I wrote a couple weeks ago about having lofty ambitions. A friend from work asked why I wouldn’t declare my goals to the world. My initial reaction was terror but then I realized that stating your desires ensures goal setting accountability.
I struggle with opening myself up to vulnerability. No doubt some will clown my aspirations as some of them are ridiculous. (what the hell is an aspiring renaissance man anyways?) I am starting to realize that these pessimists don’t matter. Negativity kills self-improvement.
The risk of putting your goals out there for the world to see is the ultimate motivator of action. Accountability is huge!
Publicly stating your goals ensures your held responsible for achieving them. What if you fail or slip-up? What if your goals change or things don’t go as planned? Failure is frightening, not to mention embarrassing. This is why I had not declared my goals to the world… yet.
Sunday I woke up extremely hung-over. I have a strange relationship with such a state: I always feel that I need to have a productive day following a pizza infused late night endeavor. Sunday, I decided to get going with a long run.
Jogging at one pace has to be up there with the most boring things I’ve ever done. Does anyone actually enjoy it if it’s not sunny and no music? I would love to know what is going through the minds of marathon runners…. Are they having fun running?
It didn’t take long for boredom to set in Sunday as I made my way to the beach. I noticed everyone I ran by was frowning or looked angry. I couldn’t figure it out. It was gorgeous out and they were running along Spanish banks.
What’s the deal? I made it my mission to turn a few frowns into smiles; maybe inflict a little joy into the Sunday run. I started to smile at every jogger I ran past…
A few smiled back, some avoided eye contact, most looked at be dumbfounded with that sympathy gaze as though they were humoring someone’s awkward joke.
School is starting to wind down. After a brutal week, I managed to get through the last two term papers of my illustrious UBC career. Classes end next week. One final separates me from freedom. My amateur hour undergrad is almost over. What happens next? That right there is a loaded question.
Soon I will be free from the burden of painful lectures, trivial exams and papers that I can barely get through reading in order to edit.
The so called freedom brings a future of uncertainty. The ability to use school as a scapegoat or excuse for why you haven’t accomplished anything yet is gone.
My amateur hour is almost up; the big bad real world beckons. This is great because now I can focus on the things that matter. Leading the charge is my internship at HootSuite.
The terms of my internship are 24 hours or three days a week. I will say that I look forward to every day I get to spend at work; I love it.
Work days I wake up giddy, much like a crew of pre-pubescent girls at a Justin Bieber concert. Days on campus have been brutal compared to days at the office.
The relief of classes ending means I can spend more time learning (wow that’s ironic). I plan on showing up to work every day, whether they like it or not. Why? I love it.
I have some exciting things on the go, my co-workers are awesome and I want to make the most of the opportunity.
At the end of the day I want what everyone else wants: fulfillment. I have a voice (perhaps a quiet one), I feel like I have something unique to contribute. I want to share. Basically I want to put myself in a situation to help people and inspire change.
Anyone miss being in school?
I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about goal setting. I remember back in CAPP class, we had to go through these garbage goal setting exercises that made me cringe. What a waste of time.
If anything, that experience deterred me from wanting to set goals. To be honest, since then the only goals I’ve set are in sport. I guess because sport consumed most of my life.
It never crossed my mind to think about lifelong personal goals until recently. What do I want to do? How am I going to do that? These questions scare the shit out of me.
This is when I started to think big. I’ve come up with some lofty goals that I won’t share now… They are ‘need to know.’
What I will say is how I am going to get there. Creatively working my ass off and investing my time and resources on things I care about and can control.
I’ve developed an interest in building communities around a brand. Social media is an amazing tool in this process. About six months ago, I made the decision to master social media. What the hell does that mean? I’m not sure either.
Nonetheless, I got on my grind reading everything I could all day until my eyes wouldn’t stay open. See you later school. I had a burning motivation to learn and felt like it was only a matter of time.
Here is a snippet from an interview I did with Chevrolet at Social Media Week in Toronto in Feb, 2012. Fast forward to 1min 39 seconds.
After the Chevrolet social media presentation, I was offered the chance to do a quick interview. Clearly they were looking for a cushy sound byte relevant to the Chevy brand, so I played the game because I wanted to get on Youtube.
This was also a great opportunity to get comfortable in front of a camera.
Hope this provides a few seconds of entertainment.
Life has been super busy since I started interning at HootSuite. I am working Monday –Wednesday-Friday. Mondays and Wednesdays I head straight from the office (love saying this) to practice at UBC. These end up being pretty long and exhausting days The Renaissance Man wouldn’t have it any other way.
The scheduling works out pretty well given that all my classes are on Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve been able to manage everything pretty well… Up until midterm season kicks around. Case in point was last week when a midterm came up. It was brutal getting home from work / practice at 7:30 then having to eat something and head to the library.
As I invest more time and energy into work, the burden of school lurks in the background, like this guy. I am stoked to be graduating at the end of April, but I wish it was over now. School feels like an unnecessary weight on my burly shoulders at this point.
The blog has taken a bit of a hit as well. My ambitions were to post three times per week. This is clearly a bit of a stretch at this point. Bi-weekly posts will suffice for the time being.
Midterm season is over; term paper season is in full swing. Time to see if my blogging prowess transfers to writing research papers.
No excuses, play like a champion.
