career Archives

career

Multiply Strengths vs. Improve Weaknesses

Last updated on March 13th, 2017 at 11:07 pm

The school of thought goes like this:

“Focus on your strengths to see exponential growth. At best, improving your weaknesses leads to marginal growth.”

The idea’s touted all over the internet. Here’s one or two places. Check your Google for others.

In theory this sounds fine.

By sticking to your strengths, you’ll “produce” (in the broadest definition of the word) more for the world, at a higher quality, with greater satisfaction.

Versus struggling through tasks which require a disposition you don’t have, or skill sets you haven’t acquired.

For example, in all likelihood I will never become a terrific programmer or designer. I’ve tried. I struggle through tiny modules of CSS and continue flailing when I have to conjure what words like “float: right” or “padding: 3 em” do to the Internets.

So if I have to bring skill sets to the table, I’d rather leave these in the car.

My problem with the “multiply strengths versus improve weaknesses” argument…

Is how easy it is to confuse:

“That’s not one of my strengths”

with…

“That’s really hard.”

In this hyper-connected world that’s both uber-competitive and saturated with distractions, it’s easy to let ourselves off the hook the second we run into a barrier. This stymies our development: professionally, emotionally, inter-personally.

And if we constantly let ourselves off the hook when things get difficult, how will we produce anything worthwhile?

Take my own example above: is it that I’m not a good programmer or designer by natural disposition? Or is it just hard… and it’s a skill that requires work?

Which brings to mind a lyric from a song in today’s modern-pop lexicon, Ten Thousand Hours by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis:

The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint/
The greats were great cause they paint a lot.

I’m not saying that school of thought is entirely wrong.

I’m saying, there’s a balance: yes, find the opportunities to multiply your strengths.

But don’t use “weakness” as a crutch to avoid “difficult.”

Photo Credit: Hayley-Jean Lochner

career

First Impressions Stick

Last updated on March 13th, 2017 at 11:17 pm

It’s human nature, I think, to believe your first impression. The one made the second someone walks through your door, and puts their hand into yours.

Humans are predisposed to look for evidence that corroborates what we already believe, not find reasons why we may be wrong.

So if you come into your first Hollywood production company as a intern, big-eyed and cash-money green, that’s how people will see you. For a long time.

If you come into a studio as an assistant, they may never see you as executive material.

Not that it doesn’t happen — of course it does — especially if the company has a system in place for grooming talent.

Then you have the opportunity to outgrow your role…

IF, in that first moment, you showed your employer you have the potential to do it.

Again, first impressions…

But what if they don’t?

And you haven’t shaken their first impression?

If that’s what you’re working up against, what’s the best methodology to progress in your career?

The fastest path is no longer the straightest.

Instead of trying to beat through glass ceilings…

Move sideways and try a different ladder — bringing your experience and ideas gleaned from the other organization,to create new ones that make you more valuable, more indispensable.

Then, bring those ideas elsewhere. Or back the way you came, if you choose.

That’s how to develop a career.

Constantly learning new things.

Never resting on anyone else’s ladder.

Photo Credit: Se_New

career

If You’re Looking for Permission You’ve Come to the Wrong Place

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:26 am

One of my favorite interviews of all time (and thanks to the handcrafted Aux Hook-up in my car, I listen to many) is Bryan Elliot’s interview of Seth Godin, for the Icarus Deception.

In the interview, Seth says — and I’m going to paraphrase here:

“The excuse that, ‘My boss doesn’t give me permission’ is a bad one. Why should he? You’re not asking for permission, what you’re saying is, ‘Can I go do this thing, and if it works, I’m going to take all the credit, and if it doesn’t, you’ll take all the blame.’ Who would agree to that?”

At the theory level, the logic is simple. But when it’s time for application, the “logic” contends with “emotion”: pride, ego, embarrassment, anger… all of which overwhelm logic in half-a-second.

Let me tell you a story of when this overwhelm happened to me…

While working for a literary management company, I met with a young man who was doing interesting work in the music space, bringing more of a performance art component to EDM, with custom built hardware and software.

He was brilliant and motivated. At the moment, there wasn’t an immediate business opportunity for either of us. I didn’t expect that, though. The meeting was about getting on each other’s radar, should an opportunity present itself.

I took the story of the meeting into a staff meeting — not as a hard sell, but a soft pitch.

