AKA Why you shouldn’t always listen to your heroes or I’m probably gonna piss some folks off.

Some time ago I got a free audio version of Seth Godin’s book Tribes. Yes, I know I’m a book behind. I’m a big fan of free and I haven’t found a free version of Linchpin and I haven’t won one on any of the giveaways I’ve entered over the past few months.  AND the GF says I have a problem and need to stop buying business books.  In fact, when we have dates in bookstores, she doesn’t let me play in the business/self-help section.  She says that I need to stop researching and start doing.  She’s right, but I’m comfortable researching. Research isn’t scary. Shipping is.

At least a year ago I got a hold of a link to Tribes, and I just started listening to it. Every morning for the past week or so, I listen to this book as I brush my teeth and get dressed before work. Every morning for 20 minutes I listen and I get so inspired that I go to work and write do work stuff.

Since I’m not allowed to read/buy self-help/business/entrepreneur books, I feed my habit with blogs and download free teleseminars. One of my favorite business/entrepreneur blogs is Naomi Dunford at IttyBiz. I join all her mailing lists; I stalk her blog and twitter. I’m constantly on the lookout for free Naomi stuff. I lust after her products. I think she’s a brilliant writer and a compelling salesperson.  In fact, I love her so much that I actually bought a relatively cheap  monthly subscription to her Speakeasy product. Even when I was jobless and almost homeless last year, I faithfully paid Naomi.  I’m not mad about it. I got a lot of value from it, even though I didn’t really actively participate that much.

So I trust Naomi, right? If she tells me something is good, I believe her.  When she recommended Ideaschema Idea Catalyst Kit, I jumped. Especially since I like Megan’s writing style and I like the idea of becoming an idea machine. I listened to Megan’s audio on walks after work and felt really inspired and would come home and write. I recommend this product. If you want to be an entrepreneur or creative and want to buy an info product, I suggest you buy this one. And this isn’t an affiliate link.

So when Naomi recommended Question the Rules, I took a look.  I’ve been reading Johnny Truant since The Economy is not Happening. and I think he’s hilarious and earnest. I’d listened to a Jam Session he did with Charlie Gilkey, and I liked that. So, I read Naomi’s recommendation, I checked out the product, and bought.

I don’t like it very much. Audio seminars generally follow a rhythm. You introduce the topic, outline what you want to talk about, talk about it, have some insights, summarize, and get off the phone. Not so with Question the Rules. The conversations sometimes kinda starts on topic, then they bumble from tangent to tangent.  Some of the conversations are extremely scattered, long-winded and pointless. Mostly, it seems like Johnny and Lee called some of their friends and had them talk about what they do.  The big revelation is that being an entrepreneur isn’t like having a 9-5 job. Well duh.

The best parts of the course? Sonia Simone and Chris Guillebeau.  And I could just read CopyBlogger and The Art of Non-Conformity to hear from them. Which I do.

So yeah. My suggestion is to skip the paid information products (especially this one) unless you’re looking for something that is very specific, like SEO, copywriting, how to launch or something that that.  Or you could just read Naomi or Dave Navarro.  If you are having issues with fear, or need some kind of support to help you change your lifestyle, you should be reading Jenny Blake or Havi Brooks.  If you need life coaching stuff, check out Jonathan Fields or Jenny Ferry.  They all have blogs that are awesome.

And if you want to listen to something on your ipod check out Audible’s self improvement section and just buy a business book.

Alternatively titled I love the Internets or I just wanted To Share

I have several half written blog posts that *one day* will make here for your reading pleasure, but today I’m just going to share a few posts that  resonated with me in a very special way. So without further ado.

Blogs that made my day.

Being by Doniree:  Found via (Genpink): I love this post so much that, not only do I want to print it and read it lots, I also want to copy it.  Not word for word, but I want to copy the style of it and create my own “I am” piece.

You Already Have Everything You Need by Jenny Blake: I’m not sure whether I have a humongous girl crush on Jenny or if this is just hero worship but I love her.  This post is the answer to all of my angst filled “why can’t I just get over myself and do something” posts.

