I think it’s because I feel obligated to write an inspiring New Years post, but regurgitating what the rest of the world is saying makes me nauseous. And also, I haven’t been too inspired lately, and this blog is supposed to be happy, angry, inspirational, controversial, exciting - anything but depressing – but depressing is the only way to describe my writing as of late.

I was going to show you my calendar of the nineteen meetings I have this week, which is typical. Perhaps too typical as I’ve discovered it’s fairly easy to become fairly crazy fairly quickly.

And speaking of that, has anyone else noticed that it only took a short two years out of college for you to completely lose the ability to go to sleep at 5:00 am one night and wake up absolutely fine, refreshed and ready to face the day the next morning? Because I tried it recently and I can’t do it any longer. I’ve lost this valuable skill at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

But anyway, I was going to explain the masterpiece of scheduling that my calendar is, and describe my system of scheduling meetings according to existing meetings, all packaged nicely and neatly in a pretty list, but it was really boring. Really.

Moreover, it seemed a little misleading to sell you my tricks of the scheduling trade, when I’m so utterly exhausted. And if nothing else, I’m honest.

Honesty has gotten me in trouble lately though. I’m starting to say “no” more often, and stand up for myself, and people don’t really like that. And I’m still figuring out how to deal with that, because I’m saying “no” and I’m standing up for a reason, good reasons, but I’m not sure the other parties feel the same way. And the transition from sugary-sweet observer to strong active leader is blaringly still en route.

Then I thought I would tell you about the resolution I made one Monday afternoon and subsequently broke this past Saturday night. And there’s no point now, which is cool, you know, because it’s cliche fun to break your resolution a week after you’ve made it. Er, whatever.

I also thought about writing how I feel like I can’t trust many people lately, which is bad, because trust is really important to getting things done. Mostly I feel this way because someone I look up to let me down. But to be honest, I had him on a pedestal, so it was only a matter of time before I found out that he didn’t like where I had told him to sit.

Other posts included how listening to old-school music makes me happy, and that exercising is good, but better when the cute personal trainer guy talks to you, or how your number one resolution should be to start a blog in the New Year. And at one point, I even thought about just copying and pasting the lyrics to all the music I was listening to, because it just seemed to say everything that I could not.

But time after time, the posts didn’t make the cut, because there is so much advice out there on how to start your New Year off right, and the sky is still blue (or gray in Madison’s case), and you are still who you are. So don’t worry so much.

This is, after all, the year of the Rat. That means it’s “a lucky year, a good time to start a new venture. The rewards will not come without hard work, but with careful planning they will arrive.”

Great things are going to happen this year. And you’re going to make them happen.

That’s all you need to know.

Get to it.

Okay, maybe not. But look for a post on how social media affects Generation Y leadership on Friday. In the meantime, enjoy the snowfall!

While at my mother’s house for the holidays, I demonstrated how to make these snowflakes in thirteen easy steps:

1. Gather the materials (2 pieces of white paper, a pair of scissors, and scotch tape).

2. Cut six equal-sized squares from the paper.

3. Fold each square on the diagonal to create a large triangle (shown), and then again to create a small triangle.

4. Cut four equal-spaced slits towards the fold, being careful not to cut through the fold.

5. Don’t say no to outside help.

6. After cutting six pieces, open each square completely.

7. Bring the middle of one square together, and tape the ends together. Turn the piece over, and bring the next inner set together and tape the ends together (shown).

8. Repeat until an entire diamond segment is complete.

9. Repeat on the other pieces until all six diamonds are complete.

10. Tape three diamonds together, taping first on the sides, and then bringing the three pieces together in the middle.

11. Repeat for the remaining three diamonds, and bring each half of the snowflake together.

12. Tape the two halves together, first in the middle (shown), then on each of the sides.

13. Hang your completed snowflake with cheer, and enjoy!

Happy Winter!

Johannes sat cringing next to me. He had just spent four years studying to be a doctor, and for him, this was like opening your eyes in the morning. For me, it was like the nightmares I have where I’m falling and don’t know where I’ll land. It was pure terror.

I couldn’t do it. The nurse left the room, and Johannes looked at me with disgust.

And then.

And then, something inside me flipped. I stopped crying. The nurse came back in. She handed me the needle, and I did it. As simple as pushing a button into the button hole, I pushed the needle into my stomach. And when I got home, I had to lie on my couch and do it every night all alone, and I did it then too.

After this, there were several more visits to the ER, an eventual surgery, and when it was all done, when it was finally all finished, I felt euphoric. Euphoria enveloped me for all that I had been through; for all that I had fought against and won.

