I spent this past weekend networking with old friends. Translation: I spent the weekend eating and drinking margaritas with friends, and in the midst of that I "casually" mentioned my business and how the services I offer might be useful to my friends, or their friends or their...etc. Of course, if the IRS asks, I was working. But honestly, I was working: I was talking with friends, and alerting them to the things I do in my professional life and reminding them how those services might apply to them. I was also gossiping. But that was a freebie.
So, I had a lot of fun. But I'm writing about this because so many people seem to think networking is tedious. That it's an onerous experience. Really? Add some margaritas to it and networking's pretty awesome. And by "so many people," I mean men. This is a huge generalization, but so many men seem to see networking as begging people for favors, and therefore demeaning. Really?
For example: I dated a boy a few years ago, very all-American, broke (Oh, of course. Come on...what would I be doing with a boy with a job...?), who could talk to anyone. At one point, he convinced the Time-Warner cable rep to give him a free month, and some free HD sports channels...despite the minor detail of him not having paid his bill for the past 5 months. They had discussed football, and the rep felt bad that my boy was possibly going to miss the season due to a little thing like not having paid his bill. Yes, you're right: it was unbelievable. Meanwhile, this is the same guy, who, when taken to a party to meet an individual who could have put him on the path towards a great career...showed up wasted, unshaven, filthy. Several days later, finally sober, he shrugged and said, "Baby, I just hate to network; it's stupid." Oh.
He absolutely refused to accept that his conversation with the cable representative was a form of networking. In his opinion, networking only happened with people engaged in the same type of business. In office cubicles. In midtown, somewhere. (Yes, in case you're wondering: this boy was indeed fine as hell. Why else would I be dealing with that level of insanity? He made my vagina very happy. She was a big fan.)
Now, obviously, this boy was an extreme example...and there are many, many men who are amazing at networking. But there are many men, and women, who still believe networking can only take one form, or that there are only certain people with whom it's useful to network. There's people out there, wasting their own time when they could be meeting other people. Alas.

Want more advice about networking? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com! 

