Money, money, money!
Money is a funny thing – so many people want it, few seem to have it and even fewer want to talk about it. I’m not sure why so many people are so tightly lipped about money but I think being quiet contributes so much to why people don’t understand it, are afraid of it or simply don’t have it. I think people should be taught fiscal management in schools instead of about the French revolution (and I’m half French) and I think people should really talk about money so they can learn whether or not they should be self-employed.
How I financially survive is probably the second most common question I’m asked. I do not have a sugar daddy (you wouldn’t believe how many people think this!), I do not have a trust fund, I do not have parents, and I don’t have lotto winnings. So how do I survive financially?
Here it goes:
How much do you enjoy?
When I stopped working in Hollywood months ago, I also stopped going to screenings and premieres. I thought because I wasn’t in the industry anymore, I shouldn’t go. I didn’t need to network, I didn’t need to see everything, I didn’t need to keep up. I had equated going to movies with work which I had equated to no fun.
Despite adoring movies and working on sets, my opinion of it all changed because others kept telling me that what I was doing wasn’t enough. If I wanted to be successful I had to take X job, get X title, meet with X person. As soon as I did that, they said, I’d have passed a level and it’d be onto the next one. I didn’t really understand what they meant because I loved what I initially did and became confused by the attitude that movie making wasn’t fun – it was business! And all that is one of the reasons why I stopped working. Unlike most of Hollywood, I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I just wanted a little fun.
So when the work stopped, going to the movies stopped. But then a little while ago I was invited to a screening of Kinky Boots, and, since I’d once lived in Northampton where the movie is based and filmed, I thought I’d go just to see if I could see shots of the city. After the screening was a Q&A with the main actor which was just really thoughtful but also fun. It was after that screening I realised that I could go to a movie just for the pure fun and enjoyment and not because of where it’d get me or how it’d make me look.
Without having others opinions and meanings of movies or movie making involved in whether or not I enjoy something, movies began to once again equal fun. And in the past little bit I’ve gone to more screenings and premieres which, I must confess, have been not only fun, but useful. I normally wouldn’t see these films if I had to pay to go and I’d miss out on so many great little films and little bits of inspiration here and there. So I’ve learned that by saying yes to the fun, I’m saying yes to always being open to learning which is really saying yes to being personally successful.
So last week I was invited to a of Little Miss Sunshine and, without knowing much about the film, decided to go. Besides, Toni Collette was going to be there and I think she’s fabulous (and she was. So tiny!).
The movie was fun. I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did – and if you see the last shot of the film, you’ll understand. But more importantly, the film also really got me thinking and confirmed even more.
The opening shot of the film is brilliant; it shows a man who is selling his “9 steps” to success. Using the mumbo jumbo self-help lingo, selling his words, using that selling tone. Then if flashes to his class – all six people. Then you follow this man home and his life is a mess, something I wrote about in a previous post which said a lot of self-help gurus sell their ideas but just don’t live them. (Which is why I think you should only trust ideas that make sense to you and you can make work but do not trust anyone who just wants to sell you a book – or seven of them). He has a daughter who, by default, is able to compete in a beauty pageant called, “Little Miss Sunshine.” The story is of this family and their trip to the pageant and then the pageant itself.
Win, win, win! Is what the self-help guru father is all about. He doesn’t want to be a loser, his kids to be a loser, his brother in-law to be a loser. He can point out which steps make you a loser, and which ones make you a winner. Everyone in his family is annoyed by his 9-steps yet, they all hold the same belief that you do one thing to make you a winner, and one thing to make you a loser. Each person in the family holds the belief that if they could just do X, they’d be winners. And when those things don’t happen, they fall apart. It’s actually a really well-done movie with real characters that, if you allow them, will get you thinking. Especially since they go from holding one set of beliefs about what success and life’s purpose is in the beginning to changing them in the end.