How To Be Creative At Work by Penelope Trunk: She kind of lost me in the middle with all the high brow vs low brow commentary, but the last paragraph sums up the trouble that I think I have finding work in organizations and how I feel today about the work I’m not allowed to do at work. Sometimes our pre-conceived idea of what is acceptable or what we need causes us to miss out on the gems that are amazing but don’t quite fit what we’re looking for.

Empty Spaces (and Moving Past Loneliness by Jenny Blake: (Told you that I love her!) I love this post because I can relate. Moving to Atlanta was incredibly hard. I left a lot of my “I’ll be at your door in 15 minutes” friends in NC, and haven’t really filled that space yet. So now when the GF and I are involved with different things, and I can’t get someone on the phone, I find myself really alone for the first time ever. It’s f’ing scary and I hate it but those times teach me to be comfortable with and by myself.

Rescued by a Social Justice Christian by KT_Writes: As I struggle to reconcile my spirituality with the other parts of my personality, I crave wisdom from other people who succeed in that endeavor. Kristin is a great example of Christian done right. And this post exemplifies points about Christianity that many Christians fail to remember. Jesus is about service and helping others and feeding the poor. And that’s all social justice is.

Kevin Powells “Open Letter to Black America” by Sista Toldja: I really like this letter.  It speaks to several issues: Spiritually, Health, Community Economic Development, and Urban land development issues that I care deeply about and that I worry don’t get the “air play” that they deserve. I also believe that while this letter was aimed specifically at Black folk, there are a lot of poor Asian, Hispanic, Latino and other folk who need to read/hear/see it as well.

Rebecca, brilliant chick that she is, has asked for participation in a Goal Meet-Up project.  Since I was planning on posting about my new goals anyway, I’m gladly joining her experiment.

Wanna hear it? Here it go!

So I’ve moved all my stuff and have been living with the GF since the end of June.  At first, I had a hellacious transition period because I moved with to Atlanta with no job and all my job leads were in California.  Initially, my plan was to keep looking for permanent employment in Cali, and get something short term (waiting tables) in the meantime.

Well, sometimes life has other plans. After just a few short weeks of looking, I landed a great job in Atlanta.  Of course, while I was job searching and mooching off the GF, my only two priorities were 1. Find a job so that I could be a contributing member of the household 2. Don’t drive the GF bonkers.

Once I got the job all squared away, and I started believing the GF when she said she wasn’t going to kick me out, I started to relax and think about life in the A. Since I’m going to be in Atlanta, I don’t want to be miserable.  I needed to get a life (and the GF strongly agreed).

So, in typical Monica-style I made myself a list, a “How to get a life” list if you will, of goals and stuck them on the vision board.  They are in order of importance and the go a little something like this:

Five things I need to work on

1. Meeting new people and Making friends
2. Getting my bills settled
3. Learning my new environment
4. Building my brand
5. Being a better friend, partner and family member

What I’ve done so far:

1. I have joined several meet-up groups and have gone to one of the events.  I have also joined a book club, and I foresee a lot of involvement there.  I have contacted a few local branches of my sorority, in hopes of becoming more active there.
2. I have created a budget and a mint.com account (thanks, Jenny Blake). I’ve called all my creditors about why I didn’t pay them all summer, and I’ve set up payment plans to get me back on track.
3. This is supposed to me be exploring Atlanta neighborhoods by myself without the GF’s GPS, but some Atlanta neighborhoods are scary and I shouldn’t be in them by myself. I’m tabling this til next month.
4. 4. I have had one meeting with a guy that could potentially build my website, but he’s not used to wordpress and I want to keep a wordpress framework, so it probably won’t work between us.  Anyone know any good (inexpensive) web designers?
5. 5. This will be an on-going goal.   My sister lives in Atlanta and I want to make sure I spend time with her. My mom gets lonely back home, and I need to keep good communication with her.  My brother, bless his heart, has finally joined the 21^st century and has email, so I want to write to him more often.  I want to keep in contact with my NC peeps, ‘cause I love and miss them. And I need to more honestly communicate in my relationship with the GF.  I can check that I have been doing all these things in August.

