Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
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.
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.
My first business was a blueberry stand. While my friends and I had tried countless times to run successful weekend campaigns for lemonade stands, I noticed that the revenue on those operations were abysmal from the beginning. Instead, I focused on picking blueberries at my grandparent’s place with my dad. My brother and I would sell a cup of blueberries for $2 on our corner on 10th Street South. And the first weekend we did it, we made $48. Not bad for a couple of kids.
It should be no surprise to anyone then when in the 6th grade, I asked my mom if I could be businesswoman for Halloween. She let me borrow one of her only suits. And I traded the traditional plastic pumpkin for a briefcase for the occasion. I had no idea what businesswomen did all day, but I felt completely comfortable in that costume.
Despite all these signs, I had no idea I wanted to go into business when I started looking at colleges. I focused entirely on writing and journalism programs, because deep down, writing has always been my first calling. Or maybe it was my first medicine. I wrote when I was sad. I wrote when I was happy. I wrote when I fell in love. I wrote when I got my heart broken. I wrote to process my feelings. And I wrote to make myself feel safe.
Writing felt like this deep passion. I couldn’t help but believe that when people say: “turn your passion into your career and you’ll never work a day in your life” - that they were speaking to me. That’s the funny thing about platitudes. They apply until they don’t.
After finishing my journalism program and attempting to use my skills at the keyboard for good and a paycheck, I quickly burnt out on the constant screen time. I felt a constant longing to get out of my cubicle and into the world. I still remember turning to the cube next to me where our cameraman Justin worked and asking him to please, please let me go out on a shoot with him. He obliged. And today I’m so grateful. Having the intuition to ask for an opportunity opened the doors to what I wanted to do for the rest of my career.
Even after you find something to do with your career, it’s no guarantee that you actually know yourself. It turns out that knowing yourself is a process. The interior of the mind like a snow globe, constantly changing as new flakes and glitter distort the picture of life, the future and perception. Even now, I’m aware that my interior world is changing and evolving by the minute.
But that costume. Those blueberries. They were like veiled insights into who I am and who I was going to become that I had’t seen yet. And when the longing towards entrepreneurship initially took hold in my mind, I wasn’t even sure that it was the right decision. It took two years of studying my mentors who owned their own businesses for me to find the bravery to step into forming my own business.
I think about those blueberries far more often than I care to admit. Partially because wild blueberries in Minnesota are a rare, rare delight - nothing like what you buy in the plastic pints at the store. But more often because I wonder what things are taking hold in my own life now that I may not be noticing, serving as waving flags towards a future I have yet to imagine for myself.
Too many times, I have heard myself say to others: “what is the world putting in front of you that you can take advantage of if you’re just brave enough to try?” while knowing full well that I was scheming and plotting inside my mind to try and plan the perfect thing. Trying not to just jump into the thing in front of me, but rather, have a plan A, B, C and D.
There is no planning blueberries. Blueberries just happen.
Fact: I write about my life. I’m not an open book. But I’m definitely a mildly opaque one. And sometimes, mining my life for content, actually works out pretty damn well for me.
At least it did last week.
On Thursday, I got some really big, totally huge news. The screenplay I wrote while in Italy last summer was selected as a finalist for Seattle International Film Festival’s first Catalyst Screenwriting Competition. It’s exciting for a number of rather huge reasons: first, it was an artistic validation unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Second, it feels like the crazy chance I took diving into writing for a few weeks and stepping away from my business was actually worth it.
When you run a small business, even a creative one, taking a vacation can seem like an absurd luxury. And while I want to go into the reasons why it’s imperative that even new #girlbosses step away from their work and relax once in a while, I’ll save that for another day. Instead, I want to focus on that bit about validation.
The script, Private Parts, is about modern dating in the age of sharing digital nudes before we even know someone’s middle name. It’s a portrait of contemporary intimacy, if you will. And inside that script are about four different men that I dated in the last year before meeting my current beau, R. Of course their names were all changed, but their role in my life and the way that I saw them as people is all there. And while I could feel guilty about including their stories and their qualities with the world, I don’t. And to be honest, I refuse to. Because here’s the thing: I don’t hide what I do. And what I do, is create.
Recently, I asked R: “How would you feel if I wrote about you?” His answer was simple: “Just don’t do it on the blog.” Who knows what is in our future, but already I know where our story begins. And that’s what I love most about my life right now. For the first time, I feel like I understand why we keep doing this even when we don’t get validation from the powers that be. It’s because I don’t know how to live my life any other way. I don’t even know how to date without knowing that I will probably need to write about it later.
The big heartbreaks? Catalogued in history in ways that are implicit and subtle. The strange sexual interactions? Remembered forever through various characters whose names all start with the letter E. The bizarre encounters between humans just trying to figure it out? Still being worked out privately in Final Draft. One particular ex is everywhere. He’s in Private Parts. He’s in my upcoming short film, Victoriana. And I could feel bad, but that’s what you get for cheating.
