Starting over in the same city

Hercules moved away. I don’t feel left behind by Hercules, but by my own life which seems to have somehow escaped me. I am beginning to feel engulfed by this when my friend Maria Antonia comes over.

“Transition periods… they suck,” she reminds me. “I can’t think of a transition period that didn’t suck.”

“Uh huh,” I smile. Maria Antonia is incredibly practical. This sucks, but it will pass. We try on dresses, talk business and girly things, and go out for the night. I come home early. Socializing seems silly when all I can do is think of myself.

Another night I visit with Belle and her fiancé. It takes a lot of effort on my part not to be the third wheel; they are just sickeningly cute. I give myself a gold star for not being envious. I feel more grown up this past week, and I wonder if you learn lessons faster as you grow older.

Hercules left on a Sunday morning and I miss him on a Thursday. I go to the iTunes Store and download sixteen songs in a row, add them to a new playlist and hit repeat. They are mostly happy songs and soon I feel like the world is once again at my feet. Then I remember the other night, Zeus, and the five glasses of wine. We’re sitting on my couch.

“Am I your rebound?” Zeus asks.

“Of course!” I declare. I feel bad as soon as the words escape. I liked Zeus the moment I saw him and tell him so.

“Love at first sight?” he chuckles. I don’t think it’s funny since love is both the closest and farthest thing on my mind.

“Something like that,” I reply.

And I don’t want him to be my rebound, but I don’t see any other choice. I feel incapable at relationships. Zeus seems younger than most guys I date, and is both sweet and guarded. He makes me want to write, and a few days earlier, he bet that I would make a good girlfriend. This makes me happy and so now that we are alone, I kiss him. It’s not what I expect.

“Zeus, you know when you see an outfit that you really like and you have to try it on to see if it fits?”

“Yeah…”

“I’m not sure we fit,” I say. I’m not trying to be rude on purpose, but the word vomit keeps coming! We keep talking and he agrees and disagrees with everything I say, taking a middle-of-the-road approach. This is good I think and I like him more as the wine wears off.

A lesson I’ve learned though is that when men are in my life, it engulfs me. And when men aren’t in my life, I rise up like a balloon that was being held to the ground and is finally being let go.

I like both states of being despite their unequal weight on my shoulders whispering in my ear. I feel the need to choose relationships or career because it’s easier to go all-in on one side of the coin instead of trying to reach a balance. Defining your own success is indeed as rare as successfully hanging curtains by yourself. I’ve been thinking about this, and the strange feeling of glee I have to own a new beginning where everything is different, yet exactly the same.

Later in the week Zeus texts me, “So what do you think, did the clothes fit?” And this makes me a bit giddy, because that line seems to be straight out of a movie, and I think maybe the clothes do fit. And I ready myself for another stab at flourishing in life.

How I got my dream job (and survived)

This post about going from bottom to top was inspired by this comment. Thanks, Milena!

I walked in and almost everyone was sitting down, and the speakers were close, shoulder to shoulder. It was so hot and sticky outside, I went to the bathroom to freshen before sitting down near the door, lest the presentation be boring and I should want to leave in the middle.

Big Brother was the moderator of the panel, and I had seen him in the press, but never in person. After the event, we somehow managed to walk out at the same time. He said hello to me, in that special way he has, gleaming with charisma.

Much later we sat at a coffee shop, and I saw him repeat this behavior with other people who stared at him, as people often do. And I must have been staring too, because I remember the way that I felt was that my future was intrinsically and inexplicably linked to this man.

I couldn’t have known then that we would eventually sit in a car together as he expertly handled a disastrous situation. Or that we would have flurries of text conversations at nine o’clock at night. Or that he would be the one of the few people who could simultaneously inject fear and ambition into my dreams, that he would be one of the few to infuriate and inspire me all at once.

At the time, I was confused and unhappy. What I thought was supposed to be my dream job wasn’t working out and I felt claustrophobic in an invisible box, like a mime putting on a bad show.

