Writing

Thoughts on failure

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about making college and career choices. It was a response to an email I received from a previous student resident of mine, asking my opinion about making college decisions, choosing a major, and building up a life plan. In my response, I talked about failure:

“Failures are not failures, they are successes. If you spent five years learning about something and trying it out and realizing that it’s not for you, it is NOT A FAILURE. You’ve learned, analyzed, grown, deliberated, decided – and chances are you have acquired some useful skills along the way. A failure means that you’ve tried. Appreciate the opportunities you have to explore, learn, and practice. Even if you change your mind again in five years, you’ll still have learned about how to communicate, practiced business, budgeting, managed projects, made friends and new contacts, etc. The list never ends.”

I want to expand on this idea of “failure.” Wikipedia defines failure as “the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.”

I find myself wondering, why is failure such a bad thing? Why is there such a stigma regarding failure, and why do we discourage ourselves from starting, trying, or fixing things because we’re afraid that in doing so, we might fail? I tend to disagree with latter half of the Wikipedia definition – a failure may result in not meeting our desired objectives, yes, but it is most certainly not the opposite of success.

Some further thoughts regarding the idea of “failure,” in no particular order:

The only failure – ever – is a failure to try. The most lingering disappointments, I find, are from opportunities that I’ve ignored or challenges that I’ve declined to embrace. The tough stuff is what teaches us about ourselves, expands our life experiences, and allows us to change and grow.

To try – and to “fail” – is to FALL, not to FAIL. To try, no matter how unsuccessfully, is to learn.  You might consider the opposite of failing rather as “falling.” That is, sometimes we fall flat on our face. We go all-in, back to the wall, in-it-to-win-it to succeed. And we fall short. Way short sometimes. This is not a failure. The more gutsy the attempt, the more admirable the fall.

Falling is hard. It’s embarrassing, discouraging, and scary to fall — and it can be downright hard. But being in the trenches, learning, is what leads to future successes. Every step forward gives you the chance to learn and to grow. We get feedback on how we are doing, we learn more about ourselves, and we discover our capabilities. And, if we’re lucky, we know better (albeit somewhat painfully) what steps we need to take to improve our performance for the next time.

Learning takes time. A friend of mine had the best advice – it’s now a favorite quote of mine:  “When you learned to walk and talk, it didn’t all go well at first .. at least for a while. We’re silly human people and we need to practice things before we do them well.”

The concept “failure” happens when our expectations are not in line with our effort. We feel “failure” most poignantly when our expectations are not in line with our effort. At times, you may find yourself faced with the harsh reality that what you’ve expected or anticipated hasn’t turned out how you thought it would.  The bigger the discrepancy, the more uncomfortable and disappointing the failure can be.  By not recognizing the steep learning curves around us, we can become discouraged by our lack of expected success.  “Success” takes more than belief, courage, and hope: it also takes hard work, effort, and often incredible amounts of perseverance and energy.

Focus on the positive, even during downturns. Be thankful for chances, opportunities, and challenges. Even if you hate your job, are stuck in a terrible relationship, are a million miles away from your home, or undergoing an arduous challenge, there are still positives. You have your job. You are exploring and you are learning. You are meeting new people. You are stretching the bounds of what you know, how you perform, and what you can be. And thus, my last random quote on failure:

“There’s nothing more to live your life by, that wake up each day and say yes, this I will try.”

And thus, I am thankful for failure, thankful for falling, thankful for opportunities. I’ve learned to walk, talk, and read. For now, I can only ask: What’s next?

Thoughts On Negativity And Fear

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Yesterday I felt my negative attitude — towards my job, my career stumbles, and my unfinished projects — slipping away. I had several days of negativity cloud me, follow me, and I couldn’t shake it. I was scared, I was worried, I was afraid. I felt like nothing was going right.

And today, I woke up happy to be alive and excited to go to work. I felt free, finally, knowing that I could change my thoughts just by acknowledging them. It was as if yesterday I finally turned around, said hello to Mister Negative, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind leaving me alone for a bit.

Negative attitudes can have a gripping, corrosive quality to them. If you wake up each day and say to yourself, “My life sucks,” or “I hate my job,” or any other number of discouraging, depressing phrases, you’ve got a problem with a negative attitude in your life. I spent several days avoiding the emotion, and it didn’t work. It turns out: I needed to address them to figure them out.

I’ll digress with a short story from my years in college and high school athletics. (Non-sports fans, bear with me.)  In my college years, I was a swimmer. At one of our year-end critical team meets, I found myself standing behind the blocks, wearing my slick shark-skin swimsuit, goggles strapped tightly around my head, and for some reason I couldn’t stop shaking. I had a thought running over and over through my brain: that I was going to lose. I was so obsessed with–and worried about–the idea of losing and failing, that I forgot to think about my race strategy, my love of competition, or my excitement about the opportunity at hand. Fear had gripped me so tightly that I was sweating, and repeating the same thought over and over in my head, to my own destruction. “I don’t want to lose.”

In sports, they say that fear is only your enemy when you let it take over your actions. Fear and negativity can only control you when you let it take charge of your actions and your behaviors. In the pool, I was trained to look fear in the eye, acknowledge its presence, and be honest with myself about why it was there. Often, the best path to overcoming fear and negativity is by taking a good hard look at it. As soon as you look it in the face, it seems smaller–less important– sillier. Fear often grabs us with an idea that we can’t control–and in this case, I couldn’t control whether or not I won or lost, because even if I did my absolute best, someone else could be better than me. My competitors seemed huge, unbeatable.

