My week in Jeju.
1. Day1: Co-working, Korean classes, Korean food
2. Worked in a cat cafe before a Korean meetup with locals
3. Me sharing my plans and work during demos and reciprocity session
4. FOOD
5. Hamdeok Beach
6. Hiking part of the Olle trail
7. Wandering and bar hopping
On Christmas Day 2014, I was in bed at my dad’s place in Boston with my sister, looking dead. (I was the one looking dead, not her, in case that’s not clear.)
I was thinking ahead to the trip I would be taking 2 days later to Chicago to tell 50+ people, many of whom had worked for my company for decades, that they no longer had a job. This was one of my undercover priorities stepping into my new role as head of strategy and product development a few months earlier.
For months, I had to deftly juggle being effective in my external public-facing role so that I wouldn’t lose credibility while orchestrating the outsourcing of peoples’ jobs in the background. Almost immediately after taking my job, I had taken a trip to India and the Philippines to meet with vendors, flying to a new city every day. Three of these flights were overnight flights, all taken in coach over the course of a week. Needless to say, I was somewhat weary, though determined to do my very best. Continue reading London Fashion Week
September 10th already. I’ve been in London immersed in the fashion world for the past week helping to launch the fall collection for an emerging label for London Fashion Week.
Fabrics have swirled around me as dresses have come together, and I’ve been heads down for up to 16 hours a day costing garments, looking at patterns, setting prices, prepping for investor and buyer meetings, and creating line sheets in InDesign, among many other things. Multi-tasking while casting models for the Lookbook. Dressing and undressing some attitudinal and some nice models. Hair and makeup tests. Cigarettes on the roof. Stylists and set designers coming in. Meanwhile, the designer has come in and out sleeping 2-4 hours a night and jumping out for meetings with ambassadors, magazine editors, music people, and others. It is really a crazy world.
When I’ve had a chance to process, I’ll need to write a full debrief. It has been intense. Glamorous in a sense but also just intense.
I haven’t pulled a near-allnighter for work in a while and from an experiential point of view, that had some merit.
When I left my job in May, I was divided on what I wanted to do with my life, occupation-wise. Part of me wanted to jump into another full-time job (something that would look good on paper!), and part of me just wanted to do nothing. The part that wanted to do nothing but couldn’t really fully accept that reality decided to start a consulting firm.
I’ve never started a business before, but here’s what it entailed. Continue reading My experience starting a business
Unfortunately, I don’t have any brilliant ideas on how to save the world. Earlier this month, while I was searching for files on my computer, one bothersome search result kept coming up – howtosavetheworld.pdf. What is that? Why does that file keep coming up on every search? Creepy.
On the plane ride from Osaka to Bali, I decided to find out. When I opened it, I confirmed that I had never seen it before, but there it was – “On Becoming and Individual or HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD” by David Cain, author of the site www.raptitude.com as it turns out. Oh boy.
The 46 slides include evocative images, quotes, and principles for changing your life to do something meaningful. How a propos… (eye roll).
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” – Albert Camus
(Um..yaaaahh, for real.) Continue reading How to save the world
That’s why I’m going to stop doing it. At least for now. Until I’m ready. The best way to stop doing it and to create distance (typically) is to leave the country. Yes, to just run away. The only problem is that now there are things like international plans and with easy internet access, email, and everything cooperating with you other than the time zone, it’s really actually quite easy to interview from afar. I suppose it’s also easier to use the excuse, “I’m sorry I sound like such a dumbass right now. It’s the jet lag.” That works well. Everyone understands jet lag. Continue reading Interviewing blows
