31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 8, 2013

Day 8: Come in Good Faith

If you've been enjoying/tolerating this blog for any length of time, you know that I did indeed go to law school, for all of the wrong reasons(...hmm, doesn't that sound like a horrible country-western song? If some ballad along those lines wins next year's Country Music Awards, I'll 1) laugh till I choke and, 2) sue, sue, sue dammit!). But luckily I have an excellent way of dealing with law school: since graduating in 2007, I've worked diligently to forget as much as possible of what I *cough cough* "learned." And yet...

 And yet, I recently found myself explaining the concept of "eminent domain" to a friend and I was 1) amazed I had remembered anything, 2) outraged with my brain. This is the same brain which has to call all the boys I date "baby," since I can't remember their stupid names after like 5 minutes...but some useless factoid of legal "knowledge" is lodged in my cranium? Irritating. (Right now my brain is humming lyrics to Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" and happy.) 

But one aspect of legal "wisdom," I do believe in, boys and girls, is the concept of coming in "good faith." You don't go to court to play games, or make a stand, or send a message, because that's what Twitter and melodramatic movies are for. You go to court because you have a serious legal issue, or you know, you're Lindsay Hohan and it's Tuesday...ha! (I'm here all week; tip your servers and try the lamb.) 

My point being...if you're trying to make serious changes in your life, big or small (and you cannot have big changes without starting small, sorry.), you absolutely must approach those changes and how you facilitate them in good faith. I frequently have prospective clients who, after getting super excited for my strategies, freak out and start picking holes in everything and making problems. They refuse to do anything because they already can tell nothings going to work. Instead, they fight me on every point. Or rather, they would fight me on every point...but I have no time for haters. Boring people are boring and I have a lot to get accomplished today. 

That to me is the antithesis of good faith: if you're determined to fail, and to tell me in full detail why my ideas won't work--without even trying one, for f**k's sake-- and why you're doomed to fail...well, fine! I guess you are a failure, thanks for making it easier on the rest of us. I'm not, thank Yahweh for all involved, your mom. I'm not here to convince you to make the changes that you yourself are desperate to make. Sorry, but I'm going to treat you like an adult. Irritating, but true. If I wanted kids, I'd be married. So you're going to have to give me and yourself 100 f**king percent. You're going to have to come to me in good faith and say, "I'm going to help you to help me. I'm going to invest in your ideas and myself." Then, like some bad 1980s buddy-cop film...it's on!

I'd love to hear your rants/kvetches/praise/shout-outs (...oh yes, I did!) in the comments section. Or, if you're interested in getting some help with that good faith, email me @carlotazee@gmail.com.

31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 7, 2013

Day 7: Do One Thing Today to Make Tomorrow Easier

AKA start cultivating healthy habits. I write this as a someone who has really made an art form of procrasturbation. Interestingly enough, a habit I started in law school. (#surprisesurprise) Ahh law school: wherein, if you have a paper due at 9am Monday morning...why would you get started before midnight or even 1am? Where's your love of adventure? First of all, you have to catch up on DListed.com; what your friends are posting on Facebook; the apartment needs to be vacuumed... oh there's a ton of sh*t to do whenever a legal writing assignment is due! Eventually, it's 8:52am and you're calculating how long you need to print and drive furiously to the law school, depositing the paper on your prof's desk at 09:01. Smirking. Ahh, good times. #notreally

Of course, in college, when I studied subjects I was actually you know, interested in, I was the kind of nerd who would turn in papers weeks earlier than requested. (I suspect that if I had done that in law school, the professor would have thrown it back at me with a disdainful grunt for actually making him work, when he really wanted to be giving interviews on public radio...or blogging. Not that I'm at all implying that law professors are hideously overpaid for the small amount of work they do. No, not at all.)

Now, as my own boss, I get to do a lot of stuff I love (coaching), and many things I dislike (too many to list), but invariably, when I ignore my own to-do lists, they, also invariably, keep growing till eventually it's 3am and I realize that I'm under the proverbial gun. On the other hand, when I force myself to suck it up and do today the irritating things I wrote in today's to-do list...usually they're not as horrible as I anticipated, and afterwards I feel less guilty and the next day is a lot easier. "Usually."