I had a ridiculous time getting up in the morning, often rising out of bed just fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be sitting in my office chair. A three minute walk from where I lived. I didn’t really tell anyone at the time, not my boyfriend, or even my mother.

And little did I know things were only going to get worse, much worse, before they got better.

Eventually, it was mutually agreed upon that it would be best if I left my job, which sounds better than being fired, and it was just two or three days before Thanksgiving.

I felt a huge sense of relief, and full from a big plate of humble pie, I applied for and started my next job a short two weeks later. And then, a short two months after that, my body decided to send me to the emergency room. The day that I got out of the hospital, my boyfriend broke up with me.

It’s a strange feeling, hitting bottoms you never knew existed. But what’s even stranger is the wherewithal you find in yourself to keep going. That night, I cried on the shoulders of two of my friends, but in part of my head – the part that was growing an antidote to my flair for drama – I also thought that it was no big deal.

I needed to get healthy. I needed to get a paycheck to eat. I needed to figure things out.

So, I did that. With no other choice, it was remarkably easy.

I won’t describe much more about my second job because, in short, I loved it, and it’s difficult to write about such happiness without sounding absurdly corny. Suffice to say, the job was like a retreat for my career, and the organization I worked for was tremendously good to me.

So it was a surprise to everyone, most of all myself, when I started to feel restless later that year, and into the next. Seemingly losing it all made me remember I wanted much more.

That’s when I started this blog. Actually, I started a different one where I posted bad prose that I had written, and told around three people to go read it. Then I started this blog. And I told everyone in my address book to read it.

See, here’s the thing. When you put yourself out there for all to see, when you make yourself vulnerable, and you’re taking a big risk, and you’re doing all this because you can’t think of doing anything else, people will rally behind you. They will support you. Because people like to see others succeed. The universe will conspire in your favor.

The rush of this risk was so big, and the potential payoff so great, that I started to take more risks. I acted in a play where I learned the lines just eight hours earlier. I went skiing for the first time, fell on my butt, and got back up again. I learned sushi was the best food ever.

Oh, and I applied for my dream job and got it.

I don’t want to make it seem that I went through this big transformation over a short period and I know everything now. I didn’t and I don’t.

Let me be clear. It was really the years before this one, and those before that, which set me up to succeed. But eventually, you reach a tipping point and things begin to flow in your favor.

The pace since that’s happened has been like a water slide at a water park. The ride down is fast, scary, and exhilarating, and once you’ve reached the bottom, you can’t wait to make the long, hot and sticky crowded climb back to the top and do it all over again.

Because now I have an entirely new set of challenges and struggles that I face. I work hard, but also strategically and intelligently. And Big Brother, who seemed untouchable to me a couple years ago, is now one of my many mentors.

Dreams = Reality

My non-advice for the New Year

I’ve been writing a lot of crap lately. No, really, I have. You don’t know because I have been gracious enough not to post it, but it’s been crap. Complete and utter sh*t.

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.

Life as a Gen Y leader - week eleven

I texted Skinny last Friday night, “I’m just not up for it.” Which really meant that I had sixteen meetings last week, and I was exhausted, and however appealing a nice relaxing dinner sounded, Skinny would have just been a landfill. I would have dumped my entire life on him. And who is that fun for? No one.

The thing is, I’ve been saying “I’m just not up for it,” to my friends more often than not, and I’m quickly losing whatever semblance of balance I used to have. Big Brother claims he keeps his personal life separate because it’s difficult to be a public figure, but I’m increasingly wondering if the real reason is because he doesn’t have one.

And I’m wondering if what I really want is to become a workaholic.

The thing is, when you surround yourself with a certain type of person, you become like those people. Take, for instance, a meeting I was at last week. I sat nervously on the edge of my chair as we started the meeting with a WIGO (What Is Going On), where people described what’s been happening in their lives. When every single person talked about work except for one, I breathed a triumphant sigh of relief. They didn’t have lives either!

