Grow in Dog Years

After many years of traveling, living abroad, and continually challenging myself to try new things, something I've realized is that, it’s not traveling that I truly enjoy; its personal growth that comes with getting outside of your comfort zone. Why? Because when we travel time becomes distorted. One day in a foreign country can forever change the way that you think about life. One week trekking through the amazon, or taking a road trip will often be more impressionable on you than a year in university. A few months working abroad can forever shape what you want out of your career and your life.

I believe that anytime someone puts themselves outside of their comfort zone, it leads to an accelerated hyper growth; what I now refer to as “growing in dog years”. In the same way that a dog theoretically ages 7 years in a year, I believe that when we travel, try new challenging things, and get outside of our comfort zones, we grow at a more rapid pace; we grow in “Dog Years”.

You see, when we get outside of our comfort zones and try new things, we realize that time is not created equally. When time is maximized, and we pack as many overwhelming experiences into a short period of time, we grow at an accelerated rate because, quite simply, we experience more. The more that you experience, the more that you grow.

This is why when we return home from our travels it is so hard to relate to our friends. So much has taken place for us in the last year, but for them their lives have remained essentially the same. They might have a new job, or a new girlfriend/boyfriend, but in reality their lives haven’t changed much throughout the course of that last year. They haven’t experienced the same intensity and acceleration of growth because quite simply, they haven’t experienced as much.

In my opinion, it is simply because you have grown more than they have in that same year. You have had more experiences. You have learned more things. You have widened your perspective in a way that they haven’t. So you are literally no longer at the same points in your life, you have accelerated your own growth and are now years ahead of where they are. In the same year that they grew only one year, you have grown probably 3-4x what they have.

Have you ever been in a position where you look back at the last 6 months and say to yourself, “I feel like the last six months have passed by in the snap of a finger, but at the same time so much has happened and it feels like an eternity ago!” This happens because you packed new experiences into your life, which made time pass by seemingly fast, but these experiences also accumulated at an insanely fast pace, making it seem like an eternity has passed. It’s quite the contradictory feeling.

I look at it like “hacking time”. If you want to get the most that you can out of your life, your goal should be to pack in as many new experiences as you possibly can into every year. If you look back on the last year of your life, how many new things did you try? How many impressionable events can you name? How many times did you take a new trip somewhere? How hard did you push yourself at work? How many new skills did you pick up? The more things you can list out, the more that you have grown.

Take something like Vipassana meditation for example. Although it might be a mere ten days long, in those ten days you will experience years of personal growth because it is such a novel and challenging experience. When you come out, you have grown more in the last ten days than your friends who didn’t do it with you.

Unfortunately, I also think that it’s necessary to touch on hardship, because hardship has a way of manipulating time, but in a bad way. Hardships and struggle have the potential to cause adverse growth. They have the ability to debilitate people and slow life down.

Hardships have a tendency to debilitate people. Something bad happens, and we sit in our rooms and sulk. We stop working. We stop moving forward. We stop growing. Months can pass in this way. Have you ever had a friend go through a failure and take months to get over it? Or a friend who broke up with a girlfriend/boyfriend and they take a year to get over it? Or, in the worst case scenario, the death of a family member? Situations like these have the ability to slow or entirely halt your growth, and it is important to be cognizant of this.

Hardships and struggle have the potential to either debilitate or motivate, and it is up to us with how we handle these hardships. We can either use them as an opportunity to grow, or a time to recess. Am I saying that if something bad happens ignore it and keep moving? Absolutely not. I am instead saying that with every struggle comes an opportunity for growth, and in the end it’s up to you how long you let that struggle knock you on your ass, or get back up and keep fighting.

Where positive experiences speed life up and cause one to say “time flies when you’re having fun”, negative experiences have the ability to slow life down and make it seem like it passes forever. Have you ever noticed that when you are in a bad mood the day seems to pass by incredibly slowly? Or remember back to those days of sitting in a classroom and staring at a clock waiting for time to pass, and then you go outside for recess and it feels like you didn’t get enough time to play? Funny how time becomes distorted depending on our mindset and how we are perceiving our experience of said time.

