Press Room

Gail McMeekin, MSW, LICSW is a national expert on careers, creativity, women’s self-expression, and positive life choices. She is a popular radio and television guest and has been quoted frequently in the national media. She is the author of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women and The Power of Positive Choices, both with Conari Press.

About Gail:

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Gail's Biography

Selected Media Quotes

Careers:

April 30, 2009 Appearance on WBZ-TV in Boston on What To Do If you Hate Your Job.

Recent Radio:

Money Matters Radio (part 1), (part 2) August 3, 2010 - The New Workplace.

"Yes, You are Creative, How to Leverage Your Creativity in Your Work and Your Life", September 16, 2009 - The Wise Chick Show on Blog Talk Radio.

Gail's radio interview with Jennifer Hill Rosenault on May 12, 2009 on women and creativity.

"Leverage Your Creativity for Your Business", May 20, 2009 - The Wise Chick Show on Blog Talk Radio.

" In this kind of economy, it’s a good time to think about where you want to go and bolster your credentials and expertise,” says Gail McMeekin, a Boston-based career and creativity coach and author of “The Power of Positive Choices: Adding and Subtracting Your Way to a Great Life” (Conari Press, 2001). “None of us knows how long we’ll be working,”McMeekin said. That’s why now’s a good time to “begin thinking in terms of multiple career options.”
Investor’s Business Daily

“What causes an individual to fail as a manager? Sometimes insufficient training and experience can leave a manager unable to zero in on the most important–and valuable–tasks, says Gail McMeekin...career coach and author of The Power of Positive Choices. Some people are intuitively good managers and will be good in almost any situation,” she says. “Then there are those who didn’t have management training and tend to fall back on a model of a former manager–even if that person was bad at it–because they don’t know anything else.”
AbcNews.com

“There aren’t a lot of reasons to stay at a job that’s really terrible,” McMeekin says. But “that doesn’t mean that you quit tomorrow.” Set a deadline that takes into account your prospects, your savings, level of dissatisfaction, and any other relevant factors. Put yourself in a position where resigning is that smart choice, not a desperate one.”
USAToday Careers Network

Creativity

“The first step: Think of solo time as a necessity, says career coach Gail McMeekin, author of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. If you don’t replenish yourself, you become numb to your own feelings and disconnected from others, “she says. “And your stress level silently builds.”
Redbook

“If you want to be creative, if you want to achieve dreams, then you’d better be ready to take risks–and you’d better be ready to fail once in a while. That’s the message from Gail McMeekin, author of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women(Conari Press). Mistakes are a great teacher, said Ms. McMeekin in Wilmington last week for a book-signing at Books-A-Million, and if we don’t make them, we miss a lot of important lessons.”
Wilmington Morning Star

“There are times when we are empty of ideas, adrift in a sea of ambiguity and nothingness. These times can be labeled the neutral zone, the void, a vacuum, McMeekin wrote. The void often feels like a test. It may be escorted in by job loss, illness, death, betrayal, burnout, disillusionment or other life crises we didn’t sign up for...such passages force us to redesign our internal selves and often produce surprising results.”
Investor’s Business Daily

There is the fear that once you present your work to the world, someone will criticize or not like it,” says Gail McMeekin, author of “The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor.” “But that’s a given! Nothing is going to sing for everyone.”
Lifetime Online

“It’s also useful to find a mentor who can offer guidance when you need it. “Just make sure she allows you to express yourself, rather than dictating that you do things her way,” says McMeekin. “You want to release your creativity, not squash it.”
Woman’s Day

“”Many women think they need to be in the flow all the time”, says Gail McMeekin, the Boston-based author of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women. “If you feel guilty about doing nothing, think about how a garden must rest in the winter. Change your medium (if you’re a wordsmith, paint a picture of an idea) or keep an excitement book where you jot down whatever sparks your energy.”
Redbook

Positive Life Choices

“Gail McMeekin, a social worker with years of experience helping people improve their lives and their health, has written a practical little book, The Power of Positive Choices: Adding and Subtracting Your Way to a Great Life (Conari Press, 2001). She shows you how to consciously choose what’s best for you in the long run while subtracting what’s not working. It’s sure to provide you with some concrete help for taking the steps necessary to change stressful situations in your life.”
Dr. Christiane Northrup’s Health Wisdom for Women

“As we reach our 30's, many of us feel stuck in our lives. “We may believe that once we reach a certain place in life, we stop growing,” says Gail McMeekin, L.I.C.S.W., a career/creativity coach and author of The Power of Positive Choices (Conari Press, 2001). “But each person’s life is actually a work in progress and a journey.”
Shape

“We can’t have it all, do it all, and be it all,”says Gail McMeekin, author of The Power of Positive Choices.”
Redbook

Women’s Self-Expression

“Women are so other-focused that they often neglect their own needs,” says Gail McMeekin, a career coach and author of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women.”
Health.

“Gail McMeekin, a painter and writer in the Boston area, has made counseling people... her specialty. Her book “The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women” has brought her clients from all over the United States. “With women,” she says, “their own creativity often ends up taking last priority after everyone else in the family has been looked after. I help them bring it up near the top.”
Christian Science Monitor

“Women have more freedom than ever before to negotiate with the people around them to get the time and space to write,” McMeekin said.
The Boston Globe