[beinggeekchic]

Amazing, Beautiful, Baby-like Things

It has been a while since I shared any Mighteor business highlights or updates. The fact is, our little shop has been so crazy and amazing and nutty that it’s hard to keep up with everything. 

Big picture highlights: 

We are making so many beautiful things. Like this awesome drone reel which features some recent visuals from some shoots over the last few months. It’s just beyond pretty, I can’t believe it’s ours.

Mighteor also recently graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Businesses Program at Babson College which opened my eyes to all the growth room there still is for this business. Sometimes I literally can not believe how big the opportunities have become. And I have to admit that my most recent sense of awe is just from meeting so many other business owners from the program who have built a business around something magical or wonderful or meaningful.

Let me give you a few examples of those people I admire from my most recent business bootcamp.

 Courtney started DiOGi Pet Services to provide better pet care. Awesome. Except it’s so much more than that because you meet her and you realize that the foundation she has set at her business means that she provides pet care that’s better than the care I provide for my own pet. She cares THAT MUCH. She reminds me to just care more.

Or let’s talk about Martina who founded Swift Industries, the most incredible bicycle bag and accessories company you will ever have the pleasure of discovering. You think you are passionate about biking. Then you meet the folks behind Swift and you realize - OH, That’s Passion. Because Martina + Co don’t just make beautiful products, they use those products. And test them. And uses those lessons to make even better products. It's a reminder to be thoughtful and open to change always. 

The truth is that at times, it's easy to find inspiration outside the business - but I'm also incredibly lucky to have constant inspiration blooming INSIDE the business. Our Minneapolis team continues to grow, which is great because it means our animation depth and skills grow with it. I am consistently shocked by the brains that come up with these moving moments. I think their latest reel shows off exactly what I mean without the need for words:

As we think about the future, I'm reminded always that there are so many people in our past who have helped us get here. And what's really been interesting is how for the first time ever, I have been able to be a customer of many of some our past clients. I am excited to be working with Slice Realty and Track Ninja - two companies that are completely disrupting industries that are prime for change and evolution. It's beyond interesting to learn more about their worlds and gain an understanding of what it's like to be the game changer somewhere else. Needless to say, Mighteor gets that.

Before I get to my ultimate point, I'd be remiss if I didn't also plug Mighteor's Second Season of Internet Video Masterclass which is smart and colorful and helpful and even better thanks to lots of Beyonce references. In case I don't say this enough, I love my team in large part because they put up with my wacky ideas.

With so much happening, it’s easy to forget that we are still so new. In the life span of a business, anything under a decade is practically a baby infant whose still drooling on themselves. It reminds of Pixar’s “Ugly Baby” philosophy, which basically states: “The cost of that becomes clear when you think of how a movie starts out. It’s a baby. It’s like the fetus of a movie star; we all start out ugly. Every one of Pixar’s stories starts out that way. A new thing is hard to define; it’s not attractive, and it requires protection. ... Every new idea in any field needs protection. Pixar is set up to protect our director’s ugly baby.Of course you can’t protect the baby forever. At some point, it has to grow up and change into something, because the beast is still there. That’s a positive thing. Because sometimes the ugly baby would rather play in the sandbox forever. It’s a lot like raising a kid. It’s complex and interesting. But most people want to make it simpler than it is.”

Mighteor is still a relatively new baby. We still have our ugly and weird and awkward moments. But when I see things like our new reels and watch the finished work we complete for clients whom I admire - I genuinely find myself convinced that all the work I did to protect this weird baby early on has been worth it. 

Pretty soon, we’ll have teeth. 

[beinggeekchic]

What if We Choose Up?

I’ve spent a lot of my time lately thinking about what it means to have a good attitude in the face of painful things. Like having a good attitude about the future even when we’re worried about the big world outside looking uncertain. Or coming to work with an assumption of progress and joy, even when projects are late or budgets are tight. Or just allowing ourselves to feel good when we’ve been swimming in a pool of bad for a while.

It’s the decision to Choose Up. 

To choose to lift yourself up. To choose to lift your community up. To choose to lift someone else up. Not because you have to. But because you know deep down that choosing up is the right thing to do for us all. 

It would be easy to say that this is just some petty play at positivity. I understand that. But actually, hear me out, because it’s not.

In the last year, I was hospitalized, lost my beloved stepmother suddenly, went through the pain of sudden widowing with my father, went through legal hell, supported my partner through an equally unimaginable death and all the while tried to hold myself together for my business. It was a heavy year. And a heavy time in my life. 

There were moments where the bottom felt like it had no ending. Where I would seriously find myself thinking: “What the fuck? How does this get worse?” 

And in those moments I would get the same pleasantries that we all get from our family and friends. I would hear things like: “This too shall pass.” And “If you have a positive attitude, good things will come.” 

But all I could imagine was this moment, right now, with the pain and the questions and the fear. And somewhere along the way - I started saying to myself. “I just gotta get one step up from this dark bottom.” 

See, I stopped aiming for the impossible - blissful happiness. Joy. A carefree feeling. 

And as soon as I stopped wanting for those big, lofty dreams of the heart and mind - I started to be able to focus on what I could move forward with in that moment. I started to see that I could make my way up - one small choice at a time. 

