Post-It Question

As I contemplate the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance challenge, ponder the prompts and reflect on myself and my life thus far (something I have been doing for the past few years, since my 2008 layoff), there is always the question of "How Can I do More?" The prompt put forth by Jenny Blake on June 3rd definitely pressed me back into that thinking.

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

Gentle readers, your MatchGirl's biggest challenge right now is a lack of time. There are too many things, personally and professionally that I must do and that I want to do coupled with needing to get some sleep (which is a struggle in itself), your MatchGirl finds that there are really too few hours in the day. So. How to pose that as a question to myself?

I'm rarely at home, so I took liberty with the Post-It placement (I'd never see it on my bathroom mirror or the back of the door) and placed a virtual Post-It in the form of a Mac Stickie on my laptop's screen. If there is one place I am for several (upon several) hours a day, it's looking at my computer screen.

The question I asked myself was this: How can I make time for the things that are important to me?

Pretty standard question, I know. It's one working moms and busy dads have been asking themselves for years. I'm neither of those people, But I certainly have been finding myself a bit overextended of late. And I find myself missing out on things that I would really like to do, because my time is packed. And, often, as is so often the case for those of us with jobs that involve working for others, it's not truly my own.

So how to make the time? How to make sure I do the things that are important to me, with the limited 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week? It's not an easy question to answer, but I think, for me, the key must be saying "no". I want to do everything. I want to attend every event. I want to write every blog post. I want to lend a hand to my over-extended co-workers. I want to assist every friend who asks for my advice or opinion or the donation of my time.

But I can't. It's simply not possible.

So I need to make sure that I have a clear focus on what's truly important to me. Both personally and professionally. I need to make sure that everything I do is measured on its level of importance. And, sometimes, I need to be a little selfish. Not so selfish that I ask myself "What's in this for me?" but selfish enough that I ask myself, "Is something I"m excited about? Is this something that will make things bigger/better/brighter in the end?" What is important to me is projects and ideas that reflect my passions: building communities; spending time with those I love; focusing on how Boyfriend and I will move forward in the months and years ahead; communicating my passions with people, near and far, in hopes of helping or inspiring them.  In order to make sure that I have the time to do what matters most to me, I need to see where what is asked of me fits into those criteria. And go from there.

It's not the final answer, of course, dear readers. The question itself is too broad. I know that.

But certainly, right now, my greatest challenge, is that of time.

What are you doing to meet your biggest challenges?

One Strong Belief

Your MatchGirl spent all day today, gentle readers, pondering the prompt put forward by Buster Benson on the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance Challenge:

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

It's an interesting question.

It's a challenging question.

It's a question that I cannot truthfully answer.

I love the quote from Self-Reliance that has prompted this thoughtful challenge. I have always been comfortable in my own solitude, in being my own self. And in doing my best, with lapses in my teenaged years, to stay true to that self. It's how my parents raised me. It's how my grandparents, on both sides, raised them.

As I've move through my adulthood, and especially as I now linger in my mid-thirties, I find that I share more commonalities with the people I surround myself with than there are differences amongst us. And I don't mean this answer as a cop out. I challenged myself all day, from the morning when the prompt arrived to the late evening when I sat down to type this reply, to come up with an answer that was true. That meant something. That would be fitting of this question.

I cannot, though, dear readers, come up with something that I know, that I believe, that I believe that any person in my inner circle does not believe. Nothing that's of importance anyway.

I believe in love.

I believe in friendship.

I believe in the power of community.

I believe we are amazing alone and we can be even greater together.

These are the beliefs that I live by every day. These are the beliefs I share with you, gentle readers, as I attempt to answer this question. It might not be the answer that was asked for.

But I certainly believe it's the right answer.

Fifteen Minutes To Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Challenge:
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

My life changed when I was laid off, in November of 2008. This is a fact.

Until that time I had been totally - for lack of a better word - comfortable with my life. That year, itself was miserable. A lot of bad things happened that, in the long run, don't really matter as stories, just as the pieces that fell down and put me into the position to be who I am today. And to see that being someone is to keep striving to be better at being you.

