For someone like me, who likes to take time to learn, process, and evaluate before taking action, jumping in to something without extensive knowledge can be terrifying and overwhelming.

I like to be prepared. I like to learn the theory before I practice it. I really hate not knowing - being informed is practically a compulsion. But there is a difference between learning through analysis and learning through action. No amount of studying the physics of a hammer is going to get a house built. Sometimes you have to jump in to the action before you feel ready. Or you may never feel ready. Ready isn’t the point.

Learning by doing is messier, there are always mistakes, there is always doubt, uncertainty, and if you’re an introverted control freak like me: a LOT of anxiety.

But it’s also more exhilarating, more practical, more likely to lead to new ideas and personal growth, more fun. The stakes are higher. Lessons that sting tend to stick, and work done well has a pride of ownership and a tangible result that isn’t easily translated into theory.

Whether I want to or not, I don’t have the luxury of scholarly learning for all my pursuits. I have to make dollars…not incur more debt. So
I’m working on turning my anxiety into motivation and determination. I’m jumping in and experimenting. I may not know all the ins and outs of what I’ve signed up for, but I have the ability to learn them quickly and effectively if I just pay attention and ask the right questions.

Even so, it’s not all adventure and productivity. It’s a self-confidence yo-yo trying to be self-sustaining and learn at the same time. Sometimes I make mistakes and I adjust, apologize, learn. Sometimes I make mistakes and I get overwhelmed and doubt myself.

Because the hardest thing about learning in real-time is that you don’t get graded. Nobody marks up your work and makes comments. When you learn by doing you have to be prepared for the fallout of doing it wrong. And you have to be ok with not knowing. Sometimes people respond to me in unexpected ways and I don’t know whether I made a mistake or not. I may never know. It’s hard not to negatively internalize ambiguous feedback.

So I have to be my own cheerleader. I have to create my own “course materials” with books, blogs, and twitter feeds. I have to establish my own goals and my own measures of success. If nobody says anything critical, I have to count that as a win. If somebody points out a mistake, I can be hard on myself - but not for long. I have to grab hold of the learning opportunity and be ready to do it right next time. Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing. Most of the time I’m second-guessing. Nearly all the time I’m accidentally unconventional. But that means I’m trying. I’m giving it all I’ve got, whatever it is. I’m committed to making things happen, and happen well.

If I thought I had every task in my back pocket would I be so determined, so creative, hold myself so accountable? Probably not. It’s the risk of doing it wrong and the determined search for knowledge that compels me to excel - because the consequences are real and tangible, not just theoretical.

Sometimes you learn to swim by just jumping in the water. And by swim I mean “do things” and by water I mean “life”. Jump in the life. Do it.

“Ignorance is not only bliss, it’s empowering.” - Guy Kawasaki (Art of the Start)

There’s a lot to be said for life in a big city. There’s the busy-ness of life, the hustle and bustle, the readily-available inspiration and opportunity. The ability to find a like-minded group for just about anything.

But oftentimes, you are a small, small fish in a vast ocean. When I lived in a big city I often found myself thinking about my utter insignificance. About being lost in the currents. Maybe that’s a good thing, for some.

But in a smaller pond, everyone is significant. Minor changes can disrupt the ecosystem in much more obvious and tangible ways. And you don’t have to be a big fish to make a big splash. 

Ok, enough with the aquatic analogies. 

I grew up in a small town. When I was a kid, I hated it. There was never “anything to do.” So I moved to Chicago, where I “did” a lot. But there was also a lot of competition, a lot of pressure, too many options and not enough connections. I couldn’t make a difference, not really. 

That’s not why I moved back - that’s a story for another time - and it took me a long time back to realize that I didn’t feel like I wanted to leave anymore. For a while I thought the area had changed…but then, in classic Lifetime-movie fashion, I realized that I was the one who had changed. 

Life in Chicago, and subsequent lengthy travels to San Francisco, Seattle, New York. Pittsburgh… my nightmarish life upheavals, my constant search for where I could fit, what I could do, how I could belong. All that had made me…well…a bigger fish. I was more motivated, more ambitious, more self-sustained when I came back at 27 than I was when I left at 19. I’ve realized that I didn’t have to keep looking for my place in the world…

I had to create it. 

And, to be honest, it’s a lot easier to create a place, to figure out how far my wings will stretch, in a town with room for them to grow. 