Thus, on Day #7, my hint to you is to continue working on cultivating health habits and do one thing today which will make tomorrow easier. Whether it's going to the gym, or returning an irritating phone-call, or working on your resume: do it, get it over with and make your life easier. Because the more you do today, the more you'll feel able to do tomorrow. Conversely, the harder you make tomorrow, the harder you'll feel it to be and then forget it. That thinking leads nowhere fast. Eventually you'll be holed up in an underground bunker waiting for the end of the world...but hey, you still won't be a law professor, trying to pretend that learning civil procedure is valuable, so things aren't all bad!

Want some help figuring out which one thing to do today? (I've actively deleted any and all knowledge of civ pro from my brain, so please, don't even bother.) Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com! And feel free to leave any rants, comments, praise in the comments section!

Why not You?

If nothing else, if I could get all my clients/humans everywhere to understand that perfection is one of the biggest time-wasters… I’d be (somewhat) satisfied. And I say this as a former anorexic, so I know all about how damaging the search for perfection can really be. I’m thinking about perfection—and how boring it is—because so frequently I find clients use the ideal of perfection, and conversely, their lack thereof, to stop themselves from starting important things.  These are the same clients who look at me and say something like, “I mean, maybe if I knew as much as you do about business….” And then, inwardly, I sort of grimly chuckle because, once again: I was a history major in college, who then moved to Russia, fell into TV news, did very well, left to go to law school, graduated with enough debt to buy a third-rate African dictator a decent McMansion, and finally started this business because people kept asking me for my advice and then referring me to their friends… and, oh yes: the cats won’t work.  My point being, to quote Homer Simpson, “I was told there’d be no math.” I knew from nothing about business.  History? I can talk to you for days about Stalin’s purges, or the Siege of Lenningrad, for example…but business? Um, not so much.

But I figured if so many other idiots people could give completely retarded advice coach…well, I actually had good ideas, and realistic solutions to problems so…why not me? What was the worst that could happen? I’d make a mistake? And, nu? So what? I’ve worked for Nancy Grace, for f**k’s sake.  I’ve attended planning meetings with Nancy Grace. (That right there is guaranteed to let me skip a few reincarnations and achieve Nirvana at least 15 minutes early.)

I wasn’t hooked on perfection when I started this business. I was hooked on helping people. I was hooked on doing something useful and important and valuable.  I thought, “Well, why not me?” And to that end, I’m attaching a link to an amazing excerpt from Carole King’s forthcoming autobiography. Whatever you feel about her music, read the excerpt to savor her stunning confidence, at 18(!!) in herself and her talent. And the next time you start assuming you can’t do something, anything, that actually you, probably better than anyone else on the planet can do…maybe you’ll think of teenaged Carole King shrugging and thinking, “Why not me?” 

http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/carole-king-2012-3/

Why I'm Glad I Went to Law School (Yes, seriously!)

In honor of this past Saturday’s LSAT test-takers, and their contributory actions to our nation’s glut of unemployed lawyers...I thought I’d share my reasons for going to law school and why I’m still so glad I did.

(Try not to vomit.) I don’t practice, so I don’t use my degree in the traditional way, but the lessons I learned in law school constantly impact my daily life.

I certainly wasn’t always glad I went to law school. When I graduated in 2007, I had no job, no plan, lots of debt and for a bonus, lots of bad attitude. Shortly thereafter, a boy I was seeing, impressed that his girlfriend had a juris doctorate, spent three hundred dollars to frame the diploma. I don't know what happened to that kid, but the diploma remains. It hangs, conspicuously, over the desk where I sit, typing these words. At the time, I couldn’t imagine ever being proud of having gone to law school…now, I couldn’t imagine being prouder.

Nowadays, there seems to be a lot of hand-wringing, a lot of high-pitched whining, about all the unemployed law school graduates who fall prey to manipulated statistics, as they get tackled by a deflating industry in "crisis". The scam-bloggers work themselves up to a fever pitch, shocked and outraged, outraged that people are still going to law school!  

