Blog
How Can I Help You?
Claire here. You're on my blog, ClaireDiazOrtiz.com, where I write things. Good things, bad things, things in the middle between bad and good. Today, I'm writing to ask you a kinda weird thing. Here goes. What do you need? Yup. Is there a way that I can help you? I'm...
What the Most Successful People Do at Work
Laura Vanderkam has done it again. Vanderkam, author of books like 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think, has become a feature in my email inbox ever since I read ones of her books for the first time and started emailing her incessantly. (I tend to do that. I'm...
Where Do You Have Excess?
We all excess in our lives, and yesterday a smart man made me remember this fact. This week, I had another amazing time at Catalyst, a great leadership conference that takes place a few times a year in various cities. While in Orange County for the event, I got to...
This Week in the World (Links)
This week, I breathed the California air. (And had a lovely, inspiring time at Catalyst West.) I finished some books, including My Life in France, which I loved. Chronicling the Julia Child early years, it made me obsessed with her, and I now want to get every book I...
It’s Time to Be a Catalyst Leader
Are you a leader? Want to be? Listen up. Some of you may be familiar with Catalyst. A massive, massive(ly) successful leadership conference that happens a handful of times every year. It's been going on for 14 years, and it's a movement. A big one. I've been...
This Week in the World (Links)
This week, I flew on some planes. I ate a lot of chicken. I read a wonderful book, Give me the World, about Leila Hadley, a New York socialite-cum-travel writer who wrote a book about her year in the world with the six-year old son during the 1950s. One of the best...
Why I Don’t Read (Many) Novels
I read a lot. This week I finished my 63rd book of 2013, meaning I'm well on my way accomplishing my 150-book annual goal by New Year's Eve. That said, I don't read a lot of novels. Last year, I can count on ten fingers the number of novels I read among the 150 books...
50 Ways to Say No
I'm learning to say no. Heck, anyone who's word of the year is REST better start getting better at it, right? In attempts to practice my NO muscle, I pulled together a list of 50 ways to go about saying the dirty word. The important part about NO? It should be:...
This Week in the World (Links)
This week, I watched Lincoln. A good movie, if long. I drank Kombucha, which I love, but realized how important it is that it is cold. Ice cold. I read some more books, and particularly liked Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv and...
What I Will Say to My Daughter About Endings
"It's not over. It's beginning." At least this is what I will tell her when she sighs about something ending. The kindergarten school-year, say, coming to a close. "But it's all so over..." She will moan. Small hand in mine. Walking away from the building I will walk...
What Happens When You Don’t Rest
I'm back, with another post on rest. (It is my word of the year, after all.) I have been talking a lot lately about the effects of not resting, and what it means to not give your body the important rest that it needs in order to accomplish all those big, bold things...
How to Waste Time Well
I'm not always good at wasting time. When I don't try, I can be found some Saturdays lying on a couch somewhere watching a delightfully nonsensical reality television program as the hours tick by into night. Although this works on occasion to provide true relaxation...
Is Your Goal Right for You?
I set goals each year, and although I don't type them all out for readers (to both not bore you to tears, and to keep some privacy), I do share some of those goals (like the number of books I aim to read each year: 150). Slowly but surely, I'm hitting a few of my...
What Night Owls and Morning People Can Teach Each Other
Last week, I wrote a post over at my LinkedIn blog that went viral. Entitled, Why You Should Try to Be A Morning Person, it told you -- well -- why you should try to be a morning person. (The title was vague, I know!) In a few days, over 150,000 folks read it, and I...
Five Keys to (My) Perfect Workspace
Last month I was part of a great series over in the LinkedIn influencer blogs (yes, I have a blog over there) about the perfect workspace. Called, Where 50 Influencers Work, the piece focuses on images of workspaces (like mine, above) and then asks folks to share...