My Rant to the Graduates

Oh, let's just be honest shall we? I'm going to admit that on this forum, I'm usually ranting, not speech-ifying. I kind of feel like the Hugo Chavez of coaching...except that I have an actual working sense of humor. On the other hand, I don't have a palace guard. Again I say that life isn't fair. But, I digest.

Right around now, hundreds of thousands of people are graduating from various academic institutions in this great nation of ours...and freaking the f**k out, as they contemplate getting a job with a degree in business tourism. (FYI: That is a real thing. Then again, so is John Boener so what do I know, right?) Before I get a ton of hate mail...1) I used to answer the phone on the FOX News assignment desk so please, I've heard it all. #bringit 2) I was a history major, with a focus on Russian Area Studies, so I know allll about the joys of having a "relevant" degree. I also know what it's like to be graduating, and to be so excited to escape into the real world, while still feeling absolutely terrified by this thing called "being independent, and financially responsible and acting like an adult." Yeah... know what I did? I moved to Russia and ended up working in TV news. TV news, a business in which maturity is not only over-rated, it's a liability. Memories...!

Of course now, in 2013, the Moscow bureau that I worked at is probably a strip-club, so you have to take a different path.Today graduates are constantly besieged with the advice that they have to create the jobs they want. Okay, that's true...but considering that many 40somethings have no realistic idea how to do this, I just want to take a moment and tell the class of 2013 that it's okay to be terrified, and that you'll all be okay. I promise. The biggest hurdle you have to get over is your fear about doing the "right thing," and just take intelligent, logical steps and be realistic. (Insert here bitter laughter from millions of grads in debt to their eyeballs to get a degree in sociology.) Welp, it's never too late to start...right? Right.

1. "The most effective way to do it, is to do it." -Amelia Earhart

Okay, so maybe her sense of direction wasn't fantastic, but when it comes to getting to the nitty-gritty, she's damn accurate. You just graduated. If there's something interesting or important you want to do...just start doing it. You don't know how? You'll figure it out as you go along. On the other hand, if you wait for the perfect time, or for someone's approval, or for someone else to help you figure out what you want to do...meh, not so much. And seriously: what do you have to lose?

I moved to Russia, for example, because I wanted to know if I could create a life in a foreign country, and in a foreign language. I was probably only mildly terrified...but I did it. It wasn't always pretty, it wasn't always fun...but it was always memorable. The knowledge that I was able to move to Russia, and live and work in a foreign language, has helped me to achieve many other things.  On the other hand, if I hadn't gone to Russia, I would have given into Fear...and Fear doesn't just want part of you, it wants to own you. Fear is a very powerful enemy.

So if there's something you want to do, listen to me carefully: GO DO IT! Just get started. Talk to people, research things, go to the library, ask your fellow alumni, listen to your inner voice...TRUST YOURSELF. I frequently have clients tell me, "Carlota, you're so awesome," and while that is very extremely true, it's not so much that I was especially awesome, but that I took their dreams seriously.

You want to do something: commit to your dreams, and commit to yourself.

2. Relax.

You just graduated college, you have no idea what you want to do in life, you're still figuring yourself out...on the other hand, you can still drink till dawn, sweat it out on the treadmill and feel fantastic in the am.

People are so hung up on doing everything right, they seem to forget that life is about experiencing things and experience means making mistakes. I dated many boys I shouldn't have. I adopted quite a few cats who didn't "get" me. I've wasted far too much time watching "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."

I regret nothing.

Your whole life is ahead of you, wonderful and exciting times...what are you waiting for, what are you worried about? The best is yet to come.

Before you give me that side-eye, maybe you should email me @carlotazee@gmail.com? And become a fan of my Facebook page," Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

Besos,
C.

I had all these grandiose plans to write today about an awesome client who, in a moment of triumph, instant messaged me “I HAVE BIG BALLS”—she really does, she’s beyond awesome—and how exhilarating it was to see her embracing her power…however. However, I went out to see a comedy roast last night, and while I have a near-fetish for funny men, I forgot how most comics, in person, are somewhere below Jeffrey Dahmer when it comes to their ability to interact with other humans. 

And trust me: I’m not a delicate flower. I survived elementary school with other gifted children, living in Russia, dating Russian men, law school, Nancy Grace pre-make-up…to name but a few.  So I don’t take personally your inability to make eye contact or shower or get laid, and thus your need to spread your rage against women. As long as you’re funny, I don’t care.  As long as you make me laugh, be as spiteful as you wish. 

But when you’re not funny, when in fact you can’t even be bothered to attempt to be funny since you’re so full of bile, contempt and barely suppressed loathing, because you’re spending more time on the comic lifestyle than the comic discipline…well then as certain suburban housewives say, shit just got real. 