Sure they are. I myself went to law school with my eyes firmly closed. I eagerly believed the hype that law school was going to solve all my problems and I’d graduate happy, shiny and delicious-smelling. Everything would be perfect. (“Thank you, Law School!”) I constantly encounter that same delusion:  people who have no interest whatsoever in practicing law, but think a degree will help them get a job in human rights, or writing for TV, or you know, all the many, oh so many, other fields in which having a law degree is helpful. Right. All those fields.  The same people who glare daggers at you, when you suggest that they might want to research the actual industry they’re interested in, and see if there are jobs in said field, and perhaps even find out exactly how a law degree would benefit their career opportunities. The same people who become snappish, when you suggest they ask themselves why exactly they want to go to law school. “But you went to law school! Why do you get to go, and I can’t?!” Right, totally right: I want to keep that glorious prize of debt all to my greedy self...

I went to law school for all the wrong reasons… and those wrong reasons, plus the experience, taught me a great deal.  I thank god every day I left the muck and mire of TV news to go to law school, since it was the beginning of true adulthood. There’s an expression that you’re not an adult till your parents pass. That may indeed be correct. I would also suggest that you’re not an adult until you understand that having a professional degree isn’t a license to print money, or an elevator ride to success, and that your debt is yours till the day you die.

I went to law school when I was 31, after spending the majority of my twenties making bank in TV news. After graduating Wellesley College, I moved to Moscow, Russia. Due to luck and my ability to speak Russian, I began a career in TV, eventually moving to Washington, D.C. and then New York. In my twenties, I was making obscene amounts of cash as a freelance producer, writer, assignment editor, etc. This is no way struck me as odd or out of the ordinary. Twenty-five years old and making $50 an hour, plus overtime, to produce press briefings on Capitol Hill or at the White House? Doesn’t everybody live like this? Isn’t success this easy for everyone?

But in TV the glamour burns off quickly, and suddenly you’re stuck producing live-shots with polyester-clad correspondents who ask you where exactly on the map the Aryan Nation is, or what NPR stands for. They ask you these things seriously, with furrowed brow, since correspondents are not known for their sense of irony. It probably got lost somewhere under all the hairspray and foundation.

So, burnt out, exhausted, fed up, I had two choices: do the hard thing, and figure out my life or go to law school. The intelligent thing, of course, would have been to take responsibility for my unhappiness and end my stagnant relationship with my boyfriend…but, ugh, who wants to do the hard thing? Not Congress, and certainly not me! Instead, I know: I’ll live out my prime-time TV-inspired law school fantasy of, oh, I don’t know: clerking for the Supreme Court? Becoming a West Wing speechwriter? Doing all those very sexy, very fun things lawyers do…? We all know that turned out: six-figures of debt and no fancy job. Also, I failed both the NY and NJ bar exams. Hot! Oh my so-called life. 

But then you know… an interesting thing happened: I started taking responsibility for all the mistakes I had made. And by taking responsibility, I was able to learn from those very same mistakes. I took responsibility for going to law school, despite having deliberately not invested any significant time or energy in researching what law school would be like, or the impact the debt load would have upon my life, or even what it meant to practice law on a day-to-day basis.  I took responsibility for hearing only what I wanted to hear when I asked friends if I should go to law school, for being a coward who chose prestige over reality. I started understanding that if I was unhappy in law school, and afterwards, it was my fault. That if law school wasn’t what I desperately wished it to be—something cool that would solve all my problems--I had only myself, and my cowardice, to blame.

If you’re going to attend law school… go for the right reasons. Go because you’ve researched it; because you’re excited to learn and practice the law; because you’ve crunched the numbers and you understand what the debt load will mean for your future opportunities. Understand what it will mean if you can’t find that dream law job. And what it will mean if you can.

On the other hand, don’t go because you believe that the “prestige” of  attending law school will somehow compensate you for not being able to figure out what to do with your life. Because—and watch what I do here—you’ll still be you! You’ll still be you, the same you, just with a lot of debt and some more letters after your name. So if you (secretly, oh so secretly, so secretly that you can’t even admit it to yourself) think that going to law school will make your boyfriend love you, or your friends envy you, or somehow fill the hole inside of you: it won’t! (It can’t.) Everything will still be the same…you’ll just be the same you, just owing

thousands upon thousands of dollars.

