I love my sister. It brings me much pain to realize how our childhood has affected her as an adult. I know that I always seem happy, excited, optimistic and ready for the next challenge that life brings my way. Unfortunately, her life and thoughts have been very different.

She suffers from depression. I didn’t really understand what this meant. I thought depression was something that was temporary. I thought it could be cured if things in life got better for you. I thought medication helped make life better if you have depression.

I know it took a lot for her to muster up the courage to do this.

Whenever I think of depression, that commercial with the cloud comes to mind where that’s sad person is always followed by that sad cloud.  Then I think of the more happy, parody version MadTV did:

Pretty much 99.9999% of the time, I am happy, joyous, grateful, full of energy about life!  Sometimes, I have felt guilty that I am just so excited about being alive while others seem to find the world a horrible place to exist.

I would say that I have experienced situational depression when I have had to deal with overwhelming drama in my life like domestic violence.

It’s hard to think when you feel that your mortal life is in danger.  I found the image of Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs to be extremely helpful in understanding what I needed to become the fully developed person I was meant to be:

Thankfully, by refusing to participate in unhealthy relationships, I have not had to experience what I consider to be depression in the years. That’s why I call it “situational depression” because a specific series of events created something like a fog that enveloped me so tightly that it altered my perception of reality.

My sister is a loving person. She is a talented artist. She wants to do great things with her life and in the world but…

She is very critical of herself. She doubts herself often. She questions why anyone would really even like her. She constantly battles with guilt. She gives up easily…sometimes.

I enjoyed her fond childhood memory blog post where she went to the petting zoo with a tin can to feed to the goats (and she did!).

I guess we always had big imaginations for what was possible!

I’ve tried to help her ever since we were little. I could never really understand what she was going through. When I was younger, I know I said things that may have made her feel worse. I just didn’t understand.

Now I do.

One of the things I began doing about seven years ago was that I clearly communicated my unconditional love for her. I told her, no matter what, she would always be my sister, she could always come to me for help, and that I would always love her.

It took a few years for this to sink in with her. She was sure that at any moment I would pull back my “love” if she did something to displease me. Finally, she began to respond by asking for things she needed help with like a ride somewhere or not beating herself up verbally after failing to do something. Meeting other people’s expectations was important to her. Me too. In fact, overly important. Why the fuss? Our mom conditioned us to respond like this. That’s how she was; “Do this or I won’t love you anymore” (implied of course).

All it really did was confuse us, make us wary and uncomfortable sharing our feelings with others. At first, I thought it was just our family and I came to know others who had experienced the same thing. What I realized is, change starts with me.

I am so happy that Gwendolyn decided to drop off a hand-drawn card, a recipe for sugar cookies on Hello Kitty origami paper, a “rat shaped” cookie cutter, Hershey’s kisses, and that delicious bag of Dunn Bros coffee!

I hope we can reconnect in the future. I hope that she continues to get better coping with her depression so that she can live… really live and enjoy her life.

Gwendolyn, if you’re reading this, I love you.

Inspired to write a deeply personal post after enjoying an amazing breakfast with Annie (@modeknit) on Friday and I hope this helps others. She shared how she blogged about her husband’s illness, his battle with cancer and how it helped her to truly and deeply process her experience. Thank you Annie.

I found Kellen’s blog post on Depression 101 to be both personal and detailed in explaining how depression feels and the myths, misunderstandings and assumptions around it.

If you think someone you know is suffering from depression, check out these resources:

• What is Depression? – National Institute of Mental Health
• Depression Overview – Mayo Clinic
• Understanding Depression – WebMD

Some symptoms of depression from the NIMH website:

• Persistent sad, anxious or “empty” feelings
• Feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism
• Feelings of guilt, worthlessness and/or helplessness
• Irritability, restlessness
• Loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable, including sex
• Fatigue and decreased energy
• Difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions
• Insomnia, early–morning wakefulness, or excessive sleeping
• Overeating, or appetite loss
• Thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts
• Persistent aches or pains, headaches, cramps or digestive problems that do not ease even with treatment

For the last 7 days, the entire world has been pulling together to help.  The United States and many other countries have not only asked their citizens to donate but have also allocated funding, medical staff, firefighters, equipment and transportation to help.