By choosing to just compliment someone for no reason.

By choosing to go to bed an hour earlier and allow myself to rest.

By choosing to be happy about the perfect coffee. 

These small little moments were my way of choosing up. Because it was all the control I could muster over my mental and emotional well being. 

And it parallels nicely with my new vision of my career as a woman entrepreneur in a time where things seem uncertain on a global scale. I don’t have the patience or the capacity to drown in that fear. So instead I choose up.

That was the theme of my conversation last week with Lizelle VV of Women Who Startup as part of our new Mighteor Monday live stream. And it’s the theme of my entire next quarter at my business. We are going to focus on choosing up for one another. Because it’s the right thing to do.

I know that our minds can’t always control where we are at. Believe me, the prescriptions I stare at tell me this too. But I do believe that part of every healing journey is in making choices. And this isn’t a compass. The directions are 2 dimensional. There are other choices. There are directions that we didn’t even know we could define in a cardinal way. Choose a direction that makes your life better. 

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: February 2017

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

If you caught the SAG Awards last weekend, or even just the speeches from the SAG Awards last weekend, you’ll notice that women had big, bold voices with big, bold messages. It’s a strange time to be a woman, in any profession, not just the entertainment profession. But if one thing can most certainly unite all of us - it’s the notion that women are deserving of the spotlight. The work women are doing is not secondary to the work of men - it’s primary. It’s worthy of attention. And it’s worthy of EVERYONE’S attention.

That’s why I have a new challenge for you this month. If you know a little boy, or even a young man, take him to a movie that was written by, directed by or starring a woman this month. Start to help him understand his role by making him open to the stories of women. That is how we make small changes. That is how we help to make women’s stories EVERYONE’S stories. 

FEBRUARY 10:

A United Kingdom (Directed by Amma Usante and Starring Rosamund Pike) Prince Seretse Khama of Botswana causes an international stir when he marries a white woman from London in the late 1940s.

Running Wild (Starring Sharon Stone and Written by Christina Moore)  The story of a young widow trying to save her ranch following her husband's fatal car crash. She creates a convict rehabilitation program, working with a herd of wild horses that have wandered onto her property. She did not anticipate the greed, bureaucracy and vanity that she must overcome to heal the convicts, the horses and ultimately herself.

Kedi (Directed by Ceyda Torun) A profile of an ancient city and its unique people, seen through the eyes of the most mysterious and beloved animal humans have ever known, the Cat.

FEBRUARY 17:

Everybody Loves Somebody (Directed by Catalina Aguilar Mastretta)  On the surface, the young and beautiful Clara Barron seems to have everything- a great job as an OB-GYN; a great house in LA; and a big fun-loving Mexican family. But, the one thing Clara doesn't have figured out is her love life. Pressured by a family wedding in Mexico, Clara asks a co-worker to pose as her boyfriend for the weekend festivities - only to be caught by surprise when her ex- boyfriend suddenly shows up after disappearing from her life completely.

My Name is Emily (Starring Evanna Lynch) A teenage girl runs away from a foster home with the boy who loves her. She searches for her visionary writer father who is locked up in a psychiatric institution. It is a story of redemption.

Lovesong (Directed by So Yong Kim) When an emotionally neglected woman and her best friend go on an impromptu road trip, their bond deepens and intensifies until an abrupt farewell separates them.

American Fable (Directed by Anne Hamilton) A dark, dreamlike mystery plays out amidst the expansive farmlands of the American Midwest in this wondrous, storybook thriller. With her family's livelihood imperiled by the farm crisis of the 1980s, eleven-year-old Gitty loses herself in a world of fantasy and make believe. But she stumbles into her own fairytale when she makes a startling discovery: a well-dressed mystery man being held captive in her family's silo. It's the beginning of a labyrinthine journey that will turn Gitty's world upside down and force her to question her loyalty to her own family.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

The Unmistakable Joy of Going Places Where Smartphones Don’t Work

I am a really lucky person. As a young child, my parents hauled my brother and I through airports, mountains, resorts, unknown cities and through backwood forests whenever they had a chance. It’s a rare gift, because it makes you unafraid of the world. Too often, I meet people who only discovered their wanderlust after making their way overseas during a study abroad trip in college. For me, studying abroad was no big thing - I was a veteran of being in unusual places by my twenties. 

Earlier this month, I was reminded of my great fortune when my two dear friends joined me on an adventure to Las Coloradas, Mexico. I didn’t think twice about renting a car in Mexico. Or driving three hours to a remote part of the country. Or using my rusty Spanish to figure out if it was a safe region or not. My friends didn’t even tell me until we were on our way back that they were a little bit afraid of this decision, which I appreciated. The fact is: Nothing will make you feel more confident about your decision than people keeping their reservations to themselves. 

But here’s the thing: It was totally worth it. 

Going to Las Colaradas is not for the faint of heart. It requires driving through some fairly remote areas of Mexico. There are entire hour stretches with no gas stations, no rest stops, no nothing. It’s a challenge, to be sure. And with that, there is very limited cell reception. 

So you don’t want to get lost. But you also don’t want to miss the opportunity to see something so perfect. 

