Sharing is Caring and Other Truths of a Share-able Economy

The most meaningful moments in my life spent with other people have one common thread: sharing.

I’ve been a member of the CouchSurfing community since 2007 when I started hosting strangers at my 3 bedroom apartment in Logan Square.  I opened the couch and home I shared with three roommates to these strangers and we shared moments, parties and experiences together.  I connected with people from all over the world through CouchSurfing.  We overcame language barriers together.  We shared food together, talked politics and social norms.  We cut the bullshit of every day conversation and just got to the good stuff.  We learned from each other and ultimately we changed each other slowly – each experience undid all my false perceptions of different cultures, countries or people with truth; with the expansiveness only experience can provide. 

I found out about the film: One Couch at a Time, through someone that I had the pleasure of hosting myself who is featured at some point in the film.  In the documentary, the brave Couchsurfer Extraordinaire, Alexandra, hits up 6 different continents and couchsurfs through her way through all of it.

This film was inspiring – not just to the wanderlust escape artist inside of me but also to the wide-eyed young woman full of hope in the midst of all the global and economic crises surrounding young people today. 

I remember my first job armed with so much idealism and thinking: Why are we still working this way?  Why can’t we change things?  We don’t have to do things the same way our fathers or mothers did.  We are the leaders we've been waiting for!

Then the reality of student loans and bills hits you hard – harder than it ever did for past generations and you lose hope in being able to change the status quo, but this film made me believe in possibilities again.  I don’t have to live this super sequential story board life to have everything I want.  I can have it through community, through sharing, through human connection with others.

The people are demanding transparency, environmentally friendly resources, and innovation with technology as modern-day sharing’s vehicle of choice.  Those who cannot understand this will fail.  A new age is dawning – one that will demand more from all of us.  It will demand better businesses, better neighbors, better communities, better leadership and it is now. 

“Opportunities thought impractical because of perceived trust barriers are now fair game.  The examples of Lending Club, Couchsurfing and Thredup show that people are engaging in intimate transactions with strangers driven by technology, new norms and need.  This is the trust frontier.  We have yet to discover how far we can push this frontier.  This is the decade when we answer the question: ‘How much can we share?’”

-Neal Gorenflo, Publisher, Shareable Magazine

I am hosting a screening of One Couch at a Time and discussion on the share-able economy on Thursday, May 16^th at 6 p.m. in the South Loop.  Please email me directly if you’re interested in attending.  The screening will be free so long as you bring something to share.  Seats are limited – first come first serve.  See you on the other side of this exciting frontier!

Coffee

Phonecalls, deadlines, emails

The constant beeping of

one machine or another

Text messages or meetings

Lots of people to meet

Even more people to be

The names are dropped

Secret handshakes in the backroom

To-do lists extended

Late nights; early mornings

I want to be a black hoodie

Dark sunglasses

Running free and nameless

An inconsequential member

of the human race

With little in the way of

 identifying characteristics

And that “anonymous” type of face

No time to indulge in fantasies

Where’s my coffee?

Red lipstick, black suit

a knack for running in heels

Phone and neck attachments

Shoulders constantly creeping upward

Ravens circling over my head

But no matter; only time for

Conference calls and deliberations

Too forward focused

Balance failing; dark circles

More wrinkles

Shrug responsibilities

In all the ways you know you won’t

Wanderlust escape artist

A knack for running barefoot

Through sunny beaches

I want to be an endless Sunday morning

Reading quiet with dog at feet

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

Kettle warming

For my chamomile tea

Validation sought

Over “I’m just too busy…”

Overextensions 

Acting out accordingly

When’s the last time

I saw my family?

I gotta run, I gotta get this done

Forfeiting personal needs

For the sake of each company

Don’t keep much company

No real company

When’s the last time you were held?

Like, really?

No matter now,

Where’s my coffee?

Where’s my coffee?

We Live in Public

For the past few years I've gone to a documentary film festival called the True False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri.

In 2009, I was introduced to a powerful documentary about the future of this digital landscape we live in called We Live in Public.  In the film, the protagonist, Josh Harris, a dot-com visionary who has been penned the “Nostradamus of the internet,” creates an experiment where dozens of volunteers in New York City live underground for an entire year with food, alcohol, living quarters and even a firing range all provided to them.  The catch is that everything they do is videotaped – from their showers to their sex lives.  These brave souls agreed to be filmed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for an entire year.