And when I realized that I wasn’t looking at Fear, but I was hiding from Fear, I remembered that I had the power. And then I stopped shaking. I looked at Fear through my pink metallic goggles and I said to Fear, “What is it that you are afraid of?” And meekishly, I heard Fear say back, “I’m afraid of losing.”

It continued: “I am afraid of doing a bad job. And… I think that if I don’t try, then it won’t matter if I lose.”

And just like that, my rational mind said to Fear: “Well, if you don’t try, you can’t win, either.”

And I felt fear sit down and think about that.

The coach from the other team leaned over the rails. He looked at me and looked over at the tall, lanky swimmer next to me. I saw him pointing at me, and then yelling advice to the other swimmer. He yelled “Just stay with her for the first two laps!” I looked at her and I looked back at the blocks in front of me. I snapped my goggles in place, stepped up on the blocks and thought to myself, “Just you try to keep up with me, lady.” My feet exploded off of the blocks.

But back to the office. (It’s much less thrilling than racing and competing.) And what does this story have to do with an office job? When we’re confronted with negative thoughts and feelings–and there are very few people I know who haven’t dealt with fear and negativity–sometimes the best thing we can do is sit down with the emotion.

I had let fear and worry–about my imperfections, my lack of knowledge, unknown job security– take over my ability to do a good job at work. As with sports, fear and negativity in the office can only control you when you let them take charge of your actions and your behaviors. Afraid of doing a bad job at work? Worried about getting a raise? Nervous about the presentation you have to give? Look it in the eye. Acknowledge it, and ask it why it’s visiting.

Often, saying hello is all we need to figure out how to proceed.

The Last Lecture: Golden Gems from Randy Pausch

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

If you found out you only had 6 more months to live, what would you want your legacy to be? What would you tell your friends, your family, and your loved ones?  We all wonder what our memories will be, and what thoughts, values, and ideas we will leave behind should we suddenly be faced with the end of our lives.

For Randy Pausch, professor at Carnegie Mellon and father to 3 kids (age 18 months, 3, and 6 at the time of his writing), The Last Lecture is his response to his sudden diagnosis with terminal cancer in 2008. Just a short time before he passed away, Pausch delivered a powerful lecture that reached an extensive audience, ultimately reprinting his “last lecture” as the best selling book by the same name. Re-reading his book, I find his collection of thoughts and tidbits are timeless and valuable. These are my favorite Randy Pausch quotes, by topic:

On challenges and overcoming adversity: “The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”

He was also a fan of saying,”Cherish your Dutch Uncles.”  This expression refers to a person who gives you honest feedback. These people “help us recalibrate ourselves” by showing us who we really are. The best teachers are those that push us, that demand excellence, and perhaps make us squirm a bit. Cherish these teachers – they make us better people.

Also, remember that in times of adversity, you still have control.  “No matter how bad things are, you can always make them worse. At the same time, it is often within your power to make them better.”

On life balance, and time management: Here’s what I know,” he says, in sharing his advice and wisdom: “Time must be explicitly managed, like money,” “You can always change your plan, but only if you have one,” and  “the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.”

On careers, life, and happiness: Respond and listen to things that give you what he refers to as a “visceral urge” – pay attention to the things you like, and be honest with yourself about them.  Pausch loved Disneyland, and wanted nothing more than to be an Imagineer.  He followed his dream – ultimately doing a sabbatical with Disneyland and becoming an Imagineer for a few months.

As an educator, he would always tell his students that “smart isn’t enough.”  In addition to being intelligent and well-educated, to succeed, you have to be a team player, help other people out, and make other people happy to be there with you.

When the going gets tough?  “Experience,” he says, “is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

On people: “When we are connected to others, we become better people,” and remember, you should “always be a team player.”

On complaining: “Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I’ve always believed that if you took one-tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things turn out.”

On failing: If you are going to fail, fail big. He rewarded his students for taking challenges, attempting hard things, and being fearless of failure. He created a “glorious failure” award – which he dubbed “The Last Penguin Award,” – dedicated to “the notion that when penguins are about to jump into the water that might contain predators, well, somebody’s got to be the first penguin.”

Randy Pausch epitomizes “living a full life” — and throughout the book, I nearly cry (every time!) over the sadness of a father knowing that he has to leave his wife, kids, and jobs behind at too early an age. His wisdom fills up a small little book – worth picking up as a bookshelf reminder of how to get what we want, figuring out what’s worth it, and how to live life a little bit better each day.

Carlos Almendárez: Project Director, Bay Area Community Resources

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Carlos Almendárez, a 2003 graduate of UC Berkeley, is the Project Director for Bay Area Community Resources (BACR). He oversees 12 after-school programs for San Francisco Unified School District. His passion for sports, education, community involvement, and work-life balance led him to a job that he loves – working with students, people, and sports. In this interview, he talks about finding the career you love, why he chose not to pursue graduate school, and the value experience plays in finding the right career.

What is your education and background?

I’d like to think my story is pretty different. I was born in Los Angeles, California. English was my second language (Spanish being first). My parents were Salvadorian immigrants who came to this country with very little education. I was raised by a single mother and never really met my father.

In college, I studied history with a focus on modern US and Latin American political movements. I took a course from Leon Litwack, a Pulitzer Prize winning professor, who inspired me to pursue History as a major.

Tell me more about the company that you work for and your field of expertise.

Bay Area Community Resources (BACR), founded in 1976, promotes the healthy development of individuals, families and communities through direct services, volunteerism and partnerships in the San Francisco Bay Area. My area of expertise is in management of after-school programs. I am involved in hiring of staff, staff development, grant writing, program development and technical support for after school programs.

How did you decide to get into this field?