An interesting thing happened that I have not observed in previous disasters like 9/11 or Katrina.  It seems that many people found it more interesting to bicker about who was the “best helper” for the people of Hati.  I even saw @ev, CEO of Twitter, wonder this aloud:

Now I normally don’t reply to “Internet Famous” people I haven’t met but I replied back telling him I’d donated $25.  I made this donation directly through the Yele website.

After I shared this, I got some static offline about my choice.  This was due to an article about the Yele foundation, put out by the smoking gun about discrepancies with the organization’s tax and financial reporting.  One person in particular felt that due to the content of the article, I should not be giving any money to Yele.  I was very tempted to ask if they had made a donation of any kind besides an opinion.

Yele was founded by Wyclef Jean, a native a Haiti.  He is best known as a member of the Fugees and later for becoming a successful artist in his own right and being outspoken on his views on politics and freedom.  Many of his songs have to do with things he loves about his history, the pain he has endured and his hope for a better future.

Now, I wasn’t aware of the #haiti earthquake for a few hours.  I then began seeing people in my Twitter network hashtag it then send up tweets about donating to Yele.  I checked out the site and told one of them it was having problems loading up.  I attributed the “Digg effect” and proceeded with my donation.

Then, I began hearing the drama questioning Wyclef and Yele.  My first thought was, “Really?”.

There’s 3 parts here:

1. Why we help people like ourselves
2. No one likes shady nonprofits
3. Is Yele the wrong organization to give to for the #haiti relief effort?

Part 1

This may seem harsh if you’re reading this and you’re White –

I am initially more willing to support the efforts of an organization founded by a Brown person than I am that of an organization founded by people who are White.

This isn’t rocket science.  We give to our church when a member is ill.  We borrow money to friends and extended family.  I feel that right off the bat, I have a common connection with other Brown people.

Why in the world would I say this about people I’ve never met before?  Because of how I’ve been treated by people who don’t look like me, because of the first person accounts by people who are Brown, because of the books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen.  I can immediately empathize with people who are Brown like me.  Now, I still go about qualifying businesses and services just like I would do a piece of hardware.

I hoped by being honest about things this person (who was White) they would “get it” and have an “ah ha” moment.

Part 2

If you’ve read my previous posts on nonprofits and my volunteering efforts, I think there is a huge issue in this sector when it comes to providing value.  If you work at a nonprofit, you get paid whether you help anyone or not.  You can collect money and not help a single person.  I’ve worked for and with nonprofits that had obvious productivity issues.  I tried to address them but these organizations had politics just like an office.

That said, I don’t like seeing dollars wasted.

The book, “Begging for Change: The Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding for All” looks like a good read to figure out what is going wrong in our nonprofit industry as a whole:

You are a good person. You are one of the 84 million Americans who volunteer with a charity. You are part of a national donor pool that contributes nearly $200 billion to good causes every year. But you wonder: Why don’t your efforts seem to make a difference?

Fifteen years ago, Robert Egger asked himself this same question as he reluctantly climbed aboard a food service truck for a night of volunteering to help serve meals to the homeless. He wondered why there were still people waiting in line for soup in this day and age. Where were the drug counselors, the job trainers, and the support team to help these men and women get off the streets? Why were volunteers buying supplies from grocery stores when restaurants were throwing away unused fresh food every night? Why had politicians, citizens, and local businesses allowed charity to become an end in itself? Why wasn’t there an efficient way to solve the problem?

Robert knew there had to be a better way. In 1989, he started the D.C. Central Kitchen by collecting unused food from local restaurants, caterers, and hotels and bringing it back to a central location where hot, nutritious meals were prepared and distributed to agencies around the city. Since then, the D.C. Central Kitchen has been named one of President Bush Sr.’s Thousand Points of Light and has become one of the most respected and emulated nonprofit agencies in the world, producing and distributing more than 4,000 meals a day. Its highly successful 12-week job-training program equips former homeless transients and drug addicts with culinary and life skills to gain employment in the restaurant business.