This is why it is so important to schedule things into your year that will have the maximum impact on your growth. This is why it is so important to choose a challenging career path, travel and work abroad when the opportunity arises, and jump at novel experiences every time you get the chance. It’s like the phrase “getting the best bang for your buck”, but instead I look at it as, “get the most shine for your time” ;) (ok ok I’m working on it!)

Time is not created equally. It’s up to you how you spend your time on this planet, and how fast or slow you want to grow. You have the ability to grow like everyone else, or grow in dog years. Personally, I choose to get the most out of every day that I am here on this planet and grow in dog years, and I encourage everyone else to do the same :)

The Myth of the Stage

When I got accepted to present my ideas at TEDxFSU this year, I was thrilled! My first thought was "oh my gosh they like my idea!" followed quickly by the terrifying, earth shattering doubt. "They're going to find out I'm a fake!" Why was this the first (well, almost first) thought to pop into my brain when something good happened? I call it the Myth of the Stage, and it's a big part of why we accept far less for our selves than we truly deserve.

So here is the Myth: The person on stage is right. The person on stage knows what they are talking about, and their ideas are valid.

Maybe this myth comes from our early days in a traditional classroom setting, listening to an all-knowing teacher. Maybe it comes from watching movies and documentaries. Wherever it comes from, you know you feel it in your mind. It's the same little part of you that says it's valid to pay over $100 to watch someone play an instrument onstage at Lincoln Center, when it's not worth giving a dollar  to the man riffing on the guitar on a street corner. They both add music to our lives, right? But one is on a stage.

So this myth lives inside us, and it's part of what holds us back. If we are not on the stage, how do we know if we're valid? How do we know if we belong on stage? We can  wait for someone to pick us. An employer, a casting director, a conference coordinor, can decide you are worth something and put you out there for the world to see. You shouldn't leave it up to them, though!

Here are my three reasons it's important to find your stage and start singing:

1. The Stage is Everywhere: Now more than ever you have the chance to set up your soap box, climb on up, and spread your message! You no longer have to wait for an editor to publish your ideas - just start a blog! You don't have to wait for a T.V. station to broadcast your idea - make your own video. In the age of the internet it is easier than ever before to connect with an audience. They might not all love you (there are trolls under every bridge, of course), but the more you share, the more you will find people who connect with what you are saying.

2. Most People Won't Bet on an Unknown There are those risk-takers out there who thrive on the thrill of something new and unknown, but in general, the people making the decisions about who gets hired, who gets on the stage, and who gets in front of the camera got their jobs by consistenty choosing correctly. Now, in a time where there are more people to hire than ever, these "pickers" are under a lot of pressure to make the right choice. Knowing you already have an audience you've connected with makes it easier for them to bet on you. If you're a band just starting out, booking agents want to know how many tickets you can sell. The same applies now for hiring agents, editors, and everything else! So just start doing what you do, build up a loyal base, and then you can get "picked" if you still want to.

3. Your Message Matters! If you have an idea, a passion, or a creation to share that seems totally out of the blue, chances are it's even more important than you think. It's hard to be the first one to try something new. You could fail, and you could end up looking stupid. But if it's something truly new, why would you want to hide it away? Can you imagine where we would be if Thomas Edison decided that an electric light was too risky? Or that people wouldn't be interested? Inspiration comes for a reason, and by keeping your idea to yourself, you're depriving the world of something that could be truly, truly awesome.

There are many more reasons than this to share your message, but next time you doubt yourself, remember The Myth of the Stage is just that: A myth.

Why You Should Consider Working Abroad After Graduation

Guest post: My name is Troy Erstling, founder of BrainGain. Throughout my life I’ve visited over 20 countries and I’ve lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Seoul South Korea, and now Bangalore, India. These last five years of traveling have changed my life in countless ways, and I can confidently say that seeking out international opportunities has enabled me to carve out a unique path in life. I believe that traveling is the greatest form of education, and it is my passion to help others do the same. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to live and work abroad. The idea of traveling the world and getting paid to do it has always appealed to me and making a career out of it seemed even more appealing. After graduating from high school in Manalapan, NJ I moved across the country to The University of Arizona in Tucson to obtain a degree in International Studies.