In high school I was driven by my desire to be a lawyer. I did all the things I thought a lawyer should do – I was on the speech and debate team in college and had an internship at the District Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

My sophomore year, I needed a few units and saw a sign for a mentoring program at a nearby middle school in Berkeley that needed volunteers. This was my solution. I was a part of the Youth Support Program (YSP) until I graduated in 2003. After my time at YSP it was clear to me that I LOVED working with students and derived great satisfaction from helping others, especially low-income and academically at-risk students.

One thing that always helped me stay out of trouble as a kid was sports. I played soccer, basketball and football as and stayed out of enough serious trouble to do well in school. My goal was to provide an outlet for inner city youth through the one thing I loved: sports.

What was your first job out of college? How did you end up at BACR?

My first job out of college was a reflection of who I was. I decided to combine the two things I loved the most: working with youth and sports. I signed up to work with a non-profit organization called Sports4kids (now called Playworks). Playworks is a “national nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy and inclusive play and physical activity to schools at recess and throughout the entire school day.”

How did the job search in college compare to your peers?

As a college grad you have so many options and so many questions to ask yourself: Do you want money? Do you want a title? Do you want to be fulfilled? Figuring out what job led to what was difficult. I went into the nonprofit world knowing I wouldn’t get paid much. but convinced I would love every day of it. I did and I have never looked back.

A rigorous college education taught me to work well under pressure, to multitask, and also gave me the ability to look beyond what is obvious. While the nonprofit world is motivated by passion and caring, a solid college education will help you advance in your career.

Did you do any advanced training or graduate work to prepare yourself for this field?

While I’m an educator, I chose to not pursue graduate school. For one, I felt the cost was prohibitive given the profession I am in. Had I gone into law I could have justified the expense given the income, but in the nonprofit sector I couldn’t see spending $50,000 for a year of school when my income wouldn’t support such an expense. I also realized that experience is much more valuable than a degree in my particular setting. My goal was to learn from very able mentors and rise through the ranks. I tend to believe that our generation is overeducated and under-experienced.

What does your job look like on a daily basis? What do you “do”?

The beauty of my current position is that the “box” does not exist. I am constantly looking for ways to improve program, help staff or troubleshoot problems. Since I work with 12 schools and many partner organizations I could be in a meeting at SF State or Berkeley or on opposite sides of town on any given day.

I directly supervise 12 full time staff and indirectly oversee 70 part time staff. I work about 50 hours a week, but have the flexibility to have some of those hours be on the weekend and in the evenings when need be.

I’m a multi-tasker so I enjoy the idea of being at many places and not having one day look like the other. For the most part I manage my own time. Personality-wise, I have never been the type of person that enjoys being told what to do. The best work environment for me is having a knowledgeable and supportive supervisor who believes in my judgment and ability and lets me produce without micro-managing.

What is unique about your job that you didn’t otherwise anticipate while in school?

My career is different than my educational experience in that UC Berkeley was a very competitive place and the nonprofit sector is not. I actually think this is a downside to the nonprofit sector – a lack of competition and corporate-style execution. I have encountered many nonprofits that are far too nonchalant in their operations and I feel could benefit a bit from an increased sense of urgency.

Is there anything you wish you had learned about your field while you were in school?

I recently read an article that discussed how schools help to think about money and prestige upon graduation. That was certainly the case at my school. Senior year people sat around discussing the firms they were going to work for, signing bonuses and things of that nature. I don’t think the school or the culture really forces to students to think about quality of life and impact we have on our community. I was confident that my work would make me happy and at the same time help others around me.

What are your favorite things about your job?

For starters, I love waking up and knowing that my work will help improve the community. I love knowing that I work for an organization that is supportive of me and allows me a work/life balance which allows me to pursue my hobbies and spend time with my friends and family. Lastly, I enjoy knowing that our work will help to inspire a future generation of leaders. In all the years I’ve worked in education I’ve seen many students go to college and start to make an impact in their communities. I’m always proud to know that in some very small way I helped them reach their potential.

What does “work-life balance” mean to you, and how do you maintain a work-life balance?

I love this question. Work-life balance means knowing that your work does not get in the way of your happiness. The balance is in knowing you can raise a family, pursue hobbies or be able to execute your job without it having an adverse affect on the things that make you feel complete as a person.

Personally, my job allows me the flexibility to be away on the weekends so I can visit family in Los Angeles, compete in races, travel across the US, and see my family. It’s something I am extremely grateful for and would never give up in exchange for a higher salary.

What advice do you have for recent college grads and new employees? Any words of encouragement or advice to offer?

In my years counseling high school students I would always ask: what do you love to do?

Based on this answer – go in that direction. Don’t sell yourself by pursuing that you are not passionate about. If you love to play sports, work in that field. I loved sports all my life and it brings a lot of happiness to my life and I chose to coach children at the elementary level. I loved inspiring young people to pursue education and every day I find myself creating opportunities for youth to connect with their schools and communities.

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To learn more about Bay Area Community Resources, or learn more about Carlos’ experiences, contact Sarah or visit the BACR website.

“Professional Focus” is a series of interviews with young professionals in San Francisco exploring different job fields and the journey from academia into the working world. Previous interviews have covered Pharmaceutical Consulting, Sports Medicine, and Web Development and Technology Consulting.

‘The Art of Choosing’: Too much choice?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

“We all have dreams, big and small, about how our lives will unfold,” Psychologist Sheena Iyengar says, in describing her book The Art of Choosing. “What will I become, we each ask ourselves. What job will I have? What career will I choose?” she narrates in a recent Webinar discussing her popular book.

