Trash Your Goals

When you set goals for yourself, how do you feel? Do you get excited, energized, and ready to take on the world? Or do you become stressed, frazzled, or terrified that you won't live up to the challenges you've set? For some people, goal setting is a dream. For others, a nightmare.

But even if you LOVE setting goals, there are many ways that having rigid goals can actually set you back in your progress towards finding your niche.

Especially in college, and in young adulthood, we're encouraged to set goals for ourselves. To pick a major. To pick a career. To pick a passion. These goals become part of our identities as individuals, and we hold on to them pretty tightly. As an advisor I've worked with many students who held so closely to their goal of going to graduate school or medical school that they continued on that path even when every step was a struggle.

While there is something to be said for that kind of determination and perseverance, it can actually be hurtful for us to become too attached to our goals. We experience disappointment when we don't reach them on time, or don't reach them at all. It becomes a blow not only to our plans, but to our identities. This, I think, is why so many well-meaning friends, family members, and teachers encourage students to aim lower than what they truly want. They are trying to guard against that disappointment by choosing a "safe bet".

Worse, though, than the emotional blow of not achieving our goal, is when we let our goals drown out our own personal truths. Our goals can give us tunnel-vision and stop us from seeing other opportunities that would make us so much happier! As one of my favorite self-help authors, Danielle LaPorte says: "Shouting goals at yourself deafens your truth". When this happens, we may struggle towards a goal, only to reach it and find ourselves unsatisfied.

So what can you do instead?

Start by thinking of your goal. Maybe your goal is to become famous on YouTube, or to start your own company, or to become a pediatrician. Have you thought of your goal? Great!

Now, picture yourself after you have achieved your goal. What does it look like? How will you feel? Successful? Free? Powerful? Loved? Perfect!

Now throw your goal in the trash! Because ultimately, that feeling is the REAL goal.

We assume that we feel good because we have reached our goals, but in truth, the FEELING is the goal.

If your goal is aligned with your truth, you will experience that feeling all along your journey while working to reach your goal. You will feel successful as you complete your pre-med coursework. You will feel free as you make your own choices and decisions, and work to build your own business from the ground up.

If you're not getting those feelings, adjust your path until you are!

Life is not waiting for you at the end of your finish line. It's happening now. And every moment you spend doing what feels like "work" towards your goal? That's the life you're living. So trash your goals, and focus on feeling the way you want to feel.

I guarantee you will reach more goals, and have a better time doing it!

Starting Your Own Business Is No Joke: 3 Lessons for Anyone Taking a Leap of Faith

April marks six months since I left my full time job at Rutgers University, moved to Washington, DC, and launched my business full time. Let me correct myself, businesses. Today, as I sit here on April 1st writing this post, I am sharing this on my first day from my new office space at WeWork in the middle of DC. Ever since I went all in and to be an entrepreneur, I’ve been tip toeing the line of living the life of a digital storyteller (social media strategy & content creator) and the other, as the founder of The Niche Movement, a community to help young professionals find their passion while applying unconventional career search practices in the real world.

Since I took a leap of faith, even though the two businesses on paper were two different offsprings of my work over the last eight years, they have actually started to blend together in a weird but serendipitous kind of way. For example, from cold emailing conferences in DC last November, I landed the amazing opportunity to photograph for VentureWell, an ed tech conference full of like-minded higher ed colleagues and students who see things differently. As I photographed this conference over the four days, I personally met individuals that have created co-working spaces on their campuses all the way to Aneesh Chopra, Obama’s former CTO. Along with other work I have completed since October 2014, it’s moments like this that I know all of this will lead to something bigger and to have patience and most importantly, trust the process.

As I am weeks away from finishing my book, funded on Kickstarter last summer, I can say that the last six months has been the most rewarding but challenging months. However, each subsequent month has provided a lot of clarity and created a vision in how I can bridge the two businesses together. More on that to come later this spring.