I’ve found, once I started looking, that I have more opportunities here. I sit on 3 volunteer boards with CEOs and community leaders - all of whom respect and value my input. Not only that, but on any given day I can see my impact on the community. I see it on the faces of new Habitat homeowners when they’re handed their keys. I hear it in the excited innovation buzz at the local coffee shops as ideas are exchanged and knowledge is shared, I’ll experience it when I see an increase in creativity, a broadening of cultural experiences, a willingness in young people to stay instead of go. 

My friends ask me why I’m still here, why I haven’t moved back to Chicago, or to New York, or to San Francisco. People here wonder why I ever came back, or why I stayed.

Well this is part of it. This is me, making a difference. This is me, experiencing the measurable impact of my existence. This is me, making myself a bigger fish costume (do you like the sequined scales?).

Maybe there’s a perception that the bar is lower, and there’s less pressure, but don’t for a second think it’s easy. I would argue that what’s easy is having everything at your fingertips, where creativity is an a la carte menu of meet-ups and panel discussions. 

So, if you prefer, think of me as a guerilla innovator. In the trenches of middle America. Fighting established prejudices and sterotypes. With a toolkit of experiences, a curious mind, and a bicycle-basket full of free ideas.

Finding myself in all the places I already looked.

If I’m going to put my mark on the world, why not start here? 

When I stepped over the threshold of unemployeedom, I had this little glimmer of an idea that I was holding onto. Something that kept me from getting too discouraged, a sort-of fall-back plan (or more of a fall-forward plan, I guess). It helped to keep me motivated, rather than curling up in bed with all the books I own. 

If you’ve read the title of this post you know where this is going…

Consulting. (Cue the angelic chorus). Consulting would be my savior. I’m smart, I am really into hard work, I love helping people figure things out, I happen to be really good at it…so of course! I’ll be a consultant! I’ll get some clients and people will be all “Oh sweet, I’ve been looking for someone to figure my company out for me…let me pay you to think about it.”

…
Yeah, about that…

Turns out it’s a lot more complicated than it seems.

See, I still have absolutely no doubt that I could be a stellar consultant and adviser. And I know some other people who are smart and successful who agree with me on that and encourage it. The problem lies in the branding and marketing. People aren’t going to hire me if they don’t know what I do. And when I’ve spent the last 5 years doing pretty much everything, I’m not even sure I know what I do. Except, well, everything.

Having written business plans, having been the one who advocated against multiple extraneous purposes in said plans, having been a loud advocate for specificity of scope, I am well aware that I can’t sell “everything consulting”. So, while I loathe putting myself in a box, I am coming to terms with the fact that sometimes you have to sell your skills one at a time, in neat little packages.

I am slowly and painfully trying to figure out what each package is. It’s like some kind of massive string art happening inside my brain, trying to sort out what I’m good at and what tools I have at my disposal to put thought into action. This skill goes with this potential opportunity…this volunteer activity leads to this skill…this class will give me the leg up on that opportunity…which will lead to the need for this skill…this tool is handy if I go this route…but could also be used to build this activity’s scope…

I think this is what people refer to as a “mind-mapping exercise”. Maybe I should do it in 3-dimensional space and create something of artistic value while I’m at it. Brain-mapping with shoestrings and plastic swords…

But I am making progress. The other day I heard something in a business planning webinar that really hit home with me. Pay as much attention to defining and clearly stating what you don’t do as laying out what you do. Of course, being the specifics stickler that I am, it’s not like I haven’t thought this way: We don’t do that, we shouldn’t do that, we need to shift our focus from that. But for some reason it never occurred to me to make an exclusionary list as part of a plan.

So, i decided to start there. Instead of sorting out what I want to do, I am sorting out what I don’t want to do. For instance, I get antsy with administrative work: scheduling, emailing, filing, documentation. So while I am certainly competent at it, and even though there’s good money to be had as a virtual assistant, I don’t think I’d be particularly fulfilled there. I am also not especially good at marketing or branding (as we can see from my “everything consulting” problem). While I can usually identify general guidelines and give very solid feedback on pre-existing marketing plans, I’m not your girl for coming up with a marketing campaign from scratch. I’m also not an accountant or lawyer, so I’m not going to try to advise you on your taxes or corporate structure.

