Photo credit: Chris Jemigan

Well helllllo you sexy bunch of readers, you. Here we are again for another Tuesday edition of Fear, Exposed, the series by you and for you on the obstacles, challenges, or fears you’ve encountered on your unconventional path…and how you’ve overcome them.  (If you’re interested in submitting, send a brief overview to ash [at] themiddlefingerproject [dot] org!)

This week we have a little bit of a LOVE STORY going on–I’m happy to have the lovely, fearless Jenny Foss, whose story will totally make you realize that anything must be possible.

It is, isn’t it?

-

There’s been fear. Oh yes, there has been.

It’s not that I grew up the afraid kid. I really don’t think I did. Certainly I had my share of “Oh God, the popular kids don’t like me! Whatever will I DO?” moments. Yes, plenty of them. However, I recall always feeling some sort of great big adventure cooking inside of me, and that didn’t scare me one bit.

It excited me.

Unfortunately, a series of early adult failures (OK, we will call them “life lessons”) worked to mold me into this woman who wasn’t at all what I’d envisioned in my youth. I became quite deliberate and cautious about decision making.

Failures in my personal life conditioned me to, yes, be afraid.

Afraid I’d make MORE incorrect life decisions.

So I played it relatively safe, for more than a decade. I had a corporate level job. Bought a tidy ranch house. Lived in the suburb I grew up in, a mile away from family.

And I listened to the input of my loved ones very intently. They, of course, knew what was best for me.

Life rolled along for a while, delivering all kinds of safe, predictable goodness.

All that changed after my daughter was born, in 2005.

A suddenly single new mom with a new baby, I quickly realized a few things:

1)  It is impossible to craft a safe, predictable life. (Trust me, if I couldn’t pull it off?  It’s impossible.)

2)  I’m going to need to get cracking on funding this girl’s life, braces, birthday parties, piano lessons, college.

3)  I’m going to die trying to be an excellent mom AND hold down an on-the-clock corporate job; and

4)  There is no time to be scared, woman.  Get moving.

For whatever reason? That combination of realizations made it obvious to me that I needed to be an entrepreneur. Call it an epiphany, I don’t know. But I just knew.

So while my daughter was still a baby? I launched a recruiting agency. It was late 2006. I’d convinced the bank to loan me just enough money to live for six months, and that was it. Game on.

By month four? I closed my first deal. I knew I’d make it.

Somewhere around June 2008, a friend introduced me to a couple of dynamo Portland women who had launched a single parenting website. It was an online forum where people congregated to discuss some of the specific issues single parents face, supported one another, and, yes, made friends. I’d pop in every now and again and chat it up with the members.

There was one particular member who was REALLY funny, and charming, and… well…? Lovely.

He lived in Portland.

I lived in Detroit.

It was hopeless from the start but, somewhere along the line… we got this brilliant little idea to meet in person. Did I mention he was lovely? Did I mention how much I love Portland?

We fell in love.

And racked up lots of frequent flier miles, for several months. My family and friends thought I’d lost my mind. Safe Jenny was doing what? Huh?

Eventually, I agreed. This was nuts. We broke up.

Because he had kids in Portland. And mine was in Detroit. And I didn’t feel it was within the realm of my entitlement to take her away from her other parent. Nor did he.

We were sad. I was really sad. I’d lost him AND my beloved Portland.

But I got back to the business of taking care of business. I figured it was over…

…but something just kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me to not let this go.

In a most ridiculously fortunate turn of events, one day I asked my daughter’s dad if he’d ever consider moving to Portland. I figured there was about a .02% chance that he’d say yes. In part, because he also has an older son from a prior marriage. And that family was also in Detroit.

Shockingly, he said yes. And, even more outside the realm of all I would have ever imagined was possible… His son’s mom and husband said yes, too.

And suddenly a dying dream became a possibility.

A very real, adventure-filled, go-west-my-friend possibility.

But, of course, this is when fear came roaring back in.

Upon announcing this unbelievably Happy! Surprising! Amazing! news to my family, my core support network? They became quite FURIOUS, and convinced I had officially jumped off the deep end. My parents worked very hard to show me the light, presenting me with a long list of all the reasons our real, adventure-filled, go-west-my-friend move would fail.

My sister cried. More than once.

That made me really, really sad. And scared. And I questioned (hard) if I was doing the right thing. I did not want to let these important people down.