Sorta a “hey, met this guy who’s doing really interesting work in this space…”

My boss at the time thought very little of the idea:

“That’s pie in the sky shit.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“This is what you should be spending your time on…” citing examples of tactics he used… 20 years ago.

I can’t say I wasn’t embarrassed. And angry.

He called me out in a staff meeting… in front of everyone.

As far as I could tell, the extent of my indiscretion was meeting someone — on my own time — that may pan out to nothing (as these things often do).

My immediate gut (read: emotional) response was: “fine, he doesn’t want to ever hear any new ideas, then I will never bring in any. We’ll keep using tactics that worked in the 80s and early 90s.

Don’t Ask Permission. And Don’t Do This, Either…

Later (when I cooled off) I remembered Seth’s words: Don’t ask for permission to do interesting work.

To which I’d like to add the corollary:

Don’t seek validation, either. Seeking validation means you’re not sure if you’re working on the right problem. Without the right problem, what good is any solution you propose?

Do the work. Solve the problem. Then show them the results.

Yes, this is tricky. If you screw up, then it’s on you… which is the whole point, isn’t it?

To which I can only offer:

Build confidence in your choices.
Confidence comes with experience.
Fail quickly, not fatally.

Also, build reversibility into any solution you present:

A fleshed out story bible — that can always be rewritten.
A completed website redesign — installed locally, not live on the site.
A new marketing strategy — that can implemented in stages.

Why Are You Here, Again?

No, no organization is going to tell you to do these things.

Why would they give you deniability?

You’re responsible for picking and choosing your own risks.

But with that said…

If you’re with a company that actively tells you: “don’t try new things, don’t take risks, toe the line, do what worked before…”

What are you still doing there?

Photo Credit: JD’na

career

This Is What I Accomplished with All The Time in the World

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:15 pm

For an extended stretch of time two years ago, I had A LOT of time to write.

It’s called “unemployed.”

I had finished a Production Coordinator job. I wasn’t great at being a Production Coordinator — you in fact, need to know things about Production in order to Coordinate — which I did not.

Nor did I possess a passion for physical production.

So no surprise THERE when I wasn’t asked to join the next project.

(The indignation of some interns and temps, when they’re not asked to stay on for full employment, baffles me. If they didn’t try to keep you on, or help secure your next gig — ask yourself: “Was I any good?”)

To make money, I took a gig to independently cast a vanity reel — which required hunching over the 10-inch display on my Acer netbook and using Actor’s Access for 6 hours a day.

That paid $300. So at least I covered my rent for the month (yeah, I was living light).

Afterwards, I interned at a Youtube channel network, where I filled the hours by watching Pokemon battles and MineCraft.

That lasted three days, when I realized that I was happier waiting tables. I’d rather bring over plates of Pad See Ew and refills of Diet Cokes with lemons for a 12% tip than watch another Pokemon Platinum video of a Noctowl using “Tackle” against a Vulcan.

That’s what I did. I quit the internship, and went down the street and got my old job back.

All the while, I took most of the morning to write scripts and blog posts. Much of that writing didn’t go anywhere, but I was putting in my time.

The depression I had settled into (hours on the Planet Poke Channel, then regressing back to asking people if they’d like their curry “mild” or “spicy”) made for some really uninspiring stuff.

This may not be true for other creatives. Some bask in that angst to fuel their creativity sensibilities.

That’s just not me.

For me… Happiness good.

Sue me.

That was two years ago. I’m in a better place now, so my writing temperament is good. (Some claim they bleed on the page every time they write. I prefer ink.)

But now there’s a lack of time.

I’m committed to different relationships (one requiring a standard of living above$300 a month, and meals consisting of more than pasta-bought-in-bulk 5-days a week).

I’ve committed to a few too many projects.

So I still hold the mornings for my creative time — starting at 5:30 a.m. on the weekdays, 8 on the weekends — but it definitely bumps heads with other commitments.

That’s the eternal battle, isn’t it? Good versus evil? The Force versus The Dark Side? Ash Ketchum vs. Gary?

I think whatever side you happen to be on at your particular juncture, the process looks the same.

If you have all the time in the world.

Or you’re struggling to squeeze off an hour of production.

Make the decision that developing your platform is important.

