17 life lessons learned in Afghanistan

I found a list I wrote before I left Afghanistan in 2013. On it, I wrote all the words of wisdom I heard in my 14 months in that country. Each of these lessons have helped me in the years since.

• Keep people excited - In order to be listened to, you have to keep people excited about what you are about to tell them
• Learn - continuous learning is essential
• Understand Subject Matter Expert's level of knowledge - when asking questions, understand how much information you can get from a Subject Matter Expert. Don't badger a Subject Matter Expert if you have reached the peak of their knowledge. If they don't know, they don't know.
• Stay relevant - not only should you continuously learn, but you need to keep your face out there. A smart person who is never seen is irrelevant.
• Credibility - Credibility is huge but also very fragile. You never want to be see as not credible.
• Listen - Listen to what people want and what they are really asking for. Don't jump to conclusions. Many times people don't know what they need. Ask questions if needed.
• Try to understand from other's intent / perspective - this goes hand-in-hand with listening. Showing empathy and understanding what people need goes a long way.
• Look into the politics of emails, policies, and messages - look at what is said and what is not said as well as who emails are sent to. If someone CCs a supervisor, that's important. If someone CCs your supervisor, that's even more important.
• Love what is - Also known as "embrace the suck". Deal with life the way it is handed to you, wishing things were different will get you nowhere.
• Control only what you can control - Another perspective on loving what is, but this in regards to exerting power or change on an issue. Likewise, know what you can't control and understand why.
• They don't know - Most people do not know what you know. They might be clamoring for information, but not have it. It is your job to inform them.
• People aren't dumb, just uninformed - Similar to the above, but insulting people who don't know isn't the right answer, even if they are defensive. Walk them to the right answer, even if it means diffusing their anger.
• Difference between a leader / manager / supervisor
  
  • Leader: Vision
  • Manager: Acts on vision
  • Supervisor: Insures direct functions are done
• People with Master's Degrees should be able to manage 9 things at a time
• It depends - the typical answer for every question. Everything depends. Only commit where you absolutely have to and for what resources you absolutely have to.
• Acceptable Risk - There will always be risk. Likewise, we have many ways to mitigate risk. But we don't want to overcommit our valuable resources to reducing risk to zero if we can operate with a level of acceptable risk.
• Freedom to fly or fail - Give people the a chance to step up. If they fail, they at least had a chance. Don't stifle their growth.
• 2nd and 3rd order effects - Very important. What will the reaction be to your actions? Try to minimize unwanted repercussions. Don't act without learning how actions can set another chain of events.

I should write more often

It is a calm Sunday night in my small house. The dishes are done, the laundry is done (not folded, of course), a candle is lit, and  jazz is playing on the Music Choice cable channel. There is a relaxing tone to the night, with the only excitement coming from an occasional trumpet or drum solo.

I have to go to work tomorrow, but tomorrow seems so far away - several hours until I need to sleep. I've never needed that much sleep - six hours is optimal, but five hours will get me through the day. I tend to plan my night based on how much sleep I need. Since most work days have the same wake-up time, the previous night is always limited based on backplanning. "Backplanning", a term I learned in the military, meaning plan from the objective backwards. And being at work on time is a worthwhile objective.

But enough about Monday, let's bring it back to Sunday. Tonight. My calm night of doing nothing. Once dinner was finished, I turned on my computer to see what the world is up to. It is still amazing that I can log in and the whole world is on a party line these days. I am old enough to remember when finding out the news of the day took place the day after.

So I logged on to social media - the twitters and the Facebooks - and it seems everyone is talking about the conclusion of a television show I have never watched. Not that I am against television shows, I am just not a regular viewer of anything but sports or pro wrestling. I know when they are on and I tune in. I'm not even as big of a fan of either as I once was, but I still tune in. I couldn't even tell you what channels any of the other shows are on.

We still use channels, right? I know a lot of people watch their shows via their apps. Channels are a thing of the past. I wonder if we will be able to put all of our apps on any thing connected to the the Internet of Things. Could I catch up to Game of Thrones on the monitor on my refrigerator?

Do you know what really scares me? What if toilet paper rollers were connected to the Internet of Things? "You've been using more toilet paper than usual, here is an ad for diarrhea medicine." No, you crazy internet of things, I have a house guest.