Robert Egger looks back on his experience and exposes the startling lack of logic, waste, and ineffectiveness he has encountered during his years in the nonprofit sector, and calls for reform of this $800 billion industry from the inside out.

I think one of the most important things to do when we see wrong occurring is to speak up.  Period.

Part 3

So after hearing about the article at the Smoking Gun, I decided to see what companies did mention Yele as a viable donation choice.  The short list included SXSW and Google.

Google recommended a number of organizations including Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, UNICEF , Direct Relief, Yele Haiti, Partners in Health, Red Cross, World Food Program, Mercy Corps, Save the Children, Lambi Fund, Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee, Care, William J. Clinton Foundation, Meds & Food For Kids, Feed the Children, Habitat for Humanity, Mayor’s Fund for NYC.

This made me think why the Smoking Gun would bring this up and why Google would still name them.  I mean, doesn’t Google have the dirt on the entire internet under their fingernails?

Below, @BlackCanseco points out, via series of tweets, many of my thoughts about this focus on Yele vs the much larger problem of actually taking action on this world event and taking a step back to consider why the focus is being put here.  Throughout our recent history and with magic, our attention is often diverted from the truly important to a sideshow.

It turns out there were many, many, many, many people with opinions about how the money should be collected, what they thought of the organizations and the situation in Haiti.  Is our culture becoming a bunch of couch potato sideline commentators?

Bill Clinton and George Bush uniting for Haiti?

Now I had heard everything!  Maybe everyone wasn’t bickering.  It seems that just days into this disaster,  a Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was created!

Actually, it turns out Clinton and Bush also created a Katrina fund as well.  Interesting!

UK Firefighters Rescue Toddler

Lastly, remember that our “world view” in America is actually considered quite narrow by many others.  In recent years, I’ve been paying more attention to the BBC and UK shows for what I feel is more “balanced” coverage.

There has been a lot of footage on the television of what’s going on in Haiti.

I don’t want something that makes me feel bad for the people.

I want something inspiring.

I found this video clip to be well done and comprehensive of the situation including opportunities to help

If you made it this far, I hope that you will consider giving to an organization you feel comfortable with for the Haiti disaster.

Thank you and happy MLK day.

So there I was, watching Torchwood, Season 1, Episode 2. Comfortably in my bed, Macbook humming away when I get a call. It’s my neighbor Tony.

“Adria, the cops were just at my door looking for you. I sent them upstairs. Are you all right?”, he says.

Me: Yeah Tony I’m fine. What’s up?

Tony: Well they came here knocking on doors looking for you. I told them you were upstairs.

Me: (Wondering why the cops can’t find me as I know my address is current on my driver’s license) I’m fine Tony. Just watching a show.

Tony: They were saying something about your car

Me: (Curse words swirling inside my mind) Ok, I’m going to go and see if I can find out what’s going on. (I dress hurridly and head down the front stairs, sorta dreading what I expect to see)

I go out and there is the cop car near my car Toby. I greet the officers who are in the squad car with the windows rolled up. They step out. I identify myself as Adria Richards. I ask them what’s going on. I can see by now my car has a broken window. “Did you check it out?” I ask. “For what?” says the cop who stepped out of the driver’s side. “To see if anyone is in it. Can you walk over to the car with me?” I say. He does and tells me I should check to see if anything is missing. I can’t believe this cop. I tell him the car is 20 years old and there’s nothing to take from the car. This is a revenge thing.

NOTE: Do not try to have conversations with White male cops about domestic abuse, stalking, revenge or anything that resembles a logical thought process OR deductive reasoning as you will lose them and frustrate yourself.

