Samsung’s big new flagship phone is due out very very soon at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and Samsung has been teasing the shit out of it. But now, it looks like one may have made its way out into the wild. It looks refreshingly different.
In a galaxy far, far away—12.8 billion light-years away to be more exact—is a newly-discovered supermassive black hole that weighs as much as 12 billion of our suns. The most surprising thing about the black hole, though, is not its size but its age.
Behind the large stack of my medical records, I’m sitting in my hospital bed in room 19 of the ICU (Summer 2004) and talking with my mom and a nurse.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
Ever since I left the Intensive Care Unit, I have been on a mission to make an impact in the field of healthcare education by bringing awareness to what the patient and family are going through in the hospital setting.
As a former ICU patient, I believe in healthcare. I have ventured through the many levels and departments of the healthcare system. I have seen it up close and observed it from a distance, and I have come to understand that what it comes down to is people helping people. In some point in their life, these men and women in scrubs or lab coats were inspired to pursue this career, this calling of helping others. And in some point in their life, these people, either sick or injured, needed help.
On July 6, 2004, I was one of these people who needed help, and I needed a lot of it. After undergoing fourteen lifesaving operations in the span of two months in a coma and on life support, I awoke to a new life that was constantly being assisted and supervised by dozens of determined health care providers. This view from the world is what inspired me to want to become a healthcare advocate. I wanted to highlight the bond and friendship that can exist between a patient and their care team. I wanted to share the appreciation that a patient has for their healthcare provider and vice versa. I wanted to focus on the types of things that can ultimately improve the patient experience.
These things, can be big like learning how to walk again, or small like twitching a finger on command. In time, whether big or small, these various improvements will gradually change lives forever. I have witnessed this on a personal level many times, and that is why I’m very excited to be partnering with BMJ Quality on their Small Things Big Wins campaign. Based in London, their goal for this campaign is to celebrate the small things that people are doing to improve healthcare and make a real difference for patients. They have given me a platform to be able to share my ideas and insight regarding the patient experience, and I’m grateful that there are organizations like this that are willing to bring awareness to this issue. What I like most about the Small Things Big Wins campaign is the fact that BMJ Quality is focused on supporting the practical projects at the front line that do bring about small, meaningful changes and have the propensity to grow.
When it comes to the recovery of a patient, no matter how small an improvement is, there is still a level of improvement that is taking place. Something as subtle as the blink of an eye can be a monumental milestone because in that split second you are witnessing a speck of light in a world that had the possibility of remaining in complete darkness.
For more information on my collaboration with BMJ Quality, please visit the BMJ Quality Brian Boyle column.
Zack Rosen is the former Editor-in-Chief of defunct queer culture site TheNewGay.net.
If catching up after a sick day is merely stressful, the cleanup for a few sick years feels positively herculean. I find myself in 2015 grossly familiar with where I’ve been. So like Charlie Brown and his football, I’m putting my trust back into the internet and hoping for connection. I’m asking for help in figuring out where I’m going.
I put so much of myself online, for so long, that I woke up one day in 2011 with nothing left. I spent the year following as a couch cushion, a soft fixture of my own red velvet sectional and the leather davenports of too many trained professionals.
There were the guinea pig months, where every fortnight heralded a new chemical cure with side effects worse than the initial illness. Two years of glacial gains and mudslide setbacks, cut with an endless bog of unactable ideas.
Incapacitation, for me, felt like being slowly drowned in my own ambitions. First I lost my will to put my thoughts on paper, which left my flowers of inspiration to bloom and rot under the cartoon lightbulb in my head. The world divided into things I wanted to do and things I could do, with little overlap. The cavern between desire and ability grew so large that a trip to the bank required as much planning as an alpine hike, and left me just as drained.
So I stopped worrying that I wasn’t a part of the world, and turned my focus to how I had gotten to this point and what I would do when past it. The answers were linked. I had burned myself out as a blogger, and blogging is a reactive medium. Events happened, I reported them. Artists created, I critiqued them. Gay culture was an assault, and I was leading the defense.
I was fighting Them, for Us.
They strike, I perry. They advance, I beat. Sleeping with one eye open, exhausted and wary to stay current, I finally asked myself, “How long do you keep making the second move before you ask what you’re running from?”