And that’s what really brings me to my point. If you’re a creative, you spend so much time inundating yourself with inspiration. My first step on any new client or any new project is to start a search of visual inspiration. I scour Vimeo. I play video after video on YouTube. I scroll through photos and graphics on Pinterest for hours. I put endless visual ideas into my mind. I let them swirl around and eventually, I start creating myself. 

All these visual ideas are right there, at my finger tips. That constant access to the beautiful, creative work of others is a double edged resource, though. It’s a delicate balance between being inspired and falling into feelings of inadequacy. And once those feelings of not quite being good enough or not being able to reach the bar set in, it’s next to impossible to push them out. 

Until you get your damn smartphone off the grid.

And you see something so amazing that no image on Pinterest can compare to - that no video can compete with - that no script can overwhelm you. And that’s why these adventures are ultimately worth it. Not just because you get to see something amazing, but you get to FEEL the beauty of something without judgement of yourself or the person that created it. Instead, you experience beauty exactly as it is - right in front of you. 

The next time you find yourself creatively exhausted, go see something beautiful. And ideally do it without any hope of cell phone service. 

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: January 2017

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

I think I speak for all of us when I say: FINALLY, WE CAN SEE HIDDEN FIGURES. This month proves two things: women aren’t exclusively making movies about love, parenthood and being single. In fact, there isn’t a damn movie in the bunch that wouldn’t surprise you. The diversity of trailers here is a delight to witness, even if you just breeze through them. 

With that, let’s all make it a priority to see more women in the movies this year. We won’t make things change - if we don’t show up. So, I’m gonna show up. Are you?

JANUARY 6:

Hidden Figures (Screenplay by Allison Schroeder and Starring Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe and Octavia Spencer) Three brilliant African-American women at NASA -- Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson -- serve as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation's confidence, turned around the Space Race and galvanized the world.

Underworld: Blood Wars (Directed by Anna Foerster and Starring Kate Beckinsale) Death dealer Selene must fend off brutal attacks from both the Lycan clan and the vampire faction that betrayed her. Joining forces with allies David  and Thomas, she embarks on a quest to end the eternal war between the two races, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.

JANUARY 13:

The Bye, Bye Man (Directed by Stacy Title) People commit unthinkable acts every day. Time and again, we grapple to understand what drives a person to do such terrible things. But what if all of the questions we're asking are wrong? What if the cause of all evil is not a matter of what...but who? When three college friends stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, they discover that there is only one way to avoid his curse: don't think it, don't say it. But once the Bye Bye Man gets inside your head, he takes control. Is there a way to survive his possession?

20th Century Women (Starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning and Greta Gerwig)  In 1979 Santa Barbara, Calif., Dorothea Fields is a determined single mother in her mid-50s who is raising her adolescent son, Jamie, at a moment brimming with cultural change and rebellion. Dorothea enlists the help of two younger women -- Abbie, a free-spirited punk artist living as a boarder in the Fields' home and Julie, a savvy and provocative teenage neighbor -- to help with Jamie's upbringing.

Claire in Motion (Written and Directed by Annie J. Howell, Lisa Robinson) Three weeks after Claire's husband mysteriously disappeared, the police end their investigation and her son is beginning to grieve. The only person who hasn't given up is Claire. Soon, she discovers his troubling secrets, including an alluring yet manipulative graduate student with whom he had formed a close bond. As she digs deeper, Claire begins to lose her grip on how well she truly knew her husband and questions her own identity in the process.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

You Gotta Find Optimism

If the memes on Twitter are any indication, 2016 has been rough for a lot of us. For me, it’s been painful. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved this year, but the huge professional successes seemed to drown in the shadow of my personal life. I wish I could say that I feel like everything has leveled out, but even now, my personal struggles often prevent me from seeing the beautiful world that is around me. 

As a result, I have spent a lot of 2016 on the treadmill and at yoga reminding myself why I need to be optimistic about the future. Here are a few I thought I’d share with you in hopes that you’ll find some reasons to be optimistic as we say goodbye to what has been a rough year for nearly everyone, it seems. 

Working with talented people makes us more talented. I am so lucky to work with wonderfully talented people who bring amazing videos to life. Like that fun cookie video up there...

Having vision pays off. Being brave enough to start your own business is visionary, but continuing to pursue that vision is braver yet. You are brave. 

Being in love is a gift. But being loved by someone who sees you even when you can’t see you - is an even better gift. See others. Love them as they stand there. 

Our health is fragile. The ability to afford to manage it, care for it and tend to it are privileges in our times. I am lucky to have my health. 

The world is so big. And I’ve gotten to see so much of it. For that, I’m grateful. And my ability and desire to walk even more cobbled streets, sandy beaches and dirt trails is only limited by my willingness to make time for it. 

If you haven’t taken the time to try and find the things that you’re grateful for in 2016, be wise and take the time. Grief and pain and loss are part of life always - and sometimes the most painful parts of life all stack up. But, the thing that will make us survive the downs are realizing that the ups have happened and they will CONTINUE to happen. 

