Melanie Castellari

What Other People Think of You Is None of Your Business It doesn’t become your responsibility until you attend to it. Years ago, when I first stepped into an executive management position, I was routinely upset by the fact that some staff members didn’t like me. I know. Shocking. Apparently, becoming a leader did not come with the magical ability to make everyone think I was wonderful. One day, after listening to me struggle with this, a coworker said something that has stuck with me ever...

This morning, I woke up to a group text with a TED Talk by Luvvie Ajayi Jones, author of Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual. The message was about speaking up. Not softly. Not politely. Not in a way that makes everyone else comfortable. It was about speaking your truth, standing in your values, and being willing to yell when whispering is no longer enough. And if you know me, you know I love waking up to messages like that. I love reminder texts. I love phone notes. I love...

My dad asks us the same question on almost every phone call and every face-to-face visit: “Are you happy?” He asks it so often that sometimes we ask him first, before he gets the chance. “Are you happy, Dad?” It has become one of those family things — something we laugh about, something we expect, something that feels so completely him. But the older I get, the more I realize that question is not small. It is not casual. It is not just something he says to fill the silence. It is his way of...