I’ll admit, this is the first post I have written in 2015 partly because I have been head-down focused on bringing on clients and creating strategies and content for them. Next, I spent the end of 2014 interviewing inspirational people for the book including Nancy Lyons, founder of ClockWork and featured on NBC Nightly News in November 2014. Finally, it has been difficult to find any energy at the end of the day to write for a few minutes in order to thread the book together.

The good news though, I have loved every minute of it and have worked with some amazing people along the way.

The three pieces of advice I want to share with you whether you are starting your own business, in the middle of your career, or looking for a job you love is the following:

1. Take a deep breath and hold on tight - Finding a job you love or starting your own business is a long, bumpy, and untraveled path. If you are looking for instant gratification or a quick solution, you are headed down the wrong path. With the right amount of planning, guts, and trusting that everything will “be ok”, it’s best to view this journey as a marathon and not a sprint.
2. Put yourself out there - If you have something you want to share/promote or a service (big or small) to help others, you have to let people know. But don’t forget, have tact and be genuine with a touch of creativeness. I have found by just introducing yourself (digitally or in-person) and then leaving with “If I can help, please let me know” or “How can I help you?” goes a long way. Also, don’t forget the follow-up. Most of the people interviewed for the book and many of the projects I have worked on came from the simple follow-up both over the phone and through email.
3. Care about the people first, work second -  When you're starting out in a new job, career, or launching a new business it is so easy to get wrapped up in administrative tasks, finances, personnel, next-steps, etc. If you can find even just the smallest sliver of what you love about your job combined with 100% genuine effort, your reputation will sky rocket.

Do the work.

Ask questions.

And add more value than asked of you (within reason - don’t be taken advantage of).

One of my clients earlier this year was strapped with a deadbeat developer (which I have very little experience with), however, I made several contacts in NYC and DC and also knew of 5 resources they could check out. Without hesitation I got on the phone and helped them out. It had nothing to do with social media but I knew I could help.

There are a lot of people to thank over the last six months, including every one of you reading this and following me along on this journey.

I also appreciate every single person I wrote about in my blogging journey over the summer for their continued support.

In addition to my wife Courtney, my parents, and close friends, I really want to thank the following businesses and clients for choosing to work with me, seeing the value I can add, and sometimes giving me a chance.

CircusTalk

Equalman Studios

Lenore Horton & Ketnoi Group

GWU Business School, Lemonade Day DC students, David Ruda & Alex Boessetta

ACPA

Lost Rhino Brewery

VentureWell

Relay Rides

See What Sticks: How Good Notes Take You to Infinity and Beyond

Hi everyone, Amma Marfo here. Two quick things about me that you’ll need to know before we begin:

(1) I am a reader. I am a library-loving, constant tome-carrying, unapologetic bibliophile. (2) If there’s anyone you will meet who can connect what she’s reading to the world around her, it’s me.

As such, I want to dedicate my time in this space to sharing with you what I’m reading, and how it could inform a budding professional’s daily life. 

I am a sucker for a good read on creativity. These are the books that energize me in my day-to-day work, the ones that help me look at daily problems from a new perspective, the ideas that reassure me that my quirky take on my life aren't as isolating as they might seem. And in that reading, there are a few companies that are constantly referenced as being "the gold standard" for creatives. You've heard of these places- Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Disney/Pixar. So when people started recommending Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (president of Pixar Animation), I knew I had to add it to my reading list. And sure enough, it was a wonderful read that provided me with many tips and tricks that I'm eager to employ in my own life. But the one I want to share here today, is the seventh tenet of their 7 Core principles: Give good notes.

