Baby steps ain't enough

Baby steps are important...but don't forget to grow. I'm thinking today of baby steps, because that's what I tell clients when they're getting started on some huge project that simultaneously excites them...and makes them want to vomit. I'm there to talk them down from the ledge: come on, it'll be okay. It wont happen overnight anyway: don't worry. I get them to focus on baby steps, doing small things, every day, over and over, to start the process. Have to start somewhere, and btw: you have to start today. That's irritating, right? But true. You start small, taking those baby steps till you can work up the courage to walk and then run.
Because, here's the catch: baby steps aren't enough. (Dammit...)
When I was starting this business, I went through a period of about 9 months of attending many business-related seminars, and workshops. I read a lot of business books. I networked. I even met with a few business coaches. All well and good. But until I actually started doing business, and not just thinking about doing business, well, nothing much happened. I would attend a seminar, add my name to an informational email list, scratch myself and think, "Excellent day! Got a lot done. Hmm, I wonder what's on adultswim.com?" There was also a lot of napping. (#goodtimes.)
I wouldn't exactly describe myself, at that time, as a titan of the business world.
Therefore, while baby steps are necessary to build up your courage...at a certain point, you must suck it up and do it. You must stop thinking and do it. To quote Yoda: "Do or not. There is no try." You have to do it, whatever it is, and accept that it'll be horrible and exhausting and frightening for a while, that you'll make many shameful mistakes and waste time...but that eventually, if you constantly keep at it, one day you'll know what the hell you're doing, and--here's the fun part--other people will assume you're brilliant and ask for your advice. (#Ha!)

Coaching Hint #2

Last week, I went to a free workshop held at the NYC Bar Association for young attorneys seeking to improve their job prospects. I'm not really an attorney--have the degree, but don't practice--but I have experienced many strange, interesting and occasionally beautiful things in this life due to my love of the words "for free." (Except for that one time, I let a friend of mine drag me to Nicolas Cage's painfully bad 8MM. Even though my ticket was free, I still thought that she should somehow recompense me for the minutes of my life I would never get back. But eventually, you know, she got over her rage and we became friends again. Alcohol was probably involved somewhere in that process.)
All of this to say: I primarily went to this workshop because it was free and oh my, actually learned a great deal. I love when that happens. Thus, my coaching hints for the day are about your resume.
I'm always amazed by how few people actually have a resume that demonstrates the range and depth of their experience. It reminds me of the time a friend asked me to read and critique a short story she had written. The story revolved around a significant and recent historical event in this country. After I read the story, my friend, from the expression on my face, realized she had left some things out, and started giving me the back-story. The back-story, by the way, was fascinating...but that wasn't what I had read! Don't let this happen to your resume. HR won't wait around for you to give them the back-story.
If you have instances in your professional life when you've gone above and beyond your responsibilities, when you've taken initiative and gotten difficult assignments done, for example, but on your resume, it simply says, "researched case law"...seriously? Your resume is going to be deleted, and someone with a fraction of your expertise, someone who can sell herself, is going to get hired...for a job you could do!
That makes me cranky.
So, look over your resume, have your good friends, have as many people as possible, look over your resume and consider: does your resume clearly indicate that you can do the work you are applying for? Does it also indicate that you are qualified for the work? Does it show that you have relevant experience in the field? Does it give the reader an understanding of your abilities and how these abilities would relate to the position on offer? HR cannot divine your life story! All they know is what you tell them. So ask yourself: what story am I telling HR, and does that story truly represent the best of what I can do?

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!)