Living For The Art

Despite being kind of fabulous in plenty of ways, my life has looked kind of like this for too long. 

In some ways I've just been too much in transition. A multi-client consultant's mental juggling, red-lining my vespa all over the place in heels and chandelier earrings just to teach myself to believe that the sweet breezes still blow. Living more in reflection and history than creatively and presently.

With the few hours of truly blank-slate time that my first days off following moving into a new house (still covered in piles of unorganized stuff), then going on a sweet little vacation and returning to discover myself on the edge of some possible shifts in job structure, I'm drawing something a little less pragmatic and a little more glorious than normal in this new space.

I've written before about the crucial value of how one uses their attention, but most of us have to address the past before we can really move forward. We need to get out of the red before we can really start to invest and create value. To move forward and create value with grace and poise - from a place of love and strength, not fear and protectionism - takes focus, courage and consistency. Transitory chaos easily overwhelms. 

Lines and Triangles, Guido Brandt.

In my experience, more often than not, the key to traction that allows for real, grounded value-creation is a combination of the help of good friends and especially the transcendence of praise. By this, I mean letting what is truly beautiful and good loom large. No weapon that's fashioned against it can stand. It tends to disarm common bitterness and strife that divides and kill us too often. To notice, give praise to, and feed the glory divides and shrinks the chaos. The chaos must be directly addressed by the minute, but it is much more easily defeated with this means of what is almost mis-direction, or maybe starvation. Centralize and praise what is good and glorious, especially verbally in wide company. You might call it living for the art.

Beyond the piles of shoes, electronics, beauty products, and growing belief in the sweet breeze, I'm painting some beautiful, vibrant shapes using pieces of the very chaos that encroaches. I'm beating my swords into plowshares, and maybe some kickass installation art. The void that surrounds us is immense, and constantly threatens to confuse, steal and destroy. Ironically, victory is only sure with a deep smile and an aesthetic eye. 

Value is created in living for the art.

A New Technology Capital?

Washington is well known as a crossroads of global influence with a constant incoming stream of some of the brightest people in the world. From among the elements of what may be a greenhouse for it’s development, DC’s local technology business sector has become strong and is positioning itself, along with the local economy, to grow and thrive.

David Zipper, DC’s Director of Business Development and Strategy at Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development said, “It’s a big deal that we have so many young people coming in and out of DC all the time. It can both help us and hurt us.” People often come to DC to save the world for four years (and often less), then move on. It’s known as “a company town” - not where people make their homes and invest in communities - but could that be changing?

Mayor Vincent Gray recently signed the DC technology sector enhancement act into law, which includes five years of corporate income tax abatement that starts when technology companies based in DC become profitable. All benefits of DC tech incentives are available to any tech company in the District no matter where in the city the company is located.

“Let me be candid, the bill could have done even more,” said mayor Gray. A major change to the DC tax code giving incentive to DC based investors was removed by the DC council before the bill passed, “Largely because it wasn’t understood,” explained the mayor. DC local government has been working in cooperation with leaders of the newly burgeoning tech sector, including attracting companies like Fortify.VC, a venture capital firm that houses a startup incubator and hosts an annual pitch competition, Distilled Intelligence, which relocated to DC this year, and has resulted in millions in investment for it’s participants. 

Visionary, Jill Maguire

Will DC be the next Silicon Valley? In a way, perhaps, but as Julie Kantor, CSO of Barrel of Jobs, one of the winner’s of Distilled Intelligence put it, these developments at least mean that “Startups don’t necessarily have to go to New York or Silicon Valley to get investment capital anymore. Winning Distilled Intelligence led to some phenomenal investor meetings.” Kantor, born and raised in DC, pointed out the potential strength of connecting improvements in the startup ecosystem and DC’s local education system to increase avenues to comprehensive social & economic improvements.

“We like to celebrate the city,” said Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber during his keynote speech at DC Week, a celebration of the growing tech sector in Washington. “This is a place I’ve been spending a lot of time recently,” he continued. He had put up a picture of the Wilson Building, which holds the offices of DC council members, eliciting nervous, appreciative laughter from the crowd. The juxtaposition of historic & modern seen in that particular sample of DC architecture gave illustrative perspective for Kalanick’s overview of what it’s been like for Uber to succeed so wildly. “Not everybody is so happy about it, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs understand what it’s like to disrupt, what it means to bring innovation to an industry that hasn’t seen it for decades,” Kalanick explained as he  moved to an image of the first of many cease & desists that Uber has gotten.  