So if I keep going I’ll whittle my options down to something manageable. Meanwhile, I don’t have to decide for sure, right now, this weekend. I think it’s ok to pursue some paths simultaneously and figure out which ones fit. 

I am signed up to do project management, which is occasionally nerve-wracking, mostly interesting, and appeals to my compulsion to make order of chaos. It’s less creative than I would like - seeing as how clients usually already know what they need and just want you to make it go. If I could also get into the pre-planning problem-solving “what and why” phase I might be happy to PM my way into my mid-thirties while looking for other meaningful places to flex my logic and innovation skills on the side. 

Something I’m really good at is strategy, but I’ve found that people expect 20 years of experience and an MBA in a strategic consultant. So I’m trying to figure out how to get past that perception barrier. Toward that end I’m looking into business-plan consulting, which will hopefully lead to some interesting conversations. I’m not one for keeping my mouth shut, so I hope to find myself involved in the strategizing rather than just the writing. 

And in doing these things, my hope is to start making real connections with people and organizations that are making a difference. Movements that I can get behind and causes that I can champion.

Of course, the doing is the easy part for me. It’s the marketing of my skills that I’m supposed to be working on and keep avoiding. How to get people to want to pay me to make things happen?

Yeah…

Anyone in marketing need a business partner to start a consulting firm?

So, I’ve mentioned briefly in a few past posts that I am helping to start a nonprofit co-working facility in my county. I’m not entirely sure how the original concept got started, but at some point over the last 2 or 3 years enough influential people realized that if our community of 30,000 people (160k county-wide) was to have any chance at sustaining a population and being attractive to businesses (and people) they needed to lay out the welcome mat for innovation. 

So after some discussion about incubators and business services, it was decided that a hip, relaxed co-working facility was the way to go to attract creative people and ideas. Think a coffee shop work environment, with a printer and without the coffee-making-noise, where you can drop-in, grab a desk, and work remotely. We are enabling businesses and individuals to innovate, to make our community somewhere that is open to evolution and resistant to inertia. Somewhere that is attractive to creative people. We’re referring to it as an “idea-hub” - a place that generates connections, fosters experimentation and curiosity, provides a basis for collaboration with people who are working on making a difference.

I can say “we” now, because somewhere along the way I found myself invited to a board meeting and then couldn’t keep my mouth shut - so they voted me onto the board. This wasn’t actually my intention, but it turned out to be a great project with some really motivated people. I also happened to be newly-unemployed and looking for missions. And it’s an inspiring opportunity to be in on the ground floor of reinventing the way businesses innovate.

What is really interesting to me is that, even after a year of planning, everybody has their own idea of what this place is and will be. Not enough so that we’re on different pages, but enough so that there is still some philosophical discussion each meeting of what it IS, the intangibles of the concept. Usually that would be a problem, an indication that somewhere we aren’t communicating our intent very effectively. But in this instance, I don’t think so. We are trying to get a bunch of entrepreneurs to get creative and make things happen. This is not a sole-proprietor entity. We want this thing to be member-driven: the events, the services, the layout. We want the idea-hub community to make it what they need it to be. We provide a great space and some wireless internet but the place is just the vehicle for whatever greatness can come out of it. So I consider it an asset that each of us brings our own vision to the collective goal. 

But another, more important, lesson that I’m learning - both with this project and with my personal career pursuits - is that It’s not just up to the entrepreneurs to innovate. They can’t shoulder that burden alone while everyone else colors inside the line. The image of the solo genius inventor is romantic, but not practical. An entrepreneur in isolation is simply someone with a lot of good ideas. An entrepreneur in the middle of a crowd of naysayers is a cranky, jaded someone with unrealized potential.

There has to be a culture that fosters creativity and innovation, or you don’t get change, you get stagnation. Sure, innovative pursuits can be, and are, reactionary. Sometimes there’s a fine line between innovation and subversion - the idea is completely anathema to the norm, potentially alienating, divisive. And of course great ideas can, and do, start in one mind. But how long can you innovate alone without becoming discouraged, out of touch, or impossible? And what is the value of new ideas if they never get any farther than your synapses? Is that really innovation or is that just thought?

Eventually, unless you’re adept at every applicable skillset, you have to have support from others in order to make change fly. Maybe you need a business partner, a lender, a developer, an accountant, a lawyer. Maybe you need spokespeople, maybe you need strategy people, maybe you just need someone to tell you you’re not (entirely) crazy. Maybe you need someone to point out the 67 ways you ARE crazy.