Find a routine. Stick to it – don’t move it for anyone.

Pick your work for the day — bird by bird, as the Lamott-expression goes.

And keep in mind building takes time.

Photo Credit: Klaus De Buysser

career

The ONE Thing My Friend Taught Me… That Changed My Career, Relationships, and Happiness

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:21 pm

I keep a mental list of things I’m awful at:

Cooking

Making the bed

Writing long lists

Only one thing really held me back, in my career, personal life, and relationships, though.

In college, when I saw how my friend used this one strategy, it was like a strong punch of sobriety after a night of too many cheap vodka shots.

It’s effect in this year alone: I earned more money (almost a $10,000 yearly increase), created my first Hollywood tracking board, and developed a more valuable network of colleagues.

I’ll get to all that. First, though – back to the awful:

One Thing That Held Back My Career, Personal Life and Relationships

I was always awful at asking people for help or advice.

I thought everything was up to me to “figure it out.”

And that asking for help was a sign of weakness.

Plus, I had this screwed up interpretation when others asked for help. I always translated their words, “Can you help me with this?” into “Can you do this for me?” Which wasn’t fair to anyone.

There were so many arenas in which I should have asked for help, but never did:

Soccer – I never learned to strike properly, or attack with confidence. And I never asked for help.

Digital electronics – (Yeah, I was engineering geek in high school…) Rather than damage why reputation as a smart dude by asking for help, I focused on scoring well on exams over grasping the fundamentals (voltage, current, and resistance) that I never understood.

Editing – This was a recent development, in which I learned more, in editing for 4 hours sitting next to a relative expert, than 14 hours editing alone in a dark room.

What was the Game Changer?

Enter: my friend Joshua, who showed me it was okay to ask for help.

He’d struggle through a problem, and if he hit a block, he’d ask for guidance – from a bunch of people.

This idea blew me away: here I was refusing to ask one expert for help, and Josh would ask like 5 people!

It didn’t matter if it was help with editing a paper, navigating a juncture in his career, or relationships.

He always sought the big picture. And he knew how to do it openly and honestly. He’d say, “I’m asking a bunch of people for help. I really respect your opinion, what do you think about this situation…?”

What I noticed was this:

When he put it that way, when I saw that he worked to solve the problem himself first, my “barrier” about asking for help didn’t come crashing down.

I was more than happy to help. It made me feel good. It was a win-win.

Then, Josh would take action (note: not always following my advice. Probably for the better — but that’s not the point). He did something. And I liked being a part of his action, even if indirectly.

That’s when it clicked for me.

It was a small, but significant tweak.

This was the game changer:

We like to help people when they acknowledge the help, and take action.

Even when it’s not their advice you’re acting on.

It seems so simple but this idea blew me away.

There are so many things in the past year alone, that I couldn’t have done without asking for help.

A Few of My Game Changers – And My Exact Words

Negotiating salary – I armed myself for two successful salary negotiations by asking my colleagues a simple question and a follow-up: “How much do you make? I’m asking people so I understand the market rate.”

Creating a Hollywood tracking board in my niche – Learning literary contracts and deal points in a vacuum is difficult, but my grasp of concepts more than doubled after I selected a few people in similar roles and asked: “Would you be interested in sitting down once a month and studying these deal points together?”

Networking – If I felt like I provided value, and genuinely connected with someone at drinks or an event, I’d ask: “Is there anyone else you think it’d be helpful that I talk to?”

Asking For Help is An Art and Science

Meaning, these exact words alone may not produce the same results. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface, months and years of providing value to others first.

You can’t be wearing a sign across your back, “Please Help Me!”

I still don’t ask for help enough. The difference, however is: I’m not limited by the ask.

Instead, I’m limited two things:

The time I know it takes to give back and provide value in return, and…

The scalability of my own system that prods me to give, give, give to others, first.

Asking for help, in conjunction with these two points, has been a game changer for my career and life.

What’s been your game changer? What systems or outlooks have you implemented that helped you make leaps you didn’t think possible?

Photo Credit: Donnovann

career

How Do You Decide: Take a New Job or Stay at Your Old Job?

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

I got offered the opportunity to work for a show runner the other day.

Was it the right decision?

My friend asked me to call him. He said, “This position is about to open up. I can tee it up for you, but you have to tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in four hours. You’re the first person I’m going to, but if you pass I need to get someone else in the room.”