Next Month

1. Calling and/or emailing my friends in NC at least once a week. I’ve gotten out of touch with my MPA family
2. Watch how much money I spend at the grocery store. (I tend to go a bit overboard.)
3. I need to (a.) join (b.) go to (5x wkly) a gym; working out outside isn’t working for me.
4. Call my mom and sister twice a week, send my brother one email a week.  Send text messages to friends when I think of them.
5. Build a marketing campaign for Cosmopolitan Urbanist (and find a web designer)
6. Attend more meet-up events
7. Contact local commercial developers.
8. Show my emotions.
9. I think I’ve found the organization that I’d like to work with next, so now I have to bring myself to their attention. I’m going to attend their September board meeting, and say something useful while I’m there.
10. (Carried over from last month) Get a map of the interior of I-285 and explore different Atlanta neighborhoods, by car.

Wow. This is a lot of goals.  But since they are (mostly) things I was going to do anyway, I think I’m ok.

I opened my email this morning, after trying unsuccessfully at work to stay on task for more than an hour at a time.

The first thing I opened was a brazen message from Ryan Paugh asking members to write a post about our #brazenblogcrush.  I briefly thought about doing it and decided that if I DID write a post about my brazen blog crush, it would have to be about the funniest married lady on the planet; my dear friend, Marie at McKinney-Oates Cereal.  I have been crushing MADLY on this woman since Rebecca at Modite linked to her a few months ago.

I was immediately sucked into her hilarious stories about her family and her husband.  After about a week, I had to find her on twitter and facebook and every other social media platform. (I mean, how else am I supposed to stalk her, if I can’t find her EVERYWHERE)

Her’s is THE ONLY blog that I comment on, and then check back later to see if she replied to my comment. Her’s is one of the few blogs that I read every post and comment on if I SQUEEZE out any bit of relevance.  And sometimes I comment just to say I love her and I think she’s funny. Cause I do.

Then the second piece of email that I opened this morning was a pingback from my website.  Since I rarely get linked to, I had to immediately see what this was all about.  Lo and behold, my buddy has already written her blog crush blog about me.  I was am flattered and humbled.

And then I thought, I can’t possibly write my blog crush about her now!!! Then I look like an obvious brown-noser (which I am, but I don’t want to look like it).

I had to pick someone else.

So I picked my new blog crush; Alex at Social Butterfly.

Apparently, I’ve been following Social Butterfly for a while.  But for some reason, after the initial site perusal, I never made it back over.  Then a couple of weeks ago, again while trying to stay on task at work, I succumbed to my Google reader.  I realized that it had been a while since I culled my feeds, so I started deleting blogs that are either boring, irrelevant to my life, or haven’t posted in a while.

I clicked on Social Butterfly to see what it was, (yes, it had been that long), and read a couple of her posts.  Then I read a couple more.  And a couple more.  Then I started clicking on the links in her posts.  The title for one of her posts is now on my vision board and is the title for a post I’m working on for CU.  And it made me rethink my thoughts on career/relationship balance.

After about an hour, I sat back in wonder.  I was already in love.  Actually I don’t know if I love her, or just want to be her.  As I read through her stuff,  I was getting more and more impressed (and more and more excited).  After I read all her new posts, I went back and read some of her older stuff.

This girl is brilliant.

Her writing is so passionate and professional and engaging.  She writes about social change the way I want to write about community development.  She’s a writer that inspires me as a writer.  So, duh, she didn’t get culled from my reader.  She got bumped from the “career” folder to the “read every day” folder with Marie and about 4 other blogs.

Yep, she’s that good.

Elysa at GenPink had a recent post titled “Do you call yourself a feminist?”.  In this post, Elysa summarized a discussion that happened on 20-something bloggers about what feminism means and whether 20-somethings still identify with feminism. 

Reading her post reminded me of an ongoing discussion I’ve been having with a group of my friends.  At least one of us REFUSES to call herself a feminist because she’s seen too many gung-ho feminists become uber career-minded until they find a man to take care of them, then all the feminist stuff is thrown out the window.  