My junior year of college I had the opportunity to study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was my first time out of the country and it was a reckless adventure filled with steak, yerba mate tea, wine, paragliding, a pathetic attempt to learn Spanish, and some of the greatest nightlife on earth. I made lifelong friends that I travel with to this day. It was the greatest study abroad experience I could've ever asked for.

During my time there a friend told me about Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Turns out, if you are looking to get international experience and work abroad, this is usually the best way to get your foot in the door. I was sold.

After graduating from University I made it my sole mission to get a teaching job abroad. I stayed in Tucson for an extra 2 months to get my TEFL certification and I began researching the best destinations to teach English.

I eventually came across South Korea; paid round trip airfare, housing, medical insurance, attractive salary, and $2000 severance pay. Compared to the other options it was a no-brainer. I searched for jobs on websites like Dave’s ESL café, and within a few short months and a long visa process, I had my job and a one-way ticket to Seoul.

I spent the next year in Seoul, South Korea teaching English to 7-year-old kindergarten students. It was amazing. I got paid to act like a child all day and teach my kids about Michael Jackson and The Beatles. I was able to save around $10,000USD (roughly about $1000/month in savings), and had three amazing trips to Thailand, Taiwan, and the Philippines for my vacations. It was an unforgettable experience, but I knew I didn't want to be a teacher for the rest of my life...

Around the time my contract in Korea was winding up, I reached out to a friend of mine whom I met while studying in Argentina. He had also been teaching English, but in Spain instead. Turns out, he was no longer in Spain and had been living in India for the past ten months on a fellowship in Social Enterprise.

I looked up the fellowship and it seemed like a great way to transition my career while continuing my pursuit of creating a career abroad. It was a win-win. There were 20 days left to apply, so I submit my application and hoped for the best.

At that point my options were to take the fellowship, and if I didn’t get in go backpack the world. Win-win, but one seemed better for the overall career.

I was accepted to the fellowship and placed in Bangalore, India. My friend from Argentina also successfully applied for the position of Field Coordinator and was placed in Bangalore as well!

For the next year I lived in Bangalore, India studying entrepreneurial ecosystems in Southeast Asia with The National Entrpreneurship Network and worked for one of India's most promising startups, Zoomcar.

Throughout that time I had a lot of people reaching out to me about working abroad. I had friends from the US reaching out to me saying, “I’m 3-4 years out of school, I still do 200 cold calls a day, my job doesn’t give me responsibility, I would love to work abroad…what are my options?” Then I also had friends from South Korea who would say to me “I want to continue working abroad but I don’t want to teach English anymore…what are my options?”

One day it dawned on me that if you want to work abroad after graduation, your options are limited to teaching English and volunteer work. Trustworthy career relevant opportunities are few and far between. But here I was, living and working abroad with one of India’s most promising startups. I felt that other people would want something similar.

With that in mind I quit my job and made helping people find jobs abroad my full time job. I approached startups and social enterprises in Bangalore asking, “Would you be interested in hiring talent from abroad?”, “What positions are you currently having a hard time hiring for that you feel someone from abroad might be able to fill?”, “What are you willing to pay these candidates?”, etc.

Six months later I started my first company, BrainGain. I have lined up 15 companies in Bangalore, India that are looking to hire everything from sales and marketing, to design, to tech. Early stage startups that are Seed or Series A funded and are willing to provide fresh graduates with more responsibility than they are able to handle.

It is my first serious entrepreneurial plunge and I couldn’t be more excited to do it. There is nothing in life that I am more passionate about, and nothing that excites me more than to help others find ways of exploring an international career. When I get on a phone call with someone and tell him or her about the ways that they can live and work abroad I feel like I drank a double espresso. It’s invigorating!

As I write this I am on a train to Boston to speak at Harvard University. To think that 5 years after my travels have began I would be back in the states speaking at universities inspiring students to travel and work abroad absolutely blows my mind. I couldn’t be happier with where my life has come throughout that time.

This is a field I foresee myself spending the rest of my career. It is something that I will dedicate myself to for years to come, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch my life unfold in this sector. It is my niche.