You have to work hard, and sometimes you have to gloriously muck something up to be really successful later. Why we’re always so afraid of conflict, diversity, adversity has never made sense to me. I have no patience for people who are sanctimoniously happy all the time. It means they haven’t taken enough risks.

Success is directly related to how hard you push yourself.

I write about how difficult the process of becoming a leader is, the problems I’ve had transitioning, how life is just plain hard sometimes, to illustrate that once you find your passion it’s not all about birds chirping and bunny rabbits frolicking.

Of course, that’s part of it; right now, for instance, I am really excited. I just had a great meeting with those in my organization. We’re getting closer and closer to rocking out. You know, like, the lip-singing-dancing-around-the-living-room-jumping-for-joy kind of rocking out. But in a Board Room.

And that makes me happy. Especially because I worked hard to prepare for that meeting. Really hard. Our database hates me with a vengeance hard. Sixteen or seventeen meetings a week hard. Like, my apartment is messy an hour after I clean it hard.

I generally spend every waking moment thinking and acting on how we’re going to rock it. So when things go well, that feeling of euphoria - of happiness to the point of enlightenment - is because I’ve pushed myself farther than I’ve ever gone before. Just like when I was sick.

So, it’s hard. And it’s work. And sometimes it’s pure terror. But that’s passion in a nutshell. You wake up and you can’t imagine doing anything else. You do it because there is no other way to be.

Be working to be rocking.

Better drunk then boring, we shrugged.

But as the speaker went on, his short stature quickly filling up the two big screens on his left and right, and then the entire room, I realized that he was certainly not drunk. He was Texan. A Texan State Senator and former Mayor of Austin to be exact – Mr. Kirk Watson.

With a southern charm, certain bravado and blatant honesty that made us Midwesterners simultaneously laugh and blush, Watson spoke on how to think bold and dream big:

First of all, don’t be afraid to think bold and dream big, Watson drawled in his thick accent. Failure is good, as long as you learn from it. As long as you don’t go cry in a corner, he said. As long as you take action from what went wrong.

And don’t wait for something better either. “My wife tried that and she still got stuck with me!” Watson warned. Take action with the opportunities that are in front of you.

Find both the chicken and the egg. Go after them both. And then find things that are neither the chicken nor the egg:

“Do you want to know what the number one bumper sticker is in Austin?” Watson asked. “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s not ‘Kirk Watson for Senate’ as it should be. No, it’s not. It’s ‘Keep Austin Weird.’ That’s it. That’s what it is. ‘Keep Austin Weird.’ That means keeping Austin ‘Austin.’ Keeping it open. Out of weird you get bold ideas and vision.”

With bold ideas and big vision, you are not going to meet everyone’s concept of perfection, so don’t even try, Watson said. Don’t even try. If you try to please everyone, you will come up with a plan that is unworkable or someone will just say no and that will be the end.

He goes on, “Let me tell you about my 84% rule. If 84% of the people say, ‘Huh, yeah, I kind of like that idea’ and it sounds like progress, take it and run.” How did he come up with the 84% rule? That’s the percentage he was elected mayor with.

Avoid the nitpickers, naysayers and know-it-alls. The people who think they are just so much smarter than you, he said. The people who think you’re dumb. They’re in the 16%. Their negative energy will bring you down. Really, it doesn’t matter how pretty you are. You’re not going to make everyone happy.

Instead, focus on your assets. You got ‘em, Watson said. Utilize what you have.

And be willing to admit your weaknesses, Watson advised. He then told us simply that he was a cancer surivior. A testicular cancer survivor. He has had three surgeries and has gone through chemotherapy. After all that, they found another tumor in his abdomen.

But that was in 1995. He’s cured now. He assures his wife that if anything happened to her, or between the two of them, he wouldn’t want a young woman. He wouldn’t want to start a new family. He loves his family. And she tells him, “You know dear, with all they cut off of you, you won’t have many young women coming after you.”

“And that’s true!” Watson stated triumphantly. The point from the story is that he admits his weaknesses. “And another is that I’m a survivor,” he said. “Hope matters.”

Afterwards, I approached Kirk and introduced myself. He was just as excited to meet me as he was on stage, and we talked about blogging (yes, he has a blog too), and the ability to say in his speech, or write in his blog, whatever he wants. We discussed the ability to execute the “what you see is what you get” attitude, which inevitably lead to a discussion on credibility.

And I don’t know if it was the charming accent or what, but more than ever, I got why people were so concerned with credibility. I mean, Kirk has built a bridge for goodness sakes. And while someday I might build a bridge too, I haven’t accomplished such feats yet. I have more work to do. That makes me excited, because being a little like Kirk Watson is definitely something to look forward to.

