“So what did that just open up for you?” – Personal mantra Like most entrepreneurs I have mixed emotions about the parts of public relations that focus on me. I’m not shy, and admittedly seeing my words published and quoted in the world’s top outlets can be heady stuff. Personal branding is powerful.

(Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) The actor Matt Damon appeared on The Tonight Show a few weeks ago to promote a new movie. He wore a nicely tailored dark suit, vest, and tie. For another interview earlier the same day, Damon dressed more casually in a V-neck sweater. Damon dresses appropriately for the ‘culture’ of the show.

How do you generate leads for your business? Do you buy them? Let them come to you? Kidnap them? (Free tip: no!) Or do you approach lead generation with a thoughtful and proven strategy? If you have been struggling to generate leads for your business, don’t worry. I have been there. I know the struggle. I know how hard it can be to build up a list of potential customers who actually want and need your product. Which is why I am uniquely suited to help you overcome this problem.

Shutterstock Over two decades of working with clients to develop thought leadership, speeches, books, brands, and thriving online communities, we’ve come up with a lot of ideas. And I’m often asked how we do it. My response is always, “We ask more questions in a day than your significant other will in a lifetime.” That’s an exaggeration. But the process is not mysterious.

Dear Liz, I am not sure how to handle a situation that is brewing in my department. I’m the Supervisor of a fourteen-person team with extremely low turnover. We hire people carefully and they tend to stay with our group for a long time. Our second-most-recent hire is “Angie.” She is a smart person, always polite, on time and professional. The problem is that Angie is negative.

Shutterstock What financial decisions did you make during your first working year after college that still make you cringe? I was talking to a group of young graduates and cringed as I listened to their conversations. They talked about how they were trying to get the highest paying job, move to the coolest city, and buy the best car. I told them that how they make these decision will be the foundation of either the success or demise of their finances.

Shutterstock With the summer coming to the end, many people are taking advantage of the last days of vacation. However, those of us who work in either career services or college/university relations areas are already ramping up for what promises to be an exciting and robust recruiting season.

I wish I had known when I was younger that not everybody would appreciate my brand of jazz. I spent trillions of brain and heart cells trying to please people who would never be pleased by anything I had to offer them. They just weren’t into me, and that’s fine. Not everyone will get you, either! You could easily end up working for a manager who doesn’t see your talents — or who sees them all too well, and is intimidated by your abilities. That is not a rare occurrence.

When you get a job offer, it’s a wonderful thing. You think “Now my problems are over! I can pay the rent this month with no problem and pay off my debt. I’m saved!” Because it’s so appealing to get out of a financial jam and because the stress of a job search is so wearing, it’s easy to take a job offer that you should have passed up.

Abraham Maslow once wrote, “It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement,” but I contend team members ought to try to prove Maslow wrong. Aldous Huxley perhaps provided a positive antidote, when he wrote, “Knowing who in fact we are results in Good Being, and Good Being results in the most appropriate kind of good doing.