Using my skills to rebuild America

I don't have to tell you that a lot of people are losing their jobs these days. I was laid off last year from a job that I had just relocated for. It seemed like the perfect time to volunteer my services, expand my skills and network with other people in my field. I was excited to find Taproot, an organization that assembles teams of professionals to tackle a specific need for a non-profit. Taproot utilizes the skills that you've spent your career developing and applies them to non-profits who desperately need but cannot afford your expertise. They've developed a system that keeps the project on track so that it doesn't become more hassle than it's worth. You can request to work for organizations that appeal to you and are able expand your skill set by applying for more than one area of experience.

I've worked in marketing for ten years and while I'd been moving in the direction of being a brand strategist, it wasn't something I could call myself yet. After the orientation, I was interviewed by Account Executives and selected to work on a project in that capacity. Through this experience, I learned about a new business sector, had the opportunity to work with talented people that I would be thrilled to work with again and was able to push myself to deliver a brand strategy that everyone was excited about. Never in the corporate world have I encountered such a pure dedication to a project and to a client. Every time we met as a team, we were impassioned and energetic about what we could do for our client. It showed in the results and in the way we won them over, from skepticism to praise.

Around the same time, I met a woman at a dinner party who worked for an education nonprofit. She'd been thinking about applying for a Taproot grant but hadn't yet done it. I've always been very passionate about education so I volunteered to help her out and ended up writing and producing a brochure and then writing and releasing a press release for her company. They were both great experiences that gave me confidence in tackling something totally new and in being able to commit myself and deliver. As it turned out this company was looking for marketing leadership and were very impressed by the work I did for Taproot. I don't know yet if I have the job but I can say for certain that working and developing my skills was infinitely more valuable and rewarding than sending out resumes.

If you've been inspired by our new president this past month, consider donating your skills to a nonprofit – especially if you've been laid off, your hours cut back or your freelance work has dwindled. Taproot operates in seven cities and needs professionals in project management, marketing, creative services, human resources, information technology and strategy management. Or just volunteer the next time you hear someone say they need help. Let's rise to the challenge set forth by Obama of helping each other make America stronger.

The last stretch

It takes a while to get settled in a new city and I know that San Francisco could have been amazing for me if I were here doing what I loved. Now, I'm racing in fourth gear towards the finish line with a growing list of things to do before I leave. Saturday, after the usual trip to the farmer's market, I bought the most amazing cookies to support Obama from a local bake sale (and made a new friend!) Then I drove down to Santa Cruz on an absolutely gorgeous day, to pick up a good friend of mine visiting from L.A. On the way back, we actually saw the fog blowing to the coast from San Francisco and returned to a sunny city!


Over the weekend, we shot monologues for this goofy contest. We spent time in the sun in Sausalito, walking along the water and indulging in midday drinks and food, sitting by the Bay. We laid in the grass at Golden Gate Park where the flowers in the Conservatory lawn almost blinded us with their color. I got a ticket on the way home for an illegal left turn but the cop apologized profusely for having to give me a ticket. We saw the international space station while lounging in yet another park and watched it twinkling along its orbit for at least 15 minutes. Something shot off from it and went on its own trajectory, and we wondered if it was a spacecraft on a mission. Both former competitive swimmers, we watched with glee as Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time. And we saw a fantastic film, Man On Wire, about a guy who, after eight months of plotting, illegally tightrope walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center "for no reason."

In the last week, I pulled my fourth gray hair and wondered how long I have before plucking is no longer an option. I was passed over for the job that I talked myself out of and was proposed to by a toll booth operator on the Bay Bridge. An interesting combination of events! I have a string of visitors, finally making it up from L.A. before I leave. Tomorrow I'll be volunteering with one at a community supported kitchen (CSK) - they make fresh, local, healthy food and deliver it to your door - and then attending a Full Moon Feast on Saturday.

I'm also volunteering for a number of projects that are more interesting than any I'm usually paid to do. Yesterday, I interviewed an autistic teenager who, after taking violin lessons for a year, starting reading and writing for the first time. She had a bright, sweet face and a smile that sparkled when she spoke. Inspired by her favorite band, Bôa, she finds music that she hears on TV and in movies and brings it to her lessons to learn. She's also a huge Manga fan and draws them herself, attracting her own fan club of readers. She's also an archer and has studied a bit of Japanese and is going to ask her school if she can take classes at the local college. She wants to travel to Japan after graduation. Joy and inspiration are infiltrating my life despite the hectic schedule and sore neck that accompanies it.

Altruism = happiness

My yoga pal who last week asked me about happiness just sent me an interview from Shambhala magazine with Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. The gist of the book is that we constantly trip ourselves up in our pursuit of happiness because as it turns out, we don't actually know what makes us happy. I'm not surprised. Despite the over-emphasis of our culture on our huge brains, we actually know very little. I found a couple of points from the interview to be very interesting. A scientific approach to some things we already know.


I read an article a long time ago about a woman in France who was like 120 years old. There have been a lot of theories about what makes people live longer. Colloidal minerals in the water that some tribe in the Andes was drinking sparked a new industry. There was a theory about the altitude, and we've all heard about how a macrobiotic diet and being nearly emaciated can make a person live longer (even though you'll miss out on all the yumminess of good food.) This article, however, said the single most important thing to long life was a feeling of usefulness and close bonds in the community. Antithetical to our practice of cloistering the elderly away in a home and "visiting" on occasion.

Gilbert says, in his interview:
Probably the single best predictor of a person's happiness is the quality and extent of their social relationships...a better predictor of happiness than your physical health. If you had to choose between being paralyzed from the waist down and having no friends whatsoever, you would probably be better off being paraplegic than friendless.