While I do call myself a feminist, I often feel the same way.  In college at Salem, from day one as a freshman I was bombarded with the idea that women could do and be anything.  These girls were amazing. When I moved in as a freshman, my dad was prepared to move all my stuff into the dorm room, but little did he know that Salem girls move their own sh*t. He barely lifted a finger and my car was unpacked in no time. 

Over the years, I remember being jealous of (or maybe having crushes on???)some of the girls who seemed to have it all.  There were girls at Salem who were smart, pretty, and seemed to have amazingly bright futures. I couldn’t wait to see the greatness that they would accomplish. 

 One or two years after graduation, I would be excited to read Salem’s alumni magazine to see what the girls were up to. They didn’t disappoint me; United Nations, Capitol Hill, medical school, law school, PhD programs, and adventures is South America, Africa and Europe were often the updates I would read about my Salem sisters. I’ve even seen some of my Salem friends on TV and the NYT. How cool is that? 

Then those updates started to change. For the past few years, the updates I receive are more likely to be about who got married, who’s pregnant, who’s had kid number 1, 2 or 3. And even worse?  Those girls who dated girls all through college who are now married to men and being  f*cking housewives!  These updates piss me off. If the most important thing that is happening to you is your marriage or kids, I really don’t care to know. 

Hmmmm. That didn’t come out exactly how I meant. 

I understand the importance of having a partner in life.  I write a lot about relationships, and my relationship in particular; it is a huge part of my life.  I understand that building a family is important so many people. And I love to rejoice in the joys of my friends. But come on. Did some of the smartest people I know quit their careers to stay home with the kids? I hate to see women give up their hopes, dreams and accomplishments for the husband and kids.  

One of my best friends, who has a really different fairytale than me about where she wants her life to go and also considers herself a feminist, once explained to me that her focus on being married and having kids wasn’t any less feminist than my ball-busting, take the world by storm dream.  She said that feminism isn’t about having a career at the expense of family and husband (or vice versa).  Feminism is about having the choice. I still hate that she’s going to forego her potential brilliance to give birth, but I can dig her argument. 

So I’m thankful to feminists, even those who have turned their backs on the cause. Your struggles make my life possible.   

What does feminism mean to you?  Can one be a house wife and still call herself a feminist?  Do you know women who have turned their back on feminism, and embraced the married with kids life?

How do you married, career ladies keep it all together?

I don’t know what the hell happened, but the last post I wrote got crazy support, from folks that I wouldn’t have dreamed would ever grace my blog!

I am feeling rather high on life right now.

In an interest to keep the goodness rolling, I am joining a group whose purpose is to help boost traffic on lesser-known blogs.

Fellow bloggers, check it out.  Everyone else, I’m so glad you’ve decided to come play with me

I have some articles in the works. Stay tuned!

So the fall job search is complete (mostly). And the summer internship is almost over.

First on the calendar this fall is a 10 hour a week gig at the local Chamber of Commerce (I’ll have to tell you that hustle story later).  This job is going to be so cool because I’ll have the opportunity to network with business AND government leaders (rather than just elected officials), which will give me a bigger base of people to ask for jobs next Spring when I graduate.

AND I just found out that I got an Reseach Assistantship in the UNC MPA program, working for one of the professors. YAY, me! I think the RA-ship comes with student health insurance, which will come in handy since I have been buying my own Blue Cross Blue Shield for the past year, and THAT has not been fun (or cheap!).

Additionally, since I wasn’t sure the RA thing was going to happen (it didn’t happen last year)  I have been sending out resumes and cover letters to other local business and non-profit organizations that I feel would help me gain a new perspective (not public sector!)  I’m still going to follow up with those people, make some new friends/contacts and maybe get some consulting/writing action started. So that, hopefully, I’ll be able to make a little extra money if I can write RFPs or grants for a couple of agencies or get to contribute on a projects. And if all else fails, I can think of it as practice for marketing myself in a field that isn’t intuitively MPA territory.

On a different note, my up-coming place of business is planning a networking trip to Ann Arbor in September. As I love trips and networking, of course I want to go! But, it is an expensive outing and I’m not sure that it’s in my budget. But they are offering (and I have applied for) partial scholarships and the Chamber is starting this new thing that they are calling Community Leadership Council (or something like that) and they want me to apply for it.  Admission to this Council means that I will be involved with planning objectives for the trip and leading meetings on the trip and most importantly it includes the trip for FREE. It’s a win/f*cking win situation.