Fast forward that I give up talking to both cops about my suspicions but I do get the following after interviewing them both:

• Someone observed the act occurring
• A witness called the police but declined to identify theirself
• Someone physically interrupted the person committing the act
• The person reported as committing the act was White, mid 20’s male, dark hair

Moving on to happier thoughts, first one then another neighbor came out. I told the cops I was going to blog/tweet this and they were fine with me posting their photo. My neighbors were super awesome and consoled me, shared what they had heard, what others had said and what they’d done to alert me. We talked, joked, I took photos and we discussed strategies for repair (report it on my car insurance/don’t report it). I felt truly grateful and happy that I’d made authentic connections with the folks in my building and people in the neighborhood. I’ve been here for almost 3 years.

Looking back, I’ve come a long way from the old days when I couldn’t even speak up to ask for help at my job when my car battery had died (2000). I felt so uncomfortable asking my co-workers (aka bothering them) that I sat at my desk for more than 2 hours while my boyfriend at the time drove across town to help me jump my car. Ack! I realize now that I don’t have to bear the emotional baggage of each stressful situation I’m involved in. I can instead ask for help, delegate and call in favors. I understand how I like helping people, I need to let people help me.

So, we patched up the window with some kitchen garbage bags until morning. I’ll go out and take some more photos. It’s not such a big deal…now. Last year, this would have been emotionally crushing to me. I can’t “prove” who did this or why but when you see the size of the rock tomorrow, you’ll think twice if someone would use it to “rob” a car when there are more effective ways to unlock a vehicle.

This is definitely going under the category, Dramatical

They complain about the weather, their back pain and politics.

Realize you don’t have to put up with people crapping in your personal space!

Tell them that you’re not their personal dumping ground for how horrible their life is and then go enjoy the day!

Click here to view the embedded video.

How do you deal with people who try to bring you down?

Do you let your family say things you would not allow strangers to say to you?

Audio of what I saw

I ran down to help.  The driver was extremely upset saying, “My breaks went out!  Is he all right!  Help me!  Help me!”

The guy on was thrown about 10 feet from his bike and there was green coolant leaking out.

She knelt near the guy on the motorcycle and I said it was best to leave him as he was.

People were calling 911 for help and the police, paramedics and fire dept arrived within a few minutes

For an accident at 1pm in the afternoon, a lot of my neighbors came out.

When I looked at the motorcyclist upon arriving at the scene, he was alive and appeared to be conscious but dazed.  His eyes were open but he looked to be in pain or shock.  His jeans were torn.  I’m so glad he was wearing a helmet!

I had been heading out to run an errand and didn’t bring my iPhone.  I ran back up 3 flights of steps to retrieve it and take these photos.

Full photo album on Flickr

How I feel about this

I’m freaked out by this but I’ve decided from your responses on Twitter that I’m going to head out to see my client.

Question

If you witness a car accident, does that increase or decrease the chances of you being in a car accident the same day?

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Michael Jackson Taught Me

If you develop your talents, you can be freed from stereotypes.

Michael Jackson Dies At 50

I’ve been to that site, Dead or Alive, where you can see if actors and famous people are alive or not.  They have a category for people who have passed 100, you can view by cause of death and find out who died on a specific date.  I like the site for all these geeky sorting options. I felt it was important to take an inventory of my life and evaluate if I was where I wanted to be and if not, clearly define my goals to get there.

This year I turned 31 so I went back over to the site as they have a section to see who you have outlived and what people died under the age of 30.  I found this list especially interesting because all of these people died at the height of their success and accomplished more in thier short lives than those who would live into their 80’s.  I’ve watched documentary and biographies on many of these folks.

• Aaliyah - 22
• Morrison, Jim - 27
• Jimi Hendrix - 27
• Janis Joplin - 27
• Notorious B.I.G.  - 24
• Selena - 23
• Tupac Shakur - 25

Reading over the Wikipedia articles for these famous singers and musicans, many did have rough childhoods.  Their common thread is practice.  They all were practicing and or professionally performing by age 12. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the “10,000 hour rule” to gain true mastery in his book, “Outliers“.