Guest post by Troy Erstling @troyerstling

See What Sticks: Negotiation, Amy Poehler Style

DISCLAIMER: This month's post, on Amy Poehler's Yes Please is geared more toward women than my other, generally more equal-opportunity posts. However, just as Amy warns in the book, that does not reduce its value for any males reading! Stay with me, you may enjoy this too. There are moments in our lives, personally and professionally, where you may be asked to do something you don't want to do, don't believe in, or may not get to perform to your full potential because you haven't been set up for success. How do you respond in those moments? If you're anything like me, you might brush it off quietly, smiling on the outside but silently seething on the inside. However, Amy Poehler unexpectedly inspired me to push back against that feeling in one of my favorite chapters of her new book, Yes Please.

In the chapter "I'm So Proud of You," she recounts a performance where a missed cue compromised the quality of her performance. She tried to stand up for the integrity of what she had written and rehearsed, but was brushed off and haggled with by a producer on the show. What inspired me about the story she went on to recount was not the powerful and brave way that she stood up to the pushy person who compromised her work, but the turmoil she obviously felt while in the encounter...and how she pushed past it to stand up for her needs anyway. So while I fully endorse reading Yes Please in full, I'll attempt to encapsulate my new methodology for negotiation, as informed by Amy Meredith Poehler of Burlington, MA.

1. Name your concern or problem.
2. Allow yourself to feel the accompanying feelings.
3. Acknowledge it's not your problem.
4. Sit quietly.
5. Trust your "no."

Name your concern or problem.

When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way.

And don't just do this in the "fully articulated to myself, now read my mind and feel my anger!" way that is so easy for us to all do. Do this in a manner that an opposing party can understand- and operationalize. It's extremely hard to respond to the complaint, "________ sucks!" But naming your concern, and naming it to the person who is responsible, is one of the only ways that a feasible solution can be reached.

Allow yourself to feel the accompanying feelings.

Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won't rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry.

This can be hard to do in a society that equates feelings with weakness. But to extend, and perhaps counter, the passing rainstorm metaphor, consider instead a sneeze. Sneezes move at roughly 25 miles per hour. Holding in a sneeze is what suppressing emotions can feel like. If you try to silence it or keep it in, you could hurt your chest or ears, or ultimately have it explode with more fanfare than originally intended. Either way, you end up creating more of a disruption than if you had let nature take its own course. For Amy, this meant leaving the scene of the argument and taking refuge in her dressing room; for you, this could be taking a few deep breaths before responding to an email in all-caps, closing the door to your office, or (in extreme cases) retreating to the bathroom or your car. Wherever you go, whatever you do, give the sky a chance to clear before you continue.

Acknowledge that it's not your problem.

I immediately decided that this was not my problem, and the relief of that decision spread across my chest like hot cocoa. Too often we women try to tackle chaos that is not ours to fix.

Remember back at the beginning where I said this piece could be seen as geared toward women but had value for men as well? This is about to be the reason why. The feeling of needing to fix something that we couldn't have anticipated, or aren't responsible for, is a common feeling for anyone in a position where there is a power differential. Women can feel this way when working with men (the reverse can be true too, by the way!), younger staff can feel this way when working with older coworkers or supervisors, new employees can feel this way in the face of more experienced counterparts. Anyone and everyone can have that panicked moment of feeling as though there's something to be fixed. But if there really, truly isn't...if you didn't do anything wrong and the outcome could not have been altered by anything you did...then own that. Sit comfortably in it or stand tall in it, your choice. But own it.

Sit quietly.

Not talking can be hard for me. But I tried it.

This can be the hardest part. Making the decision from step 3 to acknowledge our lack of guilt is one thing; keeping yourself from qualifying it, backpedaling, or apologizing for it is entirely another. In fact, Amy acknowledges that she failed at this stage of the game, but only for a moment before resuming her silence. But there's a lot of power in sitting quietly and letting the other party consider their actions. Allow, as Amy and one of her favorite books, The Gift of Fear, say, the word "no" to me "the end of the discussion, and not the beginning of a negotiation."

Trust your "no".

This is going to sound a lot like step 3, and in a way the two are similar. But they can also be different. Trusting your "no" at the end of a negotiation or altercation like this means mot ruminating later about what you "could have, should have, would have" done differently. There are going to be moments in your career where someone tries to make you feel as though something is your fault, or as though it is your job to clean up their proverbial (or even literal!) mess. Again, if it truly is not, you're within your rights to respectfully but resolutely say so.