I was so busy reacting to the world around me that I ceased to be a part of it, and it was here that my infirmitude gave me a boon. The nature of my illness at that time, combined with its first wildly exacerbating attempt at treatment, set me out in a car for three weeks to get out of a few bad situations in a few different homes and re-experience the world of the living.
I drove from Chicago to a frigid Madison in mid-February 2012 and spent the next two weeks chasing the spring down to Georgia. When I wasn’t making bad decisions in gay bars and thrift stores, I thought.
I thought while chain-smoking at 4:00 a.m. in a dark highway between Louisville and Nashville. I thought in hotel rooms and thought so hard and slept so long I thought myself out of the daylight. I holed up at the Athens Days Inn for 36 hours with the shades down, with a box of crayons and a blank sketchbook, and thought until I remembered what it meant to share a piece of myself without fearing my audience.
I’ve spent three years trying to grasp what I learned over the course of those three weeks, and the only way I can share it now is by telling you a story. It’s a story I told myself during a period of time when I deemed it OK to treat myself like a child, albeit a child who’d read The Republic.
***
It seemed to me that there were actually two worlds, the land of creation and the land of reaction, and I was trapped in the latter. The land of reaction is beautiful, but none of the beauty is local. It ends at a cliff and a chasm, and across that chasm is the land of creation, where real things happen and real people live.
The artists and poets over there, painters and storytellers, musicians and dreamers, revolutionaries and leaders, would pluck out a piece of their soul and fling it across the chasm for their subjects on the other side. And when it landed, this song or movie, this idea or inspiration, those in the land of reaction would jump on it and each try to claim a little piece for themselves.
Unable to cross the chasm of pain and hard work, they stay where they are and tear up what lands at their feet, twisting and turning the organs of another’s genius until they could present it, gored beyond recognition, as their own.
Such atrocities I’d committed there! An American president once said that the credit belongs to the man in the arena, and I’d found the illusion of apex at the tailgate. I still put thoughts online after this, interviewed musicians and made cat videos, but I couldn’t find joy in them. I couldn’t shake the idea that every second in the land of reaction sunk my feet another inch in the mud, and soon I’d lose the ability to cross forever.
***
Stability is a poor synonym for recovery, but I’m better these days. Fifteen months ago, the last hard hit I took woke me up and I decided to make a small, old dream a reality. I’m tackling a line by line rewrite of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” as “White Gayland” a critique of the contemporary dominant gay culture. It’s hardly a whole-cloth miracle to draw over someone else’s blueprint, but I wanted the challenge of condensing 10 years of experience into a handful of stanzas. I wanted to write something I was proud of, something that wouldn’t spoil after a week on the windowsill.
I finished part one of five, and couldn’t find anywhere to publish. I’m highly unfamiliar with the literary and poetic world, and know from experience how most creative writing is received on most popular blogs. So I repeated an old mistake; I’m starting my own blog.
A continuation of my last blog, TheNewGay.net, I’ve started up TNG2.com as a home for aspiring creators with no place to go. My attempts to cross the gap from reactivity to creativity will begin with the next four parts of “White Gayland” interspersed with “A Different Dolphin,” a serialized gay children’s book written by New York City artist Aaron Clippinger and illustrated by myself.
This is the scariest thing I’ve done, including posing for Fleshbot and interviewing Stephin Merritt. Art lives longer than people, than articles, than tweets or likes or shouting matches, longer than any news segment or opinion piece, than protests, than riots, than wars, than fantasy or reality, than our children or our pets.
I’d like to have a home base for the creators outside of Buzzfeed, of social media, of “Internet famous,” of “How many followers?” or “Where’ve you been linked?” A place for original work and unpopular perspectives, for video and visual art and whatever comes after, a place for those who don’t fit in, who don’t have a base, who have whole worlds inside of them and no venue for release.
I don’t know exactly what I’m asking for, because I haven’t seen yet. Only you, the creator, know what’s in store. I just ask if this resonates with you — If you’ve also longed to take the long hike down the slope of reaction and up the hill of true magic, but feared rejection by those already there — let’s journey together.
If this resonates with you, shoot a note to Zack@tng2.com. There’s no deadline pressure, no weekly posts, no shitting out an anecdote to meet someone else’s deadline. Just present me with your own best self and let’s hope that, together, we can build our own endpoint.