Indeed, the 2,000 member audience Kalanick spoke to, and at every one of the over 100 DC Week events where a direct question was posed, consisted of a majority of people from DC who were self-described current or aspiring entrepreneurs. iStrategy Labs CEO Peter Corbett, who also co-produced DC Week, is one of the main figures responsible for inspiring and regularly creating opportunities for these entrepreneurs to come together. 

“Everything we do, we want to make it so sticky they don’t want to leave. They’re gonna stay, and they’re going to build their businesses, they’re gonna build their families, they’re going to be here forever. And that’s selfish...I want to make this the most interesting place in the world, so I don’t have to leave.” said Corbett in reference to the developing community of tech entrepreneurs in DC.

Washington, DC has always had strengths. It has always been the nexus of some of the most powerful networks, but always transient. However, with a bit of collective consciousness, good leadership, clear avenues for investment and growth, partnerships with local government, and a willingness to disrupt what is in order to possibly bring something better, the District of Columbia may also be becoming a capital of technology and innovation.

I Think Something is Really Happening Here

What if you could look on one screen at all of the public transportation options in DC at the same time and choose the best route home (metro, bus, capital bike share, zipcar, and car2go)? Have you ever tried to cook from a recipe on your ipad or smartphone without getting food on the screen? A voice controlled cooking app called sous chef and an all in one dc transit app called go dc.me are just two of the ideas generated this week alone at DC Week.  

This week, DC’s business and tech savvy creative class is showing it’s colors at DC Week, a festival slash conference happening all over the city, aimed at bringing together social innovators of all kinds. I think something is really going on here.

photo courtesy of BenDROZphotography

While plenty of people cite the parties (especially the closing party, which is going to be SICK, I hear) as one of the most exciting things about the week, it’s really about social innovation. “We really view it as our job to catalyze as much creation as possible.” said event co-producer Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategy Labs reflecting on the 2011 event. There are just over 100 very diverse events throughout the week, reflecting the depth and reach of this prolific network.

Lots of the events are nearly or already sold out, but not all of them, and contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a badge for all of (actually not for a lot of) the events. (Ps: pls be nice and RSVP if you can.) But hey, maybe you crash one or two and make a new friend and maybe get a free t-shirt or a drink (I know I’ve already gotten several of each and it’s only Monday = #signofagreatweek ) and start exchanging ideas. That’s kind of what they’re going for here. See the full schedule. 

“We’re inviting the community to not only participate, but to drive an agenda.” said Jen Consalvo, COO of Tech Cocktail, and added “This is about about a region coming together to create something bigger and better. Not only that, but to really come together and shine a light on what’s happening and what can happen in this world. This is not just about DC, this is about creatives and thinkers, and people who want to make a difference.”

“the opening party in full swing” photo courtesy of @Corbett3000 

The opening party at Penn Social was a room full of entrepreneurs, product promoters, talent recruiters, and people trying to meet and learn from them. Listen Local First, a DC based initiative creating alternate avenues for local musicians and venues to collaborate with locally owned organizations and businesses, brought Cannon.fm  to the festival, and is working with cannon on an app that will be “like a local spotify or pandora” said LLF co-founder Chris Naoum.

“I think DC Week is about putting us on the map and proving that this is an up-and-coming entrepreneur community that has got a lot going on and is going to be successful.” said Danny Boice, co-founder and CTO of Speek, which just closed a million dollar seed round, almost entirely from DC investors. “DC has been kind of a sleeper city in terms of startups. People say you can’t raise money in DC, but we did, and it wasn’t easy, but it never is.” 

After being the Series A winner of Distilled Intelligence in October and growing about 12% a week since they launched in June, Speek might be one current flagship of the #DCTech community. However, this is a self-proclaimed tight-knit, openly collaborative community, collectively hunting for new contributors, ways to improve and cross-pollinate ideas, products, solutions and platforms into relentlessly new and better forms.

They’re looking for smart, motivated, innovative people who want to build something.They want to help people start good businesses, and profit from them. (Hello? Did somebody say job-market?) So here’s your chance even if this your first time to hear about it. Find them. Meet them. Make friends with them. These people are up to something great. Something is really going on here.