At the time, I was grateful to hear that others were just as crazy as me, but as Belle and my sister amuse me with their updates on promise rings and wedding plans, I’m anxious for the whole “not having a life” thing to be over with. Because I do want it all. The family. The career. And everything in between.

This idea of priorities came up earlier in the week. I was on a panel and one participant asked me, “If I’m more efficient during afternoon meetings, but my employees or volunteers are more efficient in the morning, what do I do?”

“You have meetings in the morning,” I replied. “That’s what you do. That’s a sacrifice you make for being the boss. The point is to make your employees or volunteers as successful as possible so that you’re as successful as possible.” You want to lift them up. You want to help them reach their goals. You should lead them to be as good, no, better than you.

I’ve wanted to be a lot of things in my life. A journalist, a teacher, and a designer are among the more prevalent. But the one thing that remains the same throughout is my desire to help others reach their dreams. I want to create environments where others succeed. I want my job description to simply read “empower.”

And in the end, isn’t that what a leader does?

So, I’m thinking it’s not so bad to be working so hard if I remember these things. In fact, I feel like I need to be working a lot harder, if not smarter. But that’s another discussion all together. Nevertheless, I’m going to make the commitment to take more time for myself, my friends, and my family - publicly, here on this blog - so that I become accountable to the promise I’ve made to myself.

In the meantime, if someone wants to give me the key to changing the world, or if you simply want to introduce me to Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome, I very much doubt that I’ll reply “I’m just not up for it.”

Up for it all, baby.

No co-workers a challenge for the twenty-something boss

You’re more likely to enjoy your job if you make friends with your coworkers. But if you don’t have any co-workers, the challenge to not only enjoy your job, but to perform successfully in it, becomes immense.

That was one of the first things I noticed as I transitioned from being an employee to running an organization. There wasn’t anyone to talk to.

As many of us are taking the plunge from cubicle prisoner to being the boss, we’re stumbling over the entry gate. Support is the number one desire of newly-minted leaders and entrepreneurs. Who can understand the situations we’re in? Who can empathize and congratulate our failures and successes? Where is the team at?

I often tell my best friend Belle about Guy A who sucks at life, or Situation B that just rocked my week. She empathizes, congratulates, and is a good friend, but she has no idea about the foolishness or magnanimity of either like a co-worker would.

Co-workers have shared experiences that they can talk about and understand, and they support each other. They know exactly who Guy A is and are acutely aware of how important Situation B is. It’s a unique bond that can’t be replaced by even the best mentor or friend.

Here’s how to deal with no co-workers:

1) Manage yourself differently. Being a leader is about making sacrifices. This is one of them. It’s part of the package, so you just have to deal with it. Dealing with no co-workers, however, does not mean relying on Ben & Jerry, my good friends of a few weeks ago. You have to maintain your healthy habits – perhaps journaling and exercise – and create new ones.

For me, this means changing my mindset. It’s letting go of things that would have bothered me in the past. It’s looking at situations differently, and oftentimes strategically. It’s realizing that people will treat me differently, and that’s what I signed up for. Mostly, it’s concentrating on what makes my position exciting and fun.

2) Start a support network. In the upper-echelons of CEOs and Presidents, support groups are quite common. Company leaders often get together for breakfast or lunch roundtables and share the challenges of running an organization. They’ve defined it differently, but really they’re simply building co-worker relationships.

It would be difficult, however, for a young leader to find value from these roundtables outside of a mentor relationship.

Generation Y leaders need to create their own groups, and those groups need to respond to how we work. Being a young leader has its own set of unique challenges. If we’re going to be taking on positions of authority earlier, and creating our own rules, we need to be honest about what those challenges are.