Further complicating matters was that I’d decided I was NOT going to tell the lovely Portlander that our crew was westbound. I absolutely didn’t want him to feel responsible, in any way, for this decision. Nor did I want him to think that he was the only reason I was coming.

Because he wasn’t.

By then, I knew that I loved, and belonged in, Portland, Oregon. And I was staring at a once in a lifetime shot to tell my fear to cram it, and to realize my great adventure.

And, dammit. I wanted to go for it.

So in the summer of 2008, with minimal buy-in from some very, very important people, three households of astoundingly cooperative Detroiters made a pilgrimage to Portland.

It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.

I had absolutely no idea what life would look or feel like once we landed in Oregon, but I knew my life was FINALLY becoming this big, amazing exclamation mark. And that felt amazing.

Since the move…

…My job is flourishing. The recruiting agency continues and, in Spring of 2010, I launched JobJenny.com, a site that helps job seekers, entrepreneurs and dreamers find the peace, love and greenbacks they so deserve.

… I got back together with my Portland lovely, about two minutes after I finally admitted to him that we were en route. We’re newlyweds now. I’m the proud mother and stepmother of three. And a ridiculously proud wife.

… My mom and extended family approve. And love him, too. And see how happy I am. Which makes them happy, I’m pretty darned sure.

…My father sadly, and very unexpectedly, died. I miss him terribly. He never got to see all of the gloriousness that is unfolding as a result of this decision. (I think he’d have been proud.)

My Fear, Exposed lesson from all of this?

1)  Live. Live big. Live with all your heart.

2)  Don’t let the curveballs scare you into submission, or mold you into less than you are capable of becoming.

3)  You do need the key players to OK it, but you do not need the entire world’s permission if your heart says go for it.

And that, is my story.  The safe girl from suburbia evolves.

Jenny Foss operates an independent recruiting firm, Ladder Recruiting Group, and is creator of the blog JobJenny.com. Your job search BFF and tough love expert on finding career passion, Jenny recently launched a Ridiculously Awesome Resume Service and offers customized wisdom through her consulting service. You may also find Jenny on Twitter @JobJenny.

-

I can vividly recall the first time I wrote a resume.

I typed away on our clunky, oversized HP desktop, silently muttering words that shouldn’t appear in any resume each time autoformat would sneakily attempt to take over my painstakingly-created bulleted list of achievements.

To this day, autoformat and I remain sworn enemies–and with reason, might I add, since I always felt that autoformat was more or less the electronic version of those pushy people who insist on offering unwelcome, unsolicited advice. I never cared much for those jerks, either.

I sat there staring at the blinking cursor, trying to summon my mightiest qualities and craft them into professional-speak jargon that would be meaningful to potential employers:

• Have tons of shit to say & secretly think I’m smarter than you because
  that’s what every 20 year old thinks —–> skilled & knowledgeable

• Will work my ass off if you just give me this one chance, because I have no idea
  how I’ll pay off my credit cards if you don’t —–> committed & dedicated to the profession

• Promise not to steal your money, your job, your husband or those stupid little
  chalk-like pastel-colored mint candies everyone puts in a bowl on their desk —–> trustworthy

• Will hear what you’re saying to me while simultaneously texting my friend
  about happy hour, updating my Facebook status, checking my work voicemail
  and sipping on my Dunkin Donuts coffee —-> talented multi tasker

• Guaranteed to complete a task in half the time because I’ll likely go against
  company protocol and work smarter, not harder, without you knowing —-> takes direction well

• Will refrain from using phrases like “yo,” “I’m down,” “ain’t no thang,” & “whazzzup!” —–> excellent communication skills

• Will happily accept drinks from the cute guy in the cube across from mine
  & will not be mean to the girl who made me feel like an idiot for not knowing how
  to use the copier —–> works well in a team environment

And voila–just like that, I had myself a professional resume, full of BS buzzwords that have become the standard.  Do a Google search for resumes, and see how many of these you see come up over and over and over again.  It’s almost comical, because it’s no secret that not every candidate holds all of those qualities, nor does every job require all of those qualities, but such buzzwords have become as expected as the resume format itself.

Interestingly enough, many of these buzzword qualities point to the ability to essentially be a cog in a wheel.  Takes direction well.  Works well in team environment.  Multi-tasker.  Committed. Essentially this means you’re efficient, you’ll do as you’re told, you won’t cause too many problems, and you’ll do it for a really long time.