Some major highlights of DC Week are yet to come in the keynotes, core conference and closing party later this week, but the real gems will only really come to be seen months and maybe years from now. They are the conversations, new connections, and sparks of an idea that maybe, just maybe, will turn into something really great. So for those creatives and thinkers around the District waiting for an invitation to drive and contribute to and build something better, DC Week is an excellent place to start.

Constitutional Love

This is the third in a series of posts about love. Read the others in this series, Poison Love and Medicinal Love.

Love is, perhaps, the most foundational thing in the world. The things a person identifies with, the places they hold the most confidence for where each one stands in life - the way we love or abuse love becomes our own constitution - a foundation by which we establish ourselves and build onto what we find. These establishments allow us to build and grow. They are given to us and we are built into their forms by love, or the lack of love. This is true even in toxic, mutilated parts of our identity - which can also form platforms for growth, but only like tumors - quickly and parasitically causing more demolition than construction. We are bound incredibly deeply to our own understanding of love and what connection means. It is the basis for all we do and manifests itself in all forms of our life. 

I want to make something of myself. I want to build something, but how, and what exactly? I'm not sure. So I go to my thoughts, search my talents, connections and ambitions. They come from the reservoir of what I am drawn to. Who I know or want to know. What I have compassion on. What excites me. I sit at my desk and stare at my computer screen, dreaming and searching for how I can build up and be built up. We commonly call these things our babies - and sometimes they actually are - but does the artistic wisdom and practical discipline it takes to build up a human child, a healthy company, an actual building, or any thing else come from entirely different places? We spend our lives building things. Creating edifices and looking to be edified. The passion and dedication we use to set out and remain on these courses - especially if repeatedly - points directly to the character of our individual constitution in love.

WWII Cannon Foundation, Three. By Wink.

The best place to start when you're trying to build something - to establish a foundation or make a create a new constitution for a way forward, includes two types of information: historical and differential. What kinds of similar establishments have already been made, and how were they constructed? How is what you are going to build be different and take what has already been done to new levels? Both must be thoroughly and simultaneously considered in overlap and by contrast and from every conceptual and physical or other kind of angle you can possibly imagine. Lots of people talk about and imagine these things, but do their loves move them to actually bring the thing to completion? Rarely.

The foundation of a building. The constitution of a nation or of a mountain climber's stomach. They determine, almost entirely, the character and integrity of the success of entire edifice they are supporting or feeding. Underpinning all these things, the authorial element highlights the nano-coding of love and love-turned-bitter into every millimeter of this for any version of any person involved in any kind of similar process. Who the founder (and eventually presider) is personally, and why they are doing what they're doing infiltrates the whole establishment. Under this, all things are tested and submitted. If you want to build and to be built up - start with where you are rooted, and consider the loves of those whom you are rooted among. Rotten roots and foundations will kill the whole edifice. Healthy, deep roots support, nourish, stabilize, and can even resurrect the edifice like a new tree growing out of what appears to be just an old sawed-off stump.

Our work. Our children. Our art. We cannot create something that does not bear our image. What we build will always have a profound connection to us and affect on us. Even small things. Even in mundane, seemingly soulless things - those we'd argue the opposite for - there is a sinking and a callousness represented in that desired disassociation. The glory or the shame of our creations edify or deconstruct us. What do you love? Who do you love? Why do you love it? How do you love it? The answers have shaped your human constitution. And everything you do will be built onto their platforms, and take on their forms.

Medicinal Love

This is the second in a series of posts about love. Read the first post, "Poison Love" here.

Love is, perhaps, the most remedial thing in the world. Most of us are quite confident that love is probably the answer to all of our pain and incompleteness. Love is strong medicine. It is a powerful substance. But, like any potent chemical compound the medicine of love can act as poison perhaps more easily than it can act as an antidote. It is a dynamic, volatile solution that - like dynamite or wet cement - left for too long in the wrong state, becomes obstructive, harmful or both. 

Love's natural state is active. It has to be applied to be restorative. It has to be given and received over and over to act as the remedy. 

The dilemma and the miracle of love both arise from the same characteristics: we cannot survive without love, love is more powerful than anything, and love is everywhere - it cannot be removed. 