[beinggeekchic]

The Best Last Minute Gifts for Your Badass Boss Friends

My world is full of amazing women. I am so grateful to know each one of them. And while I’m usually all about gifting experiences like my dear friend Megan - sometimes badass women are also crazy busy women. In those cases, this list of awesome gifts will let them get back to taking over the world.  

Clear Membership ($179 Per Year)  If a strong woman in your life is a frequent flyer, then a Clear Membership will be a huge time saver. Fly through security and then even go through to the front of the TSA PreCheck line. It’s truly the best. It saved me HOURS this year.

Tile Slim Tracker ($49 for 2) This is my whole life: Where are my headphones? Where’s my phone? Where’s my Kindle? That is why Tile is like an extra brain. It always knows where my things are - and shows me the way.

Physician’s Formula Boosting Serum ($11.99) Let me tell you what I need in life - makeup that lasts from 7AM to 7PM. This is the one and only liquid eyeliner that I’ve found which can withstand 12 hours of hot or cold. It’s a winner in every way.

Any of These Books (Up to $20) It’s easy to lose enthusiasm for business books after you have read more than 3. They are all meant to teach and rarely do they get you pumped up to do the work. These non-business books for bitches who mean business are the east right thing. 

Old School Desk Nameplate ($28)  I can’t think of anything more silly or funny or true than these nameplates. They would charm any girl boss and certainly give them something fun to talk about with their team before getting down to work. 

Chatbook’s 2016 Book ($15) I’m obsessed with this service. Get your instagram photos and ANY photos from your awesome year in one beautiful little printed book. And here’s a great bonus: Rifle Paper Co partnered with Chapbooks to offer some gorgeous designs. 

Sugar Paper Business Card Holder ($5.99) I love this. It’s cute. It’s easy. It does what it is supposed to do. And it’s stylish and wonderful. And it’s super affordable. 

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: December 2016

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

This time of year is an awkward thing: it’s when we are reminded that women don’t win awards in al the big ceremonies - but it’s not because women aren’t making movies - they just aren’t making as many as men. How do we move forward? By voting with our dollars to support the very few films that do feature, star and are written and directed by women at a time when blockbusters are getting all the attention. With that, here’s your December with ladies opening the weekend:

DECEMBER 2:

Things to Come (Directed and Written by Mia Hansen-Løve) A philosophy teacher soldiers through the death of her mother, getting fired from her job, and dealing with a husband who is cheating on her.

Jackie (Starring Natalie Portman) Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband's historic legacy.

DECEMBER 9:

Miss Sloane (Starring Jessica Chastain) In the world of political power-brokers, Sloane takes on the most powerful opponent of her career and will do whatever is required to win.

DECEMBER 16: 

Rogue One (Starring Felicity Jones) The Rebellion makes a risky move to steal the plans to the Death Star, setting up the epic saga to follow.

DECEMBER 23:

Julieta (Starring Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte) After a casual encounter, a brokenhearted woman decides to confront her life and the most important events about her stranded daughter.

DECEMBER 30:

Toni Erdmann (Written and Directed by Maren Abe) A father tries to reconnect with his adult daughter.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

Measuring Success

There are so many ways that you can measure success. Happy clients. Happy teammates. Growth. It’s all rewarding. And these are the things that keep you going. 

But truth be told, it’s just as easy to find ways to get frustrated and sad because of the hard decisions and the tough mistakes and the exhausting hours. Until you see everything you’ve done in one minute and twenty seven seconds with incredible music.

What I’ve come to realize as I’m closing in on the fourth year of business, is that measuring success is exceptionally hard. It’s hard to know what is helping you and what is holding you back. You don’t want to get too comfortable with the wins, because they can just as easily be taken away by the losses.

The truth is entrepreneurs have to figure out how to measure success in the unique way that will allow them to succeed on their own terms and motivate them to KEEP succeeding. 

If you decide to measure your success based on any one else’s definition of success - you will not only fail to succeed - you will fail to enjoy all the things that come with success. 

So today, I’m gonna enjoy that little flutter in my tummy that I get when I see our work whiz by in that player. 

How do you measure the success that is all your own?

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: November 2016

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

The awards season is about to begin while we gorge ourselves on holiday eating. It’s like a double whammy. Endless movies. Endless office cookies. Whatever your gluttony of the day may be, things are looking up for women (slightly) at the box office this month. 

NOVEMBER 4:

What Happened Last Night (Directed and Written by Candice Cain) Two college students, Danny and Sarah, are strangers until they wake up together after a night of partying. Told in reverse time order, the story follows what happened the night before.

NOVEMBER 11:

National Bird (Directed by Sonia Kennebeck) This documentary follows the dramatic journey of three whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial current affairs issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. 

Arrival (Starring Amy Adams) Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when humongous spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors.

NOVEMBER 18: 

The Edge of Seventeen (Written and Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig) Everyone knows that growing up is hard, and life is no easier for high school junior Nadine, who is already at peak awkwardness when her all-star older brother Darian starts dating her best friend Krista. All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until an unexpected friendship with a thoughtful teen  gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all. 

NOVEMBER 23:

Dear Zindagi (Directed by Gauri Shinde and Starring Alia Bhatt) An unconventional thinker helps a budding cinematographer gain a new perspective on life.