What a weird world we will live in when my toilet paper roller tries to assume my bodily functions. We are close to that. You can already buy a freezer that connects to your phone. In case you want to text your frozen chicken.

But that is something I have been reading a lot about recently. Not frozen chicken - the growth of technology and the threats we face in an interconnected society.

Drum solo.

Now we are back to the slow part of the night. Things are calm and things are alright. There are so many things I could do tonight. I have a pile of magazines on my coffee table - Forbes and Fortune Magazines from the last three years. I think everyone has a pile of magazines they haven't read. It comes with being an American citizen. Here is your birth certificate, social security number, and a stack of old Sports Illustrated and National Geographics.

Alongside the pile of business magazines that have not been read at the speed of business, are a stack of bank statements and receipts I should file. I like to check off my spending each month to make sure I am not spending too much. I think that is one of the tasks you are assigned when you reach adulthood - you start to balance your personal budget. For a few years, my budget was simple - nothing coming in, too much coming out. Luckily, I had some money in a savings account. But how close I came to homelessness is a story for another day.

So I have piles of random paperwork around my house. They are on my coffee table, on my kitchen table, on my kitchen counter, and in my office. Slowly but surely, my goal is work my way though the years of papers, bills, notes, and magazines I have let collect in the last five years. The good news is I am more than halfway done.

The bad news is I seldom write any more. I miss writing. I have always described myself as a writer. I have an unpublished novel on my computer that perhaps I should dust off and try to publish. I think it is good. It might need some touching up and maybe some editing. Maybe I will send it to a few people to read and get their thoughts. Good thing it is a timeless story.

Enough about the story and the characters of my writing and more about me. I am the main character of this piece. Actually, I think I am the only character. That's fine. I am supposed to write about what I know. I know myself quite well.

Although I used to write often, I haven't written creatively in a long time. I haven't created a character in even longer. I haven't placed this new character in a fictional world. I wonder how many writers put their characters in the same world they live in. It would be quite boring to read about a character who goes to work everyday and hangs out on quiet Sunday nights with jazz and a candle. Maybe I should write a Walter Mitty-type story.

Maybe I should start writing about anything. Maybe I should take the last 30 minutes of my night and dump my thoughts on the screen or in a notebook. Maybe I should write a certain amount of words.

Maybe I should write 1,000 words.

Here are words 995-1,000.

I should write more often.

KRS-One talks about White Supremacy

Filmed in Tampa a few years ago, hip-hop legend KRS-One discusses "white supremacy" and why it is a bad label for those who believe in Europeans being a dominant and "superior" culture.

When anxiety catches up to the career dabbler

What do you do when you feel like all you've done hasn't gotten you to where you want to be?

That's a tough question. But I feel it is applicable to me right now. Where I am is in an unstable career pattern of seven jobs in seven years, and only one (the latest) for long than seven months. And this job ends at the end of the year, and is only part-time with no benefits and lower pay than I would like. But I took it because I needed something.

That's part of the problem.

I've taken every job I have ever had because I needed something. I got a job at McDonalds because I need to pay for a car. I joined the Army because I couldn't afford college and it seemed like a good idea. I moved to Tampa to take a job at on a military base because I needed a job and I had the qualifications. I went to Afghanistan because I couldn't find anything stateside and I was running out of money.

On and on it goes.

Years ago, I had a friend who is a doctor. She knew she wanted to be a doctor since she was five years old. Everything she did was in that direction. I find that impressive and incredible. Also completely foreign.

I'm not saying everyone should know what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they are in Kindergarten. That's super rare. But to be a mid-career professional with no career direction, but with diplomas and acclaim and a resume full of accomplishments is equally odd. At least I think it is.

Now that I am settled in my living situation and it has been seven months since my MBA graduation, I have the time now to take stock in what is important to me. What is it that I want? What is it that will make me happy? Is it in marketing? Is it in administration? Is it in something else? Is it trying to start my own business? Is what makes me happy here in Tampa?

I have determined I need responsibility. I need to be responsible for something. I need to be The Guy in charge of something people want. Someone someone goes to when they need something.

This is even lacking in my personal life.

Maybe I need a dog.

I would say maybe I need to have kids, but that brings up a whole other can of worms that is also probably affected by my lack of career focus.

It is incredibly hard to be motivated to date when you can't sell stability. My mind is too focused on the future than on trying to build a strong present relationship.

