Harvard MBA. Fluent in Spanish, German, and French (plus a little Dari). Expert multi-tasker as deputy director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy program, contributing editor-at-large for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and mom to a 10-month-old baby. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a woman who got up at 4 a.m. to squeeze writing a (NY Times bestselling) book around a full-time job and actually conducted an interview for a Newsweek story from the hospital when her baby was five days old. She’s driven by some wise words her cousin once told her. “He said, ‘Changing your life is supposed to be this hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.’ In other words, don’t try to go around the work. You have to go through it,” she says. I caught up with Gayle one morning to learn a few more of her secrets.

I believe in having a plan A, B, and C. You can’t say I’m going to “follow my passion” unless you can also make sure the rent gets paid. I learned this because my mom and aunt were single moms who worked more than one job to make rent.

I try to work out six days a week. It really helped me manage the hormone swings after pregnancy. I do a combination of yoga, dance, and classes at the Tracy Anderson studio.

I recently switched to an iPhone. But I miss my Blackberry keyboard! Now it takes me an hour to send one message.

I’ve been a vegetarian since I was little, to the horror of my family, and try to follow a vegan diet. When I’m traveling [to far-off places], I eat a lot of protein bars, especially Think Thin ones. Afghan food is great. Airplane food is not.

I live by the words of strong women in my family. My mother used to say, “On a scale of major world tragedies, yours isn’t even a three.” Meaning, keep it all in perspective. My aunt would say, “After the dance [i.e., once you make your dream happen], they can’t take it away from you.” And my grandma always encouraged me to take big leaps and not dwell on the downside. She reminded me, “McDonald’s is always hiring.”

To learn more about Gayle, visit her website. And, check out her fantastic TEDx speech here.

I recently was in Budapest, Hungary and was beyond thrilled to find the Hungarian translation of The Go-Getter Girl’s Guide in the gorgeous Alexandra Bookshop. I had my own little Carrie Bradshaw moment (remember when she finds her book in a Paris bookstore?!).

Here’s to all the Hungarian Go-Getter Girls!

Part of the Go-Getter Girl philosophy behind Expanding your Circle is that you never know when and where you’re going to make a meaningful connection with someone new.  For me last week, it was on a flight back to Atlanta from New York.  My neighbor had asked me to give up my beloved aisle seat to sit next to his wife, and I obliged, a little begrudgingly. Then, the woman in the row ahead of me, Iris, kindly offered to let me sit in the empty aisle seat next to her. Turned out she was from Atlanta, a successful businesswoman… and fellow author, too! We chatted about the publishing world, family, cooking (she wrote a cookbook for young adults titled Mama Says, No More Frozen Pizza), traveling, life in general– and the joys of using the new inflight wireless internet. She even Facebook “friended” me at 30,000 feet. Today, she wrote about our fun flight and the book on her blog, Mama Says. Check it out here!

Moral of the story: try to always keep an open mind. It can make life (and traveling) much more fun.

Modern negotiation scholars advocate  getting away from position-based bargaining  in favor of “interest-based” bargaining- that is, trying to find a ‘win-win’ situation by looking at what each party’s interests are. However, as I write in the GGGG, there are some situations in life where interest-based negotiation simply isn’t practical or the norm. One of those is the classic market haggling situation.

Case in point, we were just in Hong Kong, where there’s a pretty standard convention for how the market vendors bargain. First, you ARE expected to haggle. The vendors almost won’t respect you if you don’t. Second, the process is almost completely position-based. She offers a price, by typing the amount in the calculator and showing it to you. You say no, no, no– and type in another price on the calculator and show it back. This goes back and forth, you eventually threaten to and then begin to walk away.  Then the vendor comes down on price, typing a lower price into the calculator. You might ask if she’ll throw in something else (a smidgen of “expanding the pie”/interest-based bargaining here) for the quoted price.  You either come to an agreement or not– and move on to the next vendor, who more or less carries the exact same items!

The reason for the calculator is partly because there is a language barrier– English vs. Cantonese in our case. One savvy merchant at the Jade Market on Kowloon had these printed up cards in English, and she laid down one (in succession, the first card is at top) each time we punched a too low number into the calculator.  We thought this is was ingenious and had to laugh. Who knows if she meant to amuse us, or maybe, that was part of her strategy. Bottom line, she was a seriously shrewd, no-budging position-based bargainer. At her stall, we definitely overpaid for our “jade” tchotchkes– but the experience and photos were it worth it  :)

Sometimes, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in the case of Farahad Zama’s The Marriage Bureau for Rich People, the richly-designed jacket is the perfect embodiment of the delightful story inside. This is the captivating, but understated, story of Mr. Ali, a restless retired government worker who, when his wife becomes fed-up with his meddling in her daily household duties, decides to open a marriage bureau. Add in Mr. Ali’s government-protesting son; the bureau’s assistant Aruna, whose quiet demeanor shields her wise and frustrated soul; and a colorful mix of clients, neighbors, and relatives– and you have a rich kaleidoscope of plots and subplots on the importance of making the “right match.” It is the kind of book that should be read on a summer afternoon,  relaxing on a porch or terrace, as a warm breeze coaxes your transport to modern-day India. 

Peppered with insights on a country still working through complicated issues of class, politics, and religion, the book will feed your appetite for something more substantive than summer fluff.  But at the core, it is a charming romance novel you won’t want to put down.