How do you find those people if the community isn’t ready to support out-of-the-box concepts? If nobody understands? If nobody is willing to entertain possibilities and innovative thought is looked upon with distrust?

How do you find the people who, like you, are just going about the everyday business of changing the world?

Sure, if you’re in a big, progressive city with lots of forward-thinking culture you may not think of this as an issue. But if you’re somewhere in middle America, where industry is king and bureaucracy is de-facto - and rather than flee for greener pastures you want to shake up the status quo and catalyze something…well, you can’t just find a meet-up online for Wednesday night. You have to BE the meet up. You have to be and enable a new way of thinking.

I find myself vicariously nostalgic for the 17th and 18th century coffeehouse culture. Where scholarly people gathered to intelligently discuss and debate a myriad of topics. Where literature and physics could intertwine with philosophy and politics. Where it was considered admirable to be interested in many fields of study and where continuous learning was respected, and expected. Of course, oftentimes the result of these intense discussions included revolution, at least partially attributable to a lack of societal tolerance for change. 

So I suppose that’s my idea of what our co-working facility, our idea-hub, is going to be. So that’s what I’m working for. A place to exchange and debate ideas, a community that is free to contemplate and create, invent, evolve. Maybe we will make change. Maybe we will make progress.

Maybe we will start an innovation revolution.

It has been a good 12 weeks. Some of the most interesting and inspiring weeks of my life. I feel like I have done more and learned more than at any other time, save those crazy 18-credit semesters in college. I am doing ALL OF THE THINGS. And I am loving the freedom and the constant mental and emotional engagement that comes from the opportunity to pursue activities that interest me. I feel like I can accomplish something. I feel confident. I feel like my life has potential.

But I’m kind of amazed that I was able to sustain it so long with having a full-on heart-palpitating financial panic-attack. Some combination of luck and budget-mojo got me through 12 weeks without a whole lot of trouble.

But now I have arrived at The Money Problem. 

As in, I need money to sustain my existence. More than I have coming in at the moment.

As in, I need to find some income.

As in, I have to decide what the point of negotiation is between dollars and passion. I have to really consider the urgency of getting a J-O-B job.

This sudden crisis was not just catalyzed by financial distress…

I got a call from a recruiter the other day about a mid-level position with a major company. It would pay quite a bit. But it would be a 9-5 at a desk in an office in Detroit. And it would be a bureaucratic position, lots of paperwork, lots of chain-of-command, not a lot of autonomy and creativity. 

Exactly the kind of J-O-B job that I would probably hate. And the kind of job that would prevent me from doing the awesome things with nonprofits and spontaneous projects and pursuits I’m doing now. And it would certainly be tough to get into consulting or further my photography when 10 hours of my day would be at a desk or in a car. 

But I’m not in a position to turn down the opportunity to try to make this kind of money. I put in my application. It would be ridiculously irresponsible not to. I have obligations. I have to have dollars. And that makes me sad. And angry. Because I have to be responsible to my bank account and not to my passions. Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?

I don’t want money to dictate what I do with my life. But it has, for at least 10 years now. Student loans converted to an underwater mortgage on my parents’ house don’t leave a lot of room for negotiation. And migraine medication and treatment is expensive. As is healthy food, insurance, internet access, smartphones, transportation costs…

Do I resent those things? No. My education and the people and experiences it brought into my life are priceless. My migraines aren’t going anywhere and are a byproduct of the way my brain works, which I wouldn’t change. Eating healthy is important, technology keeps me connected, my car is both transportation and a refuge for solo contemplation. 

so, I understand that it costs money to keep me alive, to get the things I need and want. But money doesn’t make a life. Experiences, interactions, disappointments, conversations, contemplations, relationships, failures, successes…these are some of the things that make a life. 

I haven’t been able to find these things behind a desk.

But I’m finding them in coffee shops, half-demolished houses, nonprofit offices, and on university quads. I’m finding them in random phone calls, photography gigs, volunteer jobs, on twitter, and in books I’ve half-read but can’t stop talking about.

