Spinning My Network

This week marked my first experience attending an industry conference and expo, the American Society of Training and Development’s International Conference and Exposition, chalk full of keynote speakers, over-decorated, over-energized booths, almost 400 topic-specific sessions spanning three days, and somewhere around eight thousand attendees meandering the monstrosity that is the Colorado Convention Center in the lovely city of Denver, Colorado.

I flew out Sunday evening, after being delayed over two hours, and didn’t arrive to my hotel until around 11pm. No time for fun, the first keynote was 8am, Monday morning. I walked two blocks to the CCC and checked in, got my little name tag, and followed the masses to the Wells Fargo Theater located as far as you could walk while still being inside. I didn’t have much of a plan for my three days, so the fact that I could just walk the same direction as everyone else made it easier. The featured speaker was great, a fellow by the name of Jim Collins, and feeling mildly inspired, I was ready to take on the conference.

Still imitating a lemming, I ended up at the expo, freshly opened and ready to invade your personal space. I made my way down every single aisle, wide-eyed first day of school style, managing to exchange words with no one. Which means, since I had left my apartment at 5pm the night before, I hadn’t said much more than ‘thanks’ and the address of the hotel to the cab driver in about 16 hours. I was beginning to feel like an outcast walking among that many people with no one to talk to. Everyone else chatting, hugging, connecting and reconnecting, me, not. “Because nothing sucks more than feeling all alone, no matter how many people are around” (J.D., Scrubs, S2E18, My T.C.W.). This continued all the way through the generously provided lunch. I say generously provided, but when I realized how much a ticket to this event cost, I guess it made sense. Full, I stood in back to avoid being harassed by the invasive booth workers, creating my game plan of booths that I needed to stop by to minimize the amount of unnecessary contact, considering there were over 200 booths and about 10% actually applied to me. It was in this phase of my journey that I randomly bumped into three coworkers on their way to an early afternoon session. It was nice to talk to people.

The topic-specific sessions varied in their format, from 200 person lecture hall types, to round tables set up for frequent group interactivity, to cleverly disguised sales pitches. I attended two of these sessions Monday afternoon, the first offering not much more than a cool demonstration that was inapplicable to my profession, the second offering quite an eye-opening reconstruction of my entire professional processes. The second one was worth my time. That was the essence.

I had dinner with my coworkers that night, which included a bacon potato pesto soup and encrusted pork tenderloin on top of elk jalapeno-cheddar sausage hash and spicy sweet potato mash; yup. I then spent the rest of the evening in the hotel bar, networking, the focus of the trip, and this post.

Somewhere in between the giant theater speeches about innovation and inspiration, the crop fields of booths with their most ‘talented’ assets front and center, and the dozens on dozens on dozens of private sessions, you spend your ‘down time’ doing everything possible to meet and greet anyone that sparks your interest, on any level. My first iteration of this took place while I waited for my afternoon smoothie, a tasty treat doubling as filler until dinner. My first three preferences were unavailable (out of mango, strawberry banana, and strawberry), so I settled on peach, while the screwy, unreadable credit card of the young woman behind me rewarded her with a free chai. Alas, a conversation was born, and ‘networking’ commenced. Later that night, at the hotel bar, you know, the hotel that was about 90% conference-goers, ‘networking’ continued. Whether out of desperation (only one other person in the bar at 8pm), proximity (an interesting person grabbing a seat nearby), or interest (mutual recognition of personality and conversation), I met, chatted with, discussed industry specific ideas, learned about parts of the field that I never gave much thought to, and generally, realized the scope of the profession that I find myself attached to, along with a laugh or two.

Throughout the next two days, I listened to lectures that were so elementary, I probably could have taught it myself, I sat through keynote speakers that used music as much as language to get a message across, and gathered information from booths that were actually relevant, all while keeping my ears and eyes open for those I had already met, strengthening something so recently ignited, or seeking new networking opportunities to pack on like pounds for the winter.