Feedback is a funny thing. When you're new to a work environment, it is simultaneously necessary and absolutely terrifying because so much of our self-worth and vision of success is tied up in our being great. However, when you're more established and in greater need of it, it's harder to get because people "below" you in the organization may fear giving it. This pair of factors, combined with people who are largely non-confrontational by nature, and we're left with either empty and nonspecific platitudes, or emotionally-charged criticism that may overstep the boundaries of work. Pixar has worked for years to create a feedback system devoid of those two scourges of honest feedback, through what they call their "Braintrust," or a group of directors and advisors that watch rough cuts of films as they come together and provide the feedback needed to transform these sketches into the blockbusters we know and love like Toy Story or Finding Nemo.

Catmull eloquently addresses the fear of failure that comes with sharing a new idea in Creativity, Inc.:

From a very early age, the message is drilled into our heads: Failure is bad; failure means you didn't study or prepare; failure means you slacked off or- worse!- aren't smart enough to begin with. Thus, failure is something to be ashamed of. This perception lives on long into adulthood, even in people who have learned to parrot the oft-repeated ideas about the upside of failure [...] And yet, even as they nod their heads in agreement, many readers [...] still have the emotional reaction that they had as children. They just can't help it. That early experience of shame is too deep-seated to erase. (emphasis added)

I believe that Catmull used the word shame in the final sentence intentionally, and for an interesting reason. Helping scholar Brené Brown makes a clear distinction between guilt (a bad feeling that results from a bad action) and shame (a bad feeling that results from being a bad person). Too often, mistakes or missteps are framed to make us feel shame, when we should really feel guilt. Guilt, in most cases, comes from a temporary state, where shame is designed to come from a more permanent one. But our ideas aren't us, and the failure of an idea shouldn't be equated to us being failures. Pixar's "brain trust" was designed to divorce the two and truly concentrate on developing ideas without shaming the idea's developers. They do this by embracing candor, believing in iteration, and leaving freedom of solution. If you inject these tenets into your feedback-giving process, you're more likely to create space for development without creating offense or judgment.

Embracing Candor: Catmull is quick to point out that most ideas suck at the beginning. More to the point, he says most Pixar movies suck when the first ideas are shared. The sooner this is embraced, the better. Few ideas are perfect on the first pass; even if they appear to be, as they develop problems will start to surface. Being able to speak up to refine the ideas, without criticizing the person or people presenting them, is a gift to anyone invested in making the idea work. And when we smooth over flaws with "Great work!" or "It's...good!" we rob people of the ability to make their ideas the best they could be. Anyone invested in creating a good product (as the thousands of people who work at Pixar undoubtedly are) needs candor, or their work will go toward a less than stellar idea. Nobody wants that.

Believe in Iteration: I have written previously about how general praise, devoid of customization or specificity, isn't particularly helpful and at its worst can be patronizing. A necessary element of this is being able to give actionable criticism. Telling somebody what they've done wrong isn't particularly helpful if there's no way for them to improve upon it. I tell the students I work with often, "I can't do anything about 'this sucks.'" But if I know more about the experience they're struggling with, what the problem is, and what they'd prefer to see, I can work with something of a road map in front of me, as opposed to the veritable game of Marco Polo that the phrase "this sucks" is providing. When you give feedback, give it in such a way that the person receiving this information can realistically go back and try again with some idea of what needs to be fixed. 

Allow for Freedom of Solution: With that said, your feedback doesn't always have to provide the solution within it; in fact, Pixar believes that the power of the Braintrust's feedback is that they don't prescribe a solution for the problems they identify. In fact, the director and his staff don't even have to address the notes that are given in these meetings. I believe that this is the strongest element of the Braintrust. The key part of the concept is that second word: trust. When we bring people on to a team, we have to trust that they know what they're doing and that they arrived in their positions for a reason. So if problems present themselves, we have to trust that they have the expertise and judgment to attack these issues and come to a feasible solution. There have been times that this strategy has failed at Pixar, and they do have mechanisms to address that. But for the most part, the people who come in with ideas are equipped to solve their own problems, if given the space and faith to do so. Think similarly of the people you work with.

