All in Random Stuff

Be an asskicker

Charlie O'Donnell
Mentoring, Path 101, Random Stuff

Someone sent a note to the nextNY list about how he was unemployed and looking to work for a startup--how it was really hard to find something.  He sent a link to a piece he wrote on a site about being unemployed.

This was my response:

"So the one link you send us is on a site about being unemployed?

Why on earth would you market yourself as an unemployed guy?  In your first instance of participation in this group, you cast yourself as laid off and desperate.  Who wants to hire an unemployed person?

No one.


If I showed up to a date and the girl introduces herself by saying, "I've just been going on nothing but first dates and they never work out...   I'm so desperate to find someone" I'd be looking for the door in a heartbeat.

We all want to hire someone who kicks ass at something.  If you do not kick ass at anything, you should at least be in the process of learning how to kick ass at something.  Startups, or frankly any company for that matter, cannot afford to hire a non-asskicking generalist.

Think of it this way...  If you know the media, perhaps you could have spent the last five months doing free PR and marketing for a handful of startups.  You weren't working anyway.  The goal would be to be so good at it that one of those companies can't help but hire you--or some other company would hire you because they noticed how good you were at it--or worst case you'd suck at it but you'd really learn something.

Forget pursuing.  Spend 110% of your time honing some kind of value proposition that you'd be a no-brainer hire for.

Forget the "I'm unemployed" shtick and work on the being awesome without advertising the fact that you are awesome to everyone.  If you do not know what awesomeness is, try and figure out who the top 30 most awesome people in the NY tech scene are and interview them.  Publish the interviews on your blog.  Make a list and publish it.  Here are my suggestions:  David Karp, Anthony Volodkin, Chris Hughes...

And God help you if I see your blog and it's yourname.blogspot.com.  To be awesome, you must splurge for the $13 domain name."

Why aren't you striving to be a leader in your field?

Charlie O'Donnell
Mentoring, Random Stuff

I went to a very selective high school--Regis High School in New York City--and from very early on I was intimidated by my peers.  Our class was made up of the top 130 or so students out of nearly 1000 boys who took the test to get in.   I felt like I was #130, particularly at the speech and debate tryouts, where the guys waiting next to me were debating some political topic I wasn't even aware of.  For four years, I basically tried to hangout somewhere in the middle--and the top of the class both in terms of leadership and academics seemed unattainable to me. 

Fast forward four years and after an amazing internship, I felt ready to take on the world.  My time at Fordham was all about leadership.  I started a newspaper, ran clubs, interned, etc.  At the end of my time there, I was selected to be one of the top seven student leaders in my year.

So what changed?

It was a few things for me.  First, I didn't think I was capable of leadership--so why try if you're pretty sure you're going to fail, right?  Second, I never really saw a path to leadership.  I didn't really know where there were opportunities for leadership.  It was only when I got to college that I realized the third point--that you can create your own opportunities for leadership.  I had an idea for a newspaper about business in college and so I just went after it.  I did the research, figured out what I needed to do, and it was easier than I thought.

I'm curious about other people, though. 

If I said that the top people in your field, at your experience level, are active participants professional societies, write popular blogs about your industry, get asked to write articles for magazines and regularly speak on conference panels, that's probably a reasonable estimation of what it means to be on top, right? 

One would assume that such a person in a visible leadership position would basically be able to call their own shots in terms of the direction of their career, right?  If nothing else, they'd certainly be less likely to be laid off.

So, my question is why wouldn't everyone be setting that as a goal?  Of course 99% of people don't take a
look at their own industry and say "I'm want to be the most highly sought after person in this field... be recognized as an expert, and call my own shots."

But why don't they--specifically?

Is it because...

a) It seems like a big risk, because if you try and put yourself out there, you could fall on your face.

b) It seems like an awful lot of work and you don't have a ton of extra time.

c) You feel ok about your career and you don't really see the value in being one of those top people.

d) That seems like a good path, but you really don't know how or where you'd really start on a path like that.

e) Some other reason.

 

I'm curious...   Ask your friends that you think highly of, but who don't strive for leadership.  Ask yourself.  I really want to identify the causes.  I suspicion is that it's more of an information problem (what to do, where to do it, perception vs reality of taking career risks).

I'm thinking she died for a reason...

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff

I wrote a post about losing our family dog that now has nearly 100 comments on it...mostly dead dog stories.

Listen to this story...

"well i had a dog in kindgarden threw 4th grade and it was hit by a car in those grades i didnt have any friends and it was my only friend i would talk to her i would pet her for hours she was my only and best friend i loved her dearly the day i was told she died i cried for months but right after she died i made my human best friend and then other and now im 13 and have alot of friends and im thinking she died for a reason. R.I.P buttercup"

The most trivial thing I am world class at...

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff

I can stay on my feet like nobody's business. I don't mean in terms of taking a punch. I mean that I never slip and fall to the ground. There have been too many times to count, like with dress shoes on ice or misstepping up a flight of stairs, where I say to myself "Wow, I can't believe I didn't fall flat on my face there." In particular, when something causes one of my feet to just completely wipe out, I'm incredibly good at shifting my weight and recovering without a fall. In fact, I sometimes think that I'm so good at it that I might be the best person in the world at doing that one tiny insigificant thing--not falling when a foot that I'm planting on loses traction.

Do you ever have that? Where you do something totally random so incredibly well over and over again where you think that you may very well be the best person in the entire world at it?

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff


Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

 

I hadn't seen this before.  It's really amazing.  The woman in the blue scarf pictured above gives my favorite answer--a world where every closet connects to someone else's closet and you can use it to travel to meet someone new and have breakfast with them.

That's kind of how I think of Twitter.  I wonder if she Twitters.  Probably.

Subway Thumbing

Charlie O'Donnell
Random Stuff

Long eyelashes and a long thin smile...pointed nose just like the guy she's with. He's in a dusty Yankee cap. They are both too casually dressed to still be single. I can't see her hand but they must be married. My view is blocked by the baby carriage turned towards them, awning and plastic weatherproofing raised to expose the baby in pink. It belongs to the woman next to them.

They are making funny faces at the baby. I can only see an arm poking out the side--tiny fingers pointing. Mom was a tattoo on her hand and a ring under her bottom lip--just a stud. She has big star earrings. The couple is chatting between themselves now. She has pulled down the hood of her coat. She has a single blonde streak across her otherwise brunette hair. They're nuzzling and he's kissing the top of her head as she buries it in his chest.

She's back to the baby now...and back to him. She makes a comment and he responds with a kiss. I can't hear because Alphaville is playing Forever Young in my ears.

Mom is tired. She yawns. She has a small piece of rolling luggage with her next to the carriage. The baby has thrown something on the floor. She pushes the carriage back to find it, exposing yellow leather boots.

The woman in the couple next to them is tapping the Yankee cap with her arm outstretched behind her against the subway car window. Her nail polish is very dark--almost black but not quite. Her nails are short.

The baby has an Elmo. I yawn myself and my eyes tear up as they always do when I yawn. The couple exits at Pacific Street. Elmo is dancing now--in rhythm with mom's arm. I can see the baby in the reflection of the subway door window. I didn't realize that before. Mom leans back. She seems a bit pregnant actually, but it could be her coat. Oh. Definitely not her coat.


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