Also, I was reading a new blog today and came across this article

Sounds like they bought a guilty verdict. I mean, if I’m hungry and homeless (not saying that this guy is), I’m facing jail time, I can’t afford a good lawyer and I’m probably going to jail anyway regardless of my guilt or innocence……and the DA and the judges are willing to give me good food for the duration of my prison stay (that I wouldn’t be able to afford on the outside)?!?!?! I’ll take that sh*t in a heartbeat! Just like he did.

What do you think?

My gf, who has, as one of her most admirable attributes, an undying willingness to support her people*, has been sending me links to urban** bloggers.

*Her people typically consists of lesbians (especially Black lesbians) and educated, creative black people

** I use urban as a code word for black since one of my white friends hates when I do that.

Anyway, one of the blogs, Very Smart Brothas, seems to be written by black men that I would simultaneously be attracted to and afraid of (now is not the time to talk about this).

Since adding VSB to my blog reader, L (white friend from above) and I love to read and discuss whatever the brothas are talking about daily.

This post, particularly struck my fancy because, according to this list, and a day long conversation with L at work, I am seriously might be a pretentious piece of sh*t (PPoS). And you know what? I AM OK WITH THAT.

Why don’t I care, you ask?

I’m not a PPoS because I put people down to feel good about myself. I’m not a PPoS because I think I’m somehow better than the average person I know that I am a work in progress and I have quite a bit of work left to do.

(If) I’m a PPoS because I believe that people (all people who were not raised in a cave in West Virginia) should know how to act in public. I just expect more from folks. I get disappointed and frustrated when people do ignorant, nonsensical annoying sh*t. L, gf and I have gleefully been cataloguing all day all the reasons for my possible PPoS status.

• I will not respond to a man or worse a woman!!! that greets me with “Hey Shawty” or some other obnoxious slang or facial expression that objectifies me or otherwise treats me like a piece of meat.
• I expect people to know how to dress, eat, drink, act in social situations and if not, then they should ask someone. (there is nothing wrong with calling ahead and asking about appropriate attire)
• I will always roll my eyes at the dude making eyes at me while wearing a bright lime green Patron jacket*** when he knows that Patron ain’t paying him to wear it and he had no affiliation with the brand. This also applies to other articles of clothing with large, obnoxious labels.

***this happened to me this morning!!!!!

• I know (and so should everyone else) that there is a difference in what is appropriate behavior when entering a place of business, especially when looking for a job (speak in your best English (no “ebonics” or “redneck”, thanks), stand up straight, and be respectful) and what is appropriate at the house.

• I believe a cell phone ringtone should sound like a phone ringing and should not be a substitute for a boom box on the f*cking MARTA train.

• I know that if I hold my cell phone up to my ear and talk, the person that I’m talking to can hear me. I don’t have to change the position of the phone like a walkie-talkie and I don’t have to scream. And neither do you!

• If you can have a house full of kids (or just one, for that matter) you damn well better be able to control those bastards in public. Or I will give you the evil eye and talk smack about your parenting skills.

• If you are in the m-f-ing fast lane on an interstate with 4 or more lane you risk getting hit in the @ss if you aren’t going at least 80 mph. And don’t be mad at me when I pass you on the right and give you the finger.

After reading this list, I’m thinking that perhaps I’m not a PPoS. Maybe I’m just an uppity, elitist @sshole snob or maybe I just hate most people. Who knows?

And like I said on the VSB site

The Black Tina Fey (ahem, me) loves herself some McD’s $1 hot fudge sundaes, and I hate, hate, hate Atlanta and can’t wait to go home to NC, so I can’t be that much of a PPoS, can I?

But if you think that I am a PPoS, I don’t care because that either means that you know that you are guilty of doing that ignorant crap and have now been put in your place or you have been overwhelmed because you are just realizing that IT IS NOT OK to behave in any manner chronicled in this post.

If I missed anything in my list, leave it in the comments.