I only have one life. I don’t want to spend it pursuing someone else’s goals, playing by someone else’s rules, meeting someone else’s deadlines. I want to plan world-changing projects over morning tea, come up with a thousand ways they won’t work before lunch, and then try them anyway after dinner. I want to work when it makes sense to work, where I work best, and however long it takes me to get it done. I want to take a nap or go for a run at 2:00 or 4:00 or whenever my body needs me to in order to operate at my best. I want to stay up until 2am in a furiously productive blur and then sleep until I can be at my best again. I want to be able to shut out the world or fling open the windows on my own schedule. 

Yeah, I know. “Stop dreaming and get a job,” right? That’s what everyone has to do. That’s what you have to do to survive. You can’t live like that and expect anybody to pay you, or respect you, or be supportive of you. You just can’t. 

Well why not? WHY NOT? If everybody lived the status quo, we’d be an assembly line society - working for the man, collecting a paycheck, not taking risks, never changing, never innovating.

I’m just really not ok with that. 

I have been incredibly responsible all my life. Even as a child, as far back as I can remember.

I’m 30 years old. I have no kids or high-maintenance pets. Nobody but me to be responsible for. I have a mind that never stops questioning and at least some remnants of youthful energy. 

So could I turn down a full-time well-paid job in order pursue consulting, photography, writing…living?

I don’t know. Right now? I don’t think my convictions are stronger than my empty wallet. 

I’m working on that. 

I’m finishing up week 11 of unemployment.

Chatting with a friend the other day, I was telling her about my busy week and she says to me “you’re probably the most focused and driven unemployed person I have ever met!” Yes, this is a fair statement.

And don’t think I don’t occasionally long for a day or two of lounging on the couch watching Homeland and eating Mexican food. In all seriousness: I’ve never been so busy in my life.

But this is a different kind of busy. Not the busy of a job with a boss, corporate responsibilities and deadlines. Maybe I shouldn’t even call it “busy”, with the negative connotations, at all. Let’s call it “actively engaged in doing.” What makes it different is that I get to choose, everyday, what I want to spend my time and energy on. I think this is a good step toward Living in the Grey…

I’ve talked in previous posts about volunteering, setting up a co-working facility, and renewing my interest in writing. All of which I’m still doing full-force. What else am I actively engaged in doing?

My best friend and I are exploring the possibilities of spearheading a national awareness/charitable campaign for literacy-advocacy and education. It involves books. And I don’t know if I can accurately convey with mere words just how much I love books. I can’t give too much away just yet, as we’re still working through the organizational bureaucracies, but I’m super stoked for this thing to actually GO. (Let me just tell you, setting up a nonprofit is a prohibitively long, difficult, and expensive undertaking.)

***Question: Does anybody have solid advice about how we can form an organization and solicit donations without having nonprofit status?

I am also spending a little time honing my business skills - my company (which isn’t paying anybody but is still functioning with everyone as shareholders) signed me up for a business-plan writing class. This is intended to help the business, of course, but will give me more specific skills to make my personal pursuits more successful. (Like the literacy campaign…)

And just this week I’ve established a relationship with a web dev firm to test out my project management skills. This isn’t going to pay for a little bit, but if it works out it might be something that I can grow into a career. And, again, I’m building some skills that will be useful to me.

One of my new favorite pursuits is finding interesting, entrepreneurial people and talking to them about what makes them tick. I’ve talked to a virtual business consultant, an influential and highly respected local businessman, those great entrepreneur students. Their excitement and passion is contagious and their unique views are inspiring. Can’t wait to share more of these experiences!

So as you can see, I find it extremely difficult to do nothing. Today, as I wait for a replacement computer (my PC screen destroyed itself), I am planning which of my favorite analog activities to pursue. Reading Quiet by Susan Cain and my just-arrived class book: The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki? Biking 10 miles while listening to SYSK podcasts? Taking notes from Inc. magazine? Finding a local entrepreneur to chat with?

Yes, to all of those.

A few days into unemployment, when I first really started talking about how I wanted to move into consulting, a friend of mine mentioned a woman she knew from high school. This was the mother of a friend, and had made her own virtual consulting business and been very successful. An introduction was offered and my friend made contact to ask if she’d be interested in talking to me.

However, I wasn’t very quick to follow up. This was irresponsible of me, but reaching out kept getting delayed and overlooked. It was a little too early in my thought process. I was a lot overwhelmed with figuring my life out, balancing obligations, battling discouragement and low cash flow.