3) Lean on people who know nothing. As is often true, weaknesses are also strengths. While Belle cannot fulfill the role of my co-worker, I am much happier with her as my friend. You need to have people that are outside of the work/life blender to keep perspective.

Belle doesn’t come to any of my organization’s events. She doesn’t know the majority of the people. She leads a completely different life. And while we don’t have those shared experiences, it is for that reason that it’s refreshing to be around her. I’ve known her so long that I’m not defined as a young leader, as a Gen Y Princess, a blogger, or as an Executive Director. I’m just me. And that’s a big deep breath of happiness.

Co-workin’ it.

Generation Y breeds a new kind of woman

This post is an opening argument to the question, “Do women need men and/or children in order to be fulfilled?” Check out the opposing viewpoint from Justin Sanders here. This post was also published at Damsels in Success.

Update: This post was also published at Huffington Post.

Women need men. Just not like we used to.

While career guru Penelope Trunk insists that we will find deeper fulfillment from relationships over work, others like Hannah Seligson wonder why we can’t talk about “young women and careers without talking about the hunt for a husband?”

Generation Y women don’t relate to either. We don’t live container lives, with work and family and play muffled under air-tight lids. Our life bleeds together, and instead of a singular goal of family or career, we lead our lives as a continuum, family and career ebbing and flowing.

The reality of young women’s lives today is that we want it all, despite the warnings. While coming of age during 9/11 reinforced that family is deeply important to us, we were also raised to believe we could do and be anything, especially equal to men professionally.

It’s not about prioritizing one over the other, nor is there a single answer that works for everyone; there are extremes at either end. What remains consistent in women, however, is their sense of increasing independence.

Whether we check off men, children, career, or all of the above, the fact is that we have a choice, and what fulfills and limits us is not created by society and media, but increasingly our own desires.

As a result, our roles are changing. Women are becoming the leaders, and men the supporters. Even in relationships where children are the priority, and the woman chooses or is able to stay at home, women take on the dominant role, commanding a deeper respect than any time in history.

Many view the shifting roles as threatening the very basis of our biology. But it isn’t. It is simply uprooting the traditional western viewpoint.

Indeed, while spouses and children still rank as a source of fulfillment for women above careers, one’s personal fulfillment is increasingly not just augmented by, but necessitated by professional fulfillment as well.

Bored with motherhood and marriage, we savor the challenge of work. Michelle Obama said in a recent interview, “I love losing myself in a set of problems that have nothing to do with my husband and children. Once you’ve tasted that, it’s hard to walk away.”

Women don’t need men or children for fulfillment. They might get on okay with a cat, or their career, or another woman. But really, Generation Y doesn’t need much. We’ve been coddled and spoiled, and have long surpassed what we might need, and are instead creating what we want.

And what we want is to define a new kind of woman, a “compassionate alpha.”

The Generation Y woman has leadership and strength, and promotes community and empathy. We don’t dismiss motherhood, but embrace our strengths and use those to change the workplace, reaping from it a greater sense of fulfillment than ever before.

It is not a coincidence that at a time when power-hungry hierarchies are being broken down, women are leading and infiltrating the workplace. It is our skills and talents that have created such an influential shift.

Generation Y women are high-achievers, shrewd, well-dressed, and possess an emotional intelligence that far surpasses our male counterparts. We don’t rule by insecurities or fear, but by knowing ourselves well, and seeking connection with others.

In short, we’re women. We strive to be who we are, in our sexual identities, and in how we construct our personal and professional lives. We acknowledge our own complexities.

Our personal and professional lives are blurred more than ever before, and a woman’s strength in today’s society is the fact that we are true to ourselves — more so than any other generation — because past generations fought for our right to do so.

Ruthlessly beautiful.

The real Generation Y work ethic

I’ve been in my new job for almost two months now, and there’s something I’ve noticed on the face of the hundreds of young professionals I’ve encountered.

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.