In those circumstances, you know, it’s difficult for me not to say, “Oh, you think?” when you tell me your wife is leaving you. You took off the handcuffs for 5 minutes and she saw her opportunity, hmm? Run, bitch, run! Luckily, the humanoid in question here wasn’t hitting on me but the lovely lady sitting next to him…her face a mask of horror. If he had been hitting on me, I would have spontaneously developed some lingering vaginal cancer…which, on second thought, he probably wouldn’t have minded. I suppose this is my point: no one made you want to grow up to be a comic. Other people get over the beatings, or being laughed at in third grade, or being emotionally abused or being dressed as a girl. Didn’t seem to hold back the Hohenzollern Dynasty!

Some people go into therapy. Some people choose to enjoy their life. Some people develop people-skills and you know, make actual friends.  Some people become Hugo Chavez which seemed to work for a while. So you, my dear: you choose to be a comic. That’s awesome, sounds great to me: so how about you work at it, and commit to your skills, to your talent, to networking and STOP committing to being a miserable f**k and taking it all out on the audience. If I wanted to be miserable I’d still be in TV, dealing with “reporters” who can’t report. I’d still be cutting teases of a goddamn water-skiing squirrel…who was at least easier to take than a certain action-figure-sized Greek on-air “personality.” I’m using “personality” here in the sense that Stalin was called the “Cult of Personality.”

 But, if I go out to a comedy roast, it’s because I’d like to drink some vodka and be amused. Don’t even get me started on the chick who laughed at her own woefully unfunny jokes. The same chick who, naturally, sent me a Facebook friend request: nothing to see here, keep it moving. 

Want some help committing to yourself?  Of course you do! Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or become a fan of my Facebook page, “Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

'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.

Channukah Hints, Jewrican Factoids #4: Don't cheat yourself

Like a great many people, I am ambivalent about success. It probably has something to do with not being 26 anymore: you want something big, but you know how hard life can be and you worry about failure. You want something important...but do you really want it?
 My latest play for example. There was a period of about two months when it was 100% done...but I couldn't get myself to print it out and send it to my agent. I kept saying, "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. I just have to [fill in the excuse]." I kept having to check the spelling, or the formatting, or "brood." In reality, it was just the idea of sending it to my agent and having her say, "I hate it." (She would have been dead to me, but anyway.)
 But what if she loved it...? That would be scary also, right? The idea that I'm sending my play out into the world and people, strangers, will see my characters, my ideas, my words, brought to life? Whoa... Long-story short: I got over myself, sent it out, and am now actively seeking to get it produced. It was a mixture of ego, whining and financial necessity.
So I have some issues...but I cop to them, and then I go all out.
What drives me crazy, on the other hand, are people who are ambivalent about success, but instead of confronting that demon, they instead do a seriously half-assed  job and then absolve themselves of all responsibility. They say: "Well, I did everything possible. So, it's not my fault." Those people make The Kitten  cranky.
Perfect example: I had a client this summer who put up a website to promote his art, mentioned it once on his Facebook page...and then basta! No mas. Never updated the content, never promoted it--did not in fact even have business cards, till The Kitten and I looked at him in horror--basically, never gave anyone a reason to visit his site after the first time. But he had a website right, so any day now, any day, the Guggenheim people would be calling to ask him what kind of suitcase he wanted them to deliver the cash in. When I suggested to him, that he join the rest of us in 2011, by getting a Facebook fan page, and hey, why not, selling his art on his website, and making use of Twitter, he kept saying, "Yeah, I'll get to it, I'll update it once and it'll be awesome."  Once? Don't hold back, kid.
And yet, when I asked him if he was afraid to be successful, he bristled. "No, not  at all: I'm very ambitious." Huh.
So, here's my hint: do not cheat yourself. It's fine, it's normal, it's human to be fearful of things we want. It's normal to be ambivalent about achieving your dreams...but if you decide to do something, go all the way! Do not cheat yourself. Don't do the minimum and then wonder why nothing happened. Because while you're cheating yourself...someone else has committed to themselves and their dreams and is going hard, kid.
Jewrican Factoid #4: I've lived in a lot of different places--Brooklyn, Taxachussetts, Russia, Washington, D.C., New York--and people always assume I'm something different. In Russia, I swear to god, people would ask me what my nationality was, and then say, "Well, Carlota, I know you can't be American, because you're so well-educated." Oy. In D.C., the cab drivers would always ask me what part of the Homeland (Ethiopia) I was from. Considering how stunning Ethiopian women are, I'd say something like, "The part known as the Upper West Side?" (Zing!) In New York, men assume I'm Dominican. Recently, in Jackson Heights, I was yelled at for not speaking Hindi and "denying my heritage." And yet, I'm just me: Jewrican and proud, nu?