Sometimes you have to be perceptive enough to know whether you’re ready to pursue a potential connection. And whether you need a minute (or a couple weeks) to collect yourself. I wouldn’t have known what to say, I wouldn’t have known what I was looking for or why it would be helpful to speak with her. I probably would have been too anxious to benefit from a conversation. But I also should have sent her a quick note to let her know. Lesson noted.

Luckily, Nora Rubinoff was gracious enough to understand the delay. And boy am I grateful. Not only did she give me many good tips for building a consulting business, but she gave me some personal insight on why she decided on this direction for her career and on the kind of person it takes to be successful. 

But what really stuck with me was some of the more intangible advice she gave.

Like: “Treat what you do as a real job.”

This may seem like common sense, but after letting it stew in the back of my mind its meaning has broadened and deepened. This doesn’t mean treat your job like a real job. To me, this means treat everything you do like a real job. And the qualifier is important here: a real job.

How do you treat your job? If you’re any good, you have at least some respect for what you do or you wouldn’t show up every day and exert effort to do it. And with a job you have a benefit, a reward, you’re doing it for a reason, there is some outcome that is desirable to you (like, a paycheck?). There are also consequences for inaction. You have a responsibility to see it through. You’re accountable to others for producing or accomplishing something.

So of course this applies to consulting. I may be at home, or in a coffee shop, but I still have to respect what I do. I can’t blow it off to go see a movie or I won’t get my desired outcome - to the tune of an hourly rate. I have to be responsible to my clients and I’m accountable to myself as much or more so than I would be accountable to a boss.

But, when you really think about it, doesn’t this also apply to just about everything? If I’m volunteering somewhere and I don’t treat it with respect, accept responsibility, hold myself accountable…then what am I doing? Certainly not helping the people I set out to help, and probably getting in the way of the people who are trying to do good work. If I want to learn something (say, to speak French, or to cook edible chicken) then this also applies. If I want to be a parent, we all hope I approach it with respect and hold myself accountable. If I want to start an organization, you better believe I have to treat that like a real job.

So, you see, this is a subtle and intuitive but often completely overlooked way of thinking. And the natural consequence of approaching your life this way is that if you treat what you do as a real job, no matter what it is, then other people will respect it as such.

Nora brought this up when I asked her if, in starting her business (rather than getting a typical in-office corporate gig), she had any negative or skeptical responses from friends and family. She mentioned that she had to set strict boundaries, to train some people not to call or drop in and interrupt her while she was working. I don’t have this problem as much as I do have subtle judgment about how I choose to spend my time, but I think the root of the matter is the same.

Respect what you do, no matter what it is, and insist that others do too.

Special thanks to Nora Rubinoff at www.aysweb.com

I always find it incredibly hard to reach out to people without context. Like, just randomly introduce myself because I’d like to know them.

This is, you know, basically what networking is - people wanting to get to know each other and searching for a connection with people who are otherwise complete strangers.

Recently I’ve been pushing myself to do this more. Because if I wait for people to introduce me (virtually or physically) I may never get where I want to be. This is so anathema to my being - I want to be working on something. Engaging people requires a huge mental effort - my physiological response is random floods of unhelpful adrenalin and subsequent anxiety and fatigue. (If you haven’t read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain - get thee to the bookstore!)

So this is usually how it goes: (Let’s take the virtual approach, mostly because it’s funnier.)

I find someone awesome on twitter that I would love to have a conversation with. Usually this is a person who posts thoughtful, insightful and varied content. I first try to respond to things they’ve tweeted. That is ignored because they have 3-100x as many followers as me and lots of interesting people are always replying to their fascinating tweets. Then I decide to tweet them a message directly: “hi! Would love to chat with you about [this great thing you’re doing] and [this great thing I’m doing]…etc”. And then, of course, it doesn’t fit in a tweet so I shorten it, awkwardly. At some point it becomes too ridiculous to send in its abbreviated state so I delete it entirely. I change tactics, maybe I’ll just send a direct message via their website or blog. So I compose an email, agonizing over how to sound cool and casual yet deeply interesting. And the longer this takes the more adrenalin-high I get and the more contrived my email sounds.
Then I hit send when I can’t stand the pressure anymore.

And then I feel compelled to tweet them anyway because maybe they will think I’m just spam! So I’m all “@awesomeperson I sent you a message, I’d love to chat with you!”

