Monthly Archives: August 2014

My 3 1/2 year old daughter was really excited yesterday. We were going to the toy store to get her very own Legos. You see, she had become accustomed to being told that she couldn’t play with her brother’s Legos since they were for big kids. There was a great big Lego set that displayed a giant pink and purple house. Fine, I thought. This will be great. The age on the box said 4 and up, but surely with my help she would be able to build this beautiful Lego mansion.

We got home and I opened the instruction booklet.

 

Upon seeing the several steps in the booklet and the variety of small confusing multi-colored shapes that were involved in the process, I began to get a little nervous. But I consoled myself that it was going to be okay. One step at a time, I told myself. I can do this.

Step one didn’t look so bad.

 

I got this. I’m going to keep going. Bring on the pink and purple Legos!

 

I was beginning to feel my IQ rise brick by purple brick. I’m a genius! I could have gone to the Cornell University school of architecture. I was in the zone. I was building this house and there was no stopping me.

I never knew I had these fine motor skills. I could have been an engineer. My daughter was impressed at the house coming together. She said “wow,” as the plastic orange and pink alternating awning shingles were put into place.

But then, something changed.

 

This isn’t right, I thought to myself. I followed all the instructions. How can this be? Maybe I should try another purple piece.

That one doesn’t fit either. I felt the beads of sweat dripping on my face. My brow furrowed, I began to tremble. This wasn’t right. I followed every single instruction. I looked at the house and noticed that it was glaring at me. The Legos were laughing in my face. You can’t do this! They shouted. The anger began to rise in my throat. I wasn’t going to let them win.

 

They continued to mock me. I had had enough. That’s it. I refuse to let you get the best of me. I don’t have to take this from YOU!

 

 

 

 

And then I realized that they were just Legos. They weren’t laughing at all. They were small colorful plastic pieces that wanted to come together and form something that made more sense. I took a deep breath. I found my happy place. The Legos and I worked together and we made this:

 

I’ve been looking for a full time job lately, and it’s not easy to find one. In some ways, being out of the job market for so long (taking time to raise my small children) makes me feel like a recent college graduate. I’m stepping into unknown territory. I have to rebuild connections with potential employers and re-learn how to network.

I was lucky to connect with an old friend, David Perez, who introduced me to the “Everyday Connect” campaign by Fairfield Inn & Suites.

The concept behind the Everyday Connect campaign is this: in an especially challenging job market, new grads are going to have develop strong personal connections in order to ignite and maintain momentum in their careers. Fairfield is launching a campaign that will go live on Tumblr. This will be the home for advice, statistics, and opportunities for graduates to hone their networking skills and stay connected to their mentors.

I was particularly impressed with some of the advice from successful entrepreneurs for 2014 college graduates entering the work force. These videos are less than one minute long and yet they contain useful advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Check out what these savvy business men and women have to say.

The overwhelming theme is this campaign is to build and maintain strong relationships in your field.

I said earlier that I have to re-learn how to network, but that’s not entirely the case. Working in social media for the past five years has been a great opportunity for me to network. While watching these entrepreneurs speak on building relationships, I was reminded of my friend and social media guru, Ted Rubin. Ted developed the concept of Return on Relationship. Simply put, relationships are a form of currency. Invest in them and you will see valuable results.

The words of these entrepreneurs are in line with Return on Relationship. Reach out to people, develop connections with them and watch your relationships flourish and grow.

The Everyday Connect campaign promotes the concept of furthering success through strong relationships between human beings. We are all looking to succeed in this world, so let’s help one another out.

Check out more on Everyday Connect here.

I’ve spent the majority of my life thinking: I want to be normal. I want to wake up, have my coffee and breakfast, go to work, see friends, and do stuff that normal people do. Except, I don’t do that. I spend a lot of time fighting with the thoughts in my head that tell me “you’re doing that wrong,” “you’re a bad person,” “you’re not competent,” “you’re a flaky friend,” “you’re bad with money,” “you can’t keep a job” and a frequent thought is “you’re not normal.”

These thoughts haunt me every single day, but the one that stands out is “you’re not normal.” It almost immediately makes me cry. When that mean outside voice jumps into my brain and tells me “you’re not normal,” I want to put on some boxing gloves and clock it in the face, except that the voice has already sucker punched me by telling me those words.

Today, I started to cry thinking about how “abnormal” I was. But I stopped myself.

Wait, self! What is normal?

Those people, the ones that seem to do “have it all together,” the ones that drink their coffee, perfectly manage their money, and keep jobs for 10 years, I don’t know what’s going on in their heads. They could be dealing with all kinds of shit that I’m unaware of.

Because the truth of the matter is that there is no normal.

Everyone is dealing with something and we all show it differently. Some people are more sensitive and in touch with their feelings than others. Other people keep it to themselves.

Normal is a curse word.

Fuck normal.

I’m gonna do me.

Some days I feel wonderful, while other days I question my road in life. That’s who I am, flaws and all.

It is my flaws and the honesty surrounding them that make me better able to express myself as a writer and that I would not change for the world.

The next time “I’m not normal” pops into my head, I’m going to remind myself that no, I’m not normal, because there is no normal. I’m a flawed human being and a better writer for it.