In describing the array of choices available to young adults today, Iyengar discusses the human desire for choice and control, the decision processes that guide our particular choices, and the paralyzing and sometimes damaging side effects of living in a society that perhaps has too much choice.

Too much choice? Is there such a thing? In a society that prides itself on “The American Dream” and luxury of options, is choice ever a bad thing?

Iyengar’s most famous research includes her storefront jam studies, where she demonstrates that given more options (24 types of jams), people were actually less likely to make a decision about what they liked, and were more likely to feel worry and doubt whatever decision they finally made. In contrast, when given only 6 options of jams, customers were more likely to select a favorite, to be happy with their selection, and then continue into the store to purchase one of the jam varieties. She went on to show that the average human tolerance for options is 7 things – plus or minus 2. That is, if there are 7 styles of jeans in a store, you will be more likely to purchase one of those seven styles if you are in the need of jeans. If there are more than 7 styles, you are much more likely to leave without purchasing anything. The options overwhelm the decision process.

(The exception to this cognitive limitation, however, is the fact that people can train and become specialized in particular complex decision making processes. The more studied you are in any particular area, the greater the number of options you may be able to tolerate. But this does not translate into excellent decision making ability with regards to everything; this applies only to your respective areas of knowledge and expertise. Are we to become experts about everything to over come this cognitive limitation?)

She further suggests that the fundamental need for choice is flawed: that is, we are conditioned to believe that if we have more options, we will be happier. “If we can just choose the right thing, we will ultimately be happy.” She questions the idea that more choice is equivalent to more happiness. “Choice is the big idea we turn to – whenever we come up against our limitations,” she says. “We believe if we play our cards right, we can choose our way to happiness.” Is this accurate?

Iyengar points out that most people don’t actually know what they want. There is a lot of pressure to know who you are, what you want, and make decisions in your life that align with what you want. In today’s world – particularly in America – people have an overwhelming number of choices to be made. People are free to choose their careers, spouses, colleges, fields of study, type of employment, where to travel, what to watch on TV, when and how to exercise, who to vote for, and what type of car to buy. The average grocery store reflects this abundance of options (30 types of toothpase and 100 options of cereal in 20 different aisle), and the online world offers exponentially more options for us if we can only research enough. “With all of this choice,” Iyengar says, “how do we figure out what we want?”

Iif you don’t know what you want, and you have a dizzying array of options to choose from, how is choice helpful? She suggests that having too many options can be detrimental to our health and happiness.

The ‘art’ of choosing, then, is the deliberate choice to make decision-making easier for yourself by getting out of choices that are not important. “Be choosy about choosing,” she says. Focus only on the choices that domatter, and spend very little time on the choices that don’t matter. Does it matter if you eat one cereal or the other? Probably not. In fact, this is likely the reason why you eat the same cereal – because you no longer need to stand in the aisle deliberating the choices in front of you. You can grab your Raisin Bran, move on, and get home to your favorite TV show (which, having pre-selected, you also no longer need to think about.)

For more complex decisions, such as purchasing a car, buying a home, or selecting your college major, Iyengar suggests “starting shallow” and building your preferences through simpler, easier to make decisions. If you are purchasing a computer, for example, you may start with the choice “PC or MAC.” Your next choice may be “laptop or desktop.”

(One would wonder if particular firms like Apple have perfected this choice heuristic: Rather than 52 varieties of the ipod, there are 5 types. The biggest choice you may have to make (after asking “do I want an ipod or not?”) is probably what color you are going to get. And wouldn’t you know it – there are 9 color options. If you’ve ever been the person to feel overwhelmed, lost and confused in a Best Buy store or a Car Dealership, it’s probably because the number of choices in front of you is overwhelming. How can you possibly pick out a camera from 100 options? The process seems daunting, exhausting. The apple store, however, is cleverly designed to present a seemingly simple set of choices for the untrained, while also offering many more subtle layers of options for the more devoted apple fans.)

Many decisions can also be made easier by eliminating unnecessary clutter around the decision making process and reducing the decision to the few components that actually matter. Finally, you can rely on networks or friends you trust. You can save yourself energy in the decision making process by subscribing to networks, magazines, and listening to your friends’ opinions. In some cases, you might end up happier being more naive in your decision making process – perhaps only spending a few minutes of research – because you made the decision.

In the face of daunting decision to be made, and an overwhelming amount of information at our fingertips, we must learn to be choosy about choosing. And that, she says, is the art of choosing.

Jump start your next project: If not you, then who?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Today was a typical day at the office. There is a challenging task ahead of me, a pile of work on the desk, an application to be put together and several meetings to attend.

At home it’s the same story: there are several backlogs of articles needing to be written, stuff to do to catch up on “life,” friends to visit, and a side project that I’ve been letting slide for quite a few months. Tonight I hesitated when pulling up the document on my computer, dreading the task of “more” work in the wee hours of the night, even though in the long run I really am excited about my project.

I sat against the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of water and staring off into space. I usually close up early and head to bed, putting the project off “until tomorrow.”

But a trusty quote I haven’t heard in a while popped in my head as a reminder to get started:

If not now, then when?
If not you, then who?

We hear all the time, “Don’t ‘should’ all over yourself,” “Stop putting pressure on yourself to do more,” and “You already have everything that you need.” These quotes are reliable motivators that help us get through the week, to take the pressure off our backs, and to let us breathe, relax, and enjoy the spaces between deadlines and dreams.  I am a huge advocate for a balanced life and taking a break from work. In many cases, these mantras help us get more work done by reducing our stress load and increasing our productivity.

Some days, however, we need to kick it up a notch. Remind ourselves of what we want to accomplish and what our long-term goals are. On these days, I hear my old varsity coach in my ear, whispering:

If not NOW, then WHEN?