Evolution (Written and Directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović) In a hospital on an island populated solely by women and boys, Nicholas is subjected to a medical procedure. He senses everyone is lying to him, and with help from a young nurse, he learns the secret of what the women do on the beach at night.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

The Non-Business Books Every Girl Boss Should Read Before Starting a Business

If you are as obsessed with strategy as I am and you’re thinking about starting a business, you’ve probably taken a long walk through the business book section - and stacked your Kindle with all kinds of texts on finance, business planning and leadership. And all those books are great, but these books, well these books are the ones that are going to fill your gut with the sense of passion you need to get through the ups and downs of building a business. 

1. On Writing Well by William Zinger Here’s the thing that I am best at in the world: writing. I don’t tire of it. I find solace in it. And I never wonder if I’m any good at it. My main contribution every day at the business is not strategy, it’s writing. Writing emails. Writing proposals. Writing scripts. Writing presentations. Writing pitch decks. Writing speeches. Writing concepts. My words are my business INSIDE my business. So keeping fresh on how to do it well? It’s key. If you’re in a creative role or you will be serving as the voice of the business - you have no choice. You gotta write well. 

2. The Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes Workaholics know another workaholic when they see them. Or in the case of Ms. Rhimes, you know it because the badass has three shows on the air right now - making her some kind of super human. But as I’ve written before, you truly have to enjoy your life if you have any intention of enjoying your business. Think of this book as a guide to celebrating and protecting the balance in your life. 

3. Nora Ephron: Everything is Copy by Liz Dance If writing well (#1) is my bible, then this idea is my constitution. The laws to live by in order to get through the hard parts. Every time there is a moment of overwhelming stress, I think of Nora’s words and remember that this is how life works: It must be hard, so we have something to write about later. In this book, you get an inner look at the wonderful Nora Ephron’s point of view. 

4. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace Pixar wasn’t built in a day. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that the film studio that produces some of the most perfect cinema in the history of the medium ever had an ugly period, but as you’ll discover, there are plenty of “ugly” moments in even the most beautiful business. While your cakes might be picture perfect on the day of the wedding or your artisanal lotions might be absolutely delightful once they hit shelves - there is usually a lot of really uncomfortable not-so-greatness that leads up to that moment. This book has taught me to embrace the ugly/messy/figuring it out stages of my business. 

5. How to be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky So much of growing your business is putting yourself out there to be judged and chosen (or not) by customers. And that process can really make you feel like a sales robot. Very little of this book actually covers the details of how to deal with being a sales person, but it does deal with the nagging self-doubt that most of us feel from time to time. Or all the time. Remember that we are all people. And we are all trying to figure it out.

So what non-business book changed your view of your business or your journey?

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: October 2016

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

This is late. But it’s better than never. And honestly, can you blame me? It’s been a rough couple of weeks for women at the box office. As in, they are hardly present. Normally, I wouldn’t put movies on this list that are only starring one woman in a principle role, as I’d look for at least two or one other major contribution on the crew, but this month was so paltry, I had to break my own rules.

Since I started doing this a little over a year ago, this is the worst its been. I hope it is never this bad again. Because if there was ever a case for why 7 or 8 movies would be released every weekend and there isn’t even ONE every week for a month that has a woman in a leadership role, then I would like to know what the excuse should be. 

OCTOBER 7:

The Girl on the Train (Starring Emily Blunt) A divorcee becomes entangled in a missing persons investigation that promises to send shockwaves throughout her life.

OCTOBER 14: 

Certain Women (Written and Directed by Kelly Reichard and starring Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern) The lives of three women intersect in small-town America, where each is imperfectly blazing a trail.

Aquarius (Starring Sonia Braga) Clara, a 65-year-old widow and retired music critic, vows to live in her apartment until she dies after a developer buys all of the units around her.

OCTOBER 21:

The Whole Truth (Directed by Courtney Hunt and Starring Renée Zellweger) A defense attorney works to get his teenage client acquitted of murdering his wealthy father.

—–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

My Identity Crisis

When I started my business, I had a simple goal for achieving work/life balance: I was going to make sure I took time out to blog every week. (On this here, blog, no less.) It would be a way to ensure that I didn’t lose sight of myself. It was a promise to stay focused on things that made me happy so I didn’t only focus on things that made me money. I’ve failed.

When you start a company, people give you this look. I call it the “good luck, kid” look. It’s part pride, part fear, part hope and part skepticism. The funny thing is that their face is the physical manifestation of your insides. You are feeling all those things. Do they really feel that way or is it a projection? Is that that why you see what you see on their face? 

Fast forward to today when I have five people on payroll, a new office, plans for expansion and an actual business with actual revenue. Now, people ask a different question: “how’s business?” And I give them a look that I call, “Can you tell I’m silently drowning in the confusingly endless ocean that is running a small business?” face. You feel this because things are going well. But invariably, if things are going well - that also means that things are very, very busy.

Which brings me to not writing. The other day in between the madness of finishing one project and trying to get to a meeting and make sure I got to the bank and achieved one of the other 100 things on my list, I realized that I was feeling unhappy. The amount of stress, people management and planning that had become my day to day life was overwhelming me. And all I wanted to do was sit down and do nothing.