"This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away, to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was, hmm? What he was doing. Hmm. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things." - Yoda

Having your mind on the future is ok to a point, but constantly re-evaluating your five year plan isn't the most stable way to go. Bringing back the Yoda quote, once Luke Skywalker committed, he became the most sought after Jedi in the galaxy.

My problem is that I am not confident in where I am. I am Luke Sywalker in the beginning of Empire Strikes Back - a guy who did some awesome stuff, but hasn't figured out where he fits in the overall picture. Like Luke, I am confident in what I have done, definitely. I am confident that I will do something in the future. But right now is a bit unstable. That's not easy to sell to a member of the opposite sex, especially combined with the lack of being responsible for anything - not even a dog.

So I have to find focus. I have to find a direction and run that way. If that means shedding non-productive ventures, so be it. I'll still have my fun and still work on creative projects, but the focus needs to be on building a base, the roots of a strong tree that I can hinge every other career decision on. Without that strong career base, my future will be blowing in the wind.

A few days ago, I read an article in Fast Company entitled "The Most Common Career Advice that Graduates Should Ignore (and what to do instead)". Instead of "Keeping Your Options Open", the article suggests "Commit to Something".

Commitment is tough. Whether in a career or a relationship, you have to decide beforehand what you find important. As I mentioned earlier, some people know what they want in a career very early. Some people also marry their high school sweetheart and stay committed forever. They found what they wanted and stuck with it through thick and thin.

While sticking with jobs hasn't always been an option for me, thanks to contracting, lay offs, and part-time/internships, here are a few things I have decided are important to me:

• I need to be part of a bigger something. This is why the Tampa Bay Seminole Club is so important to me.


• I need to be in a fast-pace place where information comes quickly and thinking on my feet is valued.


• I would like to be somewhere where international issues are discussed.


• I would like to be somewhere where analysis and possibly pattern recognition is important and valued.


• I would like to know what is going on behind a headline.

And I want a dog.

Based on these qualifications, I am narrowing my career paths. I am reaching to people in different fields to learn what it is like in that field. Sometimes how I think a field might be is nothing like how it is.

I am also shedding different ideas, even if I am qualified to do something. If I can't see myself doing that job 9-5 for the next three to five years, I will turn it down. That's tough to do when I am still trying to make ends meet. It's like hooking up with someone just because you are lonely or because it's been a while. Both sides have to be honest, or it might end up awkward.

I still have a lot of work to do until I'm where I want to be. I need to be open to still learning and growing. But at the same time, I need to focus on what I want to do, or at least the two or three major options that interest me the most.

I'm a little worried, but a lot excited. Instability can be scary and sometimes I do feel like I am falling behind my peers, but I have to remember, I'm in a lot better shape than I was last year.

My letter to late Mets pitcher Anthony Young

A few weeks ago, former New York Mets pitcher Anthony Young passed away. Several baseball websites discussed his death and career, from Fangraphs and their statistical analysis to Faith and Fear in Flushing and their insightful look at emotional connections to Mets players, times, and spaces.

Anthony Young was unique. He played at the top level of Major League Baseball but held a record no player should ever want - most consecutive losing decisions. Young lost 27 games in a row from 1992 to 1993. His career record was 5-35. Based on that, Anthony Young was one of the worst pitchers in Major League history.

But AY's personality, determination, and grace under the circumstances never showed signs of a loser. Who AY was helped show people that losing in baseball was far too subjective. A player could do well, but throw one misplaced pitch, could be branded a loser.

Baseball, like life, is rarely fair.

Personally, Anthony Young was one of my favorite players in the early 1990s. Not only because he pitched for the Mets and I was a Mets fan, but on a human level, I related to AY.

I was never a born winner. Especially athletically. I was typically on the Little League teams that struggled to win one game a year. For several Little League years, I was a pitcher, and struggled not to get upset when a teammate threw to a wrong base or failed to catch a fly ball. I might not have been an all-star, but I always thought I deserved a little better.

Following my Little League years, I played countless games of pickup baseball on my block. Mostly against my friend from the adjacent subdevelopment. We used a tennis ball, a pitchback for a backstop, and automatics to determine the type of hit - weak groundballs were automatic outs, flyballs past a light pole were a home run. The end of my block was our field and we had a mutual understanding of the ground rules.