Most of our ideas will not garner the audience that those of Ed Catmull and his team do. But they are just as deserving of a respectful and constructive process by which to develop them. Anyone interested in a feedback process that is (literally) award-winning should check out Creativity, Inc for some of the best reading on creativity, and how to productively harness it, I've done this year.

See What Sticks: Invisible and Invincible

One of my favorite episodes of Matt Groening's Futurama features the arrogant robot Bender as the "God" figure to a colony of settlers. In a twist near the end of the episode, he gets to meet the show's approximation of God, who gives Bender some sage advice:

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

David Zweig's Invisibles:The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion carries the banner of "God"'s proclamation, sharing the triumphs and benefits of those who work under the radar. 'Invisibles' is his term for people who fly under the radar, who quietly make things happen, and who typically are only noticed if something goes wrong. Zweig talks to structural engineers, cinematographers, music technicians, and UN interpreters; he distills their defining characteristics down to three:

1. Invisibles are ambivalent to recognition. Their satisfaction is derived not from audible gratitude, but a deep intrinsic appreciation for their work.
2. Meticulousness. Invisibles immerse themselves so deeply in their work, others' observations mean little or are scarcely noticed.
3. Savoring of responsibility. The Invisibles featured in the book do very important work, the kind of work that makes significant impact on lives; they don't shy away from this burden. Their significance to the overall effort is reveled in and appreciated, but not for its own sake.

But the book does not strive to malign those for whom 'invisibility' is not a natural state. Rather, it discusses the benefits that such a mindset can afford those of us who work with Invisibles, while also providing advice for those who may aspire to incorporate some of these traits into our daily lives. Some of the best tips I gained from the book can also be vital for new professionals, those seeking employment, and anyone looking to strengthen their standing in a work environment.

Concentrate on the product, and let your work promote you. Zweig highlights the increase of personal pronouns (I, me), as well as the influx of professionals that exist solely to help people develop "personal brands" and social media imprints that reduce online interaction to constant image development and curation. While Zweig and other researchers see some elements of this as normal, they generally agree that we have reached an extreme as a society. Their alternative: concentrate on doing the work, and the work will promote you. The book cites the late David Foster Wallace as an example of an artist whose work essentially promoted itself; he became a critical success by doing little more than concentrating on the very thing that made him worth knowing- his writing.

Especially when we're young, or new to a field, we are quick to want to establish ourselves, and we can sometimes equate that with trumpeting our accomplishments. Zweig argues, we shouldn't have to shout our accomplishments so loudly. Truly significant accomplishments will announce themselves; further, invisibles will find fulfillment in their work whether that trumpet is sounded or not.

Identify your goal and who can help you achieve it. The cinematographer Robert Elswit is profiled in one chapter of the book, and we learn about his meticulous process of lighting scenes in award winning films. Elswit is unlike other invisibles profiled in the book in that he has received awards for his work, but that's far from his motivation for doing painstakingly detailed work. Although others may see his work as purely technical, he sees it as a way to make the story resonate with the viewer- the same motivation that drives actors and directors.

But despite his standing as an award-winning craftsman, he sees himself as part of a larger team. His commitment to working collaboratively to fulfill a vision is something that so many of us forget when we're overwhelmed, overworked, and frustrated that our hard work isn't being recognized. Seeing your work for what it is- a part of a multifaceted whole- can provide perspective and encourage you to look deeper than the accolades to appreciate what you truly love about the work itself.

Get comfortable executing someone else's vision first. This particularly tip is directed toward those starting out in a job or field. We are accustomed to seeing the inspirational quote "Start building your dreams, before someone else hires you to build theirs." However, we won't yet be truly ready to work meticulously, a key part of invisible work, unless we put the time, energy, and dedication in to getting good at a craft we could eventually pursue in a leadership role. In a later chapter, Zweig talks about the literal perils of cell tower climbers who were promoted to leadership positions without sufficient training or time in a hands-on role; one person he interviewed was gravely injured as a result of it.