The interesting thing about the people in the movie is that the beliefs they first hold are common beliefs that most people have – and you can’t blame them, really. After all, I think in America especially, we’re set up for this. In school you’re taught to pass tests. If you study and answer X, you’re a winner. If you don’t, you’re a loser. If you do graduate from school – winner! If you don’t – loser! If you go to university – winner! If you don’t – loser! If you have a great big wedding before 30 – winner! If you’re single at 32 – loser! If you get a job with benefits – winner! If you’re an artists – loser! And so on and so on. We’re told that if we do x, y & z, we’ll be winners and so we try so hard to follow a pattern to make sure we “win” – after all, who wants to look like a loser?
Be Unique
Image by Hel Looks
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how I work. People want to know my routine, what pen I use, what papers are best, what time I get up, what tea I like, how long my day is and so on. I tend to disappoint people when I say I have no schedule, no routine, no favourite pen, no sleep schedule (but I do go on for hours about tea). This is partly due to my personality (I don’t like routine but I do love ceremony) and partly due to my career over the past year and a half (travel writing has me in different places every day as does working on film sets).
Often people who are beginning a creative career want to be able to cling to something that has been successful for others. It’s why so many creative self-help books are sold. The Artists Way, for example, lays down the law for getting creative. It tells you what to do every day, it tells you how to think, to be. Other books tell you what markers to use or how to wear a boa properly. Better yet, other books tell you how to think each and every minute to guarantee you that success you so badly want.
The problem with these books and most self-help gurus, though, is that they don’t tell you how to be you. They tell you how to become something that might work because it maybe did for them (I say maybe because I’ve met a lot of these successful self-help creative writer/artist people who have lives that aren’t wonderful, authentic or even joyous. They just know how to market their work, they often don’t know how to live it).
I find those kinds of books really disturbing and it quite literally breaks my heart when I see creative people trying to follow the footsteps of others. Why? Because being creative means you’re creative. You do things how you do them. You think outside the box. You put random things together. You do things no one else has done. You play, you think, you dream, you work your ass off to make it real. But as a creative person you don’t follow the foot steps of someone else.
A timeline of sorts
20 years ago, I failed art. Twice. Now my work hangs in galleries, sells as prints, graces book covers and has won design awards.
15 years ago I cleaned toilets in an historic, fancy hotel. Now I write about such hotels and get paid for it. I even was sent on assignment to write about the one I once cleaned.
8 years ago I moved to America. I made $7,000.00 that year and had to weigh apples to make sure I could afford them. Now, eat 3 apples each day. Sometimes 4.
5 years ago I was in a job I hated and wanted something else. Now, I choose happiness and everything else.
Today, I’m incredibly happy.
Getting Ahead
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” Henry Ford
Fortune Favours the Brave
It’s the last day of a four day Women Writers Conference that, for me, has been one of the greatest experiences in terms of connecting with and learning from other writers. The days blew by far too quickly and the 3 Q&A’s I gave were so enjoyable and the people I met made me wish I had a bigger suitcase to take them home in. This morning I had brunch at a home with a mix of locals and presenters, where we were happily ate and, for over three hours, dished as only writers (and girls) can.
That all sounds so fabulous, so happy, so content so absolutely easy and charmed. I can hear it now – the “Oh that Alex, of course that happens to her. Everything is easy when you are fearless and do things” But the truth is, I am not fearless at all – I just don’t give into being fearfull.
I learned this weekend that fear is not a unique feeling whatsoever. In every talk I gave, the question I kept being asked was, “How do you get over the fear of rejection, the fear of failure, the fear of being blown off, the fear of looking stupid, the fear of it not working out and…” well, you’re a creative person – I’m sure you can add a few more fears on your own.
My answer was (and is) always the same – just get over it and do it anyway.
Book Updates
At the conference I kept referring people to my book page for information, only to realise today that it hasn’t been updated in over a year! So, slowly but surely I’m making my way to making additions to the book pageand adding reviews.
