{"id":19990,"date":"2016-03-06T20:29:29","date_gmt":"2016-03-07T01:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=19990"},"modified":"2020-03-30T19:26:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T23:26:48","slug":"this-advice-from-my-mom-changed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/this-advice-from-my-mom-changed-my-life","title":{"rendered":"This advice from my mom changed my life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGo back inside. You never know who you\u2019ll meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those were the words of my mother. She was referring to a cocktail party at a townhouse in New York\u2019s West Village. I\u2019d gone in, but was too shy to initiate conversation, and booze wasn\u2019t doing the trick. I decided that it wasn\u2019t for me and left. On the way home, I called my mom for a chat. She somehow convinced me to go back to the party before I managed to get very far.<\/p>\n

This was September of 2008. I\u2019d just come back from London where I\u2019d spent the last of my rations. I hadn\u2019t worked all summer, and it was about to catch up with me\u2014you can do New York on $20 a day, but you can\u2019t do it on $0 a day. In a tradition I\u2019d fashioned for my mid-twenties, I had no plan for what was coming next.<\/p>\n

Back at the cocktail party, I met so many interesting people with all sorts of backgrounds\u2014authors, executives, retirees, and folks between one gig and the next.<\/p>\n

When you meet someone in New York, one of the first questions is usually a very direct \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d Given the nature of my work\u2014software development\u2014I usually just replied with \u201ccomputer stuff.\u201d If the other person is truly curious, they ask me more questions.<\/p>\n

In one case that evening, someone asked me more.<\/p>\n

\u201cProgramming,\u201d I replied. Really, it\u2019s boring!\u201d<\/p>\n

She pressed me further.<\/p>\n

\u201cI make websites,\u201d I said. \u201cAnything in a scripting language\u2014 Perl, JavaScript, PHP…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know ColdFusion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t quite true. I had never actually seen much ColdFusion (which is now essentially extinct), but I knew I could buy a book and sort it out over the weekend.<\/p>\n

She mentioned she was the head of digital at NYC & Co.<\/a> and asked if I was free Monday morning. They\u2019d just had redesigned their website and needed help. I think I played it cool, but I remember saying, \u201cYes!\u201d<\/p>\n

What started as a freelance web developer position turned into a full time job. I was gainfully employed and back to participating in society. Through that job I met the lovely people of Huge, the digital agency where I eventually worked. Huge led me to the MoMA and eventually to Twitter in San Francisco. What was meant to be a few weeks in S.F. lasted almost three years. I took a full time position with Twitter\u2014before the IPO\u2014and let that run it\u2019s course.<\/p>\n

That fortuitous timing allowed me to leave with a cushion and start my current journey, which is a startup financial company called lemon<\/span>.<\/p>\n

For shy people or those of us for whom small talk doesn’t exactly come naturally (does it really for anyone?), parties can feel like the gulag. Add in the stresses of living in a big city like New York, where going somewhere after a long day at the office or a lengthy commute\u2014let alone somewhere where you know you’re not going to know a single person\u2014and “networking” can all feel like a herculean effort.<\/p>\n

But it’s never as bad as it seems, and if I hadn’t powered through and gone back to that party, I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now. And I really like where I am now.<\/p>\n

As they say, always listen to your mother.<\/p>\n

Photo: Lauren Kallen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGo back inside. You never know who you\u2019ll meet.\u201d Those were the words of my mother. She was referring to a cocktail party at a townhouse in New York\u2019s West Village. I\u2019d gone in, but was too shy to initiate conversation, and booze wasn\u2019t doing the trick. I decided that it wasn\u2019t for me and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1613,"featured_media":19994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis advice from my mom changed my life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cGo back inside. You never know who you\u2019ll meet.\u201d Those were the words of my mother. 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