We all know how fantastic coconut oil can be for cooking purposes. However I was recently introduced to its fantastic health benefits. I would like to preface this article with the statement that you need to experiment with it yourself and what works best for your body. The same product never works exactly the same for every person, so try it out and see where the fantastic properties of coconut oil take you!
I’ve always thought I had pretty soft hair, and when a new girl started working in our office with the shiniest hair I had ever seen, we were all fawning over it. When asked what her secret was, she simply said, “coconut oil!”
When I began to dig a little deeper into the hair mystery, I found out my office manager — who is very into holistic medicine — has been using coconut oil for years and absolutely loves it. I immediately went out to my local “healthy food store” and bought myself a United States Department of Agriculture-approved organic bottle of coconut oil, the biggest I could find. Needless to say, my health care regimen and life have not been the same since.
To start off, we’ll talk about hair.
Coconut oil has fantastic natural oils that make your hair really shiny and soft, especially if you use it often. It melts at 76 degrees (which it says right on the bottle) so you can just run it under your hot faucet or scoop out little by little and run it through your hands.
Now, these were my instructions: For the first several weeks, you want to put it in your hair twice a week. You can put it in right before you shower and after you wash your hair, walk around with it in your hair for a day up in a bun, or put it in your hair before you sleep and wash it out when you shower in the morning. I really enjoy letting it sit in my hair for several hours. Often I will do the last option and sleep with coconut oil in my hair.
You have to be careful doing that though — the oil will get onto your pillow case, which can cause you to break out. After several weeks of my coconut oil regimen of twice a week, you may notice a difference in your hair and want to switch to only once a week. I’ve been doing this for several months now, and my hair has been so soft several of my friends have bought their own bottle.
For your skin!
For your skin, you want to melt the coconut oil and pour a little into the cap. Then, you begin pouring it into your hands and using it as a lotion. It’s a fantastic moisturizer and can make your skin look really great and young. I’ve always had little red bumps on the backs of my arms which have almost completely gone away since I started putting coconut oil on them. If you have a dry patch of skin, continuously putting coconut oil on it can help. Chapped lips? Coconut oil. Dry elbows? Coconut oil. Massage? Coconut oil. It’s definitely a little messy, so be careful you don’t get it onto everything.
This last part is not for everyone.
Now, we’re going to talk about face and teeth.
I love the way my skin looks after I shower and put a little coconut oil on instead of facial moisturizer. The typical mistake people will make is that they will just leave the excess coconut oil on their face and they will break out. For best results, after you’ve put the coconut oil on your face, you let it sit for five to 10 minutes, then pat your face with a towel. This can carefully get rid of the excess oil while still allowing time to moisturize your face.
Again, this is not for everyone, as it might cause you to break out depending on your skin. Be careful here — I wouldn’t suggest starting this right before a big event. Also, coconut oil can be a great whitening agent for your teeth. If you gargle with a coconut oil-water mixture, you should see some improvement. Of course, you’re not going to see the automatic results that professional whitening kits will give you. Over the next couple of weeks you’ll notice your teeth getting whiter. I suggest brushing your teeth in the morning to get off plaque, gargling with the mixture, then re-gargling with a minty mouthwash for the best results. It’s absolutely not the best tasting mixture, and you want to make sure it’s completely melted.
I highly suggest using the organic products — those are the safest, but slightly more expensive. They’ll be the most gentle on your skin without any of the preservatives you might find in non-organic coconut oil.
Of course, find whatever suits you best. That also goes for the health care regimen you find works well for your body. Nobody knows your body better than you. I’ve found what works for me, I hope you find the same!
“Oh, I can relate to that. I remember this one time when I was 11 years old and walking home from school, some older kids said something nasty to me.”
This was a response I received from someone I care very deeply about, after I shared the myriad ways by which, as a young girl, I had been harassed on the streets of Brooklyn. Two instances of that harassment stand out among others too numerous to count:
Such as the time I was 15 years old and walking along the cement expanse known to Bensonhurst locals as Bay Parkway. As a kid, I really, really enjoyed going “down by the water” (for my family, this was code for visiting the popular “Caesar’s Bay” promenade. The promenade affords locals a stunning view of the Verrazano Bridge, and also the sunset if you happen to be there at the right time). My childhood consisted of frequent trips going “down by the water” with my parents; a ride down Bay Parkway, the most direct route to “the water,” got us there by car in under ten minutes (and sometimes only mere minutes if we beat the red lights).