A note of caution, however: this strategy is not meant to keep you from exploring new things or to prevent you from stretching outside your comfort zone. Saying no to responsibility for something that isn't your fault, and saying no to opportunity because you're unsure of the outcome, are different. After all, people that do the latter are not Amy Poehler's type of people:

So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all their teeth. These are the people I want to be around.

So remember, when it comes to standing your ground in the face of the unjust: trust your no. But when it comes to stepping up in the face of the unknown? Say "yes please."

Why I Keep Deciding Grad School Isn’t For Me

Over and over again I find myself returning to the idea of continuing my education with a graduate degree. Over and over again I find myself deciding not to.

My undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Human Development. Building a career in either of these fields requires more schooling. Why would I choose them as my area of study without committing myself to seeing it through?

I chose psychology because, for me, it has always been psychology that drew my interest. I had the privilege of holding a human brain during my AP Psychology class my senior year of high school and that pretty much sealed the deal; nothing else really compared to that experience. Human behavior is one of the most fascinating things I've ever encountered and quite frankly, I couldn’t see myself studying anything else.

Throughout my undergraduate career, I toyed with adding another major or minor, and even got my feet wet a few times. I considered finding another less-committal, more-marketable major. I took a few different classes, but nothing else could hold my attention like a psychology course. My favorite psychology course I ever took was Psychology of Organizational Processes. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take it until my senior year, not that it mattered much anyway as it was the only Industrial/Organizational course offered at my institution. 

Upon graduation, I made the decision to take a six month break (which I highly recommend to everyone). After a hectic and less than enjoyable senior year, I desperately needed time to get back in touch with the part of me that wanted to learn for fun and that enjoyed the process rather than the part of me that sought to check the requirements off of my four-year plan. I needed to take time for myself to understand my values and to understand where I wanted to be career-wise five and ten years from now.

As you can imagine, this is where grad school comes into play. To make use of my psychology degree, whether as a school counselor or a social worker (my two preferred paths), I would need to attend grad school. I spent time over these next few months looking into programs both near and far, making phone calls, and gathering information. But in the end, instead of committing, I deferred.

I couldn’t see myself in sitting through more lectures or spending hours and hours in small groups discussing nuances of a particular subject. That kind of learning no long appeals to me. As it turns out, I’ve decided the world is my classroom.   

Following my six month break (which stretched until the end of 2012, mind you), I officially decided grad school wasn’t for me, at least not at this point in my life. So I started a business instead.

I founded an online magazine, GenTwenty in early 2013 and have been nurturing it ever since. When I first started out, I knew nothing. Not even the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. There is still a lot I don’t know, but everyday is a new exciting learning experience where I can follow my specific passions, embrace my natural creativity, and do it all on my own terms at my own pace. And I'm lucky enough that other people believe in it too. 

Earlier this year, I applied to several MBA programs driven by the desire increase my business acumen. But as history tends to do, things repeated themselves. I read over curriculums, talked to MBA students, MBA grads, and seasoned business professionals. My instincts told me that while it won’t be an easy journey, the information and experiences I need and so desperately crave do not come with a tuition bill.

This isn't to say an MBA may not be the right path for you, simply, it's not the right path for me at this time. Instead, I have found the most helpful information and the most inspiration in podcasts, on blogs, and in interviews with entrepreneurs. Prologue Profiles is a recent favorite that I enjoy listening to.

I know I keep coming back to the idea of grad school because I have the desire to learn. School gives us structure and provides a safe place to do so with feedback mechanisms built in. The world is not so kind. The consequences of failing to adapt are much higher, there is no financial aid package to see you through, there is no four-year plan to guide you. You are on your own.

Whether or not you need a graduate degree is dependent on both your desired career path as well as what you plan to do. After all, there are plenty of successful entrepreneurs who have no degree at all. Just as entrepreneurship is not for everyone, grad school is also not for everyone, but that is up to you to decide.

I imagine that I will consider grad school again sometime in the next few seasons of my life. Luckily, my applications remain active for the next two years so I have some time to decide before I need to reapply (that's half the battle, anyway).

Know someone who is undecided about going back to graduate school? Share this article with them or your own thoughts about furthering your own education.