'I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.'
 -To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

'Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.'
-Helen Keller

In this business, I spend a lot of time coaching people to overlook their fears and get started doing the things that they desperately wish to do. That seems counter-intuitive, no? People come to me to achieve certain goals, I give them a strategy, they get excited...and then the Fear takes over, and I have to spend a lot of time coaching/supporting/nagging/kicking ass to get them to leap-frog their fears so they can achieve their potential. But Fear doesn't have to make sense, it has fear going for it. 

The problem, of course, is that fear is greedy: it wants all of you. So if you avoid doing the little things that scare you, hoping to make some kind of "deal" with fear...yeah, the only deal you've made is a deal to lose. Because once you start giving up, fear wins and fear, that self-aggrandizing bitch, likes to savor her triumphs, which she does by making everything else in your life equally fearful and hard. 

So, for example, say you've always wanted to act, but since you don't like your body, since you're (understandably) afraid of being made fun of, since you're not comfortable with yourself...well, you don't take acting classes, you don't join a glee club, you do nothing and you let fear win. The problem isn't that you simply gave up on acting...you're now more likely to give up on everything acting could have brought into your life.

You're now more likely to give up on taking care of your body, to give up on going to the gym and to give up on loving yourself. So then, if you don't like yourself, if you don't think you're talented...now it's much easier to give up on figuring out whom you really are, on what's important to you, on living your potential, right? Now you're more likely to start giving up on a lot of other (emotionally-related) opportunities regarding life, love and the pursuit of  your happiness. Does that sound far-fetched? It shouldn't. In your mind (i.e. your life), everything is connected. You have to believe it to build it, right?

We don't get to pick and choose what we're afraid of, but we do get to choose what we remain afraid of. So, let's say that you get bored hating yourself and decide that, Yahweh help us, what this world needs is more actors*so you take some acting classes, do some community theater...and you start getting that ole confidence up and thriving. And that confidence makes you go to the gym, makes you start eating better, makes you start wanting to take care of your (talented) body. This confidence becomes infectious. And you start seeing the world as full of opportunities, instead of restrictions. You've got Fear on the run, don't stop now! #gospeedracergo!

I, for example, moved to Moscow after I graduated Wellesley College, because of a Russian boy I was dating, and I was also curious to see if I could make a life in a foreign country. (Short answer: Yes...if I learned how to drink all night, while eating more picked foods than I thought humanly possible.) Now, I had already spent my junior year of college in a lovely small town up in the north of Russia....but this was different. Now I was, somehow, going to have to get a job.

Oy. I can't even tell you had many nights, before I left, were spent tossing and turning in my bed, sick to my stomach with melodramatic fears of failure, whining piteously. My poor dog started sleeping on the sofa, since my angst was keeping her awake. I have, as you may have guessed, a rather over-active imagination and so I foresaw all the many, many ways I was going to  end up staring in my own version of "Midnight Express."

Needless to say...none of that happened. I went to Russia, ended up working for NBC News' Moscow Bureau, adopted some (spoiled) cats, dumped the boy...and had some pretty fantastic years, working and living in Mother Russia.

Now. I'm not writing this to suggest you, at home, should move to Russia, or adopt several cats, or even perform dinner theater. (Well...I would never say that adopting cats is a waste of one's life. Let me be perfectly clear on that point.) But I am strongly suggesting that you do the thing(s) you're most terrified of...since more than likely, the scenario you've envisioned in your over-heated little brain is the direct opposite of what is likely to happen.
And honestly: doing what terrifies you, can only open up your life. It is, in fact, likely to bring you into contact with the people and experiences you may only have dreamed about.  And really: life is a lot more fun lived with opportunities than with restrictions, no?

'You must do the things you think you cannot.' -Eleanor Roosevelt

Want some help telling fear to piss off? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com!



*...and seriously, since Bradley Cooper destroyed his hawt...might as well. That's a damn shame.

Despite all efforts to the contrary, August has arrived. August, the dog days of summer, when it’s time for students to start thinking about going back to school. Oh, the poor dears. (Still, it beats working, right?) So, with the thought of college and keggers looming, I’m just going to go out on a limb here and give college students some free advice: N-E-T-O-W-O-R-K! Network to gain contacts, who will help you gain access to the jobs you are interested in. Network to gain entry to internships and part-time jobs at which you will have the opportunity to learn something about your chosen field, and what skills/experience they require. Network to gain said skills and experience.

Your prestigious school is lovely, good grades never hurt, but if you would like to graduate and not have to move back in with your parents (who, let’s be frank, kinda suck as roommates); if you would actually like to have a chance to use your degree, you absolutely, without fail, must network your path to employment. Some of you are rolling your eyes at me, because um, Carlota, what’s this fancy degree I’m about to get…chicken liver?

Listen, I love my purty Wellesley College degree too, and it’s framed, and it never fails to impress the super whenever he comes over to 1) fix stuff and 2) try to set me up with a nice Colombian friend of his and yet: if I don’t network, and more importantly, demonstrate to potential clients why it is worth their time to hire me and give me their hard-earned money, that degree ain’t paying the rent. (Same with the law degree, by the way: fancy, quite large, tends to impress my dates… but  unless I can use it as a means to differentiate myself to clients, and demonstrate my value…well, then it’s just a very large framed piece of paper.) Some of you are also thinking, um, weren’t you a history major, AKA unemployable? You are correct, son…and I got my first job at NBC News in Moscow, Russia because of luck, timing and networking. That was way back in the ‘90s, when the job market—even in Mother Russia, fer Chrissake—was cooking.  NBC hired me, gave me the keys to the office and started throwing money at me. (True story: my neighbors, in my slum Moscow neighborhood, were pretty sure my boyfriend and I were members of the Mob. They gave us a very wide berth. Ahh, good times. I could have probably ended up running some miscellaneous republic of the Former Soviet Union, had I just been more focused.)

Today…well, not so much. Today, you must think from the POV of a potential employer: you just graduated college. So if you are hired, the employer has to spend time and money (valuable company resources!) training you to make you profitable to the company. Now: why is the employer going to do that? Because you went to her alma mater? In an economy that’s creating jobs like popcorn, perhaps…in this one? Um.

But: what if you could demonstrate to that employer, not only did you attend, for example, her alma mater, but you held relevant internships and summer jobs, you gained relevant, cutting-edge skills, and you bring with you contacts that can add profitability to the business? That’s a lot of work, right? Right! But you can do this. You can start to network, and to view internships and summer and part-time jobs all as ways to gain further value and profitability in whatever field you are interested in. You can do this…and you must. You went to college, I presume, to broaden your mind, and gain the educational tools necessary to benefit your entire life, right? Right. (You also went to hit it, I know, I know, but let’s stay on message here.)

 I fell into TV news when it was still worth the network’s while to train me in the daily logistics of putting news on the air; the value I added was fluency in Russian, as well as a deep understanding of the country, its culture, history and politics.

Today, that value wouldn’t be enough. I was very lucky, determined, hard-working, ambitious…but lucky. Today, you have to make your own luck.

(P.S.: you can do this!)