As I became older, I was given the freedom to walk to the promenade on my own during the day, about a 20 minute walk from our home in Gravesend. We did not construe our neighborhood as dangerous, by any means (I still do not construe my old neighborhood as dangerous); for me, my legs were my main source of transportation on most days, and this was a normal, necessary aspect of my childhood. It’s just Brooklyn, to me. No matter how far away life takes me, Brooklyn is home. Nothing more, nothing less.
As a kid who loved water and exercise almost equally, I absolutely loved my walks to the water. And on this particular day, a sunny, comfortably warm day in 1996, I committed the crime of not crossing that large, perpetually high-traffic, four-lane street to avoid a small group of guys–3, I think–who happened to be walking toward me, in the opposite direction.
I did not know them; they seemed a little too tall, their faces a little too stubbly, and their voices a little too deep for me to recognize them from my sophomore class at the local high school. As the distance between us decreased, I heard them laughing and cursing at each other. The precise transition from walking along Bay Parkway uninterrupted to being pinned against the black, wrought iron fence which separated pedestrians from a nearby apartment building eludes me to this day. The tallest, most muscular one of the group wrapped his leg around my entire body (it seemed) and began thrusting until I pushed him off of me with all of the teenage might I could manage. I knew intuitively that his loosened grip on my body was much more inspired by the fact that his assault occurred on a busy street in broad daylight, and had virtually nothing to do with my physical strength.
They laughed, joked, cursed, and continued their trajectory in the opposite direction, as though nothing had happened. The contact occurred for only a few seconds, and over clothing. No harm, no foul, right?
I remember feeling disturbingly “lucky” that that’s all that happened.
Do not tell me I am “lucky.”
I continued with my plan to head to the water that day, but this time, rather than just enjoy the bridge and the choppy waves of the Narrows waterway, I continued my plan with a new goal: To forget what I had just experienced. To forget that a stranger felt entitled to put his stranger-hands on me without my consent.
I have altered my “behavior” as a result of this event. As an adult, I have made it a habit of crossing the street when I notice a group walking in the opposite direction. Whether I am in a Midwestern suburb or a big city, I am now sure to cross the street from others to the extent that I can do so safely. Am I being overly cautious? Probably. But I am approximately 0% interested in finding out whether my precautionary measures are warranted in a given situation.
Do not tell me I am “overreacting.”
Another experience stands out alongside that unfortunate Bay Parkway encounter. I am now 16. On this particular summer day, I had made it all the way to the water without incident. I remember leaning against the railing, my back to the distant, endless rush of the highway traffic that ran alongside the promenade and all it offered. As I recall, I was deep in thought about something school-related. After all, I was a teenager. I likely had college, SATs, friends, and boys on the brain, and not necessarily in that order.
I can only make hazy assumptions about the thoughts that may have been occupying me at that moment; however, the memory of the single event that disrupted my thoughts–the strong, groping hand in pursuit of a path up and under my shorts–is crystal clear. I remember the sharp, startled intake of breath as I turned around to see who the hand belonged to. By then, he and his voyeuristic sidekick were speeding away, perhaps victoriously, on their bicycles.
The hand, mind you, made enough contact with enough naked skin that would send most fathers into a fiery rage, had they known that the skin belonged to their teenage daughter.
My heart never pounded so hard; my gag-reflex never so triggered before that moment, or even since. Perhaps most disturbingly, I was deeply embarrassed: Had anyone seen this occur? Did anyone in a passing car happen to notice? What would people think of me for my role in a violation of personal boundaries that I–in my teenage mind–inspired? Would my parents yell at me if I told them?
Nausea and heart palpitations aside, I remember feeling disturbingly “lucky” that that’s all that happened.
Do not tell me I am “lucky.”
I have altered my “behavior” as a result of this experience. I did not return to my sacred place, “the water,” alone.
Do not tell me that it took me long enough to reach that conclusion.
I never shared these stories with my parents. The ounce of freedom I had as a teenager of strict parents who were tasked with raising kids in a big city depended on it. My freedom trumped my need to inform the adults that my personal space and boundaries had been violated. In my teenage mind, the options were obvious: My freedom or my stories.