There were no fielders and no teammates to point the finger at. I pitched and I hit. If I did neither well, I lost.

I lost often.

(From what I hear, kids today don't play street baseball like this any more. Of course, there is video game addiction, but beside that, kids are told not to pitch as often as I did. Maybe I burnt out too quick. Maybe I could have been a left-handed relief pitcher in the Majors. I guess I will never know.)

My friend and I would play every day all summer. He was stronger and threw harder. I lost at least 50 in a row.

Then, on one lazy summer day, I won. If I remember right, the score was 2 to 1, or maybe 1 to 0. I never scored many runs, but on that day, I had my friend off-balance with a mix of well located average fastballs and decent change-ups. I might have even tried to slip in a bad slider or a forkball.

Regardless of the mix of mediocre offerings, I won. And it made my summer.

With the Mets mired in their own malaise and Anthony Young's win total still stuck on zero, I wrote AY a letter. I told him if could win on the streets of Melbourne, Florida, I was sure his day in the sun in New York City would come eventually.

Being the fan I was, I included an early '90s Topps baseball card and a safe-addressed stamped envelop with my letter. At the end of my letter, I asked AY if he could sign my card and send it back to me. He did.

(Looking back, that seems like an awkward request. Hey, best of luck, I'm rooting for you. Can you sign this card and send it back to me because I sent you best wishes?)

A few weeks after my card arrived, Anthony Young got a win over the Marlins, finally breaking his dubious losing streak. Amidst the voodoo dolls, good luck trinkets, and other knick-knacks AY received from Mets fans with the intent to change his luck, I like to think a letter of encouragement from a fellow struggling pitcher had a small part in helping him remove the zoo from his back.

A Wrestling Fan’s Review of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

Last month, Stageworks Theater in Tampa performed the wrestling themed play "The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity". Written by Kristoffer Diaz and locally directed by Karla Hartley, the play told the story of Macedonio Guerra, aka "The Mace", a technically sound wrestler who "does all the heavy lifting" for THE Wrestling.

Disclaimer: I had an indirect role in Stageworks Tampa's production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. I introduced the cast to local wrestlers who helped them with the nuances of pro wrestling psychology and they facilitated the acquisition of the ring the play was performed in.

Although other local writers saw "Chad Deity" as theater critics (see here and here), I went as a wrestling fan - even wearing my afro wig, as I do to wrestling matches. No matter how much I've watched and talked with wrestlers, I am and will always be just a fan. But that fandom has made me more knowledgeable about wrestling than I am about theater. As a matter of fact, there are many, many, things I am more knowledgeable about than theater. So what follows is, as the title states, a wrestling fan's review.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity takes place in a world that is part-present day WWE and part past-stereotype WWF. While theater fans may not know the difference, for wrestling fans, it means Chad Deity is entirely fiction and the storyline is unrealistic, even for wrestling, which hurts the play's overall message.

But I must digress for now, lest I blow the finish.

While theater fans might feel more comfortable with the social message Diaz was attempting to convey in "Chad Deity", wrestling fans are surely more familiar with the wrestling side of the play, particularly the interaction with the cast. By it's nature, wrestling is highly interactive athletic theater, where athlete action draws crowd reaction which then may drive more athlete action. One of the marks of a good wrestling match is how "in to it" the crowd is.

In "Chad Deity", the theater crowd becomes part of the show. They are told to suspend belief at certain points and cheer and boo as if they are at a wrestling show when the play's action is the wrestling matches. When the cast breaks kayfabe and speaks out of their wrestling character and in the voice of their play character, the audience breaks kayfabe as well - laughing, gasping, or clapping for the words or actions of Macedonio Guerra, and not "The Mace". They act as a typical audience to a performance would.

That dynamic makes The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety very unique. However, it brings to mind situations where wrestling crowds assume another level of fan consciousness. Wrestling crowds can either cheer along with the storyline - cheer the good guy or boo the bad guy - or they cheer the performance the wrestlers are putting on. Personally, I am not a fan of "this is awesome" or "this is wrestling" chants, but many fans feel the need to opine about the overall performance of the match, not the characters or situations in the ring.