Life as a Gen Y leader – Week six

I went out on a date last night. A real date. A lot of the time I go out for dinner or drinks, and the guy thinks it’s a date, but it’s really not, and I’ve yet to figure out how to handle those situations gracefully. I usually smile the smile that says you’re quite lovely and nice, but I don’t think so bud. Usually, they get it. I think.

But last night was a date. I know it was, because we discussed it beforehand. As a Gen Y leader, that’s what you have to do. Your life is in the spotlight, much more, and in some ways, much less, than I would have ever imagined.

As such, dating is a dangerous ingredient to add to the work/life blender. Friends and work and business associates and drinks and family all mix quite nicely. But the moment dating comes into the mix, people get all crazy. Seriously. Many in our generation would prefer not to even talk about it. A foreign concept to me because that’s essentially all my best friend Belle and I discuss.

Belle and I also talk about our sisters and our jobs. We talk about how her mother has breast cancer. Again. We talk about our goals, and dreams, and what to wear on Friday night. But mostly we talk about our respective relationships. Because uh, it’s not like they doesn’t exist, and I have trouble ignoring things that are so basic and integral to our life.

Big Brother likes to keep such things hush-hush, and recommends that I don’t date anyone in my organization. An odd bit of advice, because our membership is made up of young professionals in Madison, and the ones that aren’t part of my organization, well, it’s my job to recruit them. That pretty much cuts out, oh, I don’t know, every good-looking young bachelor in the city. Every young, single, and eligible man in Madison is off-limits. It’s an impossible situation.

So, I went out on a date last night, and he happened to be a member of my organization, and when I tried to explain my hesitance with this fact, he just laughed, like “Is this really what keeps you up at night? You are so lame.” And I laughed back nervously, like “Yes, cute young professional bachelor, I am totally lame. You’re absolutely right.”

I guess I tend to take work too seriously at times. I work hard. It doesn’t stop. From the moment I wake up, I am working, until the moment I close my eyes in bed. And because I can work from the coffee shop, home or at the bar, and not just in my cubicle sans windows, I do. Which means when it is 8:24 pm, I’m usually working. And when it’s 10:02 am, I am working. And when it’s 3:35 am in the morning, well, I am sleeping, but I am working then too. Really. I have productive dreams.

Honestly though, I don’t know how other people do it, and I am beginning to think that I must have some serious health issue because I am not the Energizer bunny of Generation Y. A disappointment that is greatest to myself, because I look good in pink.

So, I am trying my best, which seems to be working out, mostly because your best has to be good enough, and I love myself enough to realize that my best is really quite amazing.

Work/life blur.

Dissent in the Gen Y ranks – family or career?

Ryan Paugh’s recent thoughts on relationships and career are downright blasphemous. I state my opinion with the utmost respect for Paugh. We’re friends. But I disagree with him.

Paugh views long-term relationships and marriage as restrictions for young talent. Young leaders, he argues, are limiting themselves by searching for responsibility they don’t need yet.

Restrictions are what life is about. You should never throw away such opportunities, but embrace what limits you.

I studied design in college and found that given the chance to design anything at all in the whole wide world, the canvas will remain blank. Told to design something with a right angle, or without connecting any lines, or including three circles and your mind will turn on. Constraints make you creative. Creativity breeds success.

I had lunch today with a young twenty-something leader in marketing and public relations who was doing just that. We talked about his future plans and I asked if he would ever consider leaving Madison.

“I’d like to leave, but my wife wants to stay here and her family lives here as well, so I think we will stay,” he replied.

It’s a compromise for him to stay. That was clear. But he will go far because he does not see that as a boundary. Despite limitations, he is successful and is creating change.

Paugh, however, argues that “leaders who are emotionally committed to another person typically can’t hack it.” Ridiculous. The very definition of leadership is being emotionally available to others. Life is about helping other people. A relationship is the sincerest form of such sentiments. Even Oprah has Steadman.