Networking, as I’ve come to know it, is fascinating; so many angles, so many outputs. Me, I had a few things on my mind. I was looking to meet people in the industry (which was everyone), just to help understand the field that I find myself under-educated in. The more you talk about it, the more others talk about their side of it, the clearer the landscape of the training world is painted. As a young professional, understanding the landscape is as important as perfecting your craft. I was also looking for anyone doing what I’m doing, instructional design, to once again, talk the business. Just being in a room full of 200 instructional designers was an uplifting experience, knowing that there are more out there, just like me, dealing with the same issues, and surviving. I was looking for personal connections too, for various reasons. Reason one, in case I no longer find myself employed by this wonderful company and need to reach out to some similar-industried people. Reason two, in case one of these similarly-industried people finds themselves out of a job and could be an asset to my team. Reason three, because I needed company. Humans weren’t meant to be alone, and it was nice to grab a drink, meet up for a lunch, stop at a booth for a chat, or enjoy a cross-convention walk with those I had met; made the trip worthwhile.

So, I hope this wasn’t the last time I get to be so immersed in my professional field that you forget you still have a job. I learned a lot, ate a lot, walked a ton, and met some folks that hopefully won’t be strangers. I think I like networking.

Action Expresses Priorities

I watched a video today that was quite inspiring. The premise was that Nike gave this guy some money to shoot a commercial, tag-lined ‘life is a sport, make it count.’ So what this guy did was grab a buddy, travel around the world, and do as much as possible, go as far as possible, see as much as possible with the sponsor money he received. This lasted him ten days and he documented the entire thing, cut it, edited it, and made a pretty awesome four and a half minute video. Dispersed throughout the video are little sayings and quotations meant to reflect the mood of the video. One of which was “action expresses priorities.” Not surprising this one stuck, given it's a quote from Gandhi.

During the course of a day, there are literally countless actions that we perform. For me, like most people, this begins when my day begins. Whether it’s twenty minutes before Going the Distance from Rocky plays to wake me up, or whether that damn song has been playing thirty second loops for several minutes, I’m immediately pressed with a decision: snooze or get up. More often than not, this decision is simple. Snooze at least once, then it’s back with the decision making. From there it only adds on. Do I want to eat cereal before I shower or just grab a granola bar to eat when I get to the office? Should I bring my workout bag or should is there something I need to get home for? It’s 7:15am, should I hope that the Edens won’t be too bad, or should I back-road it and know that I’m committed to a 50+ minute commute, albeit far less frustrating?

And then I get to work, where my decisions actually matter. Sometimes. So now I’m reading emails and responding to messages while my screen stays filled with more windows than that person who shouldn’t throw rocks. And now I’m letting one conversation lead into another at a different cube when I walked away with a short-minded, immediate answer intention.

This surface-level explanation is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of decisions that we make on a daily, hourly, even minutely basis. And I guess it seems kind of obvious that the actions you take, the decisions you make, the options you choose, would represent your priorities. But I wouldn’t say that’s the most common belief.

I think people, including myself, will try to justify their actions with excuses when it doesn’t mesh with their preconceived notions about their own priorities. So if you were thinking about meeting up with a friend to catch up, and when the time comes, you fall back on something like ‘I’m too tired,’ or ‘I’m trying to save money,’ or any other non-emergency excuse, you can sit in your apartment all day believing ‘oh I really did want to meet them, but it’s Tuesday, and I have so much work to do tomorrow, it just would have been silly,’ but the reality is you chose something else because that thing is more important.

This concept can be a bit complicated when it comes to work. For example, I might not always choose the highest priority when it comes to the work on my desk. Some of the projects that I work on are long-term, while the rest are relatively immediate. So if I have a couple projects that have been going on for a month or two and are only 50% complete, but I have a dozen or so tiny projects that pop up and only take an hour or two, there’s a much higher percentage that I’ll choose those small projects. At the end of the day, it’s just nice to get something accomplished. If the two projects I’m choosing between differ by 100 hours in ‘amount of time left to complete,’ it’s really challenging to keep that big fish on your plate. With a fish that size, there’s no room for side dishes. So what I’m basically choosing is selfish. I’m choosing to feel a sense of accomplishment, to make a few people really happy (with such a fast turn-around time) while constantly pushing off people that will understand (well this is a big project, a few setbacks were expected).