Russian Lessons

Maybe I'm writing this today for all the talented procasturbators out there who still have plenty of time, plenty of time, come on, don't freak out, baby, relax, before the IRS's midnight deadline and who'd therefore like something fun to read in the meantime...but last night I was thinking about our tendency as a species to negatively compare ourselves to those we admire..and how dangerous it is. I blame Facebook. Partly because it's easier, and partly because you go on Facebook, and you see all these other people promoting this perfect version of their lives, and you start thinking,"...so wtf happened to me?!!"
Nothing. Relax. Those people are just like you, I promise you, they're just better at playing the game.
This happens to me all the time. I have clients who suggest that since I'm successful (...or something) now, well, clearly I don't know how hard it is to get started, and they could never be like me and I don't appreciate how hard things are for them, gawd! Simma down...
Listen, I know EVERYTHING about how brutally hard it is to get started--I was a history major with a law degree, remember?--and who's saying you should be like me? (Do we really need two of me? Git yer mind out of the gutter and don't answer that.) I'm saying you should be more like you...and stop comparing yourself to anyone else.
Comparing yourself to someone already engaged in something you're interested in, is like thinking you'd like to learn Russian, and then watching a movie, for example, in Russian and deciding, "Wow, that's a hard language...no way I could ever be as good as those guys. I better not..." Yeah, especially because the people in the film are probably native speakers who grew up in Russia, speaking Russia! Sweet fancy Moses.
I'm cranky because I hear this defeatist attitude all the time. All. The. Time! And what's the point? Now you just shot yourself down and decided not to try something you might have loved! (Irritating.)
Instead, what if you studied Russian, made mistakes, had an atrocious accent and made Russians giggle...what if, right? I did and guess what? Eventually I became "fluent" in Russian. I could study, work and live in Russia, and Russians would ask, "Hmm, your Russian is so good...what part of Armenia are you from?" The part known as the Upper West Side?
If you compare yourself to someone already engaged in an activity, or whatever it is you're interested in, you will always lose. And you'll get discouraged. And you'll assume you won't be able to achieve what someone else did..and eventually, you'll end up giving yourself permission to not do it. And then, you really will lose.
True story: I spent my junior year of college in Petrozavodsk, Russia. To say my Russian was "bad" is truly a generous understatement. People would ask me the time and I'd have to mentally dissect the sentence. One time my landlady's grandchildren laughed at me because I couldn't understand what she wanted me to do. Laughed at me for hours. (Good memory!) What she wanted me to do was the laundry. Sigh.
I used to go to sleep exhausted every night from the strain of trying to understand what the hell everyone around me was saying. It was exactly as much relaxing fun as you'd suspect.
And then, after about 6 months, I was at a party, and a Russian friend told a hilarious joke...and I got it. I got it as she said it! I thought that was the funniest joke ever, I thought my friend was brilliant...all the vodka, beer, cherry brandy, apricot brandy, more vodka, Georgian wine and even more vodka probably didn't hurt. (What? Oh, all the alcohol? Come on: it was Tuesday.)
My point being: Russians love to party and eat pickled mushrooms and are very talented at telling hilariously malicious jokes.
Also: I never would have learned the language if I had accepted at the outset how horrible I was at speaking it. And by "horrible," I mean, saying things like, "Me to walk to market to buy to eat...to chicken?" (On the other hand, I had a remarkable natural fluency in Russian profanity...which got me yelled at a lot by my Russian landlady, Yulia. Then, on her birthday, she and I shared a pan of friend potatoes and 2 bottles of vodka and we became BFF. Her 70th birthday, by the way.)
But learning Russian, and living in Russia, gave me so much! I wouldn't trade those experiences, good and bad, for anything. I didn't just learn a language, or experience a different culture...I learned some amazing stuff about myself. (Whoa...when did this suddenly become an ABC Afterschool Special...?)
And when people compare themselves, and find themselves lacking...they're losing so much more than they know....
And when you're ready to stop comparing yourself, email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com!

Stupid People

I admit that I'm writing this on about 3 hours of sleep last night, since I was working and then I, for some bizarre reason, decided to "relax" by watching a psychological thriller, Session 9. Then, I had to call the IRS this am--don't ask, but no I shan't soon be writing a great book in prison, or eating a lot of carbs and doing one-armed push-ups, or dating some broad who is a big fan of Gertrude Stein--so I am not at my most wide awake.
But here's something else that kept me up last night, besides one of the cats, frantically grooming me at 3am, in order to get me to give him kibble: the case of former Harvard student Brittany Smith, who this past Friday plead guilty in connection with the 2009 shooting of Justin Cosby, another Harvard student.
So. Ms. Smith helped the shooters, whom she knew were going to rob Mr. Cosby, a drug dealer. She helped the shooters gain access to the dorm, then after the shooting, she hid the gun. She then helped the killers travel to NYC. One of the shooters, by the way, was her boyfriend: true love! She lied to the police, lied to the prosecutor and grand jury, on Friday was sentenced to three years and a day. She showed no remorse. She came within weeks of graduating Harvard, before she was barred from graduating. (Fun fact: of course Brittany, prior to all this, had planned to attend law school...)
That right there is some serious low-rent Greek tragedy...scholarship girl comes from Harlem to Harvard...and ends up a convicted felon. I'm irritated that while at Harvard, fer chrissake, Brittany had nothing better to do, no cultural events, or exciting classes to attend, or different people to meet...no, she was running with the same thugs she knew in Harlem. Pathetic.
I'm irritated that not only is Justin Cosby dead...but Brittany wasted her own life, and that of her parents and all the teachers and friends and supporters who helped her go to Harvard. She didn't get to Harvard on her own; she let down a lot of people. I'm irritated that she could be a Harvard grad right now, giving benefit to the world and herself...and instead she just spent her first weekend, first of many, many more, behind bars.