Photo courtesy of Pexels Welcome to The Salary Chronicles, where we’re bringing transparency to negotiation and salaries, one story at a time. We ask women to share their experiences negotiating their salary and what their advice is for others doing the same. We share these stories anonymously so they feel comfortable speaking as openly and as freely as possible.

Gold medalists Alexandra Raisman, Madison Kocian, Lauren Hernandez, Gabrielle Douglas and Simone Biles of the United States. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images) With the Olympics underway, elite athletes across the world are in an arena that they have likely dreamed about for a lifetime. Imagine the pressure of knowing that your shot comes once every four years. Most will get only one chance to achieve their goals.

Thirty years ago, when I was just starting out as an entrepreneur, the only quality I thought I had in common with other entrepreneurs was that we were all nuts! After all, I was walking away from a perfectly good job as a systems programmer at a major company. It paid well, and I had more than proven myself. But I’d come home at night with an itch for something more. I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to make my own schedule and see my own business ideas come to life.

Life in the modern world has trained young people to write off certain spans of time as wasted. The time we spend sitting in waiting rooms, for example, or the time it takes to drive to work each morning. Sticking to the wasted-time narrative may do more harm than good. Your commute is a great opportunity to mentally prepare yourself for the day ahead and lay the foundation for a better, more productive and overall happier experience.

Shutterstock One of the many reasons I like Twitter is for the unexpected bits of information it gives you about developments in your own field. That was how I felt a couple of days ago when I came across some tweets discussing how 65% of employees would like more feedback than they currently get. Since I sometimes write about feedback (and lack thereof) as an all-too-common management issue, I was interested to see a hard number assigned to a soft subject.

Last Friday, a very interesting deal remained almost unnoticed in the market – and how wrong that was! French banking group BCPE is acquiring German online-bank Fidor. Earlier this quarter, there were two similar news items – Chinese Ant Financial (owner of AliPay e-wallet) was considering taking a 25% stake in German Wirecard (Alibaba denied this information later), while the German fintech-holding FinLeap has launched solarisBank company.

(Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) Do you know what you want to be when you grow up yet? I am constantly evaluating what I really want to be when I “grow up.” Sometimes changing the status quo means starting with yourself. Reader be warned, you are about to take advice from a person who hasn’t had a full-time job in eight years. Who early in post-college life bartended, worked at an airport and bused tables.

How is marketing changing? How is the role for the CMO shifting? And when do marketers seem to matter more (or less)? In discussions with several CMOs, one thing is clear. A lot about the role is changing–from the responsibility to expectations to even influence. In some firms, it bodes well for marketers. In others, it doesn’t.

Shutterstock The dog days of summer are here. Maybe you’re alone in the office and trying to fill the time that your boss and colleagues are at the cottage with some productive thinking or  perhaps you’re basking in the freedom that comes from the ability to duck out at 4:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon without raising eyebrows.

The Spectre 13 “piston-hinge” enables this laptop’s insane thin profile (Photo credit: HP Inc.) In any very competitive market, it is extremely important to have a premium line so that you can have a successful “better” in a “good”- “better”-“best” product lineup. HP Inc.