Don't rush the magic of your career. There will be time in your work history to revel in the sunlight of recognition, or to truly be proud of the work you do. But that pride and reverence start with hard work and dedication to developing a high level of competence at a craft. The successful invisible has taken that time, and quietly but skillfully excels.

Make no mistake, Zweig does not advocate for working in thankless jobs. If you truly feel overworked and underappreciated, this is a problem that you can seek to rectify. His goal, instead, is to highlight a class of people who may not always seek out external praise or gratification. If you work with these people, your appreciation of their work is more than enough; and if you are this person, know that you can set a great example for coworkers old and new. Invisibles are an easy-to-overlook population in our offices, schools, and the like. Believe us, you'll notice if their work isn't perfect. But if it is done right...you won't be sure they've done anything at all.

See What Sticks: Recovering from Perfectionism

Hi everyone, Amma Marfo here. Two quick things about me that you’ll need to know before we begin: (1) I am a reader. I am a library-loving, constant tome-carrying, unapologetic bibliophile. (2) If there’s anyone you will meet who can connect what she’s reading to the world around her, it’s me. As such, I want to dedicate my time in this space to sharing with you what I’m reading, and how it could inform a budding professional’s daily life.

Starting this post with yet another confession shouted out into the void: I am a recovering perfectionist. It's easy to see how we come to the notion that perfection is the only acceptable option; we're graded for sixteen years of our lives with the goal of getting 100%, we wear braces to fix the flaws in our smiles, and are bombarded with images of what we could be doing better. I bought into that for a long time (and, as the title implies, still do at times). But a few years back, I took a long hard look at the life I was leading because of it; it was a stress-riddled, anxiety-driven, hard to enjoy mess. So when I read Elizabeth Grace Saunders' "Letting Go of Perfectionism," an essay from 99U's Manage Your Day to Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, it sang to me a little louder than several of the essays around it.

She defines perfectionism in her piece, but I'd prefer to share the work conditions under which a perfectionist works with you; if this sounds like you, you may want to consider reading on:

From a perfectionist's point of view, if you manage to force yourself into producing at the level you envisioned in your head, you feel on top of the world. If you can't measure up to those standards, you're crushed [...] At best, it can make you hesitate to immerse yourself in a new project. At worst, it can lead to you abandoning your creative pursuits because of the toll they take on you physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Does this sound like you? If so, you're in good and plentiful company. And as I continue to take my own recovery one day at a time, I found myself really appreciating Saunders' approach for managing the fear and pride that she believes are the root of all aspirations toward perfectionism. That creeping pair of emotions can attack at any stage of our work, but she gives great advice on how to thoughtfully fight back.

Stuck at the Start According to Saunders, the perfectionist gets stuck at the start because of a mindset that shouts, "I can't start until the ideal moment, meaning I have a large uninterrupted block of time, no other distractions, a strong level of motivation to work on the project, and the ideal plan for how to optimize the entire process." I'll grant, these are not altogether impossible conditions to reach in unison. However...it seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it?

This can be true of any pursuit that inherently holds uncertainty: applying for a job ("I don't know how to do all the things they're asking, should I go for it?"), leaving a job you don't like ("I don't have the perfect opportunity lined up yet, so I should probably stay put."), or asking for a new challenge ("I've never done this before, am I sure I'm ready?"). The paralysis of being presented with ideal conditions kills more dreams than actual criticism from those that surround us.

Saunders encourages the recovering perfectionist to replace the statement above with "I know there will never be an ideal time to begin so I set aside time to get started on one part of the process [...] I get started on what I can do now." The storied Google 80/20 rule (in which employees were given freedom to use 20% of their time at work just to create and design based on their own ideas and inclinations, is an example of the value of scheduled ideation time.

It can also be helpful to remember that ideas don't come out fully formed. Taking some of that time to determine what you already have to be successful and what you still need can help you fight the perfectionism. Identifying "known unknowns" helps us focus time appropriately and direct efforts toward elements of our process that could be better. Between setting aside time and acknowledging points of weakness with the goal of improvement (that "goal of improvement" piece is what prevents despondence), we can break the cycle of giving up on something that lacks perfect conditions.