Michael lived twice as long. Why do we as humans accomplish so very much between the ages of 15-25? If someone doesn’t do they still have the ability to make a lasting contribution to humankind? I’m not going to pretend to know what happened to Michael during his childhood. If someone feels wronged, until that is made right internally, people can carry around a great deal of anger, shame, guilt and fear which eats away at your soul.

• How can we make it easier for young people in the music industry?
• Should Michael have seeked help for the drama he experienced as a child?
• Can people undo emotional damage they experience as children?

Poem dedication to Michael Jackson – Thank You Lord by Maya Angelou

Lyrics at the bottom of the post

Click here to view the embedded video.

Twitter and Current Events

I truly appreciate sharing and experiencing worldwide events on Twitter.  It was amazing, beautiful and powerful to read people’s responses to the news on Thursday:


 

Thank You – by Dr. Maya Angelou

I see You
Brown-skinned,
Neat Afro,
Full lips,
A little goatee.
A Malcolm,
Martin,
Du Bois.
Sunday services become sweeter when you’re Black,
Then I don’t have to explain why
I was out balling the town down,
Saturday night.

Thank you, Lord
I want to thank you, Lord
For life and all that’s in it.
Thank You for the day
And for the hour and for the minute.
I know many are gone,
I’m still living on,
I want to thank You.

I went to sleep last night
And I arose with the dawn,
I know that there are others
Who’re still sleeping on,
They’ve gone away,
You’ve let me stay.
I want to thank You.

Some thought because they’d seen sunrise
They’d see it rise again.
But death crept into their sleeping beds
And took them by the hand.
Because of Your mercy,
I have another day to live.

Let me humbly say,
Thank you for this day
I want to thank You.

I was once a sinner man,
Living unsaved and wild,
Taking my chances in a dangerous world,
Putting my soul on trial.
Because of Your mercy,
Falling down on me like rain,
Because of Your mercy,
Falling down on me like rain,
Because of Your mercy,
When I die I’ll live again,
Let me humbly say,
Thank You for this day.
I want to thank You.

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Continuing from my last blog post on how QuickPwn.com was making a quick buck on iPhone jailbreaking software with Google Adsense, we explore how they are exploiting the Microsoft Advertising network and fleecing people on pay-per-click.

Background

QuickPwn is a piece of software developed for the iPhone which jailbreaks (allows a different operating system besides the one Apple installed for more options) and unlocks (allows you to use other phone providers besides ATT on your iPhone like how I use T-Mobile) your device.  It has been developed by a dedicated group of developers known as iPhone Dev Team.  Their website is located at http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

They have released software for the iPhone for some time now and people look to the iPhone Dev Team each time a new version of the iPhone, iTunes or iPhone software is released.  This is because it’s not safe to upgrade your jailbroke iPhone; you will lose access to your custom apps (the reason you first jailbroke your iPhone) and you may not be able to roll back to a previous version once you update (some companies, like Apple, will try to restrict your freedom on how you use their products).

Make Note!

The Real iPhone Development Team Is Located At http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

• Yellowsn0w
• QuickPwn
• Ultrasn0w
• Redsn0w

QuickPwn.com is not run by the REAL jailbreak software development team

• No Software Development
• No Support for Jailbreaking
• Domain Squatters

With the release of the new 3.0 iPhone software last week and the new iPhone 3G S phone, the internet was hopping with excitement to try the latest and greatest stuff.  Visitors over at the iPhone Dev Team blog couldn’t wait for the new jailbreak software to be ready and were very grateful when ultrasn0w was released this week, allowing you to software jailbreak an iPhone 3G (not 3G S).

ibrock   Thank u to the dev team u guys r the bomb diggity ,,,,

 linos  you guys are ******** awesome, i owe you a lot. It worked perfect

 DjSkully  Dj Skully says thank you Dev.Team

Ibkp  I bought an iphone from a friend (iphone-AT&T user) and I was able to unlock it with Ultrasnow (it was very simple and fast!)

richiiie  un grand merci!!!! thanks from France, guys! you did a great job!!