Texan moxie.

Wait, what? What do you mean what gives me the right? I must admit that I didn’t have a good answer, even the third time around. To me, it’s like asking what gives women the right to work?

It seems to me that if I want to do something, then I should do it. This notion that young people have something to prove, that we must pay our dues, is outdated. But it’s obviously on the minds of my peers.

My gut reaction was to reply, “because I work really frickin’ hard. How about that?” But somehow that didn’t seem like the leader thing to do.

There’s a new trend where we’re checking under the rug to see what has been swept underneath. It’s a matter of ethics, a matter of accountability, credibility, and simply realizing that if we’re following, we should pay closer attention to who is leading.

We’ve always wanted our leaders to be transparent. But as it becomes easier to create yourself on the internet and tell whatever story you wish, being transparent is increasingly difficult. You as a blogger and who you are in real life may or may not always match up.

Indeed, our generation is moving up so quickly, that discrepancies aren’t just showing up in the online world; who you are in one job could be drastically different from who you are in the next.

And if we’re changing so drastically and consistently, do we have the expertise to move to the front of the line?

Questioning the validity of a person’s leadership skills is why more leaders aren’t stepping up to the plate in the first place. It’s why we have a leadership crisis in areas like the environmental and nonprofit sectors. And it’s why a slew of Generation Y doesn’t want to be engaged at all.

There’s nothing special to being a leader. You have to deal with a lot once you jump in, sure. It’s a challenge and it’s hard work and it’s rewarding and it’s fantastic. But leaders aren’t all that different from the rest of us.

My organization just finished a series on how local leaders in politics went from interest to action. We had a senator, state representatives, our mayor, our county executive, aldermen, lobbyists, and more. Across the board, every single political leader expressed that their story wasn’t unique. They saw an opportunity and went for it. Funny how remarkably easy it is to make a difference.

I don’t have a special skill set to be a leader. I’ve never taken leadership classes, and while I’ve been in positions of leadership since high school, I don’t think this makes me more qualified to be one now. It’s just, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Like, when I visited Madison to decide on where I would attend school, I felt in my bones that this was the place to be.

What gives you the right to be a young leader is the fact that you have stepped out from the rest of crowd. That you have put yourself out there, taken a chance, and have simply tried.

You will mess up along the way. You will make mistakes. You’ll take things personally. You won’t want to be a leader sometimes, and sometimes you might not be.

You won’t have all the skills, and perhaps it’s easier to think about it as if you’re a leader in training. But if you make that commitment, you’re already miles ahead of everyone else. And the others will follow. Because you believe in yourself. And that’s half the battle to believing in others.

Rightfully young.

In searching for links for this post, I found that Rosetta Thurman does a great job discussing this subject as well. Go check it out.

This post is a tribute to Devin Reams, five.sentenc.es, and to Hercules, who only reads the highlighted parts of my blog.

Domino effect.

Exhaustion. Our generation is tired. Really tired. Me too.

One of my favorite young professionals is a member of our Entrepreneurial Committee. He works for a Fortune 500 company here in Madison by day, and by night and by weekend, he runs two companies that he founded. Two. He calls it straddling. A leg in the corporate world, a leg in the entrepreneurial dream. His eyes and cheeks and mouth though, they are suffocating in exhaustion. The guy needs a pillow. Seriously. He needs to get some sleep.

The thing is, whenever I see him, I feel energized. He makes me smile because he comes to the meetings. He has great ideas. He contributes. He’s one of the last to leave. He’s insanely passionate. And I know he doesn’t sleep. I know he works ridiculously hard. I also know he’s going to be incredibly successful.

I’m not advocating a no-sleep schedule. I personally need seven hours of sleep. Exactly. If I go to bed at 11:58 pm, my alarm is set for 6:58 am. Exactly. But really, I’m not advocating it, because it’s already happening. For better or for worse, Generation Y is working with our hearts on our sleeves, straddling our work and our lives, straddling our dreams and our reality.

The excitement on the line is palpable. It’s everywhere. The exhaustion is merely a comma in the sentence of changing the world. It’s exhaustion of the status quo. It’s working hard, playing hard. It’s our generation pushing all together in one direction and only moving an inch. A mere inch. But gosh darn it all, we moved that inch forward. And that’s something to celebrate.

At my last job, I worked with some of the top business people in Madison, the CEOs and presidents, and movers and shakers. They inspired me. Now, I work with the next generation of CEOs and presidents, and movers and shakers. Except, we’re already doing it.

