3 Steps to Pretty Good Success: My 33rd Year

As I kick off another year of existence (yaaaay), it’s time to reflect upon the milestones scattered along the meandering trail of life. Year 33 alone was a microcosm of what could be 78 or even 104 weeks of life-change, from which I will share the elusive secrets to moderate happiness and success. It’s every middle child’s dream!

1. Get yourself a baby.

This one was harder than it sounds, for many reasons. The serious reasons aren’t appropriate for this column, but the silly ones are invaluable. First, learn to measure everything in weeks, like people do with baby ages. “Fourteen weeks” is not only more specific, but much more impressive sounding than “just over three months”. Apply this methodology to other big decisions, like home buying: “Hey honey, instead of a one-thousand five-hundred sixty week loan, we qualified for the same rate to which we’ll be beholden for only one-thousand forty weeks. Isn’t that horrifying?”

Babies add another neat element to life: food testing. Get a baby, and you’ll feel totally comfortable touching, smelling, and testing for heat any food-like substance someone might put in front of you. Dirty green mash? Let me check that out, Mmmm-Mmmm! And that’s the other half of the fun: pretending it’s delicious! So next time your mother-in-law is super stoked for you to try the organic hybrid plum-pricots from her very own garden, you’ll know just how to fake it. Remember, cut it up into tiny pieces first and say to yourself, “it’s nummies for your tummy, yaaaay”.

Finally, enjoy the new free time you’ll have when you get that baby. I bet you didn’t know how much more productive you could be if you used all 24 hours of the day. It helps if you write down a schedule: 11:30pm – check your email after almost drifting off; 12:42am – brush your teeth again, this time with an electric toothbrush to drown out the noise; 2:18am – wonder if you could change a diaper in complete darkness, just so your eyes don’t have to adjust; 4:55am – update Facebook status to “Please God, why?!”; 5:08am – read the 23 comments from your other parent friends. Strangely, not one of your non-parent friends “Liked” this update. Probably because they were sleeping.

2. Get yourself a (new) job.

Nothing brings to light your life path like switching jobs. New strangers, new coffee machines, new parking space hierarchy, new 400-page tree-killing benefit packets that you never open because it’s all online… Job transitions are soothing to the soul. Day 1: “Hey – you have Microsoft Outlook. I know something about that!” Lucky you, because you have already learned how you’ll spend 83% of your time. The rest will be comprised of 14% meetings and 3% updating Facebook status to “OMG this week is draaaggging!!!”.

My favorite part of new jobs is meeting all the new people with all their roles and expertise and advice. “That bi-weekly mandatory meeting on results? Avoid it.” Since I’m in marketing, I get the added value of technical jargon – KPI’s, ROI, CPC, CPM, SEO, creative “briefs” – and countless speculation about “our social media strategy”, which may or may not exist. (That new branding initiative? Tweet it out, yo.) It only took me 47 weeks to remember which manager was under which director in which division, and which cost center to bill for “services rendered”. Fortunately, Jane or Diane or Patsy in accounting will help you out with that, if you can find her.

Let’s face it, the longer you’ve been at a job, the more bored you are with your colleagues. Unless, of course, you work for a high-turnover company, in which case you might want to find out why you’re the only one sticking around. Trust me; it’s your lunchtime salmon and hard-boiled eggs habit. And those are just the gateway foods to leftover “____ curry”. Get some help. And get yourself a new job.

3. Get yourself in shape.

America has an obsession with two things: food, and commercials about getting rock hard abs. If only the commercials were a real personal trainer with mind control powers! Instead, we are forced to fend for ourselves in the quest for fitness. This past year, I turned to the time-tested, painfully mundane sport of running for…sport. Just me and the road and my iPod and blisters on that middle toe that’s actually longer than my big toe.