My diploma hangs over my desk, because it’s proof of the battle I won…with myself.  I went to law school for all the wrong reasons…and yet it remains one of my favorite mistakes, a catastrophe that saved my life and forced me to become an adult.  I went to law school for all the wrong reasons…little knowing that it would lead me to everything right.

What do you want?

I know I sometimes sound like someone's memaw or, alternatively, an especially cranky Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with my insistence on being true to yourself in order to live your most exhilarating and successful life...but just humor me one more time. I'm in the midst of creating a new business project, and to do so, I need investors. In order to get  those investors to actually seriously consider giving me cash, instead of snorting merrily over my proposal, I have to craft my proposal to appeal to them. I have to make it worth their while.
I have to know exactly what I need the money for, and how it will help my business and then I have to make my ideas relevant to the investors.  They have the money, I have the ideas, but if I can't make my ideal appealing/worthwhile/interesting/relevant etc...well, I don't know, maybe one of the damn cats will consider working in a local bodega? (They won't.)
I'm harping on this today because a lot of people say they want X, for example...but they tie themselves into knots chasing Y or Z. And then, when they are repeatedly unsuccessful, instead of considering why perhaps things didn't work out...they put the blame on everything and everyone but themselves.
I, for example, went to law school, since it was far easier to quit my job, uproot my life, take on huge amounts of debt, and embark on three years of being miserably bored by civ pro and the rule against perpetuities (*shudder*), than to just grow a pair and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So maybe you can guess that when law school didn't make me a shiny, happy person, I blamed everyone but myself...? How much fun was I to be with? So much fun! (Now, I promise you: I may harp on personal responsibility, but I do over cocktails and showing a lot of cleavage.)
I frequently have introductory consulting sessions with prospective clients, and almost immediately I can tell which clients I will be able to help, and which I will not. The clients who are more interested in figuring out what they don't know, and using said knowledge to accomplish their goals? Those are the clients I take on.
The clients who are convinced they know everything there is to know, and if they haven't gotten a job or sold their new product, well its the market's fault...suddenly I'm extremely busy. I have this thing, you know, this thing and um I gotta go. (And the clients who'd rather waste my time flirting, and spend their money on astral chart readings? You're fired!)
Maybe I'm just saying that people are complicated and frequently we don't know what we want. And that's okay, that's part of being alive...but the more honest you are with yourself about why you are doing anything, and what you hope to get out of it...the better your chances of being successful.

Just a brief thought today on the importance of self-confidence. This is particularly aimed at those who are going through a rough time, say unemployment, a painful professional or personal transition...I know I've blogged a great deal about the crucial part of seeking employment, for example, is to demonstrate your value. But I also know that when you're unemployed, particularly if it's a long-term situation, the immediate effect is to make you lose all sense of self-worth. Which is a very dangerous, self-defeating prophecy. How can you muster the self-confidence, the necessary arrogance to convince an employer that you're hawt sh*t, if you're feeling like a loser, right?
Take a deep breath, and remember that you are more than just a job. Remember all of the other things you have achieved, the lives you have changed. The people who love you, love you no matter what...if they don't, I need you to tell them to suck it, asap! You must re-assign yourself  value immediately. If not, I promise: it's just going to get worse. Your mind starts playing tricks with you...and those tricks can be very destructive.
I know of what I speak. When I first graduated law school, I felt pretty beat up. (BTW: this has nothing to do with IUB and everything to do with me. IUB deserves a lot of praise and cash for putting up with my crap for 3 years.) I was pretty toxic with misery, and fear. It really did feel like all my best years were behind me. (Melodramatic...but true.) Then, out of the blue, I got an email, from a former agent, asking if I would agree to put my first play on tour of Brazil. I won't go into details here, but the idea that I had had, previous to law school, written something that years later was still thought to have the power to influence a national dialogue...that notion saved my life. It gave me the self-confidence and belief I needed to stop kvetching and to be grateful for all I had learned and done along the way.
(Ugh: I've become one of those people who are "grateful for the journey"...oy. On the other hand, I've also become someone who can always find a relevant "South Park" quote so...tomato, tomato?)
So when I say to people who are going through a rough time and feeling in a dark place, that you must focus on all you have achieved, and all you WILL achieve...I'm not some idiot politician telling you to keep a stiff upper lip, as I slash your social services and give myself a pay raise. (Grrr...) I'm someone who s-l-o-w-l-y, step-by-step, started turning things around by being true to myself..and re-assigning myself value. And you can too...
(Thank you, IUB! How could I have anything but mad love for a place where you can get hammered for twenty dollars?? Come on!)