This concept appears less complicated when it comes to personal life. Every time you talk to someone, every time you make plans with someone, every time you tell somebody no you’re showing your hand. Sure, there might be some underlying reasons, if, say, you have a crush and you’re being shy, but most of the time, the priority is clear.

You make exceptions for the people that are a priority in your life. You make excuses for the people that aren’t.

Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous

The glitz, the glam, the bright lights, the people knowing who you are, the VIP treatment at a club, the everything that comes with being famous, it’s the American Dream. It’s who we aspire to resemble, who we reenact with our friends. It’s a life that we’ve all daydreamed about. And not just the ‘no longer in debt, what the hell are student loans, never clipping a coupon’ type life that would be an amazing asset to almost anyone in their 20s, but really the red carpet type shit. Like, when I see a celebrity has recently become single, I could actually conceive meeting that person in real life. Unlike now when that thought lasts about two moments of laughable longing.

Why do I bring this up? It wasn’t just to remind us all that we are not, in fact, rich and famous. It’s because of an article in GQ about DerrickRose. You should leave this site to go read it, but in case you don’t, Rose is a quiet kid that loves Chicago. He loves the streets, he loves walking around and enjoying a nice day. I’m sure he loves the view from his 84^th floor condo in the Trump. But the higher he ascends up the ‘no-matter-where-you-go-someone-will-recognize-you’ charts, he can’t, well, go anywhere in Chicago without someone recognizing him. He said he feels naked when he doesn’t wear a hat. His life in his new, relatively empty condo that he shares with two friends is more times than not all he's able to enjoy. His moments of solitude are sparse at best. As someone who shies away from the spotlight and differs to his teammates and the team in general, Rose wasn’t really cut out for the life of a superstar. Physically, of course, but not mentally or emotionally. His favorite thing in the world is to win at basketball, but the irony is, the more he does his favorite thing, the more his least favorite thing shines: the bright lights of the rest of the world.

Now, it’s hard to say how you would feel about something until you were able to live in. And if the fame came along with boat loads of money, and I could use that money to help all those around me, and charities, and organizations, and anything else that I could think of, the positives would outweigh the negatives, surely. And as a self-proclaimed masochist, I guess it would suit my lifestyle to make sacrifices for the benefit of others.

But take a step back and think about not being able to walk around the block without being noticed, talked to, hands shaken, autographs asked for, swarmed, mobbed, suffocated. Think about just wanting to grab a beer at a bar. Think about doing a little shopping. Clothes. Groceries. ‘Oh, well if you’re that high up, people will do all of that for you. You can just rent out a bar. Make people shop for you.’ Sure, there are some alternatives. But actually think about it. Would you sacrifice all the little ingredients of your life, all of the nuances and day to days, all the details of your current life, for that?

Rose is able to find his peace on the court. His sport, the game he works at relentlessly, he can get lost in it. But assuming my claim to fame isn’t as a major athlete, I couldn’t fathom it. People might not have any sympathy for the elite of the world that make more money in a day that I make in a year. And I can understand how. And I would guess a good percentage of that elite crowd relishes the chance to be known by millions. A guy like Lebron James basks in the love and adoration of everyday people.  But Lebron James doesn’t live 30 minutes from where he grew up, in a city that he bleeds for, a city he’s known his entire life.

Derrick Rose is way more Chicago than anyone reading this. He’s only spent two semesters of college away. If he wasn’t able to walk the streets of Portland because they had the #1 pick in 2008, I don’t think he’d be as passionate as he seemed in the GQ article. If he still had the option to go home and escape a least a little bit of the spotlight, it would be a relief. But the rise to super-stardom has come at such a great cost, it’s a side of sports and entertainment that gets quickly overlooked.

I can’t tell you how I would be as a celebrity. It’d be cool to think I could play both roles, embracing the fame but staying grounded in my previous realities. Truth is, I have no idea the person I would become. I’m sure the circumstances of my rise would play a role, but if the switch was flicked tomorrow, and I could no longer walk to a restaurant without being recognized, if I spent the majority of my free time restricted to and confined by my own walls, I’d have to seriously consider whether the limelight is worth it. 