It’s a gun-to-the-head situation, but fair play.

I thought it over, as I tried focusing on check letters and connecting calls and the minutia of the day’s tasks.

I passed.

Here are the metrics that went into that decision

career

Finished Shooting A Web Series and It’s Effect on Everything or Nothing

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:25 am

We finished our web series. Three episodes, six producers/directors, 11 actors. It was a fantastic two days:

Here’s a List of Barriers

I personally had to overcome to Get To Done:

My distaste for preproduction
My dislike for physical production (and physical labor, for that matter)
Heated 90-minute arguments over whether to shoot 3 episodes or 1 episode
My hang-up over my own failed passion project

Even after smacking around these barriers like they owed me money and reaching a success milestone… doubts linger. It probably stems from my immersion in self-dev (turns out you actually have to apply this stuff — intellectual mitosis it ain’t).

Here’s a List of My Doubts

I don’t necessarily want to be a Youtube Creator. I don’t want to compete with kids who’ve been making webcam movies since they were 6 and told they are unique snowflakes since 4
I don’t want to work in a medium where a WB executive can condense a 90-page Youtube Creator Playbook onto a single sheet of paper
Where will this web series fit into my nebulous “brand?” Does it?
If I pursue this, it means sacrificing another pursuit. Tim Ferriss says, “there’s more than enough time for the things that are truly important.” Comforting on one hand, but on the other: you must be absolutely ruthless in eliminating anything that’s not important. Where does this project fall?
It’s in the can — now what? Do we post on Youtube or Vimeo? FoD? What’s the end goal?
Does this project become the focus of our side projects?

These questions hung me up throughout the process. Taking a hard look at those doubts, though, I realize:

This is My Desire to Find Logic in the Illogical.

Or as Nassim Nicholas Taleb is fond of pointing out, trying to make connections between disconnected events. Attempting to find casualty where there is none.

Unfortunately, the puzzle pieces of our lives don’t align as we move forward. They only slot neatly into place when looking back. When we study the past, the chain of events appear transparent:

Of course WWII was inevitable! Look at Germany’s unrest in the 1920s, the unfair reparations, coupled with the Great Depression and the ramifications that flowed into Europe.
Of course HARRY POTTER was going to sell a more than 450 million copies! And JK Rowling was destined to make more money than God (or £5 every second). (Even Rowling describes her story as one “the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.“) The book is so good! The world was ready for the Harry Potter phenomenon!

Never Mind Predicting the Future

I can’t even find casualty in the greatest experiences of my own life. Looking back , the truly amazing came so far from left field I still don’t understand how it all fits:

Amy
Opening two restaurants with my father
Moving to Los Angeles
My first solo trip to Argentina

Doubt Remains

It always will. The trick is not letting it slow us down. Put less priority in aligning puzzle pieces, and more on the fundamentals:

Be yourself.
Take chances.
Work like a mofo.
Create something every day.

“Brand” will follow. All will be illuminated.

Photo Credit: cypherone

career

Time To Get Back To This

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:17 pm

Time to get back to this. Yes.

I’m moving large chunks of the “Moving to Los Angeles” posts to another blog, one geared towards Los Angeles, the entertainment industry, and personal finance.

Rebuilding Part 3 – “Assist”

Last updated on April 11th, 2019 at 09:18 am

A week after returning to the restaurant, I was offered an assistant position at a literary management company. Which made things tricky: work six days a week, plus my own writing, plus night and weekend reading. It could be done, but did I want to put myself through that?

I thought about quitting the restaurant. I remembered my father reminding me over the phone, when I first arrived in Los Angeles, “Look after yourself. That’s enough right now. Just do what’s best for you.” That’s what quitting would have meant: looking out for numero uno, making things easier on myself. It didn’t feel right, though. I couldn’t quit, effectively spitting on their faces, after they so graciously took me back when I needed help.

So I do both. My writing and job suffer for it, but that’s the choice I made. On my day off, I squeeze in down time and grocery shopping, maybe the gym or changing the car oil. The juggling isn’t easy, and you have to be ruthless with time to get it done. When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I weighed the pros and cons on taking an assistant job if you want to write, and it’s as simple as: you make time for it. You (as BJ Fogg so adroitly puts it,) “prioritize so hard it hurts.”