If you’re not going to start now, when will you start? If your dream is a tomorrow dream, when does today become tomorrow? When does “when” become right now? If you wait until the time is right, you may never start. Get up behind the starting blocks, get into the grind, and dedicate right now to your dreams.

There are huge, daunting, terrifying tasks and goals we have, and sometimes we put them on the back burner because of insecurities, fears, or worries we have – about our capabilities, about our dreams, about failing, about being able to live up to the people that we want to be. There’s a safety in staying put, in living the status quo, and being who we are today – because it’s familiar and comfortable.

The other unfortunate thing about putting our dreams on hold is that too often we see people who have done or are doing what we’ve dreamed of – and we think to ourselves, man, I wanted to do that.  Maybe you had a brilliant idea for reorganizing search engine capabilities (google) or setting up a social networking site (facebook) or making an application for organizing data better, or creating a franchise of corner coffee shops (starbucks, peet’s, etc). And maybe someone has already done it. Maybe multiple people have done it. And again I hear my coach saying to me:

If not YOU, then WHO?

If you don’t do it, someone else probably will. Everyone has a mix of opportunities, challenges, and setbacks that present themselves to us on any given day. The people who make it look easy have put in the hard work, day in and day out, and figured it out. The perfect scenario doesn’t exist, and if you’re waiting for it, you may be waiting in vain. If it’s not you, then it may be someone else.

Make it you.

Blink Tag, Inc: On starting your own web / technology company

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

This interview, with Brendan Nee and Jed Horne of Blink Tag Inc, focuses on web development, technology consulting, and starting your own company right out of school. Blink Tag is a startup company that specializes in web development, transportation and city planning websites, graphic design, and web consulting.

Brendan and Jed did their graduate programs at UC Berkeley. Following their 2008 graduation, they launched and founded their own company, BlinkTag Inc, departing from the typical career trajectory of Master’s Candidates in City Planning. Prior to their graduate work, Brendan studied Civil Engineering at University of Minnesota and Jed studied in Civil Engineering and Public Policy at MIT.

Let’s start with America’s favorite question: what do you do?

J: Brendan and I are co-owners and founders of BlinkTag, Inc., a small startup that provides technology and web application consulting for public agencies and companies in the fields of city planning, transportation, and real estate.

B: We manage a web development and technology consulting firm that specializes in working with transportation and city planning websites.

Where do you work? Do you have your own office?

B: We built an office on the second floor of a converted Auto Trim shop. It’s a live/work space with a lot of flexibility.

How did you get into this field?

J: I was always pretty good at math and science, and started out college wanting to be a physicist. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that that was way too weird a thing to do, and that I wanted to concentrate on slightly more grounded questions in the field of urban policy. If I had to do it over again or to recommend a course of study to someone with similar interests, I probably would have majored in economics.

B: I have an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and a Master’s in Transportation Engineering. I got interested in transportation after working for an airline and traveling all over the world in my spare time.

Did you do any advanced training or graduate work to prepare yourself for this field?

J: I went to graduate school right after undergrad, which was probably a mistake in retrospect, since I dropped out after only a single semester. I think my motivation at that time was the wrong kind: I didn’t know what to do with myself after college aside from continuing on with what I had been doing for the past four years.

I returned to the program two years later, after working in the research department of a commercial real estate firm. What brought me back to school was seeing my hometown of New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina – I was able to talk my way back into UC Berkeley on the condition that I spend a semester back home researching the rebuilding process, and that research became my graduate thesis.

B: I went straight from undergrad to graduate school: I wasn’t done being a student. Moving to the Bay Area for graduate school was a big change. San Francisco has a lot to offer, great climate, food and lots of interesting neighborhoods. It’s easier to meet people who have technical skills, which has really helped us find great employees and collaborators.

Was there a pivotal moment during school, during an internship, or during a conversation with someone that led you to this area of work?

J: Since age five, I’ve always lived in interesting cities, and I remember doing a segment in my high school geography class on city planning and thinking it was pretty cool. I wish I could say that I am motivated by purely altruistic reasons, but I also find myself motivated by my desire to travel and explore interesting areas to live. A lot of my motivation comes from exploring new cities and new modes of public transportation.

B: I had been doing web development consulting throughout high school, undergraduate and graduate school, so by the time I graduated I knew that working for myself was something I wanted to continue. There seemed to be a demand for websites related to transportation, city planning & real estate so we started a company that focuses on this niche.


Describe “a day in the life” of Blink Tag.

J: There isn’t really a typical work day. I set my own hours and manage my own time. I try to be at my desk by about 10 or 11 AM. (Our office is a live/work loft that we built.) Sometimes will work until 3 AM, but we have lots of breaks in between. At any given time we have probably six or seven active projects, and on most days, I’ll field emails or phone calls from clients.

In our office, aside from Brendan and me, we have two employees who are also there most days. We have a network of roughly fifteen contractors that we work with on a project-by-project basis. Our contractors don’t typically work in our office, although they do come in on occasion. We do occasionally travel for projects (or for fun), and it’s easy to work remotely since most of our work is done online.

B: I’m not a morning person, so I get most of my work done in the late evenings. I get up, check my email, and respond to issues that came in. We email or IM with our consultants and staff on the status of their projects. In our office we have 3-6 people working every day and we’ve got 10 additional consultants that work off site. We typically have 1-2 meetings per week with clients in the Bay Area that we travel to.

I’m my own boss, but I only generate revenue when I’m billing hours so I have to stay focused on the tasks I’m working on and what comes next. I put in 50-70 hour work weeks, but my time is flexible and I like to work in long chunks so I can take a day off as needed.