This is because people management is not why I started my business.

Project coordination is not why I started my business.

Financial planning is not why I started my business.

But all these things were now my job. And since my job is so tightly interwoven with how I see myself and think about my place in the world, I suddenly felt totally out of place inside my own company. I can tell you first hand: that’s a bizarre feeling. For a few weeks, I’ve charged ahead, acknowledging that sometimes having a business that does what you love means you gotta do a lot more business than the thing that you love to make it survive.

However, that can only last so long before a total identity crisis sets in.

I’ve known a lot of overachievers in my life. In business. In corporate careers. In college. We all have this really big thing in common: we equate achievement with our personal value. If we’re not doing well, our value to the world plummets. When we’re killing it, well, our value to our employers and our friends and our partners is at its peak. Actions are everything. Proving to yourself and others that you can take on a challenge is the drug. And you want to experience the high. 

In running my business, I’ve realized that no matter how much money you are making, no matter how happy your clients are, no matter how talented your team is becoming and no matter how successful you have become - exhaustion kills the joy. Without proper rest, nutrition, time off and just general balance, you will completely kill any and all of the high. 

I won’t say I don’t love Mighteor. Or production. Or what we are doing as a team. Or the projects we are working on. I do. I love this business and all the people that make it a thing. 

But, I am so tired.

And that’s confusing. Because identity is something we all struggle with, but for someone like me, pushing myself into what I do for my work is how I always manage those ups and downs. Now my work IS the ups and downs.

This weekend, I’m going to take my first real days off that I’ve had in 2.5 months. I’ve worked every weekend for 8 weeks straight. And to make myself step away, I had to book a damn flight and buy concert tickets. Otherwise, it was never gonna happen. But I also hope to reconnect with the part of myself that finds happiness and hope outside of the business. 

Who knows, maybe I’ll even start a journal again. 

Because the thing about identities is that we can always change them. 

[beinggeekchic]

5 Simple Ways to Up Engagement in IT Video Conferences

Nobody likes to have to sit down and listen in on a meeting that could go on for hours on end, especially when they could be doing something more productive with their time. If you are the person who has the lead the meeting, it can be really intimidating to try and keep everybody interested in what you have to say. Thankfully, there are a few things that you can keep in mind in order to hook people in and have them participating from beginning to end. In this article, we will discuss five specific ways in which you can increase the engagement of the participants in your IT video conferences.

1. Start Out with an Interesting Entrance

Think about the most interesting conferences you have ever attended, whether in person or over the internet. How did the person holding the discussion get you interested in what he or she had to say? Most of the time, they start with interesting anecdotes, funny jokes, or interesting images or clips that they found from other places. Try something like this for your next meeting to keep your participants guessing, long enough for them to listen to the rest of what you want to talk to them about.

2. Make Use of Body Language to Get Your Point Across

As they say: actions speak louder than words, so be mindful of how you project yourself. If you keep your arms crossed over your chest, then that can signal that you are a proud person who will not listen to what anybody else has to say. On the other hand, if you keep your arms open, then that can show your audience that you are friendly and are willing to take in other people’s suggestions. Slouching may indicate that you are a lazy person, while keeping your back straight indicates that you are confident. Again, your audience may not be able to see your whole body, but the way you carry yourself can be projected even if only your upper half is visible to other people, so make sure to stay aware of how you’re sitting or standing.

3. Use Facial Expressions Whenever It Is Appropriate

Even if you are saying what you think are the right words, your facial expressions will make or break whether your audience will understand what you have to say, especially if you are trying to discuss business matters over video conferences for IT with services like BlueJeans. If you tend to frown, then people will be afraid to speak up. If you smile a lot, they will be more likely to trust you. Just do not over do the smiling to the point of forcing it, though, as they might end up feeling scared of you instead.

4. Display Visuals to Make the Meeting More Interesting

Visuals have been proven to help people retain information so much better than pure text or audio. According to an article by Jacqueline Whitmore on Entrepreneur, you can take advantage of this by creating handouts in PDF form and distribute them via email in order to give your audience a guide of what you are trying to talk about. You can also create a simple presentation that uses images that help get your point across.

5. Do Not Rely Too Heavily on Slides or Handouts

While these visual aids can definitely help audiences better understand your topic, you might be shooting yourself in the foot if you rely on them too heavily. Make sure that you give digital handouts only when you really have to. Better yet, give them out through email at the end of the presentation so that they have something that they can take home and remember your presentation’s main points by. If you are going to be using a presentation during your conference, make sure that it only contains keywords or images to keep them hooked. If you put a wall of text on each slide, then they will end up zoning out and just reading whatever you copied and pasted onto the presentation.

There are many more ways in which you can get people’s attention, but you are more or less sure to get people awake and listening with these five tips. Try to think of more ways to keep your meetings lively instead of lifeless. According to an article by Shirley Gatson on LinkedIn, At the end of each meeting, you can even conduct a short survey to ask for your participant’s opinions on how it went, as well as ask them for suggestions to make the next one better than the last. With enough practice and determination, you will never have to witness a crowd of people who look more like zombies than your fellow co-workers ever again. Good luck on your next IT video conference!