Besides slowing down my writing, assisting has opened my eyes to plenty of other weaknesses. Issues that I deferred for years, for the sake of writing and work. These days I wish I addressed those years ago, but for lack of that option, will settle for now:

I don’t know shit about the entertainment or book industry. My boss called me into his office, and showed me a novel with a risqué cover, a woman’s hot mouth pressed against a bare shoulder. Then he asked me where he should pitch this project, a mild erotica-thriller (in the vein of 50 SHADES OF GREY.) I didn’t even bother bullshitting my way through a response. I had no idea, and that’s a problem.
I don’t know enough about Los Angeles, my own backyard.
Assisting has shown me how difficult the process of getting anything made is, how many moving parts there are in this arena. Everything must align. The pegs must be in the proper row at the proper moment to have impact on the world. For every great writer who says, “I just focused on the writing, I didn’t play the game or network. I just wrote in my voice and did what I thought was right, and I made it” (e.g., Hugh Howey’s wonderful post on his success with WOOL in the Huffington Post) there are a thousand artists who won’t get in front of the right people because they didn’t do their homework.
I don’t spend enough time building relationships with other people. Which says nothing about being shy versus friendly, introverted versus extroverted – (self-examinations rendered moot when you force yourself to commit the desired behavior.) What I mean is that I’ve made a habit out of putting work/writing above everything, to the detriment of maintaining strong friendships and relationships. That’s something I want in my life, and it can’t be done sitting in front of a computer as life passes outside the window. This in turn means…
Work focused, not just harder. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you can’t keep adding to-do’s to the top of the pile. Pinpoint exactly what I want to work on at any given time, and attack that. Identify what can fall to the wayside, and then let it. It all falls back to elimination, followed by prioritization

Ideally, I wouldn’t be 26 years old, still waiting tables on weekends to survive. In an ideal world, I could make it as a writer without working as an assistant first. But there are too many other things to be grateful for to dwell on this inconvenience as I work and rebuild, to have impact on the world.

###

Photo Credit: PCCare247

career

Low Point

Last updated on March 20th, 2017 at 04:55 pm

No one expects to wake one morning and say aloud, “Yup, this is it: today’s the lowest point in my life.” You don’t anticipate rolling out of bed and thinking, “I don’t have a fucking clue why I’m even getting out of bed today.”

You sort of just arrive. While you’re pouring your Fruit Loops, or dumbly clicking your mouse. Or head to your unpaid internship, where you watch Youtube videos for eight hours straight in an urban cave shared by two dozen other 20-somethings, an activity gently dubbed as “business development.”

A few weeks shy of my 26^th birthday and inside that cave was where I sat, unsatisfied with my work, unsatisfied with my writing. I didn’t know what I was still doing in Los Angeles. Later that day, I trudged back to my car in the rain, and I found a lovely note from the county’s parking enforcement, asking to please remit $63 to their offices.

If a child kicked my shins and a dog pissed on my shoes, I wouldn’t have been surprised. All I wanted was to bury my head in the sand. I wanted to stew in my misery and “figure my shit out,” whatever that means. It’s the approach I took for the first 25 years of my life: bottle it in, tell myself not to be a pussy, and get back to work – except it’s taken me 26 years to realize how self-destructive and insidious self-this behavior was. Doesn’t matter how hard you shovel, you can’t dig your way out of a hole.

Instead I called a friend. And she stayed on the line until I spilt everything I: how incredibly shitty I felt about myself, and what I hadn’t accomplished in two years, that maybe it wasn’t worth it and I should move back to New York. I told her I didn’t know what I was doing with my work, that I hated being poor and stopped feeling good about writing a long time ago.

Nothing was resolved. She didn’t offer any takeaway or sagely advice. But that wasn’t the point. She was there to listen when I needed to say something.

Part of me knew that the job would get better. That if watching Youtube videos and buying up channels was a skill I wanted to excel at, I could get there. I just didn’t know if this particular dip was one I wanted to conquer. No matter how good I got at it, would I be happy signing Youtube talent?

I quit the next day. I decided this wasn’t where I wanted to be in terms of my career, my writing, or my finances. I couldn’t unravel which tangents brought me down this path, so my only choice was to start retracing my steps, trying to remember when my trail was last good again

Photos credit: A guy called John