We’re already leading, changing, doing. We’ve been moving and shaking since we put one foot in front of the other for the first time. It’s something more than inspiration. It’s exuberance.

I invite the naysayers to come and spend time with the young leaders in my community and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the resilience and passion and willingness to do whatever it takes, that the gut-wrenching work of pushing forward against all odds, is not occurring every day, every hour, in the lives of these young professionals. Because I promise it is. We are laid off, or dumped, or abused, or hate our jobs, or are involved in shootings, war, or tragedy, and still we show up. We have great ideas. We contribute. We’re the last to leave. We’re insanely passionate.

That’s the Generation Y work ethic. That’s happiness raw and exposed. That’s what it means to be part of this generation.

Work it, homie.

No matter. It was just the entertainment Hercules and I were looking for on a rainy afternoon.

I didn’t want my palm read, but humored Hercules inside. After Janet the Psychic finished a surprisingly accurate reading of Hercules, and told us, in detail, about the zit beneath her eyebrow, Hercules decided that I should get my palm read too. “I’ll pay for it,” he insisted.

I shrugged my shoulders and was about to outstretch my palm when Janet the Psychic proclaimed she wouldn’t read my palm that day. I should come back a different day, she said, and not with Hercules. Yeah. Okay. That’s not shady at all.

We changed the subject, and then just as Hercules and I were about to leave, Janet the Psychic insisted, “But I do want to tell you something before you go. Free of charge. Not with him in the room, though.” Hercules left obediently, and Janet spoke.

And I don’t know if it was what she said, or how she said it, or the sudden coldness in the room that gave me goosebumps, but I felt the devil himself had just ripped my heart out of my chest.

How could this woman who had known me less than twenty minutes hit on the exact thing that I tried to ignore daily with the right friends and the right clothes and the right job?

I didn’t say anything back to her, nodding only slightly. She continued on, speaking of things that I knew, but never discussed. And how I needed to change all of it. Quickly.

I suppose she could have said those things to anyone and it would have been true, but would it have been the same gut-wrenching experience for others?

Because the thing about fear, and that’s really all she was talking about, is that it takes on a life of its own and you call it bad, because that’s what it is, but you make it good and that eats up your heart. I’ll tell you. It takes big monstrous bites of your heart and chews it like the trucker chews on the grizzle in his sausage-bacon-egg biscuit.

And Janet the Psychic saw through that. In twenty minutes. And perhaps just as quickly, I forgot about what she said, refusing to speak of it to Hercules, or anyone else. Life went on. Because I’m too busy and too proud to live in fear. So I thought.

Then this Sunday afternoon, my sister who is visiting from England, and I were walking down State Street. We are completely different; she is curvaceous where I am not, and bohemian where I am refined. We walked with the sun beating the sweat onto our arms, and in other spots that women shouldn’t sweat in, and my sister exclaimed:

“Oh, tarot card readings! Let’s do that,” pointing at a sign describing another psychic on State Street. Another one. Because one psychic isn’t enough in Madison.

And wouldn’t you know. The second psychic said the exact same thing as the first. Like, do they all talk to each other or something? Right.

So I paid a little more attention this time. Because I don’t believe in psychics, but I get it when life is slapping you in the face. A wall in front of the yellow brick road only appears because you’re ready to find a way through. Which is kind of exciting. To overcome challenges, that is. Like when my mother taught me how to balance the checkbook when I was young, and how it still gives me great pleasure to figure out where the last .03 comes from to reconcile the two sides. So, I’m announcing that I get it. Life can get off my back. And I’m a huge dork. I know.

See, leaders aren’t leaders because they show no emotion and are stoic and sly. It’s because they overcome their challenges, and inspire others to do the same. You have to know yourself, what your issues are, and work to make yourself and the world a better place.

That’s the journey, and it’s quite beautiful when you think about it. When you think about how great you are to have overcome what you have, to have accomplished what you have, to be so uniquely and utterly you. To be able to thrive off of challenge. Challenges are, in fact, opportunities, and the road is ripe with them. A fact that makes me quite happy, and should make you quite happy as well.

Crystal ball, bro.

Sam offers an incredibly unique and talented perspective to the Follow the Leader series:

“Telling the stories that need telling in order to motivate others to change the things that need changing, Sam is a social entrepreneur who believes in the power of local communities. He has spoken and written on the power of the Internet to change the world for the better, and specializes in studying new and emerging trends within the nonprofit sector, especially as they relate to younger generations. His first book, “New Day Revolution: How to Save the World in 24 Hours” will be available in October.

He is married to Lynnette and both of them currently live in Nashville, Tennessee. The two don’t have any children, but when they do, they hope they will grow up in a world free from hate and fear, where ideas and creativity are valued.”