Vegas, Baby

Last weekend marked my first visit to The Entertainment Capital of the World, Sin City itself: Las Vegas. For years I’d rejected the idea. For one, I am not much of a gambler. It’s hard for someone so calculated and logical to get excited about gambling. Besides that, I just envisioned this over-hyped, long-lined, unfulfilled fantasy where people think they’re going to have the time of their lives but end up waiting in line at a club for an hour because they don’t have women with them. I shuttered at the idea that slipping people 20s made you important. The politics and bullshit appealed to me as much as the club scene does in Chicago. It doesn’t. So for 5 legal years of drinking, I was never enticed to visit the most famous party destination in the country.

I’d love to say that after this weekend, my views and opinions and judgments have completely changed and I’ve embraced the bright lights of the strip for what they’re worth. Truth is, I was pretty spot on in my assessment, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have the best weekend of my life, because I’m pretty sure I did. Here’s why:

Six guys met a plane ride away on a Friday night in March to celebrate the lucky friend’s end of bachelorhood. From the moment we got on the train in Chicago, it was already positioned to be one of the greatest weekends in memory. It just so happens that we chose a place that catered to and facilitates that mindset. Our nights and days and everything in between were filled with the classic and sensational shenanigans and camaraderie that you would expect. From sunrise to sundown and through to the next sunrise, we glimpsed the life of those we’ve all aspired to be. For a weekend, I felt like I was brushing shoulders with, stepping in footsteps with, and chasing the ghosts of the biggest and the brightest, the most untouchable, unreachable, unattainable, the magazine pages and the behind the scenes. It was a vacation on steroids, a weekend injected with more adrenaline than a city of tweakers. It was less sleep in an entire weekend than I get in a normal night. It was more fun in an entire weekend than I get in a normal month. Forgive me for vagaries, but you know what they say.

So how does all of that reaffirm my preconceived notions? Because it was exactly how I described. I’m not much of a gambler, and I proved why. I lost a tiny chunk of change at a video poker game the first night. The next day, I doubled my cash-on-hand in 10 minutes, reversing my luck to be ‘up’ for the weekend. I had planned on gambling with my earnings and putting the rest on bets for the Bulls and the Bears to win it all. Well, another 30 minutes at the blackjack table and that wish was sailing faster than Dread Pirate Robert’s ship. That turned me off to the scene, and I cut my losses before I let it affect my mood. So like I said, gambling isn’t my thing.

The rest of it, the politics? It’s all there. We didn’t make it into a club the first night because we were 6 guys and no girls. We reserved a table at a club and had to meet the minimal just to sit there, which, if you scan the price tags at a liquor store, there’s a slight up-charge to get the same bottle at a table in a club in Vegas on a Saturday night. I’ll spare the details. And we still had to wait in a short line. Luckily, we didn’t pick a peak weekend for crowds, so the pools and the streets weren’t just overrun with ridiculousness.

But I guess the reason why I was so easily able to overlook so many details that would have killed me in Chicago is, well, it’s Vegas. Vegas is much less a location and much more a mindset. It’s why the phrase ‘Vegas, baby’ caught on. For those who know, just hearing that can flip a mood in a flash. Where we were wasn’t so overly impressive that it’s impossible to have a bad time. Yes, the casinos are crazy impressive and beautiful and yes, the people watching is a full-time event and yes, at some point, it seems like Vegas has everything, but everything comes at a cost. A serious cost. So you balance. You balance the expenses with the rest because at some point, it’s a battle you can’t win. So you give in and try to soak it up for everything it has. If I spent every transaction pondering how it will look on my bank account when I got back, I would have missed the point. Can I do a Vegas weekend every month? Absolutely not, I’d be broke by fall.

But when the time is right, when the event is right, when the reason is right, when the people are right, there isn’t a better playground for adults. Every memory I have (all of them), every person I met, every story I’ll not tell, every place we visited, street we walked on, picture we took, vehicle we were driven in, vehicle we drove in, drink we cheersed, song we danced to, every hand that was dealt, roulette ball spun, ace flipped over, every moment that we were awake made it the most memorable weekend in my life. I can’t think of one thing I would have done differently, one regret, one mistake. We knocked Vegas over and took it for everything we could. We squeezed more into 64 hours than seems humanly possible, and we’re all still alive, with our pride, dignity, and organs. We accomplished everything we sought out to, and will have a catalog of memories and stories to share for a lifetime to come. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but that jaded, cynical viewpoint I had a week ago? Long gone. Now it’s just looking for the next reason I’ll have in my life to get there. Vegas, baby.