So if everyone was happy, what’s the problem?

The Problem

Someone on the internet decided they wanted to make some money.  They didn’t create anything of value people would pay for but they knew some folks who did, the iPhone Dev Team.  This person registered a domain nameusing the application’s name, QuickPwn.  They also created a Twitter account of the same name.

The worst was yet to come.  Now it’s one thing if they created a site that was based on being an informational site to help others with the software.  Instead they headed out to Google and Microsoft to sign up for revenue based advertising where they inserted code into their site so ads would display and they would get paid for the clicks.

In my previous post, I covered the how and why to Google advertising.  Microsoft, your turn.

Microsoft Advertising

Visiting the site for Microsoft’s ad campaign network, it was very focused on people paying for the ads.  It was difficult to find information on troubleshooting, how to’s and TOS policies.  Overall, Microsoft portrays that your ads will end up on high quality sites with lots of views.  QuickPwn.com is not anywhere near the word “quality” but based on their sleezy actions to steal legitimate traffic away from a development team right before the big launch of both a new iPhone and OS, I would certainly credit QuickPwn.com as being high traffic.

Screenshot of QuickPwn.com

How You Can Help

1. Review the Quickpwn.com and determine if you think you would to pay to have your ads on this site
2. Visit the Microsoft’s FAQ page to review their Terms of Service (TOS)…If you can find them
3. Submit a report to Microsoft Advertising via phone 1-800-518-5689 or email and tell them you don’t think organizations would still pay to be listed on low value sites like QuickPwn.com and that the site itself is exploiting open source developers.

Here are the resource links mentioned in the video

Now, dealing with grief, physical discomfort, frustration and disbelief is usually a process that most folks experience during a long and drawn out situation, not in the middle of the week!

Loss of a Pet

Justice my rat died (He’s the Orange one).  I had him for 2 years.  I adopted him from the Humane Society of Minneapolis.  I still have his little friend Common but Justice was the cute and cuddly one who would sit in my lap for an hour.  Rats do something similar to cats when they are happy.  It’s called “bruxing”.  They sorta grind their teeth around and their eyes will jiggle.  That means they are really, really happy.  Anyway, Justice used to do that.

Menstrual Wha?

Yeah, cramps!  They suck!  So much that I made a video on YouTube a few weeks back and women are watching it and leaving comments which I think is awesome as this is one of my efforts to be more transparent by sharing non “techie” stuff about myself.  I want to connect with people on things we all deal with, all struggle with.  I am not alway the fixer…sometimes I need fixing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

500 Error: Your Wordpress Blog is Angry at You

Then, like how the carpenter has a leaky roof, my blog (yes the one your are reading) decides that it is angry and must explode.  I tried to coax it along, asking the database to please wait until the weekend, promising I would migrate it to the new server space at Rochenhost but no….It seized up.  Now I do take responsibility here that I did an in place upgrade to Wordpress WPMU 2.7.1 but I was following Richard’s instructions and his first set about configuring WPMU were really good! 

I have been with the same hosting company since 2005.  Now, using software is just like dating in many ways…the longer you are “with” the software or hosting provider, the more attached you feel to them.  In spite of problems around:

• Support (emotional)
• Performance (ladies?)
• Cost (financial stability)
• Communication (Is he hearing you?)
• Cost (lower cost for same or better level of performance..see above)
• Competition (Is this really the best deal in town?)

most people will stay with their partner hosting company.  Well, I realized mine was not paying attention to my needs.  I gave them many chances to improve.  I even spent more money with them…hoping they’d notice me.  I left them nice comments in their tesimonials forum…no change.  I even suspected they were cheating on me not giving me actual answers they knew but were just copy/pasting from a knowledgebase.  Finally, I began looking around and found someone a hosting company that fits my needs.

Did my hosting company go south?  Did our needs/offerings change over time to create the rift?  I know I tried to resolve things and am moving on.