What are the top 3 things you like or enjoy about your job?

J: First, I like the flexibility. I like most of the projects that we’ve taken on. And I like my co-workers.

B: I like the flexible hours, and that I get to choose which projects to take on and which to reject. Lastly, the opportunity to learn new tasks on the fly: from accounting to marketing to programming – I get to pick up new skills every day.

Describe the types of skills you learned over the past year and things you learned about business that you didn’t already know. Did you have any unexpected moments where you realized how much you needed to learn?

B: I’ve learned negotiation skills, interviewing & HR skills, proposal writing, accounting and project management on top of the actual skills I use to do my job. For technical skills, I’ve worked on iphone app development, google maps API, ruby on rails web applications, flash development, and learned a great deal about PHP, javascript, HTML/CSS and the wordpress framework.

I was able to learn this all gradually as our business grew and different types of projects and challenges appeared, so it I was never really overwhelmed. It’s important to always be learning new skills.

J: I’ll second Brendan – my approach has always been that I can pick up the technical stuff as I go along, and the business side is something I don’t think I could have learned in any other job. I don’t know if there was a single “aha” moment, but you wind up learning a lot of little things every day.

What are the 3 “lows” of your job – what do you like the least about what you do?

J: I don’t like the fact that I’m “on the job” more or less twenty four hours a day. Sometimes I wish I had a manager – I’m not that good at organizing my time. And third, sometimes I don’t leave the house for a day at a time.

B: First, hiring – it’s pretty time intensive to find new staff & consultants, we try to hire through our social network when possible. Second, the work overload: since I’m in charge if we get really busy I’ve got to put in the hours to sort through all of the issues and assign them to staff. Third, the uncertainty – It’s up to me to keep projects coming down the pipeline to keep myself and my staff employed.

When thinking about the transition from Academic/College to Professional/Work life, what took the most getting used to? What strategies did you use to adjust to the differences?

B: It was a pretty smooth transition for me. It was important to keep up ties with my colleagues from school to stay up to date with potential contracts, employees & happenings in our field.

J: I found academic work to be really frustrating in a lot of ways, in part because there wasn’t a clear link between the work I was doing and a “product” to be delivered to a client. The biggest difference for me, which I think ultimately resulted in a positive change in my work habits, was the switch to a mindset where I was doing things for a particular reason and that I needed to organize my work in a way that would quickly and efficiently solve a specific problem.

I also think it’s hard for some people to understand that their time is valuable, particularly if they’re coming from an academic setting where they are encouraged to think more and do less. Aside from diving right into a client/consultant relationship, I don’t know a good way to make that adjustment – some people are better suited for academia, and some for the workplace.

When did you start thinking about your post-education career? How long did it take to find a job?

B: I started thinking about it halfway through grad school. I pursued my interest and considered jobs later.

J: Honestly, I didn’t do much thinking about it. I’ve never been much of a strategic planner, and the fact that my buddy from grad school wanted to work together on building our company was a really easy transition, and the whole thing more or less just happened.

How do you define success in the workplace?

B: I’m able to set goals, number of hours billed and number and type of projects completed. We’re now able to be pickier about the types of projects we take on.

J: That’s one of the issues I have with working alone – it’s hard to set clear goals for yourself, particularly as a new company that will more or less take any kind of work to stay in business. Over our first year in business, however, we were able to develop a client base that was increasingly interesting to us and to build a network of contractors, and I’m more proud of developing our business than I am of any particular project we worked on.

What does “work-life balance” mean to you, and how do you maintain a work-life balance?

J: I’m not really sure how to answer this question, because I think I’m at a transition point in my life – I’m just now starting my career, and I don’t have a family to take care of. I don’t yet have a clear sense of where I should draw the line between “work” (what I do to make a living) and “life” (other things I have going on), or necessarily how to balance them correctly. I guess I haven’t really yet figured out how I should set my priorities.

B: I work from home so work and non-work blur together. However, I get to be flexible with my schedule, so I try to do interesting, fun stuff when I’m not working, and get work done when I’m not doing anything particularly rewarding entertaining. Since I can work from anywhere, it’s pretty easy to get an hour in here and there. I try to work outside the home office at least one day a week, there are a bunch of good coffee shops to work in nearby.

What advice do you have for recent college grads and new employees? Any words of encouragement or advice to offer?

J: Don’t go to grad school right out of college. Also, don’t do something you don’t like just because you think you have to.

B: Consider working for yourself, start taking on projects while still a student to build your portfolio, experience and confidence. It’s not really that hard to start your own business. Maintain ties to your academic colleagues.

Would you recommend the same path to other people? When do you think is a good time to begin job searching or career planning?

B: I’d recommend considering working for yourself if you are self motivated and don’t mind learning the business administration skills required. The payoff in flexibility greatly outweighs any negatives.

J: My mother always told me I have until I’m 35 to find a career, and I think she’s probably right – I don’t see any really good reasons to start out with a big company or on a clear career track until you’re ready to do so. I think a lot of people forget that, assuming they come from a supportive family, they really can afford to take more risks when they’re young than they might think. Starting a business was certainly a risk, but the types of things I’ve been doing would have been out of the question if I had grabbed the first job that came to me as a twenty-one year old.

Most people have a very narrow definition of “career planning” – I don’t see it as a formal process, but one of experimentation and self-evaluation that takes less “planning” than I imagined coming out of high school. I would suggest doing as many different types of things as possible when you’re young, and a great way to do this is to start your own company where you get to set your own rules.

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“Career Focus” is a series of interviews with young professionals in San Francisco exploring different job fields and professions.