We cannot survive without love. We were born incomplete. Individually, and collectively - we find ourselves taking the shape of simple, elegant equations, missing one key variable. We are symmetrical creatures, eternally searching for the piece that would complete our symmetry to make us as whole and beautiful as we sense we should be, but currently are not. Love is exactly what we need. In this need, most of us spend our whole lives. Children need to find belonging and provision. Women need to find value and beauty. Men need to find honor and respect. In this need for love, manifested in what I will not, here, attempt to list in it's potentially innumerable ways, we almost always try to use love for the sake of and solely unto ourselves. That will never work, because love is necessarily relational. It cannot be gained or kept. It must be given to be received, and it must be received to be given. For love to bring healing - both must hold hold true and constantly return to reciprocate. 

Better Me, Ilja Hackman

Love is more powerful than anything. Alone, we are weak - naturally moving towards death. Love is the thing that we can take up - we can wield it, but only for the sake of each other - to move each other towards life. Love is necessarily humble and sacrificial. Those you love are the ones you return back to serve consistently, whether in your mind or in the flesh. Love is to directly engage them, to come alongside and join them, to relentlessly vote with your attention and affection. Those you love are the only ones in a position to give you the love that can heal you, if they are able to rightly make use of it's power. Think about what fits the above description in your life. Really everyone is in love with something or someone, even if only in their minds. They are the ones you are in a continually revolving servant-master, master-servant relationship with. They are the ones that can love you - but how will they treat your trust? Love implies risk for the lover and the beloved. For the lover it is in fear of rejection - fear of what you will become if the love and service you give is not reciprocated, and risk that you will begin to wield love as poison on yourself or your beloved in your weakness. For the beloved it is in fear of mistreatment - fear of the lack of sufficiency and grace in your lover's wisdom for how to wield love to heal your ugly and delicate wounds. In these fears, love has more often been used to do harm than to heal, but even so, love is the only medicine. Like only diamonds can cut diamonds, even the wounds caused by mis-applied love must be healed by love, although it may best be done by a more wisely chosen lover. 

Love is everywhere - it cannot be removed. For most, "love" evokes sunset romance, and "medicine" evokes salve or antibiotics, but medicine and love are really much more broad than that. Either might more completely be defined as "what will do you good," or "precisely what will restore you to more complete wholeness." Both are necessarily subjective, and most commonly non-physical and non-erotic. This kind of love permeates and infiltrates every part of the universe. No one can escape it. No one can escape the need for it. No one can escape the desire for it. It is an implied, inescapable risk of danger - which would be horrible were it not the only exit from a worse fate. To approach love is to face fear, but to remain in love is to continually cast it out. Deep consistent healing love always results in the expansion or creation of families, whether biological or not. Love can rarely be sustained as an applied healing force outside of family.

Each of our lives - each of our families - are a history of love. Love desired. Love remembered. Love abandoned. Love grown out of. Love received. Love abused. Love restored. For each one to make sense of it, the history may be approached as an epic adventure or a tragedy. Many potential outcomes lay ahead of you, but you cannot survive or grow alone. To live in love, you must be a champion. You must continually risk pain and face fear. You must relentlessly serve, then allow yourself to be served. You must consider your resources, and wield them as agents of healing and strengthening. All of us interact with, and make use of love, but only those who take it up to heal, overcome and discover will be able to be healed, find victory, and be discovered.

This is the second in a series of posts about love. Read the next post, "Constitutional Love" here.

12% Words

"Finally. There. Those people are leaving." My good friend Kelsey sped up and pulled in to park. "But I was just so frustrated about the pollution statements, you know. He keeps telling me they want to help and he'll come to the meetings but then totally disappears and doesn't follow through. What he's doing is good, but he can't push me to move if he won't sign the pollution stament. I'm not sure what to say. What do I tell him?"

Once inside she smiled easily. Eyes bright but relaxed. Ears & temples lifted in contentment. She chattered pleasantly with Jeff & Susan, whom we'd laid eyes on for the first time in our lives just moments before. A lot of words circulated between them and I followed about 12% of what was said.

Kelsey uses a lot of spoken words in order to organize thoughts. I use a lot of slowly organized thoughts in order to allow me to express anything verbally. She's a verbal processor. I'm a non-verbal processor. 