What should we spend our time on? What shouldn’t we spend our time on?
Developing relationships is vital for professional or personal success. Sometimes, these relationships will be short and may not have much depth, but it could be just the connection you need to get ahead. At other times, these relationships will be long lasting and full of meaning. I think it’s important to never turn down an invitation to meet someone, to grab coffee or have lunch. Even if it seems from the initial request that nothing can develop, I’ve seen great ideas come out of chance meetings.

(click twice to enlarge and sharpen Sams’ calendar for this week)

How do you get it all done?
I manage my to-do list with my Inbox. It stays in the Inbox until I take care of it (’it’ being replying to an email, setting up a meeting, writing a 5 Minutes of Caring piece). Also, I wake up at 5 AM. Most people cringe at that. But, I love what I do, so getting up at 5, getting online for 90 minutes (to read news, blogs, and email) and then going for a jog allows me to do more by 8 AM than most folks get done by lunch. There’s a huge advantage to that.

What does balance mean to you?
Balance is all about prioritizing. Naturally, our priorities change over the years. But, if you can figure out a few things early on that are important, it will help you decide what’s worth doing and what can wait. A lot of times, people spend a lot of time on things that aren’t that important, and they probably know this. I think life is much too short to be caught doing lots of things you don’t want to.

How many hours do you work a week?
My schedule is rarely (never) 9-to-5. I wake up early, meet folks for lunch, write at night sometimes, think about stuff when I’m driving, you name it. Recently, I’ve begun to stay off the computer a lot on the weekends. I once used the weekend to catch up on stuff. Now, I figure out on Friday what can wait until Monday. This way, I can spend the weekend lying on my couch watching what I DVR’d during the week. But, my Blackberry is always nearby so I can at least read emails, even if I don’t reply until Monday.

How do you think we can encourage young leaders?
Young people today have grown up and are coming of age at a time when access and creation are standard parts of their lives. Their parents were passive receivers of media and entertainment. Today’s YPs are active producers, making videos, writing blogs, and starting businesses, and then sharing all of this with anyone and everyone. I’ve found that young people are most engaged when they’re able to create something and have the necessary access to the tools required to do so. I don’t feel that’s an incredibly revolutionary thing, but so few businesses realize this.

How much time do you devote to blogging and promoting your blog?
I love to write, but only when I know I’ve got something good. I’ve been blogging on my personal site for nearly 4 years now, and it’s changed from blogging mainly about religious issues to anything personal to covering the nonprofit world. Because I write so much for CoolPeopleCare, I don’t blog everyday. But, I have enjoyed it more by waiting until I’ve got something particularly worthy of my time.

Early Riser.

That’s a mistake, however, because I get miffed when others claim to be environmentally concerned, and are blatantly not. Like the people who shop at Whole Foods, and think that gets them a golden ticket to the garden of earthly delights, even though they have a SUV parked in the lot. You may be one of those people. That’s okay. Just stop saying you care about the environment. Because you don’t.

Don’t act like somebody you’re not. It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. People will see through it, and you will have no credibility. The most powerful brands don’t have to broadcast themselves. They are simply true by example.

Besides, it makes your life harder to keep up an image that’s not authentic. You spend a lot of time doing a lot of things to convince a lot of people that you’re something, something big, something that you’re not. That’s depressing.

You may recycle every water bottle or take an entire morning to replace all of your light bulbs with compact fluorescents. Worthy steps, sure. But they’re high-input and low-value. Like, none of those steps will land you in bed with Leonardo DiCaprio.

If you’re going to define yourself a certain way, then go for it. Use meaningful action. Don’t waste your time on little things that provide little value according to your goal. Set priorities to create the most impact, and avoid getting mired in the insignificant.

Environmental products often cost more in the beginning, but pay off in the long run. That’s how life is. It’s going to be hard in the beginning to take the first big step after years of baby steps. Your legs won’t seem long enough. But you have to stretch yourself beyond your limits. It’s worth it. Anything less isn’t authentic.

I’m an environmentalist because I don’t own a car. I don’t waste time worrying about recycling every single piece of junk mail. I don’t feel guilty for not going to the Farmer’s Market every Saturday morning. I’ve already done the biggest thing you can do for the environment. I don’t own a car. The positive impact of that decision is so huge, that while I do the small stuff, I don’t sweat it. I’ve got my golden ticket.

Small steps are a good start, but when you’re ready to play with the big kids, you just have to commit. Going any slower would be painful. Sometimes you just have to rip off the band-aid.

Make it hurt.