As I think about my experiences, I think about the consequences of sharing them, even as an adult. Particularly as a college professor, I think of the (many) young women I meet, and to be honest, I cannot help but to worry about them; I wonder about how they handle street harassment and uninvited physical contact, whatever the kind, whatever the extent, whatever the circumstances. I wonder about how they handle thoughtless responses.
On behalf of my students: Do not tell them they are “lucky”; do not ask them what they were “wearing”; do not compare one version of street harassment with another version of (seemingly more extreme) street harassment. This is not the Street Harassment Olympics, and you are not the moderator.
And of course I think about men who are inevitably implicated in these issues, even if many of them cannot claim to have experienced an errant hand up their shorts–or something worse.*
*This is not to say that men do not experience harassment or abuse, sexual or otherwise. In the event a reminder is warranted, this article is about my experiences with street harassment.
As such, I am reminded of Richard Branson’s wise words: “Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.”
My previous article addressed women; in this current post, I wish to lovingly address men.
Think about the women in your life; think about their stories of harassment and uninvited attention – we all have them. If their stories of harassment remind you of that one time two decades ago when someone said something to you that made you feel badly, you are not listening.
It is OK to lack the ability to relate to certain experiences. In fact, admitting that you are not able to relate to something is the preferred response. It means that you are listening. Sometimes silence, accompanied by a caring heart and open ears, is the only appropriate response.
I am grateful for the many men who cannot fathom making women uncomfortable with their surroundings; the men who cannot fathom these stories. But it might be said that undermining–or worse yet, evaluating or flat out denying–a woman’s stories about harassment is a step in that direction, however well-intentioned you may be. If a story upsets you, direct your anger appropriately. Do not blame the women who have had to alter their view of the world because of their experiences with being women. Blame the men who have made it more difficult for you to fathom this kind of world.
In short, be the kind of man that women who experience street harassment need in their circle–the kind who listens more than he speaks. That is a version of #yesallmen I can get behind.
Hey! Come hang with me! www.heycollegekid.com
Show your average chief innovation officer or chief marketing officer the corporate social responsibility (CSR) plan from the chief sustainability officer and they are unlikely to get that excited.
Strategy, marketing and innovation teams have one job: To grow the top line (revenues) and bottom line (profit) of the business. CSR teams, on the other hand, are usually in the business of reducing negative impacts, which can often reduce profit too. Within this everyday tension plays out our unique future-defining, 21st century battle, between growth and sustainability; between profit and purpose.
However, some cutting-edge businesses are starting to see this can be a false dichotomy. We can use the constraints of sustainability as a prism to illuminate breakthrough innovation that planet-ready and world-positive. Welcome to CSR-led or sustainable innovation. What looks like impossible constraint can be leveraged to transform problems into possibilities… if the mind is open, and the heart courageous, enough.
Let us look to the creative arts for inspiration. Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. This worldwide bestseller was the result of a bet between the author and publisher to see if he could write a great book with only 50 words. The wonderful cadence of “Sam I Am”, that millions of us grew up with, was a result of putting constraint at the start of an innovation process, rather than leave it to the end. Examples abound from other areas of creativity. Dancers appropriate the constraints of gravity to dazzle us with new forms. Composers appropriate the constraints of key and chord to break open our hearts with their symphonies. Renoir is reputed to have said, “One morning, one of us was out of black and so used blue instead. And impressionism was born.”
In business too, far from being a dampener on our creativity, constrain can be the key that unlocks breakthroughs; disruptions. Constraints, setting us free from our own limits to actively transform a challenging reality into a creative revolution. At the ad agency I worked for in the ’90s, we managed to create famous ads with tiny budgets because we were forced to innovate away from conventional and expensive TV. The result was the famous “Hello Boys” ads for Wonderbra; and the equally famous F.U.C.K. campaign.
On the other hand, when there are few constraints and too much money, pap is often the result. Many Hollywood movies with budgets over $100 million have been critical and commercial disasters. Yet 1979’s Mad Max cost $200,000 to make and grossed $99 million. 2009’s Paranormal Activity cost just $15,000 to create and made $193 million!
Constraint can be what galvanises the human spirit to innovate most breathtakingly.