And then when all the sending is done and the adrenalin that compelled me to great aspirations is abating…I descend into the depths of self-criticism. For some reason I must have thought it was all a good idea… until I did it, and my inner middle-schooler kicked in with a punch of dread to the gut. I felt the laughter on the other other end of the internet. “Ha! This girl thinks she can just email someone and start a conversation! Bahahaha, how pathetic.”

You know, when you were in middle school and you asked people if you could hang with them at lunch? Which immediately labels you as an undesirable or desperate, and therefore deserving of scorn and ridicule? So you basically sat alone because if you didn’t already have a group of friends you weren’t worthy of one? I can’t be the only one who experienced this…

Maybe you were popular and self-assured in middle-school. Maybe you still are, in which case go back and read the last paragraph over again and realize what mere mortals experience.

Basically that inner middle-schooler is always waiting to creep up in social situations and say “SEE I TOLD YOU SO, you can’t! You aren’t cool enough! Nyah Nyah”.

Well, this is ridiculous. Nonsense. I mean, maybe it won’t work - it probably won’t. People generally don’t want to meet new people unless they are either known by somebody they know, or have the same (or higher) level of perceived social status. But who knows? Maybe the awesome person is someone like me and just waiting for a real person to reach out and be like “let’s talk about being awesome”.

Of course I know that this is not the best or most effective way to network. So before y’all think I’m sad and pathetically hopeless, here’s the better approach (which I will go into detail about in subsequent posts)

1. Get introduced. Find someone who knows them. This might not work with, say, Brad Pitt, but if you have the same interests and operate in the same field of study, career, or activist circles chances are you know someone who knows someone. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Be active. In order to meet interesting people you have to BE interesting. Read articles. Comment on them. Blog about them. Reply to tweets with insightful comments, not “LOL”s and “Ur Brillz!”. If you make yourself present and relevant sooner or later you’ll meet someone who knows someone. (This also applies to face-to-face networking)

But sometimes, you have to just brave your inner middle-schooler and take a chance on a spontaneous connection. You might get laughed at. But you know what? Laugh right back! Because if they’ve shown that ridicule and scorn are part of their true colors, they’re more pathetic than you. Do you really want to connect with someone who operates based on a judgmental mindset? Didn’t think so.

I met with some students today at University of Michigan business school. The three of them are taking an entrepreneurship class, though none of them will be business grads. They all come from vastly different backgrounds. Two are engineers and one is studying space weather. They come from the United Arab Emirates, China, New Zealand. They signed up for an entrepreneurial class because one had tried a website on a whim and failed, one wanted to figure out how to better solve problems in her field, one just really likes to talk to people and take cooperative classes. They all thought entrepreneurship would help them learn how to have an impact on whatever they choose to put their minds to - though they’re not entirely sure what that will be.

They all talked about wanting to do something better, wanting to make a difference. That is an almost universal sentiment among young people these days. It might be, as my boss is fond of saying, a generational thing: the “Millenials” (of which I am one, barely). Maybe it is something that the internet is catalyzing for the first generation born with the world at their fingertips. It has definitely always been ingrained in Ann Arbor’s culture. But they gave the impression that this is something of a new idea to them - that they started out on a strict career track and along the way became activists searching for a cause. Maybe they didn’t realize they could think that way until they took this class. I’m not sure.

But I’m glad I got the chance to talk with them.

The point of the meeting was to talk about their class project, which is “parking”. I happen to have a lot of unintentional expertise, seeing as how I spent the last five years in a parking-information technology start-up. They had started out in their project by developing a full-fledged (perhaps overcomplicated) solution to a perceived pain. What they didn’t do was actual research on who their customers were and what they actually wanted.

I get the sense that this is the point of the class - to teach by letting them make mistakes and figure out what went wrong.

So in meeting with me they were backtracking to the research. Their assignment was to forget about an end-product or solution but to find out how people feel about parking. They had realized, and I could tell that this lesson had really changed them, that understanding the problem is more than halfway toward developing a solution, and without that half…the solution is irrelevant.

So when I had said just about everything I could say about parking and given them multitudes of resources to consult, they asked me about entrepreneurship.

To my surprise, I had a lot to say on the subject.