I tricked myself into this endeavor by signing up for 5K races throughout the spring and summer. Signing up means paying money, and nothing provides genuine motivation more than a little skin in the game. Try this yourself. If your fitness goal is to lose 10 pounds, sign up for the new “Minus 10lbsK” events, sponsored by Benefiber and Jan’s Full-Body Haircuts. Each event comes with race bib, and commemorative extra pair of shorts made of the latest moisture absorbing material. If you don’t lose 10 lbs, you’ll be ill enough (and ashamed enough) to never leave your bedroom/bathroom until you’ve achieved your goal. It’s motivation like this that turns couch potatoes into limping, energy-sapped workout zombies. Very nice!

If my 33rd year taught me anything, it’s that…uh, actually, it’s just those three things. I need to get myself some better life lessons.

The End of Summer Out Here in Utah

In a previous post, I mentioned how much fun it is to have to talk about weather all the time at work. Well, it reached a new low pressure system the other day, when a Sales Guy called from some provider of some valuable service which is guaranteed to provide valuable value, boost ROI, improve logistical flow-through, and make my Mother proud. These Sales Guys really need to tone down their rhetoric by the way. Anyhoo, after identifying himself as Sales Guy from Illinois, he signs off the voice mail with, "Hope the weather out there in Utah is treating you well. Take care."

Those were his exact last words before hanging up; I was so impressed with them I backed up the message and wrote them down as I listened a second and third time. This Sales Guy, endlessly pressured for new accounts, wants money I don't have in the budget for his magical wonderservice, and he leaves me with a comforting wish that atmospheric phenomena are treating me, personally, with kindness. This is what he must want me to remember then, right? You start and end your sales pitch with things that last, everyone knows that. What better than a weather well wishing? But not just a generic "Hope you have a sunshiney day", no! Give it to them in a more personal way so they will relate to you!

One of the things I'm thankful for in my career is I haven't had to cold call, ever. I was technically a salesperson right out of college, but I was never selling a brand new thing to a brand new account. Actually, I never really sold an old thing to an old account, either (ha ha!). What I'm saying is, I'm lucky the previous marketing administration quit, because I'm not very good at sales.

I had a fun adventure last night. I went shopping with Zoey for a birthday gift for her friend from school. Zoey is 8. When I suggested we get the girl, who invited her over not only for the 6pm party but directly from school today so she doesn't have to go to daycare (awesome!), a birthday gift for her troubles, Zoey rattled off the list of things Emma is dying for: "makeup, like lip gloss and those little kid makeup sets, and she loves loves loves perfume, and she also wants new necklaces like the peace sign ones I have...". Huh, alright. I didn't even know who Emma was until yesterday, but you apparently know everything about her. Anyway, we went to the superstore for last minute gifts, Walmart, and I spent a good 10 minutes in a makeup aisle fending off adult-shade lip and cheek applications and encouraging she get "up to 3 or 4" of the $0.89 tubes of pink glittery stuff. We settled on some fake nails, and I let her get a set, too. Emma is going to be thrilled with the little flowers on the tips, ohmygosh!

We also got the kid a Hoops & Yoyo birthday card--have you seen these things? My family has begun making them a tradition, and they are often hilarious. These little recorded voices come out of the card giggling hysterically and subtly insulting the recipient. You have to listen to them 3 or 4 times to get everything, but it's worth it. The one I got on my birthday will be opened no less than 100 times over the next week, and by then I will want to strangle Hoops with his Yoyo. But they're funny.

Last weekend was my big sports/birthday trip, and it did not disappoint. Below are a couple photos. Everyone who matters knows about Michigan's big win by now, and looks forward to their HUGE crosstown rivalry game with the mighty, uh, Emus? of Eastern Michigan University. EMU is located in the hipster village of Ypsilanti, a town so famous due to its name, that when you ask locals where they're from they simply reply "Ann Arbor". Except my friend Charlie, he's really proud of "Ypsi"; perhaps because they use really clever puns in their advertising. You "auto" see it!

Happy end of summer. :( <-- Sad face.