There is no greater constraint on business for the forceable future than the reality of one planet, 7 plus billion, global warming, social injustice and generational empowerment. Any business that avoids grappling with this future is going to fail, at some point, in some way.
How will your organization flourish in a world where:
It’s not a question of if these types of constraints are coming your way but when. The demographic shift from Baby Boomer to Millennial alone will bring much of it.
Yet there is a way to drive growth that contributes, rather than growth that damages. It all starts with the problems we focus on. Einstein famously said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” Our lives and livelihoods depend on us identifying the right kinds of problems; and cracking them open with the massively powerful Strategic Breakthrough Innovation toolkit.
If we focus the stunning creative agility of 21st century capitalism on problems that matter, then things are looking up. Government, with its ever-fractured political power play and ever-waning budgets, is unlikely to do this for us. Yet great businesses know how to solve problems in effective, often stunning, ways.
It may not be as ‘easy’ or ‘simple’ as developing yet another brand extension or new service. Yet it is always possible, as long as we have a strategic innovation process that bakes sustainability and social impact in at the start; and harnesses collaborative approaches to bring in the wisdom of the crowd, who have crucial insights into parts of the system that we are blind to. This means we have to integrate the tools of futuring and scenario planning; systems thinking; open innovation; business model innovation; disruptive innovation; service design and brand marketing… into a practical, do-able process that neither ignores complexity (which is what businesses have done for too long); nor dwells so much on it that nothing gets innovated! You can download a complimentary 80-page guide to designing and leading this kind of process here.
However, in my experience running such projects with various multi-nationals, the process is only 50 percent of what is important. The other 50 percent of success is down to the level of consciousness, creativity and collaboration of the leadership. It is easy to cancel these kinds of projects after a tough quarter. Real leaders knows that nothing is more important to the business, themselves or the world. They are always seeking the win-win wins. They must guide their organizations on a journey to find and express their purpose; and empower themselves to avoid the knee-jerk reactions — triggered by negative trading results or analyst commentary — that shut down transformative innovation before it has had a chance to live.
The benefits of doing all this are huge, including: Having staff, particularly younger talent, actually want to work for you; having customers who are healthy and happy enough to buy your products; and actually still having an ecosystem for our economy to sit within.
There are no right answers. But if we aren’t even given permission to ask the right questions, we might as well give up now. The great news is that there are limitless new business models waiting to be invented that can make our enterprises, society and planet thrive. Perhaps my favorite example is Nike+. It delivers outstanding profits (reported to have increased sales in running division by c.30 percent between 2011-2012 alone); utilizes new technology, multi-platform creativity and an expanded sense of brand purpose to help people be more fit and healthy; encourages people to use their own foot power instead of motor vehicles; fosters community cohesion and connection; and ensures there will continue to be a market for running apparel in a world of creeping obesity.
Sustainable innovation, and therefore truly responsible business growth can only happen when conscious, creative, and collaborative leaders choose to make it so. Then chief sustainability officer, chief innovation officer — and chief talent officer — can work together on their own version of Green Eggs and Ham.
Billie Dragoo, Founder and CEO of RepuCare has been an entrepreneur for 23 years. Her list of accomplishments is nothing short of vast. She’s been recognized as one of 10 female entrepreneurs chosen as one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year.
She’s been a strong and powerful advocate for women as CEO, Chair, and Emeritus Board Advisor of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), co-founder of the Invent Your Future Midwest conference, and co-founder of the Indiana Governor’s Conference for Women.
In today’s Jam Session, Billie and I jammed on the biggest barrier holding women back in entrepreneurship, what’s happening in Silicon Valley with women, and women investing in other women. We riff on women playing in the same sandbox, and whether we do it well. Billie points the way to a number of resources, including resources for mentorship — and enlightens us on her latest initiatives she’s working on through NAWBO. We talk about why we need more women in leadership, and the greatest thing keeping them from ‘leaning in’ or ‘playing big.’
We dig into the shift occurring toward what are typically considered more feminine features, such as empathy, in the arenas of entrepreneurship, the corporate world and innovation.
And we discuss how we need men — the ways men have helped each of us in our careers personally, and ways they can walk alongside to advance and advocate women in leadership and entrepreneurship in the future.
We even mention the Oscars, Reese Witherspoon and the red carpet.