Much of the confusion has to do with the fact that changing the world is not the rainbows and teddy bears we imagine in our heads. It’s dirty grotesque work. It is work that is often sleazy and hard and tiring. Paugh romanticizes that it’s something different entirely.

He talks about relaxing with his friends watching football one weekend and trips to Cape Cod the next – things that just wouldn’t be possible with the ball and chain. The message seems to be that you can’t have a life, and be in a relationship, and change the world all at the same time. “Imagine your potential for greatness if you choose to take a rain-check on the nuptials,” Paugh urges. The reality is that as a leader, you support others, and at the end of the day, you need someone to support you.

For the record, I’m single. I’ve been a serial monogamist and I’ve been a serial dater. I’m a hopeless romantic, but I have no desire to get married and start popping out babies anytime soon.

And yet, as a newly minted Gen-Y leader, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had someone to come home to, someone that would understand and support and be there for me. Someone to share the success. It’s hard to be a leader and not have personal support, even with wonderful friends and family.

It is, of course, a personal choice to choose a family or choose a career. Neither is right. On one side, the young and married stand, happiness glazed on their faces, what ifs tattooed in their eyes. On the other side the young and powerful march forward, heads turned backward, looking at what they’ve left behind.

The happy medium between the two consists of the very narcissism Paugh uses to substantiate his argument. You see, part of being independent, part of truly loving yourself, is that you can love another, and perhaps more importantly, that you can allow yourself to be loved in return. It’s the latter that’s hard. But when you can do that, that’s when you can really start to change the world. Because you understand something so powerful, that it can’t be put into words.

Walk the line.

Follow the Leader - Travis from Young Go Getter

This post is part of the “Follow the Leader” series, where you get the chance to peek into the professional and personal lives of fellow young leaders to learn how they get it all done. If you would like to be the next young leader profiled, email me.

Travis from Young Go Getter is a bit mysterious. He assures me this really is him in the photo to the left. I’ll assume we can’t see his face because teal just isn’t his color. No matter. Travis is crazy successful and while I was still learning my right hand from my left, Travis was already starting businesses.

Tell Modite readers about yourself:
I am a 22 year old Canuck with a nice big diploma from ad school buried in my filing cabinet. I’ve been an entrepreneur for about 8 years and a partner at YGG for a year and a half or so.

I work full-time as a freelance creative with my clients and squeeze in a bit of blogging on several different sites.

(click twice to enlarge and sharpen Travis’ to do list for this week)

Define leadership:
The ability to determine what needs to be done, who’d be best at doing it, and being able to step aside when it’s not yourself.

What does balance mean to you?
Balance is having symmetry between madness and silence. It’s when you’re able to push yourself almost to the breaking point, then punch out for the day with no hesitation.

What’s not on your calendar?
Birthdays. I’m horrible with birthdays. And the bad thing is, for most of my friends, I’ve known them for years and years, so if I were to ask them their exact birth date now, I’d look like a total ass.

How do you think we can encourage young leaders? Keep them engaged?
Make an example out of yourself. Most young go getters nowadays have all the war stories and resources they need to build an enormously successful business or create a meaningful impact on the world.

In the same sense that “you have to see it to believe it,” product demos have molded our acceptance in the marketplace. Leading by example will always have a much more encouraging effect than words on paper.

Seeing the results of entrepreneurial action and quotations proving themselves true, always seem to get my ass in gear.

How much time do you devote to blogging and promoting your blog?
I spend a lot more time developing and promoting our blog than I do writing, which is changing in the coming weeks. But for YGG, I spend an hour or two on most days developing new features or fixing bugs — and about two hours either writing content, participating in the Forum, or talking to some of the people I’ve been able to meet thanks to the site. Kind of like yourself, Rebecca.

Last words of advice?
Life isn’t as difficult as they make it out to be. Heck, you can Google any issues you face, chances are others have as well.

Do your best to get that big picture out the door and let the details handle themselves.

Go Young Go Getter, Go!