So it would seem that being happy makes a person live longer. Makes perfect sense. I mean, if a person were unhappy, what would be the point in living to be 120? Problem is, according to Gilbert, people don't realize this and instead pursue money and fame, indulge in sex and food, thinking those things will bring them happiness.

Not surprisingly, if our relationships with other people are the predictor of happiness, then improving those relationships make us happy. Gilbert says:
Altruism is a social act, an interpersonal act. It makes people feel good about their place in the world, good about others and it makes other esteem them.

When people give of themselves to others,and are recognized for it, they experience lots of happiness and increase in self-esteem. Interestingly, though, we've just done a study that shows that when people are offered the opportunity to do something selfish or something altruistic, they take the selfish option by and large. Culture has told them this is what they should do to be happy, but if you force them to take the altruistic option, they're much happier.

As VolunteerMatch.org demonstrates, opportunities to help others are abundant. We just have to take them. A heck of a lot cheaper than therapy! Not that we are meant to be happy all the time although I rather like the idea of a world that revolves around helping other people. It's important to recognize that unhappiness is not something to be afraid of. Unhappiness is a powerful indicator that we should pay attention to and learn from.

We are meant to be happy, and we are meant to suffer. We're supposed to suffer when we are encountering circumstances that aren't good for us.

It's like the situation we're in with the environment. Man has been manipulating the environment since we got here. There is no "going back." Back to what?

Women were oppressed, children were used like cattle, people raped, pillaged, and plundered, everybody lived to about the age of twenty-seven and had bad teeth! What we have right now is marvelous. It's far from perfect, but our job is to make it better - not to go backward, but to go forward.

Sure, we are faced with great challenges in the future but WE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT. I'm talking about it and everywhere you go, people are talking about the environment. I think it's amazing. I think it's inspiring. And not just talking, people everywhere are taking action. See, life is like sailing a ship. Sometimes we may go off course, but we keep going. Together, we steer this ship into the future. Like unhappiness, if we pay attention, we can use bad situations we encounter are navigational elements. Don't go that way!

They instructors in yoga classes always say that we become more rigid as we get older, mentally as well as physically. It seems to me that children, in addition to being more flexible, are more in touch with what makes them happy. They don't seem to have any trouble figuring out happiness. Seth Godin wrote on his blog that people get used to saying "no" for example, and even in the face of overwhelming evidence that "yes" is the right answer - the positive answer that will bring happiness to everyone - some people will still say no. So what happens to us that makes us lose touch with such basic intuition? The difference between children and adults is more than anything, our length of time in the world. Society and culture are a much larger figure in an adult's life. We're always being told what's good for us, our country and the economy. The most important thing we can do is to decide those things for ourselves.

Booties for babies needed

I was catching up with a friend last night that I hadn't seen in a while. We took a walk along the beach and I gave her a rundown of my job situation. She didn't even know I had started a new job two months ago so I was telling her about interviewing for the job I never got offered and that I've been thinking about starting some kind of non-profit. She gave me a great idea that seemed right up my alley so I decided to look into it.

This idea was perfect for me, she said, because I wouldn't have to choose a cause (since I'm so passionate about the women's rights, animals treatment and the environment). Argh, I'm still bemoaning the loss of what I'm sure were brilliant notes taken at the lecture the other night. Another point I remember being struck by was a comment that information will drive the change we need. I think this is a universal and indisputable claim - information drives change - but surely there are subtle complexities that determine the rate and effectiveness of that change.

In the early days of advertising, ads were nothing more than a way to disseminate information. Do you know about our product? It does this, this and this and is so easy to use! As the range of products grew and more information competed for consumer's attention, ads had to become more clever. They had to make claims, entertain and make an emotional connection that would drive people to buy. Eventually, even that wasn't enough and, as Seth Godin explains in The Purple Cow, a product or service now has to be remarkable to stand out. Meaning, you can't sell crap anymore, there's just too much competition.

In the same way, you can't just say "there's global warming" and expect people to get on board with your agenda. In order for the environmental revolution to succeed - and it really is a revolution in that it will completely change how we view and interact with our environment - the message needs to contain the truth, be entertaining, create an emotional connection AND offer a remarkable solution.

My friend and I were talking about how it seems that there is a lot of information out there about what's wrong with the world but it's difficult to find answers to "what can I do?" I've found that beyond giving money and sending letters online or signing petitions, it seems difficult to find ways to volunteer for a cause. You have to know the name of the organization and what they do first. Her suggestion was a site that compiled that information so people could easily find ways to volunteer in some way that was fun and meaningful to them. I thought it was a great idea but had a vague sense that maybe it had been done.

I started by Googling "take action." The phrased yielded 26,300,000 results. Scrolling through the list I realize this phrase has come to mean something very specific - do something to make a difference in your world. Volunteer, donate, write a letter. With over 26 million results, however, there's a lot of competition for our time, attention and passion.

VolunteerMatch.org organizes volunteer efforts in an easy to find format. Type in your area of interest and your zip code and it instantly brings up a list of organizations and the way in which you can help. In my neighborhood, for example, K9 Connection needs people to walk dogs with a sign that says "adopt me" and help find the dogs homes. You get to meet people and spend time petting a doggie, in the name of a good cause. Or spend the day at the Santa Monica pier volunteering at the aquarium and watch kids squirm when they touch the sea animals. The local hospital needs knitters to make hats and booties for newborns. Truly, making a difference is this fun and easy and there's something for everyone.

The revolution will be different in that it will require us to make a lot of changes at home and in our thinking, as well as out in the community. For it to be effective, it will have to be remarkable and the action required will have to be this fun and easy.