On that day in early November, my boss called me into his office and told me that I was doing a great job. But the company was hemoraging money and, as one of only two salaried people, I would be working my last day that day. I was amazed. I had worked my ass off at that job. I had worked long hours. I had put sweat and tears (and probably a little) blood into that job - working longer hours than even the start-up owners themselves. And suddenly I was being asked ot pack my desk and being escorted out the front door.

I was devastated.
I moped.
I slept too much.
I drank too much.
I looked on Craigslists for jobs that were well below my intelligence and skill.
I was, to say the least, depressed.

And then one morning, I woke up.
And I started writing.
I started this little blog to share my feelings with the world.

And I found out there were more people like me. People who were smart and loyal and beautiful and cared about each other and their communities - online and local. And I started to make a whole new world of friends.

That's the important part of the story. It's about the community that you find when you put yourself out there - truly put yourself out there and let yourself see the world in a different way. It's about the people you meet who you admire and you want to be friends with - who you find inspiring and whom you hope you can inspire.

The most important thing I  have learned, over the past few years, is that if you just put yourself out there - heart wide open - open to pain and to joy and to all the amazements that the world has to offer, even if they terrify you, that is the way to your truest self.

Through sharing my hopes and fears and pains on this blog, I realized that there was a tribe of people out there - some near, some far - who felt those things, too. I met people who were terrified of starting over after being laid off. I met girls who felt like they would be single forever. I met people in my own neighborhood who love it as much as I do and who thought there must be a way to introduce those people to one another - to foster community and relationships. And the best part of all of that is I am still doing it. And I'm helping other people do it. And I'm trying to work with people who are more tech-savvy than I to make it happen more and better and bigger.

The thing I know is that by being your true self - not apologizing, for either your strengths or your weaknesses, you gain so much. You meet the most amazing people. You find your tribe. You learn things you might never have known. You are offered experiences that, were you hiding behind a facade of what you think you're supposed to be, you never would have been privy to. It is a terrifying way to live, at times, with your heart on your sleeve. But, for me, there has never really been any other way.

The best thing that ever happened to me was getting laid off in November 2008, at the height of the recession. It put me on a path that I never would have gone down otherwise. And I can't imagine living any other way.

The #Trust30 Challenge

Your MatchGirl, gentle readers, has been a bit of a slacker when it comes to this little tome. When it comes to this blog in general. I have many side projects, I have my job projects (which include maintaining a few blogs and several Twitter feeds) and I have my life (which I also blog about). At work I'm the go-to girl to answer questions and make sure people know the names of other people in the office, to make sure the interns have projects to do and that they are getting them done. I'm the person who knows where the trash bags are and what time the super goes to lunch. I know who is at the meeting, who is supposed to be at the meeting and why the meeting is happening. It's all, to be very honest, dear ones, a little overwhelming.

Even when I have time to myself, it is not really my own time.

So, of course it made sense that when Amber Rae, the chief evangelist for The Domino Project (of which I am a slacking member of the street team), put forth the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self Reliance Challenge that your MatchGirl thought, "Oh sure! That sounds so good. I have time for that."

But here's the thing, dear ones. This is time for me. To do this challenge, to take these prompts and run with them, to reflect on this book.  Because this is something that I will do just for me. I will share as much as possible with you, on this website, though I may take some of the prompts and tackle them within my journal instead, and I hope that you will take the challenge with me. Not because I challenge you, but because it is time you can set aside to really pay attention to no one but yourself.

Tonight I tackle the first prompt:

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

I'll share my story with you tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Turning Tides: Resume Reading

Gentle readers, your MatchGirl found herself, last week in an odd position. She found herself being the person on the resume receiving and reading side of things. As you well know, your MatchGirl was unemployed for a year and a half, during the height of the recession, and sent out hundreds and thousands of resumes herself.

So. after having posted the position, only to one place, I sat back and waited for the resumes to roll in. And roll in they did. Hundreds. Seriously. Hundreds.