But since I keep getting asked what are my top-rated books, I’d offer the following:
I’m no GRRRRL
When I attended a BlogHer panel today I left really, really frustrated Both the panel and the audience, and perhaps rightly so, seemed to be very “grrrrl.” Everyone seemed to reflect each other both in dress and in speech and it everyone seemed to be just so focused on the pain of women, how women writers need to tag everything they do as “women” and how we need to kick some ass (ours! theirs!) and get angry at not being “equal” or as perceived as smart as men because lord knows we’re better. There was an energy in the room that for me was really uncomfortable. It was as though everyone was just riled up and angry at anything not “grrrl” oriented. In talking to a several people after about it, I wasn’t the only one that picked up on it. But then, none of the people I spoke to were “grrrls” (actually, a lot of them were really hot women who held engineering jobs in Google and Yahoo. Their openness made you want to talk to them. Their brains made you want to listen).
Despite having the word “girl” in many of my site and creating sites based on women and for women, it has never, ever been at the expense of men. I do not feel the need to be “PRO WOMAN” to get ahead. I get along fine with the fella’s, can talk business and smack with the best of them, and am taken seriously too. It’s why with almost every site (even the ones “geared” towards women), my readership is always almost 60% female and 40% male. I tend to do things universal because I just believe we’re all here to connect. And I don’t care if you’re in a dress, pants, blue hair or blond. It’s what is interesting and useful to me that counts and not defining myself in a small group to try to gain power.
What I took from the BlogHer was that they seemed to think that as a woman you should be kicking mens asses for visibility and breaking down the boys club and to do that you must be all about being serious woman, hear me roar. That you preach to the choir, form a group of only like-minded people and attack that old boys network which is bad (though this is a little amusing considering they’re creating a woman’s only network). They didn’t seem interested, from what I could tell, in engaging people with different opinions or who weren’t like them. Despite wanting something different, they weren’t willing to risk being different. And I don’t think this phenomenon is unique to them.
There’s a lot of women, especially corporate women or women who seek power and certain positions in which they think only men currently have and will only have unless they become some kind of feminist, who think a pretty little thing that laughs and wears a dress isn’t serious and can’t “help the cause.” They see her as a flirt, dumb, and of no value because real women who try to change things are kicking people’s asses, wearing pantsuits and clinging to being a woman in an unfair world. You can’t smile about! If you do you obviously don’t care! This is how I’ve been treated by so many women in the industry and I’m so fucking tired of it. I tell you, a bit of laughter and a smile backed up with brains got me into top level corporate America and it also helped me create a really successful art career. By playing the game, so to speak, I got into places where I could change the rules. I’ve helped women a lot. I understand women run differently and have different challenges but I’ll be damned if I join a woman’s only network and say I’m limited because I’m a woman. There’s no way I want to get somewhere because I was focusing solely on my sex and the sex of others.
I have a lot of really great, smart, powerful women friends, a couple of whom are involved with BlogHer. Because of these women, I felt it would be less “we’re women with issues” and more “let’s connect,” which is why before I left for Austin I shot an email to them. I have a huge network of women that love to connect and thought it would be a great thing for everyone involved. But, I learned that this orgnisation (and a those that are similar) are really not interested in connecting with things outside what they think their agenda is. If someone doesn’t fit their profile or isn’t a minion, there’s no use. Despite being one of, if not the first, female bloggers in 1995, having two SXSW web nominations for best female oriented sites, despite receiving at least 70,000 hits on every site I’ve created and being in the industry for ten years, to a lot of girls in tech especially, a smile, a pretty dress means I don’t know what I’m talking about. Not being angry or “grrrl” centric means I’m not serious. Not having a blog entry about the trials and tribulations of how I suffer means I’m blind to what goes on. The truth is, they want to cling to being a minority and old definitions despite the pretense of wanting to break them down. I think they also cling to things as an excuse for why they’re not where they want to be. “If I was a man I’d have done X. If I was a man I’d have more hits. If I was a man I’d be taken seriously. If I was a man, I’d have more power.” Excuses are never, ever powerful and I don’t participate in that. It’s probably why I have, for lack of a better term, been successful in a mans world. I don’t look at it as a mans world – I see it as mine. Whatever I want to do – I do it. That simple.
