Money & Finance

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Yes, Well, We are VERY Classy

Tchad

I have a friend who has strange ideas about what impresses people.

He grew up soul-crushingly poor. To this day it haunts him.  He carries it with him in everything he does. He thinks that everyone is trying to take his money away from him and undervaluing what he produces.

I was helping him organize some digital images on a USB drive the other day and as we were creating folders and getting things together I saw that he had a number of pictures of $100 bills strewn across the table in his gallery.  I asked him where they got filed and he said “résumé”.  I asked him why résumé and he said: “I print these out and take them in with me when I am interviewing for a commission [he is a fine artist] so I can show them and let them know that they can’t cheat me. I make money.”

I was shocked that someone would do this.

It goes against every single business theory I have.  I asked him if maybe he understood that he may not be getting the commissions he deserves because he was putting people off.  He didn’t understand what I meant.  To him the idea that someone would show up with those kinds of pictures meant business; where to me it would mean it is the last time they would EVER hear from me.

This surprised him.

I explained that those with money don’t really want to see huge displays of it.  That someone commissioning a work from him would be really disgusted by those pictures.

Me: “It speaks of a lack of class!  To me it says ‘I have no grace or elegance’, ‘I am the farthest thing from refined you will see!’, and ‘I don’t know how to behave in social situations’.”

Him: “Um, Tchad, since you are giving me a lecture about class, refinement, and grace… I wasn’t going to say anything… but you have a big booger hanging out of your nose… I can’t let you go on and on about dignity while you have something hanging out of your nose.”

Me: “…”

Him: “I’m sorry.  You were saying?”

So that is it.  I still think that it is classless behavior on his part to take those photos to an interview… something glass houses… something something stones…

 

 

Don’t roll your eyes, Don’t roll your eyes, Don’t roll your eyes…

Tchad

A few years ago I stumbled on a series of Anthony Robbins’ self-help cds at the thrift store.  I guess whoever bought them gave them away when they moved into their Castle on the beach in St. Croix.

Anthony Robbins

You can roll your eyes, but it does help some of us.

In all seriousness, I was grasping at straws when I found them.  I was (am) skeptical about self-help. I have a parent who turned to them (not Robbins, but others in the “rage therapy” vein) and I blame them for a lot of my late childhood issues.

But I was struggling.  It was 2005-06. I had no support, was essentially bankrupt, and had just spent the better part of the past year taking care of an alcoholic friend who manipulated me into one of the most soul-sucking friendships of all time.

I was desperate.

So I bought them and started listening.  I wasn’t doing it right. I was coming from an “I’ll show all of you assholes what I can do” instead of “Here I go! Watch me explore and develop my world!”.  It turns out that anger CAN drive you. The caveat is that it can only get you so far. In my case, I got up to 180 Lbs (in a good way), built an almost 3,000 square foot workspace from scratch, dated, traveled, and wrote a lot. Once you have grown and matured a little, it cools a bit and then you have to decide what to do with all of the emotion that you invested in these things that it created.  It taints the creation a bit.*  Others may not see it, but it does.

I’ve gotten better since then, but have gone back to those cds.  Friends make fun of me, and that is totally ok, but there are those of us who have no emotional tools to work with.  I am not a child abuse victim, have never been sexually abused, and enjoy what most people would consider to be a good helping of first-world racial privilege.  I can do just about anything.  I can make you an evening gown (or suit), tell you the best way to grow Paw-Paw trees, cure leather & hides, conjugate (some) Latin verbs, tell you the finer points of the NEC code as they relate to Chicago, make GREAT sutures (don’t ask how I know, please), and (poorly) code html.  I grew up with parents who told me that I “could do ANYTHING!” which meant that I could do anything with that little tidbit of motivation as long as it meant that I got married, became a doctor, and had millions of babies.

A lot of the breadth of my interests were mocked as silly.  Latin, especially.

So anyway:  I have picked up the Robbins series again and am listening to it with a more neutral ear.  My friend is dead, I have no romantic relationships, and I am running a business I never planned on having but enjoy more than most people enjoy their jobs.  I am in a good place to re-develop where I am going.  I can’t change who I am but I CAN change how I look at things and what is important to me.  Isn’t some of it ridiculous?  Yes, yes, it is.

And yet: One hour every morning is now going to be going back to the personal development basics.  To give myself the tools I wasn’t given and redirect a bit.  Kind of like adult braces: You are always going to have to wear that damned retainer because the bone is already formed.  You have to get over the anger and resentment that your parents didn’t take care of it when they should have and just move on.

* You should also know that if you connect it to music as inspiration, you will never be able to listen to those songs again.  And some of them are good. But nope – all you remember is the anger behind them and how that felt.  It is especially problematic if the person is dead or you really really liked the songs.

 

And Here We Go Again

Tchad

So the Summer is almost officially over and I am back at the Workroom trying to make things happen.
I sat down last night and very loosely cobbled together a set of numbers that need to happen between now and the end of the Spring classes 2012.  It is A LOT, especially for what I do here. So I need to get on the ball and not just wait for my MacArthur genius grant to come through.

There won’t be any clothing made this year – at least not until the late Spring – I am thoroughly burnt out on making clothing for the time being and the idea of making a dress sends me into paroxysms of anxiety.  I am thinking of coming up with more designs and extending/developing the way they would be produced, but that is IT.

Instead I am going to try to develop the classes and other facets of the business.  This is going to include some instructional video work,  some language instruction, and more than a little high-end agricultural development in both Wisconsin and Indiana.
Today I have two girls coming up to work for a bit and then it is on to getting the Workroom up and running.  With Greg’s estate, the extended Summer vacation, and my general malaise since March… Well, the place could use some tending-to.

But I feel more put together than I have for a very long time.  It is funny how that works.

 

 

Snap. Snap. Snap.

Tchad

Hundreds of pictures.  Hundreds.

Not even 30% of the way through the tables of stuff from Greg’s and am getting tired.

I really want to get everything except the antique glassware, books, albums, and cds done tonight.

If I can get those listed, then I can list the rest of the things over the course of the next two days.

Aiming to have the whole workroom empty by 6 July.  A tall order, but I think it can work.

The nice thing about this much mindless focus is that it really takes you out of yourself.  It is the one thing I liked about a corporate job – you are called on just to do.  Format, template, rules, just do. Do. Do. Do.  So this kind of thing is not making me tear up like something that forces my creative side.

OK.  If you want to look at the mess I am in, check out my Ebay profile.

No crying today.  THAT, my friends, is a very good thing.