And in the past, this was precisely the type of worker that was needed:  One who kept his head down, took orders from above and performed the necessary functions in order to keep the company running smoothly.

So over time, this is the type of worker that has become valued–whether or not, in present-day, it makes sense to value these qualities.

No Matter How Impressive Your Resume, There’s One Thing That We’re Missing

Yet, the one quality that has become so incredibly necessary, as we move into a technological age, is the one that is most overlooked by traditional companies.

Creativity.

Sure, many times it’s like a bonus quality we might add onto our resume–creative thinker–and hope it scores us extra points, but it’s never the skill that’s highlighted, nor praised.  (With the exception of creative fields, of course, but that’s an exception.)

The reason for this is that creativity, by and large, isn’t always tangible and, furthermore, it’s a skill that’s highly subjective in nature.  Therefore, it’s hard to measure.  And if it’s hard to measure, it’s hard to see.  And if it’s hard to see, then there isn’t too much value attached to it.

Yet, as we keep moving forward, we’re bound to start seeing creativity take the lead as one of the most important skill sets out there.

Why?

Because creativity fuels ideas.   And in an internet-age, ideas are what’s fueling the world.

Your Boss Isn’t As Powerful As He Seems–Anymore, That Is

In the past, there was a much greater distance between those with power and those without.

Those with power were the guys at the top, and those without power were the guys working for the guys at the top.  In order to have any upward mobility, the guys without power would have to get permission from the guys with power.  Power, in this sense, was a commodity that was given in tiny fractional increments, in order to keep the guys without power feeling like they were getting somewhere, essentially keeping them happy and PRODUCTIVE.

In the past, ideas were not for the guys without power to worry about.  The guys with power were the ones that came up with ideas.  Once an idea was born, the guys without power implemented the ideas.  They did what they were told.  The end.

However, with the advancement of technology, this is all starting to change.  And it’s changing drastically.

Technology has afforded us many luxuries, but perhaps one of the greatest is a more equal distribution of power–without having to get anyone’s permission.

Now, with the use of the internet, we can create our own power.  We can be our own boss.  We can BE THE GUY AT THE TOP.  We can LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD.

We Can, But Will We?

But there’s one very important condition involved in creating our own power:  We have to be creative. The very thing that was de-emphasized in the past, is the now the very thing that will be running the future.

In order to take advantage of the opportunities that the internet allows, creativity is necessary to spark ideas.  Essentially, the internet has given us a platform to be our own boss, and create a business out of whatever it is that our hearts desire–as long as we’re creative enough to imagine how we can find the intersection between our passions and what it is that others need. It’s a basic matter of supply and demand, tweaked to reflect modern day capabilities.

We no longer have to wait for anyone to give us a promotion in order to start doing the things that we want; the only person we have to get permission from is ourselves–often the hardest part.  It’s not a matter of whether we can or not; it’s a matter of whether or not we have the guts.

That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Do you have the guts?

Every time I feel myself falter with a wave of self-doubt, I get angry about it, and then I force myself to do what it is I’m hesitating to do.  Do I want to let something as ridiculous as a little self-doubt ruin what could be something incredible?

In 50 years, I want to look back and say that I had the guts.

The Domino Effect of Ideas

Creativity is the most important skill to be harnessing, because creativity breeds ideas.  And ideas–whether they seem frivolous, distant or impossible to you now–are the currency of the future. Ideas propel us forward.  But best of all, an idea won’t simply lead you to one place–ideas have a domino effect, in that one idea will lead you to an abundance of doors that would not have been open to you prior.  Acting on ideas automatically produces exponential growth.

For example, this website.  I started The Middle Finger Project in November of 2009, with the intention of simply communicating my thoughts to the world.  It was a simple idea, and one that I had conviction in, but not a huge set of expectations.  Now, I’ve created an entire career out of it–something I never anticipating happening.

Another example is the coast-to-coast tour I’m about to embark on on the 4th of July.  The idea started as a joke in a comments section between Colin Wright, Andi Norris & I.  It was a wild idea, but now, a few months later, we’ve got sponsors and we’re headed across the USA to bring our message to a broader audience.

Imagine what opportunities might come as a result?   Opportunities that would have never revealed themselves to us, had we decided to stay behind a computer screen.

Ideas are the most powerful thing in the world.  If we can learn to trust in our ideas, and trust in ourselves, the world is truly up for our taking.

50 years from now, don’t you want to look back and say you had the guts?

-