I’ve been testing out Rochenhost for 3 months now.  Not only are they the offical host of all of Joomla.org, they also sponsored Joomla Day Las Vegas, get the big “joke” on green hosting, say all many of their folks are Red Hat certified, have been quick and mostly accurate in their initial responses so I’m satisfied and have started moving my sites over there. 

Now you may be saying, “Adria, don’t you hate Joomla though?  Why would you host with a company that is tuned for Joomla? ”.  The answer is that Joomla, Wordpress and many Content Management Systems (CMS) have similar requirements for hosting in reference to Apache, PHP, MySQL, hardware and bandwidth.

You Lost The Contest But Not The Game

So I was pretty pumped about entering the MyCoopRocks contest a few weeks back.  I was sure the judges were going to pick my entry because it had:

• Substance; My list of 10 reasons
• Production value; Chuck Olsen’s amazing editing and production
• Me of course!

Click here to view the embedded video.

But it seems the judges had other ideas.  I was awaiting Friday May 8th when they would make the announcement on who won but they made it around dinner time Thursday.  Seeing the email, my heart skipped a beat!  Had I won a macbook!  What would the website look like?  What would I tell people on Twitter?

Uhm…yah…No need because I didn’t win!

The good thing I take away from this is that I have masted the skill of networking. 

• I feel comfortable enough in my own skin try something new
• The ability to evaluate my skill set and be realistic about it
• The insight to consider who I know and think about how I can utilize my network
• Tthe courage to ask for help and when receiving it, make the most of it
• The motivation to follow through and thank others for their help

Now, just 4 years ago, I was terrified of speaking in front of people.  Just 1 year ago, I had no experience in front of a camera.  6 months ago I was not doing my daily lifestream at AskAdria.com and 1 month ago I had never met some guy with a camera on site to shoot footage for a contest.

One of my entrepreneurial heroes is R. H. Macy.  He founded the Macy’s Department store but not before he went broke out west selling shovels to miners digging for gold.  He also sold real estate in Wisconsin.  The first shop he opened up in New York City was not a big, spacious retail store…it was more like the with of fruit stand and he sold ladies gloves and hair pins.  From the humble beginning and initial failures, he amassed a fortune and created a memorable landmark/memory/slice of life for many people.

In modern society, it’s seen as shameful to try and fail so most people don’t try at all.  Jeff of CodingHorror.com talks about failing often as a measure of success in programming.  Who cares how many “sites you launched” if they all required the same skill set from you making you no more than a fast paced gerbil on the Internet superhighway’s assembly line?

Fear of failure is so teriffying to people they spend their whole lives taking safe bets.  Many of these same people then grumble when “risk takers” achive amazing things.  Point is, everyone should take risks…intelligent risks where the payoff has been evaluated and it’s something you’re interested in. 

It looks like fear of failure is actually part of perfectionism (so says Wikipedia)

Perfectionism can drive people to accomplishments and provide the motivation to persevere in the face of discouragement and obstacles.  The meticulous attention to detail, necessary for scientific investigation, the commitment which pushes composers to keep working until the music realises the glorious sounds playing in the imagination, and the persistence which keeps great artists at their easels until their creation matches their conception all result from perfectionism”.

In the workplace, perfectionism is often marked by low productivity as individuals lose time and energy on small irrelevant details of larger projects or mundane daily activities. This can lead to depression, alienated colleagues, and a greater risk of accidents.

Five characteristics of perfectionists: procrastination, fear of failure, the all-or-nothing mindset, paralysed perfectionism, and workaholism.

I liked my co-op a lot.  I felt invested enough I could come up with 10 reasons why they were awesome.  After I made my own video, I realized it wasn’t going to win any awards.  I felt I had a strong set of reasons so I set out to find someone who could help me deliver my message in a good format.  Even though I didn’t win, I now have a much better understanding, start to finish, of how to get a video recorded and what the production results can look like! 

So, this last 24 hours might have sucked but I learned a lot.  I’m off to eat my bowl of ice cream now!

Video – 9 squad cars pull over a school bus with Earth Justice members
Video – A quiet St. Paul neighborhood experiences a full blown raid and standoff

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