Now, you might think that if you received hundreds of resumes that you would not take the time to read them all - to look through all those cover letters and open all those MS Word attachments. But I did. I did because it's the right thing to do. I did because you never know who you will fin in the 60th or in the 150th resume. Just because someone is fast on the submit button doesn't mean they're the right fit for the job, after all.

Here are some tips, though, dear ones, for those of you still unemployed. For there were some major fails in the piles and piles of resumes and cover letters that I received.

°Formatting still matters. I don't care what the other websites say. You never know who will be reading your resume and you need to lay it out nicely, and to have the information be relevant. I promise. It's important.

°If there is a salary advertised in the post, don't send a cover letter with a salary requirement that's higher than the cap. Seriously. I cannot tell you how many cover letters I read through with salary requirements not only a bit about the advertised high end, but $10 to $15K higher. Gentle readers, you are all a lot smarter than the average bear, so this is probably a "duh" to you, but in this day and age, with the economy as it is, there is no way that you can do this. I promise there is someone who will require a salary within the advertised amount who can do the job just as well, if not better. Also, since they are less conceited, they'll probably be a lot more fun to work with.

°Use proper grammar and salutations in your cover letter, and when the person's name is listed in the job posting, address it to them! One second of research will get you so much further than copying and pasting your rote cover letter - dress it up, even just a little bit, if you want to get your foot in the door!

°Include an email address. Maybe another "duh", but we received several resumes with no email addresses included. If you want to work with/for me, why are you making my life harder?

I think that I read these cover letters and resumes with a softer eye than my colleague may have. Because unemployment, though over a year ago, was really just a minute ago in the grand scheme of my life. And I know how very frustrating it is to apply for job after job after job. And how demoralizing it is not not hear back. So I wanted to take my time and judge these cover letters and resumes with the eye of hiring the right person and reading between the lines to find them.

We start interviews this week and I'm excited and nervous to see how they go. At the end, there is only one position and we can only hire one person for it. And then I'll be the one to give the good news ... and the bad.

Work It Brooklyn Industry Focus: Music

Registration is now open for our next event– Industry Focus: Music!
Click here to register.

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It’s no big secret that Brooklyn is the epicenter of independent music in America and Work It Brooklyn is psyched to announce, in partnership with Women In Music, a very special Industry Focus event on Wednesday, April 20th at Coco66 in Greenpoint. This panel and networking event geared towards independent musicians and artists (of all genders) is bolstered by a panel of heavy-hitting music industry professionals eager to share their knowledge and insight as well as answer your burning questions as well as a select group of local industry VIPs who will be ready to network with participants during the mingling slots of the event.

The Panel
• Jeff Price, CEO/Founder/President, Tunecore
• Liz Leahy, CEO/Co-Founder, Section 101
• Michael Corcoran, President, MusicSUBMIT
• Ben Markowitz, Product Experience Manager, Fanbridge
• Jayce Varden, Director/Co-Founder, Pledgemusic.com
• Shamita Carriman Esq. (moderator), Carriman Law Group & Women In Music
Have questions for any of these panelists? Please email them to info@workitbrooklyn.com

The Evening
• 7:00-7:15pm Check in and Mingling
• 7:15-7:40pm Speed Networking
• 7:45-9:00pm Panel Discussion and Q&A
• 9:00-10:00pm Mix, Mingle, and Demo Exchange

What is Speed Networking?
Think musical chairs meets speed dating, where attendees get to meet and speak through this spunky and time sensitive activity.

Demo Exchange!
Bring a handful or two of your CDs to swap with other musicians, VIPs, or anyone else you encounter. There will also be a table where you can put your CDs as well as collect those of other attendees.
Look forward to seeing you there!

Life At Best Is Bittersweet

A new post on A Precious Environment on the excitement and the tragedy of our first weekend in our new home.

If you enjoy reading Unemployed Brooklyn, please feel free to follow your MatchGirl's further adventures on my new blog, about building a home and a life together with Boyfriend.