Lost in the Middle

Saunders voices this worry in this way: "I must obsess over every detail of the piece, regardless of whether anyone else will notice. This leads me to revise and edit myself at every step instead of giving myself permission to bang out an imperfect first draft." When I was working on my book, I spent a long time avoiding a complete first draft. I wrote in disconnected tidbits, I researched obsessively, I strung together those shorter passages into chapters, and then finally put them together consecutively to create a 140 page first draft...that I was terrified to read. I had no idea if this version of the final product would make sense, or even be good or helpful to anyone who read it. But sometimes we forget that first drafts are designed for precisely that.

One of my favorite writers, Paul Jarvis, is a tremendous advocate for "sharing your messy process," or shying away from the instinct we all have to hide when something isn't going perfectly. He believes that people appreciate final products more when they know what went into making it. Share your messy process with people you trust to be honest with you- close coworkers, family members, or even friends that have no idea what you do- their uninformed opinion can be the most valuable when you're deep in the weeds on a project. It's scary at times, but the freedom it affords you to work toward a better final product is invaluable. Paul shares his ugly process often, as does Austin Kleon, a writer I've written about here previously. Follow them for great examples of what other messy processes entail; it can be comforting to know that even successful people struggle!

Refusal to Finish

"If the work hasn't attained the ideal set in my head at the start, it's inaccurate to say it's complete." We all have goals in our minds that occasionally, if often, fail to live up to the final product that our hands, voices, or other contributing parties have created. This can be demoralizing for some, pushing them to keep working without "shipping," writer and consultant Seth Godin's term for releasing a final product to the public.

But squirreling away our talent for fear it won't meet our high standards ignores the needs of those who could benefit from it. You could be a great fit for a proposed job, but not applying for a lack of a "perfect fit" could leave them with someone far less effective. Perfect is the enemy of great. And being prepared to ship doesn't mean that you can't go back to the project at a later date; Saunders is quick to point out, "Saying something is complete doesn't mean that it can't be improved upon or elaborated on in the future. It just means that I can submit it and move on to other work." Other projects that require your greatness could suffer for your lack of attention to them; don't let a goal of perfection on one task hinder your effectiveness on others.

Dread of Feedback

So you've made it through all the other steps prior to this, and found yourself (mostly) comfortable with delivering a less than perfect product. Congratulations! That's a task in itself that you should be commended for. How do you handle any feedback that you get from it? By this, I mean "constructive criticism" that may come from a coworker, mentor, headhunter, or other person overseeing your work. The perfectionist struggles to incorporate this additional information, seeing it not as an assessment of their work, but of them. Saunders voices this worry well: "I worry that my expertise and respect is in question and that others will think I'm incompetent and an impostor." 

Consider, instead, this counterpoint: "I appreciate feedback because it helps me to test and refine my work." A colleague of mine, speaker and consultant Winni Paul, feels that feedback is a gift. As she puts it, "Accepting feedback is about looking beyond your own reality and seeing a bigger picture." Unless you're in a performance review (whole other scenario that I won't address here), the product being critiqued is not you; accept any ideas for change accordingly. See feedback as a question or concern voiced that a consumer of your product or idea won't present to you as nicely, and find ways to address the concern if you find it valid; acknowledge it gracefully if you don't. Practical gifts are designed to make your life easier and you better; think of feedback as a practical gift from someone with your best interests in mind.

As with any addiction or bad habit, it can take a lot of time and practice to unlearn the rituals that brought you to your perfectionist state. But abandoning perfectionist inclinations for your "realistic best" unlocks possibilities to be more efficient and less anxious when pursuing opportunities. I encourage you to challenge the perfectionist tendencies you've cultivated for so many years; you'll be surprised how good "just being great" can feel.