(Don’t) work until you drop

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

A colleague of mine just sent me a quick email. She said, “I skipped lunch and now it’s 2pm and I’m just going to keep on crunching until 7 to just get this thing done and get home.”  I asked her what she was planning on doing once she arrived home.  She replied – “Nothing – I can never get anything done after work because I’m too tired.”

Do you recognize this pattern of “work until you drop”? Most recent grads and a lot of young employees forget to stretch, take breaks, and refresh.  You work insanely hard for 7 or 8 hours or longer, and find yourself burned out by the end of the workday.  Fried to a crisp.  Employees walk in on Thursday morning with double-tall lattes and bags under their eyes and barely make it until Friday. Saturday is shot because you sleep in until noon, trying to recover from the work week.  Is this the right way to make it through the work week?

Research shows that for every hour we spend working (especially in front of the computer), we need a 5 minute lull or rest. Checking your email once every hour? You’re giving your brain that creative break, the light rest it needs to recharge and start up again. Taking a break away from the computer (or whatever task you are working on) is a better idea, but if you”re chained to your desk, even that email break can be crucial.  (Of course, if you spending more than 5 minutes per hour procrastinating or relaxing, you’re not living up to your full work potential, and perhaps boredom or burnout are the issues at hand.)

Another colleague of mine is a firm believer in the 2-hour stretch break. Every two hours – and on the more stressful days, sometimes as much as once every hour – he gets up, walks out of the building, and takes 2 laps around the building.  He says by the end of the day, he’s done 15-20 laps and he’s getting his walking miles in.  On the days when he has to stay late, 7pm doesn’t hit him like a brick on his shoulders, and when he gets home, he’s happy and refreshed.

NPR published a report that corroborates this idea, demonstrating that workers who take 10 minute exercise breaks end up being more productive for the company than their peers. The article suggests that employees should get up out of their chairs for 10 minutes at least 2-3 times a day to move around, take a break from work, and increase the blood flow through your body.

Our bodies and our minds need rest, fuel, and recuperation.  The 5 minute brain break (that’s required by our bodies each hour, whether we acknowledge it or not), the 2 hour stretch break, and the 8 hour workday are all part of the system that keeps employees recharged enough to make it through the work week.  What are your work habits? And what are you like at the end of the day? If you’re exhausted, tired, and it’s hard to get anything else done in the week, perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your work habits. It might even make you a better worker, too.

Budget sense: how much money does food cost me?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

So you’ve graduated from college and you’re (hopefully) not living at your parents house anymore.  You have a job, and even though it’s not THE job that you eventually want, you’re on track to start making your way up the ladder and working towards the career you want to have.

Your days have changed a lot from college – you no longer wear sweatpants to class, you have to brush your hair and your teeth every morning, you have an alarm clock that goes off exceptionally early, and you don’t live off of ramen noodles and beer.  There aren’t any dining halls for you to eat lunch in the middle of the day, and your parents aren’t around to feed you dinner. When you get home, you have to cook yourself meals – and perhaps prepare a lunch for the next day.

New workers often anticipate that they’ll be able to do more with their paycheck than they really can – forgetting how many bills there are that add up each month (gas, electric, cable, water, heat, garbage, rent, renter’s insurance, car payments, fuel, and food, to name a few). Some things can’t be compromised – the gas you pay to get to and from work in your car, perhaps, are fixed costs that use up part of your income. Other parts of your paycheck are more flexible: you have choices in how you spend your money, and there are lots of ways to save money if you know how.

Food can be an unexpected cost – see tips for saving money grocery shopping. If you buy lunch for $10 a day every workday, you’re spending $200 a month – or $2400 a year – just on your lunch.  If you go out to eat for dinner for $20 – that includes the meal, drink, and tip (not including the driving and time to get to and from the restaurant), seven days a week, that’s $600 a month – just on dinners.  That’s $7200 a year.  Just for eating lunch and dinner, you’ve just spent $9600 on your meals.  That is quite a chunk of money.

On top of that, perhaps you go out to fancy dinners once a week – or dinners with friends.  And, you have to feed yourself breakfast in the mornings and meals on the weekends – so perhaps another $400 a month on groceries. What about that breakfast coffee and bagel you get every morning before work? $5 a day adds up to $100 a month – another $1200 out of your pocket.

Guess what: you’re easily spending $10,000 a year on food.

It’s easy to overlook the cost of food, because it adds up in small quantities on a daily basis.  Unless you’re superhuman and can get by without eating on many occasions, food will be an expense that you have to manage.  Here are some top tricks for the budget-savvy.

1. Make your own meals at home. Cooking meals at home can add up to a lot of savings by the year’s end.  Double your savings by cooking for two – and have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

2. Buy a coffeemaker. Don’t, don’t, don’t buy coffee from a coffee shop.  $4 a day can quickly turn into $6 a day or even $10 a day – and that’s just on breakfast, before work starts.  A coffee maker can be as cheap as $20 (although if you want to learn to make your own lattes, perhaps $60-80 might get you a nice machine). Think about buying one for work as well as one for home if you’re a coffee fiend.  Drink tea? Buy an electric kettle to plug in at work.

3.  Make your lunches. A loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly will set you back $12 — and make you at least a week’s worth of lunches.  That’s less than $2 per lunch.  Try to find a food shop that will sell you a sandwich for less than $7!  Not in the mood for PB&J? Frozen burritos, frozen lasagnas, turkey sandwiches, even salads will be less than half the price if made from home.

4. Buy snacks in advance. The same advice for lunches applies to snacks.  Never snack out of a vending machine (it’s unhealthy, for one) – the markups can be as much as 500% or more.  If you’re a twix lover, go to costco and stash a box at your desk. Unhealthy, yes. Also cheaper.