While the audience watching The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity plays two roles: wrestling show crowd and play audience, some of the cast members are playing three or more roles. The actors portraying Macedonio Guerra and Vigneshwar Paduar play these characters and then assume the in-ring personas of "The Mace" and "Che Chavez Castro" for Guerra and "VP" and "The Fundamentalist" for Paduar. Their awareness of their wrestling character while in performance character gives the play a very "Tropic Thunder" feel. The performers are a dude playing a dude (Guerra) playing another dude (The Mace) then becoming another dude (Castro).

Thank goodness the play is written well enough to make sense of that.

That brings me back to the end of the play. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity concludes on a very inconclusive note, at least for a wrestling fan. In the final scene, we are told Macedonio Guerra dumped his heart out to an unseen wrestling crowd through a personal in-ring/in-event promo. After he finishes, crowd favorite Chad Deity enters the ring and powerbombs Guerra. The impression the theater audience gets is that Macedonio was put back in his place and Chad Deity - wrestling hero - would continue to be cheered.

But that doesn't make sense to a wrestling fan. Modern day wrestling fans would react as VP's neophyte girlfriend does: they would assume Deity is now playing the "corporate" heel role, holding down the hopes and dreams of a plucky, talented, aspiring, and honest wrestler. Modern wrestling fans admire honesty and hard work in their good guys. Bad guys cheat, lie, and do what they need to keep power.

In order to succeed in the "Chad Deity" world, The Mace would need to assume the Daniel Bryan role, someone management believes is unfit for the title, but the fans root for. I would be curious what Kristoffer Diaz believes happens in the next wrestling event. While theater fans leave the performance thinking Macedonio Guerra did not create his own story, wrestling fans know wrestling is perpetual, every moment can be incorporated into a storyline, and good eventually defeats evil, no matter what race, creed, or gender the good people are.

Modern fans want fairness to boil to the top of wrestling's scripted reality.

For a wrestling fan, Macedonio Guerra did create  his own story through the sacrifice of VP: The Mace became a face, and he will eventually have his own elaborate entrance. "The Fundamentalist" as a character becomes a prop not for THE Wrestling to reaffirm Chad Deity's All-American greatness, but for The Mace to break the fourth wall a la CM Punk in his famous promo rejecting WWE and Vince McMahon.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity isn't a perfect wrestling story. It is not The Wrestler. Chad Deity relies too much on past stereotypes of what wrestling was juxtaposed into the modern appearance of pro wrestling's corporate side while not understanding the social norms of modern professional wrestling. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity was first performed in 2010, and so much of wrestling's progressiveness has occurred in the last five years.

But the performance of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, when considered in its own alternate reality of wrestling's already alternate reality, is a fun experience. I would highly recommend checking it out if it is performed in your city.

I made a good tweet

I've been on twitter for about eight years. I have a little over 1,000 followers. I'm not a big time social media star. I tweet about the wide array of things that appeal to me or catch my eye.

A few people respond to me regularly, and I reply back to them.

Only three times in eight years have my tweets been circulated to the masses.

The first was a picture of me in an R2D2 costume from 1982. I tweeted that to @StarWars and they retweeted it to the rest of the galaxy.

The second time my tweet was heavily circulated was when I posted a Chuck D song about Muhammad Ali after Muhammad Ali died. Chuck D retweeted that to all the Public Enemy fans worldwide.

So it usually takes someone popular to push my tweets to the masses.

Last week, however, after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called President Trump's tone to the ex-FBI director "normal New York City conversation", I posted this:

As you can see, a lot of people interacted with this post. I was shocked. Granted, it's not millions or thousands and I am not asking for free nuggets, but nearly 200 retweets and over 600 likes for a joke isn't bad.

My theory is that the tweet jumped in popularity when Twitter posted it on their top tweets for the topic. If you went to the twitter home page, there was a headline of "New York City conversation". Clicking the headline brought you to dozens and dozens of tweets about the subject. As mine was pretty popular, it rose to the top, which then made it more popular. Twitter is weird like that.

So that's my most popular tweet to date. Mr. Met engaging in a normal New York City conversation.

5 Job Hunting Lessons Learned from Stand Up Comedy

Hello, Cleveland. It’s a pleasure to be here. My name is Michael Lortz and I was unemployed for over two years. Fortunately, I performed stand-up comedy during that time, which didn’t help me find a job or pay my bills, but it did help me find humor in my predicament.