Harris predicted sites like Facebook and Hulu before they ever existed.  In the film, Harris says “Years ago the lions and tigers were kings of the jungle and one day they wound up in zoos, I suspect we’re on the same track.”

I bring up this film because Harris, as crazy as he was (and oh, he was CRAZY) did have a point about the future of technology.  We currently DO live in public.  And, it’s not going away. 

Sure, you can choose to not participate in sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linked In, Google Plus and the countless others I can name (wait, you’re reading my blog, right?) but when was the last time you googled something?  Ever notice how you were searching for some winter boots and then all of sudden you’re checking your Gmail account and an advertisement for winter boots comes up?  Very few people living in modern society can manage to live off the digital grid and frankly, I don’t think it’s such a horrible thing.

Social media has been blamed for many a scandal: political, business, personal etc. Yet, I have to wonder, being the optimist I am, what if we embraced living in public?  What if we aligned ourselves with those things that are honest and preserve the integrity to who we are as people?  What if we allowed our Facebook feeds and Twitter feeds to provide a glimpse into who that is and utilized these new mediums to form communities instead of feeding our ever growing narcissism? 

A social media professor once said, “If there is something that you say or do that you’d be ashamed of if it showed up online, then don’t do it and don’t say it.”  Shouldn’t we be doing that anyway?  Shouldn’t we strive to live good, ethical and honorable lives?  Is transparency so radical an idea?  We all are the first to fight for transparency when it comes to government funds and corporate board rooms, but what about ourselves?  What are we so afraid of?

We will make mistakes, quite possibly publicly, but maybe instead of judging others so harshly for their mistakes we will learn to be more empathetic and understanding of one another.

More about Harris here:

Trailer for the film:

Preserving Authenticity: as you are in anything is as you are in everything

Aside from writing poetry and practicing yoga, I have a career I very much treasure and enjoy.

When I was younger in my career I believed everything was easily categorized and could neatly fit into a box.  If I was going to work in business I needed to BE business in the narrow-minded way I saw it to be: this rigid, cold, rule-abiding clear-cut thing.  After all, I was born in the 1980s where everything was marketed to me in a neat package since inception.

I spent years feeling conflicted because I am not clear cut.  I am a mix of everything from the indigenous blood mixing with the Spanish blood in my veins to my attempts at perfecting eagle pose before a conference call to my ideas of a fun Friday night consisting of watching Shark Tank while working on a new drawing.

I wrote a rap song once (my alterego is simultaneously an MC folk singer) and one of the lines from it goes:
...but til then I'll face the struggle of living in square boxes
too many right angles don't fit my round face
but it's packaged and it's pretty and easy to place...

For too long I felt I'd have to sacrifice my creativity and all those marvelous things that make me me in order to become this great business leader that I wanted to be.

During this time I was the epitome of ambivalence: a bohemian creative type that wanted to take over the business world.  Who did I think I was?

That's precisely the best question I could have ever asked myself.  In reading a business article on leadership I came across this quote: How you do anything is how you do everything.

Business is coming of age.  It is recognizing that we as humans, employees, consumers are not this one-sided square thing.  Our motivations stem from a number of different factors: our relationships, societal norms and a sense of purpose.

And sometimes we do headstands...

My shifting consciousness on the state of business has guided me to this simple conclusion: find out who you are and be the best you you can be.  As you are in other aspects in life, you are in business.

I lived in the middle of the New Mexican desert surrounded by wolves to learn to be comfortable with always being uncomfortable.

I traveled all over the world (and counting) to understand and embody diversity.

I practice yoga because I am the greatest resource and ally I will ever have.

I listen to others because I'm a perpetual student fortunate enough to view everyone as a teacher.

I write my life lessons down because I believe in sharing.

In business, I am all of this: the risk taker, a holistic thinker, transparent, the student, the teacher, the people person who strives for connectivity in all she does.  I'm not only my title at my company.  I am guided by purpose in all things because as I am in yoga I am in business and as I am in business I am as a friend.  How you do anything is how you do everything.