5. Cook mini-breakfasts on the weekend – and freeze them for later. A good friend of mine bought single-serve microwavable tupperware and makes a week’s worth of oatmeal with fresh fruit in individual serving cups.  Total cost? $5 for the large can of oatmeal and $5 for the bag of frozen fruit.  She can make a month’s worth of breakfast oatmeal from the two.  That’s $10 for breakfast for a month.

6. Make a budget for eating out. The first step to any budget is knowing what you’re up against – so take note of what you spend each day (save those receipts! And keep a notebook!) to know what your monthly expenditures are.  Can’t keep track? Use your debit or credit card for only food for two weeks and look at your statement to see what your expenses were.  You may be in for a food shock.

7. Try a  “cash envelope” for food for the week. A good way to start any budget is to limit your spending by using only cash.  If your weekly expenditures are $250, try taking $200 out each week and seeing if you can make it work.  Leave your credit cards at home and only use your “lunch money envelope” for food purchases.  Watch where your money goes and learn more about your spending habits – small steps are the best way to budget success.
The bottom line? Food is expensive – and necessary.  Keeping your options open and using your money wisely will lead to financial health and security.  You’re not made of money, so choose what you want to buy carefully. Happy eating!

Knowing when to take a break: how to recover from a hard day at work

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Your boss just yelled at you for the third time, you missed a deadline, and you barely got any sleep for three days in a row. Lurking questions you’ve had about your career choice come rushing to the forefront of your mind, and your thoughts are inundated with yearnings to snap out at your boss, storm out of the office, and quit your job.

Don’t quit just yet. Why not? Quitting is rash, and despite how it might feel good in the moment, you’ll regret it if you haven’t thought it through. If you’re thinking about quitting your job, read ten good things about your job before you make the decision to jump ship.  Jobs are good things, especially in this economy.

First, take a walk. Get up and leave the office for a few minutes. Get up from your desk – yes that’s right, get up right now and walk outside of the office.  Open the door and leave.  It’s more than likely that no one will miss you.  If you need an alibi, pick up your cell phone, look apologetic, and mutter something about the doctor calling or a phone call you need to take.  Regardless of how you do it, just get out of your office.  When was the last time you took a stroll?  Thoughtfully contemplated the world below your footprints?  Many people suffer from “over sitting” – spending an agonizing amount of time sitting still behind a desk, only moving their wrists to click the mouse to the computer.

After work or during lunch, get outside and take a walk.  Even take laps around your office if you must.  Walking is therapeutic, rejuvenating, and basically just very good for you.  Some of the best philosophers have professed to doing their best thinking while walking.  The motion of the footsteps is rhythmical, repetitive, and meditative.  Each step is a gentle massage to the ligaments and joints in our creaky bodies, reminding us that our ankles, thighs, calves (cankles anyone?), hip joints, bellies and shoulders have probably been held tightly up against that computer monitor for far too long.

Now, rest your eyes – or use them in a new way. Another reason to take a walk is to give your eyes a rest from the battery of stimulation assaulting your eyes. Walking is good for your eyes as well as your legs.  In many work environments, people spend most of their days looking at things 12″ to 26″ away from them – for upwards of 10 hours per day.  Research has shown that reducing the use of our eyes for long-distance horizons (looking at things far away) can weaken our eyes.  In addition, too much close-up use or “screen time” can cause eye strain.   In the landscape around us, broad panoramas, details in a mid-range (such as crowds, streets, and retail shopping), and in-person social interactions add variety to your eye movements and affect your health tremendously.  Why is it that downtown streets are so exciting and popular? Streets provide a density and variety of activity that activate a multiplicity of our senses – visual, physical, aromatic, tactile. Get outside and start participating.

Get some sunshine and fresh air. If it”s possible, make sure you get outside at least once a day.  If you’re in a job where you’re already outside, make sure to take some time away from whatever stimuli you’re surrounded by – whether it’s machinery, noise, loud crowds of people, or blank walls.  Once you’re out of your office or work space, point your face towards the sunshine, lift up your arms, and stretch out your body.  Maybe even bend over and touch your toes.  If it’s a particularly stressful day, hang yourself in a body fold for a few minutes.  If you can’t bring yourself to do some public stretching (I still laugh at the elderly ladies who do coordinating line dancing in Golden Gate park at 6 AM in the mornings, even though I secretly believe it’s unbelievably awesome!) – then point your feet in a new direction and start walking.  Walk it out.

After work: do something different. Part of your rut – or frustration – may be non-work related. Seeking a stress-reducing outlet?  Try out a new social group, join a class, or find a gym in your neighborhood.  San Francisco is full of activity – finding your niche takes some exploration, but it’s worth it, especially if you’re in a work rut.  Ultimately, having a lineup of stress-reducing activities can help boost your focus and enjoyment while at work.

Go back to work refreshed. So now that you’ve taken a break – and reading this article online, sitting in your chair, procrastinating from work DOES NOT count as taking a break (if you’re reading this, put your pencil down, step away from the computer, and go outside and get some fresh air). Now that you’ve actually done yourself the service of taking a midday break, come back, drink a large glass of water, and start at it again.

Taking a break from something is the best way to recover from the stress associated with it.  Athletes rest between major workouts, writers rest and revisit (it’s called editing), and employees take paid or unpaid time off of work (also known as vacation).  If you’ve been at work for several months without a vacation, look into setting one up – maybe you need a week’s rest from work.  But first, try taking a 20 minute “midday vacation.” Go outside, daydream, wander, and return.  Perhaps all you needed was to give yourself a few minutes.