But here’s what is so surprising: the artistic validation feels so much more powerul than the closure I received from processing that experience through my writing. I never want to be cheated on again, but I’ll tell you this: I am weirdly delighted that it happened. The source material has provided immeasurable motivation. Just ask Beyonce.
I started a creative company. One would think I spend most days being CREATIVE! Go ahead: Imagine confetti and balloons wafting around the word. For my sake. Can you see them? Good. Me too. Now imagine all the balloons popping at once and the confetti getting stuck to your face. Yeah, that’s how I feel about spreadsheets.
Over the last three years, I’ve watched other companies like mine startup and fail. I’ve also seen others startup and succeed far beyond Mighteor. And I’ve seen lots of companies do something kind of in-between the two. Over time, I tried to watch carefully at what made the companies that failed, well, fail. Because avoiding their destiny is key to our future.
What I noticed again and again was that many companies failed to build a structure and promise around their creativity - and as a result - their business failed to grow. They loved their equipment and tech and beers on Fridays - but they didn’t see how the really boring tasks of balancing budgets and doing proper legal led to meaningful outcomes.
Structured creativity says that fanciful doodles and spreadsheets can coexist.
And so this has become my ethos as a creative, as a CEO and as a leader. In fact, it’s on the second page of our Mighteor company handbook: “While we are a creative company, we are still a business. Our creativity is how we make our money, but without structure and management - it is impossible for us to do our job well, deliver product on time and consistently produce at a high level. Creatives get a bad rap. In all areas of creative work, the people that do it are often stereotyped as inconsistent, unprofessional and difficult to work with. At Mighteor, we must always strive to be the opposite of this stereotype.”
My stringent worship of structure does not come easily to me. It’s a forced skill I find tiresome at best and, at its worst, makes me not want to do the work at all. But when I’m in my darkest corners of resentment for my own self-imposed point of view on how we do business - I occasionally see just how magical it can be.
Creativity is not a math equation. There are not right answers. There are not wrong answers. There are many paths that can lead to artistic and strategic success. And while the spreadsheets help us keep track of budgets and how much we can spend on locations and talent - it doesn’t tell us where to shoot or who to cast. There is freedom to having a clear picture of what the resources will allow us to dream up. And I appreciate how much opportunity that provides each project to adapt and grow.
Creativity is not nearly as random as people may suggest, either. Every new client with my company goes through a creative briefing, a process where we ask all kinds of questions about their company, their video, their aesthetic preferences. We take a metaphorical microscope and assess their strategy or vision. Part of the creative process is coming to a place of shared goals and objectives. If we know what we need to achieve with our creativity, we can be all the more brilliant.
And constraints are actually your best friend. When I think about the client projects I love most - I always come back to the projects where the sky wasn’t the limit, but rather, where limits were everywhere. In fact, the limit was something like 6 inches above the baseboards for a few of these projects. And yet, again and again, we found a way to make a vision come to life. We used a skate park in the suburbs instead of the city - or we got the wardrobe from Target. When you stop focusing on just how BIG YOU CAN BE and instead focus in on just how effectively you can creatively stretch - you find new limits.
However, those same constraints can make things scary. Add the risk and the money and well, suddenly we’re making video by checklist. As a client, it’s really important not to lose sight of the gray areas where creatives need to live and work. The mind has a remarkable ability to stretch and adapt. Part of our jobs as creatives is to develop a vision so compelling and vacuous in how it draws you in - that the viewer can’t help but watch. So often, when projects go wrong, it’s because our clients lose faith in the viewers ability to stretch. When we treat viewers like they need to be spoon-fed, we immediately lose their trust. And there is no amount of money or resources you can throw at that. You must be willing as a creative and as a client to take the risk of allowing the viewer to explore the gray space with you.
I call it Structured Creativity. On my best days, I call it Magic. Whatever you call it, if it works, embrace it. At least, it does for me.
But here’s the thing: like any good thing that works (like Starbucks, Instagram filters and kisses) it can be killed. And it’s not by the things you would expect. It’s not by being bold. Or by getting too excited. It’s not by being risky. Or by being willing to try new things. Creative magic is killed by fear.
Fear that it won’t work.
Fear that people won’t like it.
Fear that the client won’t be happy.
Fear that we can’t technically pull it off.
Fear that we don’t know what platform it belongs on.
Fear that it’s too risky.
Fear that we won’t have planned enough.
For all the years I’ve been doing this work in one capacity or another - I have met hundreds of people pursuing creative passions and if you ask each of them why their project failed, why their painting didn’t sell, why they never finished the screenplay - not one will tell you that fear killed their project. But the number of times someone has told me they ran out of money or ran out of time or just ran out of whatever was inside them - well - nearly 100% will say because there wasn’t enough of something.