If two soul sisters took a break during a jam session to catch up over coffee to talk about women in entrepreneurship and leadership, this is what it’d sound like. (Emphasis on the sound since our video was a little one-way. Fortunately, it was the right way.) Chill out, hang out and join us for a while.
Jam Sessions
Jam Sessions is an interview series hosted by Deb Owen, founder of Percorso, intended to enlighten, empower, and equip you in your life and business. Interviews cover a range of topics from branding and business, entrepreneurship, and conscious capitalism to inspiring individuals who’ve overcome amazing obstacles in their lives. Inspiration + strategy + lots of love.
My latest lifelong dream is to get paid for being hilarious, be it stand-up or a well-written film or television show. Around the time of this revelation, one of my “real writer friends” — who was actually making quite a name for himself in screenwriting (the real, paid kind of screenwriting) — mentioned an up and coming producer who was making a name for herself in film and suggested that she would be an excellent person to speak to in regards to learning everything about the process of getting my little ideas onto the big screen. He was also very impressed by how determined she was to carve her own path in this very competitive industry, and suggested I join forces with her when I am ready to transition into the development phase.
As fate would have it, this new connection wound up being Marlinda Walcott — an old friend of mine from high school whom I had no clue was now working professionally in film. I quickly found out that Marlinda was the real deal, holding legitimate producer roles in feature films such as the psychological thriller Victims, starting Katherine Isabell and Christian Campbell and indie hits Goon, starring Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Eugene Levey and Liev Schriber and romantic comedy What If/The F-Word starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan. She has also worked on video game franchise hits such as Silent Hill: Resolution and Resident Evil: Retribution, both films having combined, worldwide gross of over $300 million. She was, in fact, the real deal.
I am certain that there are a few comedy writers out there who would love to see their name in the credits, but have no idea how to get there. In the spirit of sharing, here are a few highlights from my many conversations with producer Marlinda Walcott in hopes of helping my fellow aspiring screenwriters and producers.
Me: Over the past decade, you’ve held a producing role in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of film and television projects. At what point in your life did you decide that this was what you wanted to do for the rest of your life?
MW: Growing up, I always had a natural curiosity for how things worked. And watching films was no exception. I was constantly curious about how they picked the actors, or the cost of a scene, or how they picked that particular location. I remained constantly in awe of the filmmaking process. So it was in my early teens when I decided that I would be a part of making films, from conception to completion. I then spent the next few years immersing myself in every aspect of the behind the scenes world of production, from music videos to commercials and short films.
Me: How does one transition from aspiring to successful when it comes to being a producer of both independent and studio projects?
MW: First and foremost, you need to find a project/story that you believe in something that will keep you going during the long and sometime tedious process that is making a movie. You must to be an extraordinary networker. The majority of the job is based on your relationship management skills and ability to talk to people and understand their individual creative needs. You must also possess an understanding of the intricate financial planning these projects require. No matter the budget, there is always a budget, and it is the producer’s job to stay within that budget and ultimately keep investors happy. Frivolous budgeting can and will ruin a project — I know of a few fantastic movies that didn’t make it into production because investors lost faith and pulled out.
Me: So basically sales savvy and good at money management equals a great producer?
MW: Yes, among many, many other things. Because managing the money means managing the expectations of the creative minds involved (director, writers, etc.). Staying within budget without compromising anyone vision is a delicate art. The producer’s responsibility is to offer creative suggestions to fill the void of a scene which can’t be shot due to budgetary constraints. However ultimately, the producer should plan accordingly in order to complete the project within budget while not compromising the overall creative vision. It is quite the delicate task.
Me: And now for the predictable question: being a woman in a male-dominated world, yadda yadda, you know where I’m going with this.
MW: There is definitely no shortage of horror stories in this industry pertaining to the treatment of women on set. I’m not going to say I’ve never been hit on inappropriately or not taken seriously because I’m a female, however for the most part I’ve been lucky to have been considered a colleague by some of the industry’s best. It’s important for women getting into production to really get to know the craft and remain confident and firm. I’ve been able to produce movies under budget numerous times, and having a reputation for achieving such a task will open doors. But like I said, there is a mountain of responsibility involved with no room for oversight, so male or female you need to be confident and resourceful at every point in the project.
Me: Any last words for aspiring filmmakers?
MW: Just start. Follow through on your ideas and learn by doing. And never hesitate to seek out those who have accomplished what you are trying to do and soak up their knowledge.