In the conference, one woman asked the question “If stereotypes in reality bother you so much, why would you bring them into internet space? Why is it so important to be a woman blogger and not just a blogger? Why would you focus more on tagging your work as “woman” or “lesbian” instead of a woman who blogs or a lesbian who write? Why cling to names?”
The whole panel just skipped this question. When she tried too reiterate her question again, the panel once again ignored her. She didn’t look like anyone on the panel, she wasn’t mimicking the cheering on of the audience and she had a different point of view that didn’t seem to be heard or addressed. If it was, perhaps they would have gained two allies instead of alienating to. Because after the panel I talked to her about it, saying I thought it was the most challenging question out there and how disappointed I was to not hear them respond. I said I think it scared them because they were so caught up in being rah, rah, rah about being a woman and being heard that they forgot to listen and accept all kinds of women and perhaps didn’t want to acknowledge that they were perhaps hurting their own cause. You don’t convert people to your belief system by attacking them, making them afraid of you or being so glued to your ideas you can’t accept some challenging ones from someone else.
I happened to grow up in a European culture where girls wore dresses and no one thought anything of it – not even in advanced calculus. But here, at this conference and a lot of the time in America, if you don’t have a certain “look” that most women in any given area have other women tend to think you’re not serious. In this case, wearing a dress and having long blond hair makes me stand out and makes it really, really hard to connect sometimes to other women. Men, on the other hand, haven’t ever judged me so harshly as other women and are a lot more open to what I have to say and what I can do. Male bosses have advanced me further up the ladder, mentored me, given me chances when other women wouldn’t because most women bosses had an idea of what a “serious woman” is and if you hire a happy girl in a dress, she might make take women back 50 years! Which is perhaps why I tend to have more male role models who are just about getting things done, creating, and supporting instead of trying to be all about women and competing with them and trying to figure out my rank. A man goes from point a-z without apology. Some women, however, take a long and winding road because they think they have road blocks that if they just didn’t give weight to, wouldn’t be there.
The point is that if you want to wear a dress, go for it. If you want to be butch, go for it. You want to blog, do it. You want to giggle, sure! You want to be powerful and a woman, why not! Do what is in you to do and to be. Don’t cling to an idea of who you think you are or who you think others are. Don’t keep talking about limitations (ones that you self-impose or feel that society has imposed). Try to connect with more than what you know, especially if change is a goal. Because if you don’t, chances are you’ll stay a> bitter b> a minority and c>unsuccessful and d>unhappy. The only way to not feel trapped as a stereotype is to not be one.
{And as a side, I’d like to thank the people (girls & grrls) who have emailed me about this. From those who’ve agreed to the couple that haven’t. It’s good to have the discussion. To see each others sides, to bend a little, to hear. Because being willing to take the risk and talk about one’s experience and perhaps in return hear about an opposite experience or a different view is so much more beneficial to everyone than just getting snarky, childish and stopping conversation on a web site. It’s been unfortunate, for me, that the BlogHer Panel & their minions found this post and decided to just send hate mail instead of conversations. No one benefits that way because this kind of discussion isn’t about being right or getting the last word. It’s about hearing how we’re treating each other and calling each other on it (myself included). If women really want women to get more power, they have to stop keeping each other down instead of blaming men).
Don Miguel Ruiz
Many people go to work every day just thinking of payday, and the money they will get from the work they are doing. They can hardly wait for Friday or Saturday, whatever day they receive their money and can take time off. They are working for the reward, and as a result they resist work. They try to avoid the action and it becomes more difficult, and they don’t do their best.They work so hard all week long, suffering the work, suffering the action, not because they like to, but because they feel they have to. They have to work because they have to pay the rent, because they have to support their family. They have all that frustration, and then when they do receive their money they are unhappy. They have two days to rest, to do what they want to do, and what do they do? They try to escape. They get drunk because they don’t like themselves; they don’t like their life. There are many ways that we hurt ourselves when we don’t like who we are.If you take action because you have to, then there is no way you are going to do your best. Then it is better not to do it. No, you do your best because doing your best all the time makes you so happy. When you are doing your best just for the pleasure of doing it, you are taking action because you enjoy the action.
Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreement
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