31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 23, 2013

Day 23: Use What You Have to Get What You Want!

One reason I gave in and started this business was that, following law school, I needed an income. Irritating, yet true. I seem to have no luck in marrying for money because I can't keep my opinions to myself. Also, when the men tell me to make a Sophie's Choice between the cats and them...well, I mean, the cats think I'm wonderful. Or...at least they don't interrupt.

So,I had all these lovely law loans, and the feds, with all their hang-ups and rules, made it clear that one day I would indeed have to repay that money or do an excellent job of faking my own death,which means faking the cats' deaths, which means forget it. Thus, needing some type of gainful employment, I freelanced for a while in the pit known as TV news. Thus, I had to deal with HR "types," looking at my resume, at the numerous positions I had held in network news, for almost a decade...and saying,"Oh...so you're interested in law news, right? You went to law school..."

No, I was interested in cashing checks, but sure, law news, whatever, fine, I love it. Grrr. What I previously loved about network news was the freedom to try many roles. The way management had encouraged me to learn as many different skills as possible. Now that management had all been replaced and I had to deal with HR people who became distinctly nervous when interacting with humans who had done many different things. They wanted an "understandable" narrative; they got me. #Haha

At that point, I felt somewhat depressed by my resume: was it that bad? Sigh. Let's see: Wellesley College with Latin honors, juris doctorate from IU School of Law, extended experience in network news in Russia, NY and Washington, D.C., produced playwright at age 17, legal internship with Sen. Clinton. You're right: pretty mediocre. Pretty average. 

Finally, I stopped trying to justify my layered experience to other people, and instead used the skills I had gleaned from various disciplines to help myself, and, by extension, others. And things started coming together. All the experience made sense. I used the skills and experience I already had to create the business I wanted. I stopped trying to adhere to other people's standards of what was a "normal' career. They didn't want normal, they wanted conformity.

You have a choice: you can choose to accept and be grateful for all that you've achieved, and build on that...or try to constantly match up to other people's bullshit standards. Ugh, that makes me cranky just thinking about it. While those HR geniuses were "majoring" in "business travel," at some third-rate cow college and trying to figure out how to make a career of dressing badly, I was earning my network experience in Moscow, at the Kremlin, and then at the White House briefing room. (#meowmeowmeow...meow.)

 Want some help in figuring out how to use all your unique skills and experience to create the unique life you desire? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or holla at me in the comments.

 

31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 13, 2013

Day 13: Don't Worry About What Other People Think.

Otherwise known as, don’t waste time trying to be cool. Because honestly all the cool kids are boring.  Because if you’re worried about being cool, I guarantee that you’re not engaged in the messy, irritating, exhausting, wonderful, terrifying, liberating process that is changing your life and achieving your goals. If you’re worried about cool, all you can do is worry about being cool. Which is way uncool...right? 

True story: when I spent my junior year of Wellesley College in Russia, I simply could not, at first, improve my Russian. I sounded like a very "special" toddler. All because I was so embarrassed to use my Russian, and make mistakes in public. I was mortified to make mistakes. So I hung around Russians who wanted to improve their English, and for f**k’s sake, here I’ve been living in Petrozavdodsk for 6 months, and I still can’t figure out how to say “laundry” in Russian. #FAIL! Eventually I said, “Screw this,” and resolved to do whatever it took to master Russian.

Yes indeedy: I sounded pretty pathetic for a significant period. How much fun was it to have people giggle at my accent/horrible grammar etc.? Oh, so much fun.  And then—I’ll never forget this—I was at a party (…listen, it’s -20 degrees, there’s not much heat or hot water, and we had sunlight for about 2 hours a day. Yeah, you’d be drinking vodka with friends and celebrating that it’s Tuesday, also!), and a friend told a joke. In Russian. And I understood the joke as she told it. I laughed as she told the punchline, NOT 5 minutes later as I mentally translated the joke, because...I got the joke in Russian.  If you haven’t gone fully “native” in a foreign country and endured a long period of waking up exhausted and going to bed exhausted as you try to do basic errands, due to the complexity of the language and the culture baffling you…well, you probably won’t know what it means to have that “gotcha” minute. But I’ll never forget it. I had made that decision to speak Russian, and “suddenly” here I was, at a party, laughing at wonderfully malicious jokes and drinking moonshine: ahh, life was good.

But the Americans who wanted to stay cool? Those were the people who could barely say “hello” in Russian.  And how uncool is it to live in a foreign country for years and never be able to speak the language? #Losers! (I worked with a correspondent who would read passionately the history of other countries, even as he was living in Moscow, with it's centuries of world-altering history. And all he could talk about was the "peasantry" of Russia and how they had no culture worth bothering about. Really. Interesting. Oh, what's that you say? This genius of history's TV career is now over? Even with a face that was made for radio? Oh, what a shame. PUNK!)

Grumpy. People who put Russia down make me a wee bit grumpy. That is true.  Also stupid people. Also, stupid TV correspondents but that's redundant.

Anyhoo. Today is Sunday and it's Sunday all day! Take a break, put your feet up, have a drink. Eat something fried. Shower with a friend…or two. (Baby, it’s cold out there!) Because come Monday morning, you’re going to get right back to the uncool labor of changing your life. Which is kind funny, because when it works out, all your friends are going to be thinking,” Damn, how cool is that?!” 

 

Want some help achieving those super cool goals? Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or give me a shout-out in the comments!

'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.

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!)