Image Credit Here

As I studied their demeanor, I discovered all of them looking at me. She'd said my name, and I remembered that I was there. They expected me to do something, not just to stand with them, quietly ruminating. "Hello. It's nice to meet you." I said. They were still looking at me...Words... Should I say more of them? Which ones? Which words should I choose at random to say? Do they want me to say more words? I'll just have to think of which ones... A half second passed in silence, and when I still said nothing more, they picked back up at Jeff's cousin's business which they'd used those many circulating words to discover was very similar to Kelsey's field.

Another moment passed and I became satisfied they wouldn't require any more immediate input from me so I resumed scanning the room. Blue walls but warm light. Five conversation circles sprawling over this room and down into the hallway, then maybe six more outside. Is that a pool or a fountain? Susan stood in front of the drinks. Completely blocking them. Kels would want a beer to start. I might go for G&T. plenty of lime. That's nice that they have limes right there ready to go. Jake had great shoes but probably hadn't ironed his pants in a week. He was talking about how important his job was, but I wasn't sure what specific goal he was after. His eyes, posture & tone gave clues, but it would take time to deduce them. The only words I actually remember him saying are "political sympathies." I caught onto that phrase because he repeated it just shy of entirely too many times for it to still hold any meaning.

This room full of new people- who are they and what are they after? Where did they come from? How did they relate to each other? Are they trying to have fun or to impress each other? I engaged these and similar questions by observing cues & dynamics like blueprints - alone able to translate about 12% of it into words. Kelsey engaged these questions by asking them directly with words - alone able to translate about 12% of it into prominent themes.

Several hours in the sun and beverages later I laid on the couch at her house drinking green tea and patting the dog while staring at the ceiling in thought. Kelsey was telling me about a conversation she'd had yesterday with her mom, the vegetables in her refrigerator, and how annoying it was that the fence fell over, all at the same time. Did I want an omelette, or maybe we could go get something. Also there was water, and beer. Should we watch a movie? 

The pollution statement answer came to me. "He doesn't want to upset his partners. Didn't you tell me last week that they were meeting with the other group? Maybe they don't mind him meeting you, but he can't sign until they want to too." I said.

"What?" She walked out of the kitchen puzzled, holding something like asparagus and a box of texas toast. 

"The guy from work with the pollution statements. You asked me what I thought. I think that's why he's not signing."

Friendships between very different kinds of people, to me, are the most valuable. It is often most useful to learn by contrast. The challenge in contrast, is finding what ground is held in common, and how to translate very different approaches to expand your individual understanding. We should celebrate our differences, not just as a virtue of patience, but knowing that building a bridge through that measly 12% gives access to a categorically different kind of synergetic life that is impossible without the contrast.

Take Care of the Roses

She's coming up on three decades of life. You can look at her roots and see the grey bark cracking off what is actually a tree trunk now, whereas you can easily imagine from the shape that she originally took to this soil as a greener variety - more of a vine. Branches cut off in years past have left circling wooden cross sections and smallish holes where the life used to flow out to the leaves & blooms she used to bear. They tell stories about sweet seasons past - blueprints of how the life and death in the elements of each hour brought her to be who she is today. 

Today is ok. It's still bleak but it's been getting warmer outside. She's showing good signs of life after losing somewhere between a half and a third of all of her limbs - mostly just the dead parts, the ones that wouldn't have been fruitful anymore. Tiny intricate bundles of burning red leaves are beginning to unfurl, but she needs the turnover of a new interval - a different angle on the sun before she'll really be ready to show what's stirring inside. She needs time and space. She needs light and food.

There are quite a few plants in the garden & potted inside my new house, but I can't help but to take delicate, attentive care of the roses. They're remarkable - better than a lot of things I've had the chance to call mine. They speak to me. They inspire the poet & the economist in me. I'm an investor, a builder, an economic developer in the broadest sense. Opportunities and solutions are everywhere to me. Lately, the trouble I've faced is getting lost in the weeds & losing clarity on what is central, remarkable, and still holds the ability to bear good fruit. 

Sunset Boulevard by Mark

The roses and I, we'll grow and bloom more fully if all the dead parts get cut off so the life in us can thrive. Brown branches with hollowed out veins, or lurching spindly ones that reach too far will always naturally develop as our extensions, but they're dead. They still cost nutrients, but will never produce. Brown branches prevent rest. They cause confusion and send limited resources to places where there will be no return. Each new branch begins with promise, but daily diverges to a place of fruitfulness or lack.