When I started comedy, I read books on stand-up, I watched videos, and I tried to study my way into being funny. Some provided interesting insight and basic guidelines – the rule of three, for example – but most articles on “how to be funny” are clickbait to build someone’s reputation and provide them a byline on another website.

To use the comic parlance, it is “hack” material.

When I was unemployed, I read articles on finding a job, I watched videos, and I tried to study my way into employment. Some provided interesting insight and basic guidelines – use a professional email address, for example – but most articles on “how to find a job” are clickbait to build someone’s reputation and provide them a byline on another website.

See what I did there? More than everything you need to know about finding a job has been written, re-written, and recycled even within the same articles.

In comedy, the community tends to police itself when it comes to original material. The police have long been absent from the cottage industry of online job advice.

The problem wouldn’t be so bad if the articles gave good advice. But they don’t. Too often, the advice is blandly generic, like sugar-free, low-carb, gluten-reduced vanilla frozen yogurt. Or the advice contradicts other advice columns.

• Be creative in a resume / Don’t be creative in a resume


• Start with an objective / Start with a summary of experience


• Don’t go over one page / Don’t go over two pages


• Use your real name / Call yourself “Mark Zuckerberg”

It is enough to make a job seeker want to walk out mid-show.

Ironically, the best advice I learned in my job hunt came from comedy. Five simple ideas applicable to any job, any resume, and any career.

1. Know Your Audience

This is extremely important. Know who you are speaking in front of. Is it a Jeff Foxworthy audience or a Katt Williams audience? Is it an older crowd or a younger crowd? Maybe it’s an office party. Maybe you are on stage in room full of drunken Hell’s Angels.

The same applies in the job hunt. Are you trying to impress a Fortune 500 financial institution? If so, the Slayer shirt and nose ring might not be the way to go. A suit and tie might be a better option. But if you have an interview with a hip upstart app developer, they might be impressed with your “Han Shot, Period” shirt.

Likewise with your resume. Will it be read by a creative audience? Or will it be seen by recruiters and hiring managers who wouldn’t know creativity if it tagged them on LinkedIn?

2. Know Yourself

This is also very important.

I’m not an astronaut. I’m not an NBA superstar. I’m also not a truck driver nor a lawyer. These might seem like simple facts, but I would never apply for these positions, no matter how cool they are. I’d have no chance of landing them.

If I wanted a job that I am currently not qualified for, there are some skills I could learn quickly – like learning a new comedy bit. But learning takes time. It is an investment. Some things, such as me being an astronaut, will never happen. I know I am too far behind the career curve to reach the moon. So even if there was an opening at NASA or Space-X for astronauts, applying would be a waste of my time.

3. Know Your Peers and Meet Those Who Have Achieved More Than You

Few comics ever make it completely on their own. Most arise from the bowels of the open mic circuit with the help of their peers and support from more established comics who take them under their wing and give them a hand or a leg up.

Job seekers should also network, know their peers, and look for advice from those who are where they aspire to be. Not everyone is a good lead, a good connection, or a good source of information. Some people are more helpful than others. Some people are jerks.

Ideally, those in whatever field you want to be in will help you better craft a resume or give you specific job seeking advice. That’s ideal if you ever want to stop reading generic career advice columns.

4. Use What You Know to Fill the Needs of Your Audience

Not everyone is LeBron James. As a matter of fact, only LeBron James is LeBron James. But LeBron is just a small spoke in a very big wheel that is the business of the NBA. LeBron doesn’t work in accounting, he doesn’t work in stadium operations, and he is not in janitorial services. He works in the basketball department. He even wears a uniform with his name on it, just like millions of other workers in America.

If LeBron applied for an accounting position, he might not get the job. Likewise if he applied to be an astronaut or a truck driver. But when he filed for the NBA draft and applied for the position of basketball player, he played to his strengths and experience. Basketball is LeBron’s talent.

You should approach job seeking like Jay-Z. You have to sling your talent like rocks. Hustle to sell your skills to someone who can use them so you can get paid, pay your rent, and live. The better reputation you develop, the better the chances your skills find a home so you can afford a home.

You may be tempted to stretch your skills to fit a role that barely fits you, especially when your job search seems endless. But just because LeBron James scores points, doesn’t mean he should apply to operate the scoreboard.