Heeee's Baaaaack

There's a song by Little Big Town called 'I'm With the Band.' Why is that such a cool concept? Well it doesn't take much to figure that part out, considering most of us dreamed of one day being a music superstar but the reality is the closest most could ever possibly get is to be a roadie or a tour manager or a water bottle fetcher, so even while the position is relatively low on the totem pole, doesn't matter because, sing it with me, 'I'm with the band.' But besides clasping onto the fragments of diluted childhood dreams, there has to be something else about that feeling of being back stage during a show, or wearing the big yellow lanyard with the gigantic plastic VIP pass, or carrying some equipment in through the back door, that makes us vibrate with a combination of elitism, overall excitement, and the idea that everybody wants to be me; see also: envy. It feels great to be envied. Even the most humble and masochistic human will feel a sense of we'll say accomplishment or pride when they find out they're being envied. 

But it's not just being with the band, it's any time, as Dobie Gray sang, 'I'm in with the in crowd' (also, that song was made in 1965, proving that this is no recent phenomenon). Any time you are part of the group that gets the inside jokes, that holds a little power, that has stuff the average person doesn't have access to, it's fun.

The first memory I have of this feeling was in 6th grade. In our elementary school, 5th and 6th grade were combined, and typically you repeated teachers, so by the time we were rolling to the first day of school in 6th grade, there were no surprises. I had my little crew: Justin, Lauren, and Kate. We were all sitting together, and when our teacher, Mrs. Kravitz, was going through her spiel on rules, regulations, expectations, policies, restrictions, schedules, and general taking care of business type syllabus chatter, we thought we were so above everything. Cracking jokes, mocking the teacher, not paying attention, thinking we were better than everyone in class, that these rules didn't apply to us, or that these rules would never be enforced anyway. C'mon, we were 6th graders, what was there to be scared of? I even remember going home that day and telling my mom about it. The conversation is as vivid as 1080P. 

Looking back, we were just a quartet of kids who didn't know shit about shit, but for that day, we felt like we were running the class. 

In more recent years, the examples are just as few and far between. You have a certain level of elitism wearing your baseball jersey to high school, there was a sense of leadership and power and camaraderie among C.A.R.E. facilitators senior year of college, and it was definitely a position of envy to host bar crawls and be a sticker monger. Is this really just one more in the face of redemption? Years of envy built up, all set to be released because I wasn't hanging out with Randall Floyd and Fred O'Bannion? A rebuttal, a I'm going to take what's mine because I spent so many years on the outside looking in? A turning of the tables? Maybe. But I don't think it goes to that extreme. 

I just see it as it's cool to be included. Call me vain. These days, I could employ some of the same tactics (athleticism, education), but really it starts to come down to who you know. Which leads me to, well, a lot... We're three days into spring, and I'm turning a new leaf. With considerably more free time these days, now begins my commitment to get myself, my name, my words, and my art out there. I want to be exposed. I want to be connected. I want @SeeLazz to gain momentum because I'm saying clever and witty things (follow me, and stuff, if you want). I want to be visible. I want to be more than just another guy. I want people to know when they've read something by me or seen something I've created. It's lofty, but these days, what do I have to lose?

So this will begin my first invitation to come see the 'new' me. On April 17th, I'll be featured at an art show hosted by Rebel Bar and Grill (3462 N. Clark St.). The show starts at 6pm. I will have about two dozen pieces up for sale, ranging between $15-75 dollars. All the items are pictures I've taken and gotten printed on canvas. Some are stretched and stapled to a wooden frame, others are sprayed to a foam board and tacked to an open back frame. I invite you all, and everyone you know to come support me in my endeavors, buy some sweet art, and join me in this era of connectivity, openness, exposure, visibility, transparency, and most of all, fun. Here's to being 'in with the in crowd.'