Fascinating - perhaps justifies the rise of Social Entrepreneurship

I feel as though we are evolving in a completely different direction than most people understand within the business environment.  An area of more vision, possibilities and collaborations for purposeful work.  It's a beautiful thing!  I LOVED this!

Let's Evolve (for our daughters)

I'm re-posting this from a previous blog because obviously the world isn't listening fast enough:

I’d been debating whether I should blog about this type of thing or not, but part of the reason I started my blog was so that I could have a voice in a capacity that I am not normally able in other aspects of my life.  I work within the business community in Chicago.  A great deal of the type of work that I do has to do with developing strong business relationships with business owners and other stakeholders within the Hispanic business community.  I also happen to be a young woman and I like to go out and have a good time by which I mean go out with friends, colleagues, etc. and have a couple of drinks while getting to know each other better or at an event etc. 

It has been more than once that certain men within this community have tried to leverage their position or the role they play within my current network as an excuse to be able to behave inappropriately towards me or towards other women.  It’s become increasingly frustrating for me to deal with and all the while I keep asking myself why I should have to deal with it. 

It’s a catch-22 situation with so many shades of gray.  There have been many many times when I’d like to tell the person exactly what I think porque "no tengo pelos en la lengua," however I’m increasingly cautious of the nature of business relationships and knowing the type of animal I am dealing with.  Most of the time these men that behave so inappropriately are so threatened by women’s power or by feminine energy that politely telling them to please never touch you again or to please fuck off is a direct threat to their masculinity. (Of course I wouldn't say it that way..but I'd want to)  Most of these men are dealing with so much insecurity that to threaten their masculinity in a public place among colleagues and friends would cause the type of reaction that can be explosive and incredibly mean.

As a young woman in business all I have is my reputation.  I need to be incredibly protective of it.  I am careful of the circles I am around and try and keep those circles tight.  Rejecting the advances of someone who is influential within this type of community and that has a strong voice within the organizations and corporations that I work with calling you a man-hating feminist or bitch generally doesn’t preserve your reputation.  Also, when so much in this world is based on perception and not reality; the smoke and mirrors of who you are becomes quite the ugly picture.  I would hate for all the amazing men that I know, that can call themselves feminists, that do their best for their sisters and daughters and wives to help advance other young women in business without having to play this game, to think of me as something so far from what I actually am.

So I sit back, biting my tongue, lumps forming in my throat out of anger, and smile sweetly laughing along to the disgusting conversation while sinking deeper into my chair.  What can I do?  If I ask them to please not speak to me in that manner in the nicest way, then I become the prude that everyone feels they need to be careful around to protect my feelings and that's not who I am.  I’m simply a rational human being that hates having to put up with other peoples’ issues or bullshit simply because I was born 26 years ago a woman.  I make sure they feel my icy reaction not encouraging their behavior, but am I condoning it by not saying anything?  Have I become part of the game that I hated?

I am so grateful to all the women that came before me in business for paving the way so that I could work within this world and feel around me an endless sea of possibilities.  We still have so much work to do but now it’s up to me and the intelligent women of my generation to do it.

I had had quite a few close calls with men in the past while traveling by myself in Mexico and in Spain.  They upset me at the time so much but they were “cultural differences” or “cultural misunderstandings.”  I was different; I came from a world where women could say what they want, could be free, could travel by themselves and have a great conversation with someone of the opposite sex and it not mean she was wanting anything more.  Now, I see this in my community and my own backyard and the issue is more complex than what I ever imagined.  It's imbedded in all societies in some capacity and it's going to be a long hard road to change it, but I've got my walking shoes on and I'm in it for the long haul.

Fuerza to all of my sisters!

I leave you with this poem I wrote when I was 19:

When I was younger I used to turn my turtle onto her shell just to watch her extend her neck and flip herself over.  Now I’m rolling out of someone else’s bed with the taste of vodka and cigarettes in my too-dry mouth remembering voices praying a thousand Santa Marias in the living room of my abuela’s house the day she died.  My parents used to carry wooden rosaries, my brother and I would carry thick fallen branches we’d find in the woods.  They always gave me splinters and made my hands feel dirty but it wasn’t as bad as the time I stood, just barely, pushed against a fence my hands forced over my head by a stronger hand, while the other wandered around my chest looking for what other secret places he could find next…my hamster used to dig into the wooden chips of his cage to try to escape, but he never did like I did, into this giant ant colony of a city and life is writing me Post-It notes:

• ·         Don’t forget to pay your rent
• ·         Remember how he loved you once?
• ·         And so Jen…who are you now?