But if you ask me, the hard truth most creatives won’t say out loud is that fear killed them.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of failure.
Fear of mediocrity.
And there won’t be a spreadsheet to point to that outlines said fear. Or explains it’s existence. Or how to overcome it.
Here’s my point: As creatives we must learn to control two things - our process AND our fear. Our process is possibility. It makes it humanly achievable to take our creative dreams and turn them into creative realities. If we can control that, we can actually break down our beautiful brains into something tangible - an actual, finished product.
And then we must learn how to control our fear. The fear that the process won’t be enough. The fear that we won’t make the client happy. The fear that we will fail to deliver. And in turn, we must ask our clients and creative collaborators to not bring fear into the birthing of ideas that we are trying to bring to the table. No successful creative project was ever formed out of fear. And no creative person can possibly sustain a career formed on a foundation of fear. Let me say that again in all caps just to make it very clear: NO CREATIVE PERSON CAN POSSIBLY SUSTAIN A CAREER FORMED ON A FOUNDATION OF FEAR.
I could type for hours on the topic of how fear destroys so much more than just our creativity - but I’ll leave you with this final thought about the power of structured creativity when we choose to be fearless: When you stop worrying about failing and start working toward succeeding, what will you have left to be afraid of?
Next week, I’m giving a talk at the Women in Entrepreneurship Conference at the Carlson School of Management on the topic of being a vulnerable badass. If you’re around, it’s a free conference and I’d love to meet you in person. But here’s the real rub of this whole thing: In prepping for this talk, I’ve been doing a lot of reflection on how I see myself. Self-reflection - to me - is the art of taking in a lot of other people’s opinions, keeping the ones you like and discarding the ones that suck. As a result of going through this exercise, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is how I see myself:
Yes, that is a cotton candy wearing a leather jacket. I know. It’s weird. But it’s truly revolutionary in terms of my understanding of myself. Here’s why:
For years and years in various jobs, I excelled at my work despite not always excelling at interpersonal relationships in those settings. Don’t get me wrong, I always loved my team and we always did amazing things together. But then those annual performance reviews would come around and people who didn’t work with me every day or the boss of my boss would get to chime in on my performance and I would hear things like: Liz is Aggressive. Pushy. Forward. Harsh. Intense.
The quality of my work was never in question. My ability to do my job at a high level was always understood. But those other things, they stuck. And I couldn’t understand why I was seen this way.
I saw myself as: Driven. Excited. Passionate. Engaged. And Invested.
Over time, the things I saw myself as became less and less top of mind and I started to feel like I was taking on these negative identities that were ascribed to me. After years and years of hearing the same things over and over despite my every effort to evolve and change, I gave up on being less aggressive, pushy, forward, harsh and intense.
Instead, I decided to own it.
Because this was the thing that I knew deep down: I really gave a shit and that was better than not caring about the work at all. Some bosses and colleagues got it. And some didn’t. And that was OK.
I have to tell you: since starting my own business, that leather jacket identity has been my floatation device, my security blanket and my most comfortable skin. It has helped me deal with the fear, isolation and doubt of being an entrepreneur like a champ.
However, what I’m slowly learning is that the soft is OK too. The soft can be comforting. It can be a quiet refuge when you just don’t want to boss anymore. It can be a safe space to admit that you don’t know what you’re doing. And it can be the door to asking a mentor for help.
The soft… it can also be for others. For the people you hope to inspire, engage and collaborate with.
A few months ago, I was struggling with an employee and I was at a crossroads. My tough decision about how to proceed with this personnel issue had a unique overlap: It tapped into both my sense of investment in my business AND my desire to engage others in it. And yet, I knew what I had to do - I had to part ways with this person. To my team, I was decisive and probably insensitive. I told them bluntly why we had to move forward the way we did and I could see that they were longing for a softer side to the situation. Truthfully, I was devastated. But showing people that side of my personality had not been my forte.
I won’t tell you that it was an ah-ha moment. It wasn’t. But it was the beginning of a series of long conversations I’ve had with myself about the value of sharing the soft. Over the last year, I’ve decided to let my team, my clients and my business partners see the softer side of me more often, sometimes even in unexpected ways.
I talked about loving kittens and shared adorable dog videos. I gushed about the elaborate dates my boyfriend would plan. And I cried openly after my stepmom died. I still cry about it sometimes.
You see, I’m soft. I’m soft as a puffy cotton candy on a warm summer day. But I reserve that side of myself for very few people and situations.
However, it’s time for a coming out party. It’s time to be more willing to share that side of myself with everyone. And the way to do it is by positively reinforcing the good in it.
If you’re a manager or boss who is about to tell a woman that she is too aggressive, too pushy, or too rude - think again. I’m guessing she has a ball of sparkly yarn somewhere in her heart. She’s just waiting for the right moment to reveal it.