They asked me how to know what they should do after school. I told them that they should always have a passion for their projects. I told them to figure out what they enjoy doing for no pay. I told them to volunteer as much as they can - for whatever project sounds interesting - and use it as an opportunity to exercise the skills they enjoy. Something that they’re willing to do without getting paid might be something that they’re willing to devote their lives to in order to make a living. I told them not to be afraid to fail or change their minds. I told them it was ok to not be sure as long as they keep searching. And I told them that if there’s something they are willing to spend their heart on, then all they have to do is find a way to monetize it. 

I told them that they should learn anything they can, even if it has nothing to do with what career they choose. I told him that learning music theory helped me to learn how the world works. It made my brain familiar with structure. After all orchestration isn’t all that different from business organization. And once you learn how to learn rules, you are able to learn other kinds of rules. Once you learn how to learn processes… You are able to learn any kind of process.

They asked me how we found people to work on our start-ups. I told them that you don’t recruit people, you engage them. I told them if you’re passionate about something, other people will want to be a part of it. I told them to talk about their ideas with people they respect and watch for people who ask questions, and then ask those people more questions, until finally the advisers feel like they also own the project and become partners

They asked me for a broad overview of entrepreneurial advice. I told them to cultivate relationships, but to make sure your product isn’t dependent on outside entities. I told them to listen to their customers and learn to separate the actual problem from the customers’ feelings about it - that customers will often suggest a solution rather than articulate the problem, and to watch out for getting distracted by potential solutions. I told them to keep it as simple as possible, to not try to do too much from the get-go. That once they have customers they can add more services and create partnerships that are formed from mutual benefit and not dependency. I told them that you can’t always put everything in a neat little package all at once. You can’t know everything before you start (much to my eternal chagrin), but you always have to want to know more.

Then it was quiet for a minute as they all considered this information. And then one student, with no irony and much respect, said: “How do you know so much without, you know, business school, or technical school?”

I said:

I ask questions. I ask a lot of questions. If someone knows something and I want to know it, I don’t stop asking until they share with me. I learned by doing. I made mistakes, and I learned from them. If something needed to be done, I figured out how to do it.

I said, you have to learn how to draw upon others’ knowledge. I told them that you can’t always know everything about something. But you can always know something. And you don’t have all the answers, and you won’t have all the answers. What matters is that you have the right questions.

To everybody who has aspersions cast on their aspirations:

(inspiration from Kat Keers)

Hi. You. Yes, you. Over there, with the quiet determination to make a difference. You with the brilliance and uncertainty on your face. You who aren’t like anybody else no matter how hard you try. You, who have heard nothing but criticism and naysaying. You, who are trying to change the world.

Maybe you are struggling with your career right now. Maybe you are struggling with life purpose. Maybe you have heard “but” too many times. Maybe you are tired of doubt. Maybe you, like me, are unemployed and struggling to use your newfound free time to remake your perspective and your life.

I know this is not ideal. Trust me, it is not always pleasant.

So let me say to you: it’s ok to follow your heart right now. Yes you can dream. And you know what? Don’t stop there.

Do. Explore. Invent.

Try. Fail. Try again. Fail again. Try some more.

Don’t let the confines of societal expectations or close-minded individuals snuff out your determination. Their “buts” aren’t for you, not really. Their doubts are ones that you and I and everyone in our positions have considered a thousand different ways.

We are not foolish, or foolhardy or irresponsible. Every time they doubt our ability to figure out our own lives they undermine our self-worth.

Don’t let them. Just because we are unconventional doesn’t mean we are any less worthy of support.

You are 20, 30, 70 and at a crossroads, wondering what’s on the other side of that hill and whether you can be content with the status quo. Wondering if you can slug it through one more day. You, who are doing everything in your power to make a fulfilling career for yourself. A fulfilling life, a better world.

This is difficult for people to understand, but this is difficult for us as well. We are not just sitting on our asses playing Angry Birds all day. It’s not easy being different. It’s not easy bucking the norm. It’s damn hard work to go against the grain! Be proud of it!

And don’t let those who would drag you down get their web of words around you.

This is an educational process, this is a life process, this is time consuming. We are trying to better ourselves and our lives. We don’t want to have to ask for help, but we also refuse to give into societal pressure of following the norm and taking a life trajectory that will make us miserable! Our friends, family, and colleagues need to find a way to accept and support us as we are and where we want to go on our journey. They cannot make us be anybody we are not. We are awesome. We have a lot to give, so we need time to develop and grow. We’ll figure it out. 

You’ll figure it out.