[beinggeekchic]

Ladies Opening Weekend: September 2016

This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.

The fall can be a depressing time for movies. With the summer blockbusters now wrapped and the award hungry titles waiting for the winter, there is usually a shortage of compelling stories to pick from. However, it’s a full month for female directors who both write and direct their films. It’s practically a cinematic prozac. 

SEPTEMBER 2: 

White Girl (Written and Directed by Elizabeth Wood. Starring Morgan Saylor) Summer, New York City. A college girl falls hard for a guy she just met. After a night of partying goes wrong, she goes to wild extremes to get him back.

SEPTEMBER 9: 

Ithaca (Directed by and Starring Meg Ryan) During the summer of 1942, a 14-year-old looks after his widowed mother and two siblings while working as a bicycle messenger.

SEPTEMBER 16: 

Bridget Jones’s Baby (Directed by Sharon Maguire, Written by Helen Fielding and Starring Renee Zellweger) The continuing adventures of British publishing executive Bridget Jones as she enters her 40s. This time, she’s pregnant!

Miss Stevens (Written and directed by Julia Hart) A comedy focused on a teacher who chaperones a group of high schoolers to a state drama competition.

Wild Oats (Written by Claudia Myers and Starring Jessica Lange, Demi Moore and Shirley MacLaine) Everything changes for EVA when she receives a life insurance check accidentally made out for $5,000,000 instead of the expected $50.000. She and her best friend take the money and head out for the adventure of a lifetime.

SEPTEMBER 23:

Girl Asleep (Directed by Rosemary Myers and Starring Bethany Whitmore) The world is closing in on Greta Driscoll. On the cusp of turning fifteen she can't bear to leave her childhood, it contains all the things that give her comfort.

The Dressmaker (Written and Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and Starring Kate Winslet) In 1950s Australia, beautiful, talented dressmaker Tilly returns to her tiny hometown to right wrongs from her past. As she tries to reconcile with her mother, she starts to fall in love while transforming the fashion of the town.

My Blind Brother (Written and Directed by Sophie Goodhart) Robbie, a blind athlete, is loved and adored as a local sports hero, and his brother, Bill, has never received the same adoration, which leads to a rivalry that boils over when they both fall for the same girl.

SEPTEMBER 30: 

Queen of Katwe (Directed by Mira Nair and Starring Lupita Nyong’o) A young girl from Uganda trains to become a world chess champion.

American Honey (Written and Directed by Andrea Arnold)

A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Generation Startup (Directed by Cheryl Miller Houser and Cynthia Wade) Generation Startup takes us to the front lines of entrepreneurship in America, capturing the struggles and triumphs of six recent college graduates who put everything on the line to build startups in Detroit. Shot over 17 months, it's an honest, in-the-trenches look at what it takes to launch a startup. Directed by Academy Award winner Cynthia Wade and award-winning filmmaker Cheryl Miller Houser, the film celebrates risk-taking, urban revitalization, and diversity while delivering a vital call-to-action-with entrepreneurship at a record low, the country's economic future is at stake. —–

One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.

[beinggeekchic]

In Defense of Mondays

Here’s a shocking idea: what if we all stopped hating Monday so much? What if we no longer stood in line at Starbucks on Monday mornings with a pit of dread in our stomach? Instead, what if we embraced Mondays the way small children grab Mickey Mouse’s leg for the first time at Disney World?

I don’t hate Mondays. In fact, I kind of like Mondays. I find calm in starting my weekly routine, making my to do list and looking ahead at all the interesting projects we’re tackling at Mighteor. And on Monday nights, I find it strangely easier to leave the office, go home and settle into my evening. Of all the days of the week, I often find Monday the least stressful, because the pressures of getting things done or meeting deadlines rarely falls on a Monday.

Maybe this is the life of an entrepreneur. We are forced to make our own weeks happen and the feeling of a fresh start on Monday morning is distinctly part of the spirit and culture of working at a small company. In fact, when I find myself thinking late at night about my company and the kind of culture I’d like us to try and build and retain, I often come back to the same thought: I don’t want my employees to dread Mondays.

Now, this may seem like an insignificant thing to consider. Our policies on healthy balance, open communication and work product may seem like the first things that should come to my mind. However, when you dive a little further into the emotional equation for why we love some jobs and loathe others, it’s often because of the people around us and how their thoughts and feelings impact our thoughts and feelings.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who works in sales and he was telling me that he stays off social media on Mondays. When I asked him why, his answer was so simple:

“Everyone I know is so full of complaints on Monday mornings. It’s just not a good vibe to start my week with.”

Groupthink is a real thing. There is no doubt in my mind that our cultural obsession with worshipping Friday has a lot to do with one guy, somewhere, standing around a water cooler and turning to the guy next to him and saying: “Mondays, amiright?” And before you know it, our cultural disdain for Mondays is born. We hate it, because we hate it together. 

Reframing Monday can do wonders for your outlook on life. In so many of my jobs, I remember talking with colleagues about their weekend plans, but rarely, did we commiserate about our mutual passion to kill it on Monday. That should bother us as people who spend the vast majority of our week at work. And while I can completely understand that my deep passion for tackling a new week with verve can’t be shared by everyone, it is worth considering the impact it would have on our work place culture and ultimately, the bottom line, if we tried to at least not make it the worst super villain day of the damn week. 