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

My phone died yesterday.  I was supposed to meet my friend at this bar I’d never been at.  I ended up walking the wrong way and came upon this park downtown.  I saw this gorgeous dog and its very friendly owner.  I stopped to chat with her for a bit (and try to get directions) and as destiny should have it; she’s a business owner.

I told her my dream of owning my own business one day (well, one of them) and she was so gracious to offer me some good advice: speak softly and carry a big stick.

I don’t have any tattoos.  I used to date a guy with tattoos (okay maybe there were a couple) and I’d always get asked if I had any.  I don't.  I always said that I enjoy not being defined by things physically like piercings or tattoos because it allowed me to be more shaman-like: shape-shifting from board rooms to wolf sanctuaries to galas.  I liked being ambiguous and non-definable – there’s power in that.  I realized that from an early age that if others can’t grasp you, they can’t pin anything to you. 

 I’m grateful for having walked a mile out of way into that park last night.

On Mentorship...

If you would have asked me a couple of years ago about mentorship I would have immediately thought about The Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi or something – I would have never thought about having a mentor for my career. 

I’m blessed with two spectacular mentors and many wise teachers.  My mentors are incredibly intelligent women that against many odds and struggles have succeeded in business and personally.  They’ve learned many lessons along the way and choose to share them with me (I'm a very lucky girl).  They also have mentors in various areas of expertise and their mentors have mentors. It reminds me of indigenous religions when knowledge was passed down from the elders to the youth of the tribe because they were the future.  

Living in a digital age where information consumption doesn't necessitate conversations with other human beings and isolation from others is an every day reality for many, the thought of having a mentor might strike some as odd or maybe even unusual.  Furthermore, if your perspective isn't challenged in an experiential fashion every now and then how to you grow and not remain stagnant?

Today I read and reread the same line a dozen times: “Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”  It really resonated with me on many levels.  In order to grow one must be humble enough to know that one is not fully grown ever. Henry David Thoreau once wrote: “How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?”  Both of my mentors realize this on such a level that they seek growth and learning opportunities like flowers seeking the sun. 

For any of my fine lectors out there that are looking for pathways to success in your respected fields – look no further than the people that you admire or the people that are in a position that you aspire to be in whether it be five years from now, ten years from now or twenty.  Find a way to engage those individuals – invite them to coffee, ask them how they built their business, or how they were able to climb the corporate ladder, or how they became so great at guitar…whatever the case may be.

You have to respect the person to want to work with them on this level and vice versa.  There has to be something about that person which resonates with you personally as well.  For instance, both my mentors have qualities that resonate with me such as: a commitment to women’s issues, integrity in their work and a strong intuition that guides them in business and in life.

For a successful mentor/mentee relationship it’s more than mere admiration for one’s work – that person must also want to work with you.  It has to be a relationship where there’s a great deal of trust, shared vision in some senses, honesty and in some cases friendship.  There’s something very karmic about these relationships as well – the expectation is that as you grow influential and successful in your career or art that you pass forward that which was given to you. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership.  What makes a good leader?  What type of leader do I want to be?  One of the key things I keep thinking is how a sense of humility in the face of adversity is incredibly valuable.  Knowing thyself and one’s own limitations as well as strengths allows for more creativity and collaboration with others on a level that is often underutilized.  There is a reason that in economics and business there is so much emphasis on “human resources” and “human capital.”  No technology can replace the innovation, motivation and inspiration of the human spirit.

There’s so much reinvention of old wheels that if we all looked to each other and linked up like a chain we’d be halfway to the moon already instead of charting the same old roads and finding the same dead ends. 

Well, I want to go to the moon, baby.  Venus sounds lovely too.

When I was living in New Mexico there was an old man who taught me to make Native American crafts like dream catchers and fans.  He did beautiful leather and bead work and one day I asked him: Who are your teachers?  He told me that everything around us is a teacher so long as we can shift our perspectives to being students. He was a wise old man and I think of him now - wherever he might be...

A special thank you to all of my elders out there for helping me figure this world out.

Here's to a lifetime of learning.