The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is officially a global pandemic. In a matter of days, employers implemented no conference policies, then no travel policies, and now flexible work from home (WFH) arrangements. If you’re an office worker who suddenly finds yourself a WFH employee for the foreseeable future, the change can be daunting. I know because I transitioned from a full-time office position to a full-time remote position over two-and-a-half years ago. Here’s how to transition to WFH like a pro.

We returned from a family vacation earlier this week and I’ve been thinking about gratitude a lot. As in, how grateful I am to be able to take a trip to sunny southern California in the dead of winter and disconnect from work to focus on quality family time. I also got to thinking that it shouldn’t take a cross-country trip for me to feel gratitude for my life.

I’ve been writing a lot of emails over the last week to spread the word about a women’s leadership summit that I’m co-chairing next month. The emails contain personalized messages to each recipient and then explain the basics about the event. It’s my habit to quickly scan each email before pressing “Send.” After all, spell check doesn’t pick up on some grammatical errors or other mistakes. Case in point: my unfortunate use of the word “just” when starting the email. Yikes.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude at the amount of friends, colleagues, former colleagues, acquaintances, and strangers who reached out to congratulate me on launching this site. Thank you! I had some great exchanges with many of you and am really humbled by the encouragement and support.

If you know me, you're probably chuckling at this title. If you don't know me, suffice it to say that I have a lot of curly hair. At the outset of my career, I worried about whether I would be taken seriously or look professional with such big, curly hair. But as I started working, I realized that what I was so insecure about was actually vital to my self-confidence. I needed to be “me” to be authentic, and in turn, confident.

I recently presented keys to success at a law firm as part of the Women’s Leadership Committee’s programming. These tips are things I learned along the way during my career, things I saw others doing, or things that I wish I had done differently or better while in practice since hindsight is 20/20.

When I was in high school, I wrote a column called "On Marino's Mind." The topics ranged from taking my driver's test to the vocabulary of the cast of Dawson's Creek. I thought I would be a writer. Then, I joined the mock trial team. That was it. I decided to become a lawyer.