 The world, as is it's wont, is changing. Changing in some very drastic ways, and by this I mean: getting a higher degree or a professional license is no longer a guarantee of job stability or a license to print money. (Skeptical? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/business/law-school-economics-job-market-weakens-tuition-rises.html?_r=1&ref=lawschools AND http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/education/edlife/edl-24masters-t.html?ref=education those are just two for example; I could find hundreds more.)
That's not to say there isn't real value in education for education's sake: I don't use my juris doctorate "traditionally," but I can say it has given me a new perspective on many important things. Now, was that perspective worth the six figure debt? That's a good question. Usually, I try not to think about my debt; it's like magic numbers which exist in space... because honestly if I brooded about my graduate debt, I'd either fake my own death, and the cats and I would relocate to some red state and start an organic farm/doomsday cult, while using the barter system (tempting!), or I'd have to start drug dealing, and I suspect it's harder than it looks: http://www.theonion.com/articles/undercover-cop-never-knew-selling-drugs-was-such-h,140/
So was the knowledge I gained about myself, and the "skills" I learned in law school worth the debt? By "skills," I'm guessing drinking? Arguing? (Impressing impressionable yet hot young men with my law degree...ding ding ding!) Sure; four years on from graduation, I can say, without a doubt: yes, it was all worth it. But I can say "yes," because I'm using my knowledge and degree in furthering my small business, and helping my clients...if I was simply a contract attorney, engaged in mindless, depressing, rote work...I might have a different answer, because--and here's where it gets ugly--my crushing debt load would seriously curtail my professional options. That six figure debt has to be paid back one way or another, and while law schools will tell you their happy horseshit version of "but there's so many things you can do with a law degree!"...don't believe the hype, son. Example: If you apply for non-legal jobs, employers are, understandably suspicious: why aren't you using your degree? Try and tell them that the legal job market bottomed out, and they presume that you're just an unmotivated slacker, who will bail the moment White & Case comes calling. (Sigh.) Law firms, meanwhile, are swamped with offers and if you don't already have a job before you graduate, then you have the professional version of cooties.
So, in light of all that, in light of the stampede of people rushing back to grad schools, hoping that more letters after their name will save them, I will simply say: do. Your. Research!! Understand what you are getting involved in. Understand how the debt load will affect your life every damn day. Defaulting on your student loans is not an option. Bankruptcy will not erase them. Your debt is your debt. Crunch the numbers and figure out in advance what your monthly payments will be. And consider...what happens if you don't get that magical job? 'Cause you still gotta pay The Man!
To that end, take some time and attend, for example,  an open-house given by the various graduate programs you are considering. Listen to their little lecture about how their graduates are winning Nobel Prizes all over the place, and getting laid like it's going out of style and then ask them a few questions of your own.
Ask them what their rate of graduate employment is. Then, understand that grad school is a business, and see if they will give you contact info for some real-live recent graduates so you can get another version. (Ask said graduates: was the degree worth it? Are you working in the field you wished? Did the school help you get this job? If they are working in the field they studied for, do they think the degree gave them relevant skills?)
Ask the admissions people what is the percentage of graduates who are repaying their student loans. (If it's low, think about that for a minute...) How many of their graduates are working in the field they studied? How aggressively will the program's career services office help you network and find a job? (If they say they'll help you with a resume, please drain your drink and leave cackling, since that's a six-figure resume service.)
Before some of my readers get cranky and tell me I'm stomping on their dreams...relax. You want to go to grad school, mazel tov: go and enjoy. If it's truly your dream and your passion, the truth won't kill it... right? The truth will just give you more options and you're welcome! But if you're thinking that simply having a law degree (or any other degree, for that matter) means you make the Red Sea part...here's a life-vest, kid.  

I was tempted to write something about Wendi Deng Murdoch kicking some serious ass yesterday at the parliamentary hearings in London, when that poor schnook protester tried to throw a pie in her hubby’s face...booya! As that boy learned the very hard way, Wendi is not about to let her man get punked! Hell no, son.

