31Ways2GetItStarted™! January 2, 2013

Day 2: Be Realistic!

Let's face it, many of us find that reality is not our friend. Reality frequently can be a huge Debby Downer. And reality is especially uncooperative if your New Year's resolutions included you engaging in behavior which either completely goes against your personality, or would require you to bend the laws of time and space in your favor. So if, for example, you decided you were going to lose a lot of weight super quickly by waking up at 5am every morning and running 5 miles...even though you 1) hate to wake up early and 2) you hate to run even more...um, I think we all know how that's going to end. Hint: The only thing that'll be getting a workout will be the snooze button on your alarm clock, while you end up loathing yourself. In fact, you end up furiously frustrated, again, with yourself, and probably give up and sink further into bad habits and self-destructive behavior. NO ME GUSTA!

On the other hand, if you were to, for example, decide to get off the subway one stop early, and take the stairs whenever possible, and not order both appetizers and entrees, and just be patient with yourself and understand that life is a progression...well, well! You might, in a month say, start realizing that your tight pants are actually lose, and you have more energy and dear God could it be, that your resolutions are actually sticking?

Thus, kids, my admonition, my plea, is "be realistic," fer f**k's sake, and appreciate that change is difficult. Change is, in fact, exhausting but you can do it...if you resolve to be realistic about how much any one person can humanly do each day and don't consciously set yourself up for failure.  

Want some help taming reality to your will? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, and become a fan of my business Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

Facebook = business

Like most of you, I primarily love Facebook as a way to waste time. Well, waste time and look at the photos of people's boy/girl-friend and wonder how that happened. ( I know, I know: meow meow meow...meow!) But, and I swear this is true: Facebook is also amazing for business. It feels weird to even type the words "Facebook" and "business" in the same sentence, but if you're engaged in some form of business--from a food blog to getting a better job to promoting your band--and you don't have a Facebook page for said business...you hear that sad trombone noise? It's for you. It's wondering when you're going to leave the 1990s and join the rest of us. Should I send you this blog entry by fax?
Here's the thing: a Facebook page for your band, or your comedy club, or your TS dating site (Hello, Photoshop!) or your wigs for cats website (I've always felt The Kitten was a blonde.), is instant and immediate free advertising. Every time you post, it goes out in your fans' news-feed reminding them about your business and demonstrating how your business is relevant to their lives. If you are, for example, a struggling actor, and you regularly post updates about auditions you go on, plays you're reading, roles you're studying, classes you're taking, photos of yourself, clips from movies you like, clips of your performances, actors who inspired you, etc...one day, I promise you, one day, a friend, or a friend of a friend will check out your page and think, "Oh, I should have this guy audition for my [fill in the blank]"...and later on, when you're an obscenely overpaid TV sitcom actor, talking about yourself and your "gift" in the third person, making the crew address you by your character's name, and not allowing people to make eye contact...you're welcome.
If you post interesting, timely and relevant things, friends of your fans will also start checking out your page and following you. And, crucially: the necessity of constantly having to update your page, and therefore to find interesting and relevant items that will promote your brand, will have the effect of focusing your mind upon your brand. That, in turn, will force you to carefully define your brand, which will then increase your understanding of all the brand-related opportunities out there. Opportunities you otherwise probably would not have even noticed.
You're rolling your eyes at me, saying: "Um, Carlota: how is posting quotes, or snarky photos or "Shit Wookies Say", going to help me promote my business?" Um, how is it not? Through my Facebook business page, I've gotten numerous clients and incredible opportunities; I'm taking my play ever closer to production and I've keep meeting fantastic contacts who are helping me promote my brand. (I've also over-shared about my dating/drinking habits...but that's a bonus! Non, je ne regrette rein...)
Later on, I'll be giving ideas for what you can post if, unlike me, you have some discretion and perhaps don't wish to appall your parents by revealing every aspect of your life, and your cats' lives, to humanity.
For now, however, if you're trying to get a business up and running--and if you know me, you know that I think everything is a form of business--and you don't have a Facebook page...sigh. Come on, get out of the 1990s: we listened to 'Color Me Badd' fer chrissake. Remember those parachute pants? Grunge! (*shudders*) You can do better.

This is the 1990s:

Getting to know you...

A great deal of being The Creativity Yenta™, is frankly knowing when, to STFU and keep my (numerous) opinions to myself. So if, for example, I run across an old friend on Facebook who is currently engaged in a "career" which makes me cringe, because I know she has tremendous talent, but apparently she does not...there's only so much I can do. Unfortunately, kidnapping and holding someone against their will in a dark motel room, so that I may wipe their mind free of society's bullsh*t and re-program them to understand their inherent value and talents, and thus become a contributing member of our society, would be, I'm guessing, classified as illegal. Five-O would probably stop listening at "kidnapping and holding against their will." Alas.
 So, all I can do is watch from afar and send out low-key emails, suggesting that I'd be thrilled to help her, should she ever want to launch that great business she used to talk about, and stop making a "living" from being semi-naked.
Before you all start choking on your coffee and say, "Is this really you, Carlota, suggesting that spending one's time nekkid is somehow bad? Can I introduce you to my close personal friend, 'Kettle'?" and jump over to youporn.com, I shall elaborate.
When I know someone has talent, and potential, but instead of using said talent and potential, this person is basically hanging out in her life, spending her days three-quarters nekkid, using their body, instead of their mind, to sell...well then yeah, I'm going to say that's a waste. That's a huge waste. That's not a life, that's the Facebook equivalent of a life.
One of the best parts of this job is to work with clients and see them coming into their own. To see people go from being desperate and vulnerable, with no self-esteem, to really "get it:" to understand that they have the potential to go as far as their willing to take it. (I say I teach people, but in reality they teach me, goose-bumps, O Captain My Captain-Hollywood-moment, etc.) But people have to be willing to take that journey...because it can be hard, and scary, and exhilarating and wonderful...but it is a journey. I can't take it for you....and therefore, I have had to learn sometimes to keep my fingers crossed and my mouth shut. First time for everything, right?

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?