Today, as you engage your life - determining what to work on,  how to care for your family & your home -  think about what is really central to what makes you remarkable, inspires you, and bears fruit. Watch the extensions of yourself as you enter new seasons of fruitfulness or dormancy for signs of life or death. Wait for evidence to develop, but listen to the signs. If they're dead, cut them off - new shoots will grow there soon. Let yourself rest. Refocus your energy and your resources to the things that are showing life. Take care of the roses.

Holding Back Accomplishment

Maybe it's this city. We value accomplishment. We praise proficient multi-taskers. We're high achievers. Friends my age are drafting federal policies, flying multiple times to multiple continents to do really revolutionary work in the developing world, spearheading really useful and creative local skill sharing forums, or just about singlehandedly lobbying congress to turn waste heat emission into pure energy. Seriously, we are knocking it out of the park. We're doing so much good. That's just who we are and we love it. It's really really fun to be good at your job.

Hopper. Nighthawks. 1942.

But with that, many of our identities are tethered tightly to our resume. And if not, then it's easy to get lost trying to relate to others within a culture of people flirting with the achievement trap (seriously, even the people working at fragers and peregrine have smart phones). I think I've often chosen to invest in my accomplishments and work over people often because I find it's easier to control. When I accomplish something substantial, I can step back, and say, "Here's something to put my weight on. Here's something measurable that shows my value."  Relationships are harder to predict. Even having truly great friends in this city, if I'm not super busy, then everyone else is, so we often miss each other. I literally have to schedule time with my super-close friends who live blocks away two weeks ahead of time. Apart from living in a culture of demanding jobs, maybe having saved the world a time or two makes us idolize that feeling. Even when we're not working on some heroic project, we act like we are, but really it holds us back. I'm there. I think I've forgotten how to really let go and rest. When I have spare time, I often don't know what to do with it, so I start another project. It's like voluntarily acting like a paraplegic. I might have really great arms if that's all I use, but it's pretty dumb not to use my legs just as often if they aren't actually impaired.

I have a beautiful community of friends. Really, it's life changing to belong to a local family that you love and respect. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. However, I often think to myself that I'd enjoy the people in my life a lot more if we all lived somewhere else. When do we just linger and enjoy each other? Time together is joyful, but always neatly punctuated. I have long, lovely glimpses at their hearts, and it's enough to survive, but we lack consistency and depth in that. Why aren't we so resourceful in casting our nets wide for simple time spent on friendships, even if they may not represent any concrete gains for us other than the love and joy of the person themselves within those moments?

Hopper. The Sheridan Theatre. 1937. 

It's hard to do every day. For example, even just waiting in line for salad at lunchtime, I can barely stand to tear myself away from email or twitter on my phone for the 10 seconds it takes the girl behind the counter to ask me how much dressing I want, do I want bread, and is it for here or to go. It seems a small thing to give her my attention, so I skip over it. She has to raise her voice to get me to answer. I reply, not really looking up. What about courtesy? Why does it seem less significant to show patience and discipline in dignifying our interactions with other people as showing the same in our life's work?  In interactions like these, I make people an object to my goal, and innately reduce myself of dignity by not dignifying them. I sincerely love and am very proud of what I'm able to accomplish in my daily work and continuing education. It is good and right to expend oneself in such a way. But, for all the genius solutions, all the glorious essays & books, and all the huge, admirable accomplishments we all have made, loneliness still creeps in. Especially in the city, because of the fast pace, I think. It does for me, even often sitting in a room full of people I know and love. I have to connect with them. I can't go without it, and I'm one of the most task oriented people I know. Living jointly at this tempo often means cutting people out, not making more room for them. Loneliness should be a sign to us.

To have produced beautiful fruit from your labor is very satisfying, but it's not even close to enough. There comes a point when to continue working without sweet, long lingering pauses to enjoy the fruit and the hearts of those laboring around you, you subtract from yourself instead of adding. 

Are you an Employee or an Entrepreneur?

The declaration “I am an entrepreneur” is surely more satisfying in this social media age than wearing a name tag or passing out the “standard corporate” business card.  In my millennial generation, we like to think we’re calling the shots, writing our own profiles, that we have no respect for the man--when most of us are just filling out the “About me” interface handed to us with little but over-used quotes. Are we really the rebels we brag like? And if we are, is that even a good thing? Is it better to think like an employee or an entrepreneur?