Apparently, Wendi used to play volleyball, which is pretty obvious when you watch her power slam the would-be attacker. Oh, snap! (Notice how I’m not saying anything bad about the lovely Mrs. Murdoch? I am 5’6”…she is 5’10: you do the math.)

So instead, I’m just going to make note of that fact that recently California’s Gov. Jerry Brown made history by signing a law, making California the first state to mandate that public schoolchildren learn about the contributions of people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered in social studies classes. (California law already mandates that schools teach about the contributions of women, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans and entrepreneurs, just to name a few.) I’m sure quite a few people are rolling their eyes at this, thinking how pathetically politically correct this is, blah blah blah. I'm also sure that quite a few kids are now going to be home-schooled because of this, but they'll probably all end up as some weird visionaries, rapping in Elvish, starting multi-million dollar corporations and winning MacArthur Genius Grants when they're like 23, so I'm not really worried about them. (My college roommate was home-schooled and she quilted, and had taught herself complicated mathematics and ancient Greek when she was oh, 5.)

Well, I don’t think I’m politically correct, but I am all about children being taught from an early age that there are many ways to live. I am all for anything that helps people start accepting themselves, and others, and saving themselves from years of unhappiness. It takes tremendous courage to accept yourself when you are in any way whatsoever different from the rigidly-defined mainstream…and if these social studies classes start some kids thinking differently about themselves and others, then right on. It will be a much better world when people are treated as simply people, and we are frankly indifferent to their sexuality, religion, ethnicity, horrible fashion etc.; when there aren’t still morons who think that a marriage between two people of the same gender somehow defiles the sanctity of marriage. (Do not even get me started. Two men or two women, in love, is somehow going to corrode your marriage, but child abuse, or spousal abuse or the fact that you watch "Nancy Grace," that doesn’t defile your marriage? That doesn’t make you equally angry? STFU! For reals, yo.) That will be a much better day for all of us, but we’re not there…yet.

http://news.yahoo.com/calif-gov-signs-landmark-law-teach-gay-history-190037960.html 

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the importance of self-confidence, and how damaging the lack of self-confidence can be on ones’s ability to make and sustain the hard choices necessary to success…and that formed a link in my mind with the phenomenon of the “scambloggers:” some (understandably) pissed-off men and women who blog about the truth behind law schools and their inflated numbers and (largely) empty promises of easy employment; the destructive debt load students are encouraged to shoulder despite the shrinking pool of jobs; the changing nature of the legal profession which students are not prepared for…all excellent points.  I don’t blame the bloggers for being enraged; I graduated in 2007 from my law school and it wasn’t until 2010 that I could take any pride in it. The fault was 100% mine; I was the moron who was burnt out on TV news, but didn’t have the balls to admit that my life had become unrecognizable. I was the coward unable to admit that I was bored to death by my boyfriend, hated my job, was frustrated in my life…so, I know: I’ll go to law school and maybe magically someone else will break up with my boyfriend, and someone else figure out what the f**k I’m supposed to be doing with my life, la la la! 

Some of you are reading this thinking, “Okay, Carlota, but that’s not why most people go…right?” Well… you’d think, right…but I know a number of people who are intent on going to law school and not one of them is interested in the practice of law. Interested in avoiding the deeper issues of their lives yes; the law…meh, not so much.

This is why I don’t blame my quite lovely law school; wasn’t my law school's fault that I was an idiot who didn’t understand I would never again have a perfect credit score.  And I’m honestly not expecting that anyone will read this post and say, “Oh snap, I get it: I need to figure out my life!” Nah. If you want to go to law school, go, mazel tov…because now, four years after graduating, I’m grateful beyond measure for the experience, for what it taught me about the dire necessity of being true to me, of having to figure myself out…and what can happen when I choose to be a coward. So sure, my law school diploma is framed and hanging above my desk…why not? We should all be proud of battles fought well and won…even when sometimes, the hardest battle is with ourselves.

Here’s a list of some of my fave blawgs: http://rosecoloredglassesjd.blogspot.com, http://firsttiertoilet.blogspot.com/, http://thirdtierreality.blogspot.com/, http://temporaryattorney.blogspot.com/