I wanted to let people know about an online newspaper I started. I call it The Social Shaker Daily. Those who read my tweets may already be familiar. The Social Shaker is a collection of amazing articles I read on a daily basis. I felt like it was a good way to share the type of stuff I read while I eat breakfast or when I should be doing something productive. The paper puts everything into one page rather than tweeting and sharing links all day.
I setup The Social Shaker through http://paper.li/. This is a pretty cool site that lets you build and completely customize your own online newspaper. The site automatically collects the best trending articles from twitter every morning.
The content is largely pop culture, sports and social networking with some reality TV sprinkled in (because reality TV is amazing).
The Social Shaker is best served with a piping hot beverage. My hope is that people find it useful and entertaining compared to the boring mainstream newspapers out there.
I need your help!
Are people remotely interested in this sort of thing or is it a waste of time? If you have any suggestions or feedback for the type of articles you would like to read, please get in touch via comment and let me know.
Last week, I started interning at HootSuite. For those unfamiliar, HootSuite (Vancouver tech start up) is a social media management dashboard. It lets you use and manage all your social networks from one page.
How did I get the internship?
Seizing opportunity combined with some fortunate timing (luck) and help from some amazing people. Three weeks ago at the IMgroup Meetup, I got the chance to hear HootSuite’s VP of Community, DaveO speak about five unique days in their company’s history. Each day represented a defining event for their company. The stories resonated; I admired their transparent and unique outlook on everything from day to day business to crisis management. I was drawn to their gritty hustling culture.
I put myself out there. At the Meetup, everyone gets a 30 second elevator pitch style intro to the group. I broadcasted my aspirations for an internship. My announcement was met with smiles from the crowd that turned to laughter when Dave responded with: “you can’t spell internet without intern.”
I sent Dave a message the following day asking if he wanted to go for coffee. He obliged and we met later that week. I had no idea what to expect, but I received some great advice from a few friends and family. I wanted to cover my bases, so I printed off my dismal resume and cover letter just in case.
The Interview?
I made my way to the given address expecting a coffee shop. Instead, I got the HootSuite offices. Damn! I was fiending coffee as always, what a cruel trick. I walked in, stumbled through a stack of 15 bikes and a friendly dog. Dave was sitting where you would expect a receptionist to be.
We talked for a while. The word internship kept coming up, but I wasn’t positive he was offering it to me until the end when he made it clear. I was ecstatic.
No resume, no cover letter… No problem. He did read my blog and some tweets.
Moral of the story
Social networks are driving hiring decisions everywhere. Be cognisant, but most importantly, be yourself! Deception is not sustainable. Why waste time convincing anyone you are something you are not? This applies not just to employment but to everything. In the words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.
I am now taking names at HootSuite three days a week. I just have to figure out how school, sports and blogging fit in.
If anyone has some time management suggestions, I would love to hear them.
Along with archery and a handful of other activities, cooking is an integral skill for the modern day Renaissance Man. I learned to cook watching my parents. Experimentation filled in the rest of the gaps. I am by no means an expert, but am pretty confident that I know my way around a kitchen. Cooking a thanksgiving feast for 15 of my friends in November was my arrival as a confident chef.
The Paella Bash was a huge success. I was concerned having never cooked with saffron. It requires quite a bit of precision and timing. With the help of my my buddy William and sister Maleah, we made it happen, cooking enough chow to feed a small army.
A couple of Cooking shots
I know nothing about food blogging (or any blogging for that matter). Hope you enjoyed the photos!
Paella is one of my top three favourite meals. Ten blog comments and I will host another feast with my second favourite meal.
What is your favorite meal?
The other day I shared some of the new age self-education options that are out there. This will be a primer on my trip to Toronto next week for Social Media Week.
Hilarious hipster video was put out by the organizers of Social Media Week.
The Event
Social Media Week is a global event that takes place in several host cities from February 13-17. It consists of dozens of presentations, speakers and conferences on all things pertaining to technology, communications and social media. After the great experience I had attending a couple of events at Social Media Week Vancouver in September, I figured what better excuse to skip a week of class than go to Social Media Week Toronto (SMWTO).
My primary concern with investing time and money into an event like this is the added value. I have no doubt the content will be great and I will learn some useful skills. The other part of the value in my opinion is the relationship building.
I plan on using my newfound networking prowess to meet some movers and build some connections. For those concerned about my past business card fiascos, worry not, they are in production as I type. No longer will this guy be answering business card inquiries with embarrassing excuses.
Expenses
The budget is another huge concern. I am a student with no income. However, with careful planning and frugal spending, I can make it work. The major expenses are: the event itself, accommodation and transportation.
The majority of events at SWMTO are free, friends were gracious enough to let me crash on a pull-out bed in their apartment and my flights are booked on Aeroplan miles. So far so good. Aside from a $61 service charge which Aeroplan was nice enough to sneak in to my ticket transaction, I will not have spent a dime upon my arrival.
Food is another concern. I enjoy eating good high quality food. Most of the events at SMWTO provide “light snacks and refreshments” before and after the entertainment. Not sure what that means, but I plan on taking full advantage of any complementary food; getting appie happy as much as possible. Perhaps even schmooze my way to a few lunch or dinner meetings.
I look forward to the coming week in Toronto. Aside from SMWTO, I am excited to re-connect with some good friends.
No doubt there will be some great stories for the blog as I continue to experiment with networking.
If anyone is in Toronto next week, drop me a line so we can meetup!