So there you have it. I absolutely urge anyone looking to try their hand at
filmmaking to seek out an accomplished professional, like I did, to learn the intricacies of the craft. Because while you may think you can just figure it all out, production is a delicate art that cannot be approached casually.
The content of this post may be sensitive to some readers.
This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness (NEDA) Week in the U.S. While this week may signify just yet another cause for some, to others (including me), the message it carries is extremely imperative. It’s crucial to get the word out about this sometimes stigmatized form of mental illness.
This year’s theme for NEDAwareness Week is “I Had No Idea,” according to the National Eating Disorders Association website. This year’s theme includes, “focusing on the importance of early intervention and recognizing the diverse experiences of people personally affected by disordered eating,” also according to the site.
NEDAwareness Week is vital because of the huge number of people eating disorders affect. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.,” which proves just how prevalent eating disorders are in the world. Notice how the statistic says all ages and genders. Eating disorders are not limited to illnesses that affect teenage girls. There isn’t a stereotype for eating disorders; they can affect and ruin the life of any individual. That statistic alone should be enough to start talking about eating disorders and stop keeping them a secret.
The stigma that surrounds any kind of mental illness can prevent someone who needs help from getting it. It’s reprehensible, and something that needs to be stopped. Talking about mental illnesses, raising awareness, and supporting those you know are struggling can aid in eliminating unnecessary shame and guilt over having a mental illness.
While this article is an effort to spread the word and bring attention to NEDAwareness Week, it is also a reminder as to why recovering from this horrific illness is worth it. These reasons are brought to you by me, a woman who has been in recovery from an eating disorder for three years.
Reason #1: To improve your health, regardless of what it may have been like with your disorder.
Recovery from an eating disorder can bring nothing but improved health for you. While some people may say that they never had a cold or that they felt supremely healthy while in the depths of their disorder, this doesn’t necessarily mean that their immune system or health were at their best. It’s likely that the immune system was suppressed in order to make up for the body shutting down in other ways. Recovering from an eating disorder can reverse or slow the effects of osteoporosis, according to a study by Bass et al. in 2005 found on the Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders (F.E.A.S.T.) website. Recovery and refeeding can also improve the immune system’s function, according to a study by Allende et al. in 1998. Recovering can generate a positive shift in your overall mental and physical health. Choosing recovery means literally saving your life.
Reason #2: To be able to truly experience life.
Spending so much time focusing on your disorder robs you of the pleasures of everyday life. You aren’t focused on keeping connections with friends and enjoying your life in the depths of an eating disorder because you’re too worried and fixated on what you had, or didn’t have, for breakfast. Your mind cannot juggle so many negative thoughts and calorie counts at once, therefore being entrenched in the world of the disorder means being completely removed from the realm of real life. It may sound cliché to say, but you truly are a shell of a person with an eating disorder. You’re not really present in any situation due to obsessive thoughts of food. Choosing recovery means being able to concentrate on the things that matter to you. For me, this meant strengthening relationships with friends and family members that I had neglected, and graduating from college in the fall 2014 semester. I never would have been able to accomplish those things while in the hell of my eating disorder. Choose recovery to fully participate in your own life.
Reason #3: To be able to say, “I’m in recovery/I’ve overcome my eating disorder.”
I won’t lie and say that recovering from my eating disorder was a smooth and effortless process. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to defeat in my life. Choosing recovery every day is still a struggle, even after an inpatient stay that I swore I would never repeat. Recovery meant being able to admit that I had some issues to sort through and address. It was strangely empowering because I didn’t have to keep up the façade that I had created while struggling with anorexia. Choosing recovery means admitting to having a problem. This admission is terrifying, but liberating. Acknowledging your issues with food and talking about your eating disorder are the first steps to getting help and choosing recovery.
The wording throughout this article is intentional. The disorder is not your fault in any way, but deciding to recover from it is your decision. You have to choose recovery every day. It is an arduous task, but one that doesn’t need to be completed alone. Full recovery is possible and worth every bite, therapy session, and tear. Please look for the support of medical professionals, family members, friends, and trusted people in your life to guide you through the process.
Please visit the National Eating Disorders Association, the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, or call the NEDA Helpline at 1-(800)-931-2237 to find resources and get help.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
