"Oh agony, aaa-GO-KNEEEEE!"

One of the things that has always made me a really good project manager is my ability to make decisions. I can assess a situation and instantly make a call, settle a dispute or change course to accommodate bumps in the road. Other people fret and worry over minute details for weeks, flap their arms wondering what to do when something goes wrong, or just spend hours complaining about how everything is screwed up. I just say "this is what we're going to do" and it's done and everyone is happy. Yet in my own life, I find that kind of decision making to be painfully difficult. I agonize over every detail and feeling and possible outcome, I worry about potential missed opportunities and future problems and about whether making these changes makes me a quitter, a flake or just a crazy person.

So here I am, less than a week away from the day that I have to give notice to leave this apartment and I've just been scheduled for another round of interviews at one of the places I last interviewed at. I'm still being considered for the other one as well, it's just that these companies take forever to actually hire a person. Seriously, like months. It's not that I really want this job but it's thrown me for a bit of a loop. I thought I had correctly deduced that they were not that interested in me and my big ideas but maybe I was wrong. I ask myself, what does it mean that I've still got these people after me when I've decided to do my own thing?

Maybe it's a test. If I was leaving San Francisco because I was broke and couldn't find a job, then surely getting one of these would mean that I could stay. If I was going to live at home because I was hurt and disillusioned then surely still being in the running for a job that seems to embrace my thinking would make me feel compelled to stay and take the job. If, however, my conviction to start my own company is strong, and I know that it's what I want to do, then no job is going to change my mind. Maybe it's just a reminder that there will always be jobs for me. They may take longer to get sometimes and it may not be easy to find one that interests me but they are out there. If I don't succeed in this new venture, surely I won't be any less qualified than I am now. That was what I told myself when I quit my career to go act. "If at the end of it, I need a job, I can always get one." And I was right.

The truth is, I have never been more excited about a JOB than I was about the job I moved up here for and yet it never came close to fulfilling the promise that it held. It became obvious that it would never yield the results I had imagined. What are the chances that one of these jobs will? And what about what I really want to do? How long will I make myself wait to finally be brave enough to try a second time? It is very scary to try something new, it took me two years to do it the first time and, actually, about two years the second time. Certainly, it's easier to make a change when one is miserable or down and out and the glimmer of a shiny new job is just the kind of lure that could divert attention from the bigger catch.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Wednesday, I agreed to drive a good friend of mine to the airport. We were supposed to meet for lunch but he was running late, after doing last minute errands, and we skipped it. Both hungry, we were a little crabby and the traffic didn't help. I had spent the morning crying after getting rejections from jobs I had applied to, jobs that I was completely qualified for. I was telling my friend how frustrated I was and said "I'm seriously concerned about my ability to support myself in the future."

He scoffed at me. "Why didn't you apply for the job at my company, the VP asked me today what happened to my candidate?" I was busy telling him why I wasn't qualified for that job, writing, producing and editing commercials for a cable network. "Shut up," he said, "just apply."

So I did. The next day I had an interview. I don't have the job YET but this guy was predisposed to like me, because of my friend. It was easy to feel relaxed and confident because even though I don't have the experience he was looking for, he was looking for a way to make it work. It's easier to teach people to edit, he said, than it is to get good ideas and he could "see the creative vibe coming off of me." He could see me! He recognized my talents!

There's a scene from Ratatouille (be prepared, I might be talking about this movie for a long time!) where the gourmet rat tries to explain his appreciation for food, his gift to recognize taste, to his brother. "Try this," he says, handing him a piece of cheese, "now try this," a strawberry, "NOW, try them together." The brother rat does and after a long build up comes back with "yeah, I just don't get it" then goes back to eating garbage. See, there are things you can't teach people. I keep getting feedback that I don't have enough experience and I think, screw experience, I have intuition, I have ideas, I have my finger on the pulse! Why don't they recognize my talents?

If I get this job, I'll be making the same money I was, working two miles from my house in the same building as one of my closest friends, learning a new skill (editing) and getting the opportunity to direct professionally! It's a possibility that I had not foreseen and could not have imagined. When everyone was saying that there was a reason I wasn't getting any of these jobs, that the perfect job was coming, I thought they were just being nice. Turns out, they were right!

When to give up

Leaving the new job yesterday, I noticed (for the first time) that I'm next door to my ex-boyfriend's work. I was thinking about how bizarre that was and thought "well, maybe he's quit that job by now." After all, it's been six months. But then I remembered, this guy couldn't even turn off a movie that he wasn't enjoying. He watched until the bitter end, no matter what.

I used to say he was "addicted to possibility." As long as there were still options, he could never make a decision. He could never say "I'm going to do this, and that's that." He would have to ask everyone for their opinion and even then, still couldn't decide. Our relationship for example: he didn't know if he loved me (even though he once thought he did) and he had to ask his dad what love was. A 34-year old man was asking his dad to tell him if he loved me! In the end, I was the one who did the leaving because I'm the opposite. I'm 100% in or I'm 100% out. Yes or no. I know what I want and I fight hard for it. But if it turns out to be the wrong thing, I'm out.

How does this relate to marketing? It reminds me that bad marketers spend all of their efforts trying to sell these people - the masses of undecided, unfocused, and unsure. They still haven't learned that most people don't make buying decisions because they don't make decisions. They emulate the people who make decisions. And that's why you sell to THOSE people. To the ones who are smart, savvy, educated and make decisions. They're a different group for every product - you have to know who they are, and you have to sell to them. Market to the unsure and you've insulted the decision-makers because they're smarter than you are.