5. Not All Advice is Created Equal

Every comic has friends who say “I have a joke for you …” or “You should write a joke about this.”.

Good advice when people don’t understand your direction is like finding a needle in a haystack, or job on monster.com, whichever you prefer. Likewise, far too many job seeking gurus have equally irrelevant advice. The biggest difference is that job gurus should know better. Unfortunately, bad advice is their job.

In the online content business, it is quantity over quality. People write just to get bylines, credits, and page views. Most career columnists are daft with the fads, while piddily with the particulars. How are they going to help you in your job seeking journey if they are trying to appeal to the magic god of page views and ad revenue?

Speaking of, here I am hoping to get page views on an advice column warning about other advice columns. I think that’s pretty funny.

(This post was originally published on my LinkedIn page.)

Understanding Women - The Amazing Video

A little over a year ago, I had an interesting conversation with a female friend. Over the course of an hour, she discussed two guys: one, a male friend who was acting clingy and the other, her boyfriend who was acting like an asshole.

After our conversation, it dawned on me that these two male behaviors are on far ends of the same spectrum and she, a normal woman, was turned off by both. So I drew a line. Then I filled in the rest of the chart. Before I knew it, I had a model that could be used to predict behavior - to an extent, of course.

I like to say this chart is in the same school as the Hot/Crazy Matrix that took the internet by storm a few years ago, but it is a different class.

After I memorized it, I showed this chart to several female friends, bartenders, and servers. They were all impressed. Which made me think I was on to something.

Unfortunately, I drew it out for the woman who inspired it after we spent a day drinking. Telling her why I drew it didn't sit very well with her. Sorry to say it might be one of the reasons we aren't friends anymore. But enough of that story ...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring to you, after months of tinkering and designing it just right, "Understanding Women" (aka "The Guy's Guide to a Woman's Interest").



Please let me know what you think!

Work or write: The Creative Conundrum

A few weeks ago, there was a huge tiff in the online creative writing community. According to reports, well-known author Diana Gabaldon advised aspiring writers not to major in English. In response to a tweet asking her advice on the career path of an author, the author of the Outlander series wrote:

English major = “Want fries with that?” . Pick something that will give you enough money to write what you want. https://t.co/MQ52HSzZCl

— Diana Gabaldon (@Writer_DG)

Gabalbon's comment spurred all sorts of hubbub among writers. From reports, it also offended some food service workers. So as someone who worked at McDonalds, then years later received degree in English/Creative Writing from an award winning and highly acclaimed university program, here are my two cents:

Even without the first sentence, Gabaldon is 100% correct. Majoring in English or Creative Writing is a useless endeavor if one aspires to be a writer. Writers write. They write on napkins, on scrap paper, and on the back of receipts. They write when inspiration hits them. They don't need to go to school for that.

Writers without degrees can still be self-published, freelance, submit to publishers, and network like hell. Go to book fairs. Meet writers, publishers, and literary agents. Organize writers' groups. Use local/social media to your advantage. Work the field to get your name out there. It is difficult to do, but it is no different than any local rock band, spoken word poet, or underground hip-hop artist.

While most creative people said their feelings were hurt by Gabaldon's comments, but they would survive, even if it meant not reading her work anymore, one reply really stuck in my craw. It was personally insulting and to use the modern parlance, I was almost "offended".

Tim Chevalier, aka "@fatneckbeardguy" wrote a long diatribe on twitter about how his lifelong dream of being a writer was crushed by the heavy weight of becoming a computer programmer, a career choice he never wanted.

It is over 1,000 words of the biggest load of whining and bullshit I have ever read.

I have a computer science degree and thus all the money I want and no emotional energy left after work for writing. If I'd majored in English (like 13-year-old me wanted) I wouldn't have gone down the path of lots of money and spiritual/artistic vacuity.

This is not his career's fault. It is his, and his alone. He let the weight of his job crush his creativity. Don't blame the game, blame the player. He lost the will to create.

I've worked and created on the side for over 10 years. While in Afghanistan, I worked 15 hours a day over 8,000 miles from home in a warzone. I missed my family and friends and I was doing the most stressful work of my life. But I still found the time to write over 200 pages of my first novel in that year. Why? Because I needed to. Writing was my escape. I didn't watch movies or go to the gym. I wrote. I wrote to escape. I wrote to create my own world.  For an hour or two every night, I would be in the world of my characters.