Going to a job that you hate or that you even just dislike, has real negative impacts on your health. Don’t believe me? Just ask someone who retired after doing a job they hated for 30 years. People have honestly told me that they feel like a different person. That, in retiring from a job they hated, they were freed to become who they always felt they were. I don’t even know how to make sense of that kind of thinking. But I think it starts with everyone buying into the idea that Mondays suck.

Mondays only suck if you hate your job.

Mondays only suck if you hate your colleagues.

Mondays only suck if you had such an epic weekend that work seems boring*

Mondays only suck if you live for the weekend.

Mondays only suck if you let them.

We have the ability to realign our expectations and our experience of Mondays. And it starts by no longer turning to each other and saying: “Mondays, amiright?” And instead, asking: “How are you going to be awesome this week?”

*In fairness, this seems like a worthwhile excuse.

[beinggeekchic]

Listening to the Bad to Discover Our Best

Here's a fact that will probably surprise no one at all: I have had some pretty mixed job reviews in my career. There has never been any doubt about my work-ethic, passion and commitment to my various jobs. Most of the critiques over the years orbited around my ability (or lack thereof) to "tone down my personality" or "be sensitive to other people” in my workplace. 

I want you to try to put aside any thoughts of blatant or subliminal sexism today, so we can talk about just exactly how these kinds of comments shaped me for the better. And I also want to be fair to the people who gave me those good and bad reviews and say that they were all really incredible human beings who helped me reach my goals in my career under their leadership.*

Now that we have gotten all that pretense out of the way, all of this is to say that it would be easy to sit here and suggest it was all bullshit. That being told I was "bossy, harsh and aggressive" was all worthless. But since starting my own business and having my job reviews come in the form of happy or unhappy clients and joyful or disgruntled employees, well, my perspective has shifted monumentally. And that's exactly what my first Ignite talk was about.

In five minutes, I manage to outline exactly how those negative job reviews gave me the fuel and the insight I needed to have positive, open and transparent dialogue with the people in my working cirlce today, whether they are peers, partners, clients, contractors, employees or vendors. I truly believe that the open dialogue we have built together has been the key to Mighteor's success to date.

But what I want to talk about here today is something that was scratched from my Ignite talk because of time and because it just needed a little more depth and consideration than a slide and a 15 second sound bite. It’s this very challenging idea: Even the worst things ever said about us can serve as a mirror for discovering our best qualities.

The funny thing about living and working in an honesty vaccuum is that you can truly start to see yourself as a business person and as a leader with more self-awareness and more conviction. Authenticity is something I've explored at great length, in large part because I'm not impervious to negative comments, and I often find myself in something my best friends and my therapist call: "Liz's Analysis Paralysis." To quickly put a non-medical definition around the term: My particular breed of analysis paralysis usually involves me turning over a question or a problem over and over again in my head until it hardly resembles the actual issue at hand and becomes an amorphous blob of painful, debilitating confusion that is so large and so perplexing I'm literally incapable of making a decision or putting together a coherent sentence. In other words, I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about this shit.

The thing about being authentically aware of yourself is that you should be able to look at yourself with harsh realism and acknowledge when you could have been better. I am aware that my greatest flaws in my career have often coincided with my stubborn insistence that other people just needed to "check their feelings at the door" and focus on the task at hand. For example, I process my feelings deep in the quiet of my mind until I can't move or speak. (Ahem, analysis paralysis.) Knowing that other people absolutely need to talk through things and emotionally process with others, out loud, has helped me to be a much more patient leader. 

This came to a head and became something I need to face because of my employees. In one of my worst moments, I said out loud to an employee that “I didn’t care about his feelings.” It wasn’t true. I did care. But in that moment, all I could think about was solving the problem in front of us. From where I was standing, I could only see why we needed to fix it. I didn’t give enough thought to how we were gonna fix it. For him, part of that equation was processing the problem emotionally. I have been forced to learn how to be sensitive to that. It’s something I can honestly look back on now and say I heard when I was 22 years old in my job reviews, albeit in different forms. Talk about taking a while to change. 

The fact of the matter is: Truly listening to someone or truly taking the time to hear something that is hard is not easy to do. But this act can be profound in its ability to make us better leaders. I’ve come to believe that listening is one of the most powerful forms of reflection. And since, it’s become one of my most intense areas of focus and growth over the last year. Coincidentally, I have also been accused of being an "over communicator" recently because I've tried so diligently to over correct.

It would be easy to just throw a "LOL. FML." at that accusation. But the fact is, I'll take it. I would so much rather be known as the boss who communicated too much instead of the boss that didn't communicate at all.

In the Ignite talk, I asked: What would you learn? Whose trust would you earn? How would you grow? If you chose to listen. Today I would add: What hard, ugly, painful thing are you not listening to that could help you unlock your potential if you only chose to hear it?

---

*And in case you were curious, my two worst job reviews ever both came from women who felt that if I "toned things down" - I would be considerably more successful. The issue of policing women's personalities are never as simple as they seem.