a respectable profession such as law
For many women — especially those who have bumped into a glass ceiling or two — the possibility of electing America’s first female president fueled their dreams and drive for a more equal workplace and world for women. But for these women, what began as a hope and excitement-filled Tuesday quickly transformed into emotions including heartbreak, disbelief, confusion, and anger.
And as the shock wears off, so many of us wonder, ”What now?” How do we maintain heart and continue the fight when all that was shattered was hope? How do we cope with anxiety surrounding the future?
Read MoreAs a woman who’s deeply fulfilled by your career, your days are peppered with inspiration and gratitude. But there are times when your meaningful path is punctuated by pain. Here are five challenges that come along with being a woman who chooses to follow her career dreams:
You will feel judged.
When you prioritize work. When you’re assertive. When you travel alone. When you give your opinion.
Some people will attribute your success to your sexuality. Some people will accuse you of “never being satisfied.” You’ll try to explain to them it’s not the outcome that drives you, but the process . They’ll raise their eyebrows anyway. You’ll realize you can’t please everyone, which will be both defeating and liberating. You’ll give less f*cks what people think, which will both empower and concern you
Read More“I just want to feel more confident” is a request I’ve heard from countless clients over the years. They’ve tried positive thinking, affirmations, and “faking it ’til [they] make it” (spoiler alert: they didn’t “make it”). Yet here they are, in my office (or these days, on my computer screen), frustrated that they haven’t achieved the confidence they’ve been told they ought to have.
Their “low self-confidence” can manifest as social anxiety, performance anxiety, test anxiety, generalized anxiety, perfectionism, passivity and passive-aggressiveness, eating disorders and negative body image, depression, and addiction. It can create challenges in our relationships (insecurity, continued reassurance-seeking, poor communication), keep us from ever getting into a relationship, and hold us back from career success (for example, not apply for positions we believe we’re “not good enough” for, underselling ourselves to our peers and superiors, or experiencing crippling anxiety in interviews and meetings).
Read MoreA certain degree of social anxiety is completely normal--even helpful. The fear of rejection or negative judgment is evolutionary: In caveperson days, rejection could mean ostracization from the pack--which meant little chance for survival or procreation. But there's a difference between wanting to be accepted, and fearing rejection so much we avoid any setting where there's a possibility of judgment (which, masochistically, is usually our own judgment toward ourselves, not someone else's).
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