So the bullshit that a job as a computer programmer leaves someone with no emotional energy to write is an excuse. That's all it is, a flimsy cop-out. You write when you feel the need to. If you don't have a passion for it, then it's not your job's fault. It's yours.

Chevalier then goes on a tangent about getting trapped in the working world.

Anyway, once you get into industry, you realize the real day-to-day work isn't much fun, or that there are fun things about it but not the ones you anticipated, and a whole lot of soul-sucking baggage that's the price of both the fun and the money, but by then the money has you trapped.

More bullshit. Sure, paying bills sucks and if you have a passion for a big house and a fancy car, you might have to work some 12-hour days. That's life. But that doesn't mean you can't still create. Money doesn't trap you. A job doesn't even trap you. Throughout every job I've had - from military deployments to 9-to-5 daily grinds - I wrote. I made youtube videos. I performed comedy. I ran around town with an afro wig. I found time.

Then there is this beautiful nugget of self-defeatism - an admission Chevalier gave up.

We -- as in, we adults who've had our dreams beaten out of us -- terrorize kids with a lot of fear-mongering about starving artists and starving musicians. The truth is that artists and musicians have always found ways to survive in a world hostile to art, so long as they're lucky enough to get taught that the shame of not being affluent must be avoided at all costs.

You can be affluent and creative at the same time. It is entirely possible. You can be Bruce Wayne during the day and Batman at night. You can work and do open-mics. You can freelance for newspapers. You can stop at Starbucks on the way home and write a page of poetry in a notebook.

So while part of me knows it's not too late, part of me is too busy grieving over all the time I lost to be able to make a new plan.

By the end of his post, with its whiny story about being unable to read Bruce Springsteen's autobiography, I didn't know whether Chevalier was playing his readers, was this sad, or was trying to make up for lost writing time by piling on the melodrama.

What you do want is time to spend doing the work that makes you feel whole.

Again, I wrote fiction and comedy in a warzone because I mentally needed to.

But in case I am a bad example for Chevalier - perhaps my burning desire to create is superhuman and beyond his capacity - here is another example of someone who toiled all day and then used his spare time to create:

In the early 20th century, there was a young patent officer in Germany who was married with a child. He worked 8 hours a day examining inventions for patentability. Then he went home and he wrote. He claimed his life was divided into 8 hours of working, 8 hours of writing, and 8 hours of sleeping.

According to one source:

Even the hours he had to keep at the patent office worked against him. By the time he got off for the day, the one science library in Bern was usually closed. How would he have a chance if he couldn't even stay up to date with the latest findings? When he did have a few free moments during the day, he would scribble on sheets he kept in one drawer of his desk—which he jokingly called his department of theoretical physics.

That writer was Albert Einstein, perhaps the smartest man of our time. Einstein eventually wrote his findings, submitted them, and was published in the esteemed scientific journals of the day. The rest is history.

Here is advice for Chevalier and all others who have crumbled under the weight of their own creative regret: Instead of complaining, challenge yourself. Sign up for Nanowrimo. Write 1,000 words a night. Write 100 words a night. Write a haiku. Close twitter, close facebook, and write.

From the rest of Chevalier's tweets, I'm thinking he might reply with "here is a straight, capitalist-supporting, white man telling people how to think and live". If so, that's another cop-out and an attempt to lean on a victim complex.

But as an English major whose desire to never again work at McDonalds led me to national security jobs and graduate schools, and someone who still wrote a novel, composed thousands of blog posts, freelanced for newspapers, and performed stand-up comedy, I have skin in this debate.

To sum, majoring in English/Creative Writing isn't the smartest thing to do if you want to write. It's not even the smartest thing to do if you want to make money creating. Applying for jobs with an English degree requires explanation how you can take those skills and apply them. Recruiters and hiring managers are not usually smart enough to derive useful skills from unconventional backgrounds. Hence, they usually pass on resumes that require exposition. Majoring in something tangible - media, marketing, or public relations all have writing elements - will catch the attention of hiring managers and recruiters.

To college students everywhere, make your future job hunt and life easier, keep English/Creative Writing as a minor and write and promote your writing in your spare time, but major in something more tangible.

To Tim Chevalier, I hope you find the time to one day reach your dreams. Cheers.