My friend recently inherited a large, very full mini-storage unit. This friend also happens to be facing--through no fault of her own--a serious debt crisis. I came to help her clean the unit out. We found everything from $500 business suits & stetsons to weird but expensive collector’s items--star wars special edition dolls (new the in box), crystal music boxes, about a bajillion baseball cards & autographed gear. She was very focused on clearing the place out to avoid the monthly fee, because her temp job didn’t pay that well. I saw dollar signs all over that stuff & suggested she try to sell it instead of trying to find more regular work for now.

“Honestly, selling this stuff online is going to pay you a LOT more than any other use of your time.” I told her, but she wouldn’t have it.  She gave away thousands of dollars of ebay-able merchandise. I thought it was dumb at the time, but maybe I wasn’t thinking straight.  Maybe, given all of the other stress going on in my friend’s life at that time, it wouldn’t have been a good choice for her. She wasn’t up to it.  Let us be humans--not just producers. We have to invest what we’ve got wisely, but emotional stability is an economic resource just like dollar bills.

Many of us don’t invest our resources well because we don’t realize what they are. We don’t see value in what we have-- an idea, a skill, an audience--so we don’t do the pruning & feeding that could make it bear fruit. One of my biggest professional growth areas over the last few years has actually been evening the scale in favor of thinking like an employee. I’ve always had good ideas, but overstepping my bounds was the only thing that’s ever gotten me fired. Even though my boss was totally wrong & making terrible decisions --his business went under shortly after he fired me, but I couldn’t’ve known that would happen-- I let being right ruin the resource that provided for me, my job.

Business owners, even some of the really big top dogs are wise to think about investing in relationships-- even over-investing before it's really obvious that they need to. I like to think I’m smart. I’d love to own my own business, or write for a living.  However, even the most brazen entrepreneurial minds need grooming. For most of us, it’s at least partially in learning to operate like a good employee that we’ll find our niche in the market and find success in our ventures. Anxious as I am to show my stuff,  I think lengthy seasons of  learning-- serving under a good boss will give better results in the long run. Like a good bottle of wine--I could probably stand to stay on the vine for awhile.

Giving Your Life Away

I'm a student of Economics deep down to my soul. As luck would have it, I chose to major in ECON before I knew that. I love efficiency and the art of making things productive. I also grew up in a family that owned its own businesses -- knowing the empowerment and struggle of self-employment as a way of life. Lately life has been giving me a renewed love of small enterprises-- that risky business that costs a little more of your time and brain space, but gives you more than just monetary rewards.

We live in the world of the possible. I can communicate and transact instantaneously across the globe from the palm of my hand, and I'm not even rich. All this possibility, in my mind, sort of begs the question "what do we do with it?"

What am I doing with the best I have? How am I using my brain capacity? Do I write down those brilliant ideas and take the time to give them a shot, or settle back into the sofa for more re-runs of Seinfeld? They say if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Well, I think you'd probably find a few of your days "work" no matter what field you love, but certainly a lot less of them. It makes me wonder though, how many of us have really researched what it would take to do what we love, or given starting or participating in small business a shot? Do we really know what would it take to create our own wealth from something we have passion for?

Are we trading our dreams for something safer? In our attempt to avoid risk are we sacrificing that stuff that makes us feel alive?

Olly olly oxen free

The market's tough on an aspiring young professional like myself. Long hours. Pressure to talk a big game when you know it's just talk. You can get cut from a hiring pool for next to nothing. Some people have an 'in' and once they get it, it's like "olly olly oxen free!" they

just let themselves go. Maybe it's jealousy or maybe I'm right when I tell myself I'd do better. I any case, a recent conversation made me think of this.

Leoni: "I cannot understand what is happening with Chelsea Clinton's teeth. How is it possible that they look so atrocious and her family has so much money?"

Me: "I know it's like get them fixed or move to England."

Silly salad eaters

I find it astounding that in a city that is supposedly full of some of the most highly educated people in the world, it is quite common for people to pay $4 ($3.86 + 10% DC luxury tax) for a 14 0z. container of iceberg lettuce with a single slice of cucumber, carrot, and a radish with ranch dressing.

Carl Warner

What exactly do these individuals expect to gain by ingesting such "food products?" My guess is that they think it's healthy. Sadly, they've gained neither nutrition their body needs, nor the benefit of lowering their caloric intake.

Conclusion: education does not equal intelligence. I base this on salad pricing.