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Unplugging Isn’t The Key To Happiness by @LUCYrk78

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by Lucy Rendler-Kaplan | Featured Contributor

unplugIt was around 1995 that I first logged onto AOL and within the first two years, began finding people to chat with in online groups. I found people that lived in Chicago, or that played Scrabble, and occasionally flirted with some flirts that most likely were the original Catfish. I would spend hours talking to these stranger-friends. I hadn’t been all that popular in high school but online, I had a fresh start to meet people that weren’t already in unbreakable cliques.

I went to college, had a busy life filled with theatre, work, studying, new friends and family and didn’t spend much time online. There was so much to learn and so many new people to meet and new experiences to be had and I tried to take advantage of as much as I could.

Then came Facebook, and I was back to spending much more time online. In 2008 I joined Twitter and while I didn’t delve in nearly as much as I do currently, I was spending a considerably more time online.

My favorite times are when I go to a city and leave feeling like I know everyone there. Chicago, although it’s my hometown, has always felt like that to me – welcoming and friendly and much smaller than it appears. With all the people I’ve been able to meet in over 20 years online, when I travel, I am able to recapture that feeling as I meet my online friends offline and the world continues to shrink.

Do I spend so much time online that I neglect my friends and family and offline relationships? I have never had someone come to me for an Internet Intervention. I can put my phone down and focus on people I am with (for the most part) and not feel an overwhelming sense of #FOMO. At the same time, do I ever go a full day without at least one Twitter chat? Actually, I do. Most Fridays I don’t attend any, but I certainly see everyone in my groups with multiple chats on other days. I don’t lose sight of the people that are important to me, my family, my dog…but I also know that I have extremely close friends on social media that are just as dear to me, if not even more so, than some people I spend time with offline. So what is the difference really? Offline, when you want to see friends, you meet them at a restaurant or a coffee shop. Online, you meet them in a chat or a DM or a group. Either way, we are still going where we need to be, to keep up the relationships that are important to us.

On a professional level, I can’t imagine going a day without checking my email. I’m not sure that anyone that runs their own company or works at an executive level in any company truly ever unplugs or “goes off the grid.” To me, that is irresponsible. I believe that the stress of wondering what you might be missing negates any freedom or imagined peace of mind you might be attempting to regain my turning off all electronics for an extended period of time. How many times have you gone on a vacation and come back to more emails than you can possibly answer your first week back? How serene does that make you feel? Exactly.

If I’m a customer and having problems with something or need to reach a company, I’m going to be pretty put off when I receive an out of office reply, more so if it doesn’t offer me an alternate person to reach in the first person’s absence. In an age where transparency and immediacy has become the norm, why would you make your company unavailable to it’s consumers? The very people that make up the sole reason you still have a company?

I’m not suggesting you stay tethered to your laptop and phone 24/7. The beauty of today’s increasing world of remote workers is that your time is taken into consideration. I understand that you, like me, may be working remotely and therefore your time really is your own. Do I still expect replies to my correspondence in a timely manner? Absolutely, and I will offer that to you as well. But I may take an extra hour during the day to walk the dog AND have a leisurely lunch, and might only check my email twice during both of those times.

me on phoneI tend to believe that if you can only find moments of serenity when you are entirely removed from any and all thoughts of your job, perhaps you are not in the right position. Personally, I can find many other things besides email and social media to distract me, if I’m not truly in the moment, no matter where I am. Similarly, I am also able to find peace when I need to. And that doesn’t mean I take off for my own Walden Pond, ignoring everything around me. Peace for me comes in learning to live in the real world, which is made up as much by people online and off. It means accepting my life as it is and me for who I am, and not seeking a technological black hole to hide in, away from all of you. And the irony? Where to people come first, to tell everyone else about their time “unplugged?” Ah yes. Twitter. Facebook. Text messages. How many times have you seen someone unplug, just to come and immediately ask, “Who missed me?” You know you’re coming back. We know you’re coming back. Is the break one big ego trip?

We live in a digital society. New technology pops up every day. Would it not be better to find the best way to live in the world we um, live in, than to pretend we’re somewhere else? Or not try to escape our current lives and learn to find the balance?

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Lucy Rendler-KaplanLucy Rendler-Kaplan is a marketing veteran, with close to 17 years experience in field marketing management public relations and social media marketing. Both in-house and as a consultant, Lucy has created, developed and managed marketing projects for organizations including: Red Bull North America, ONE Coconut Water, Camel and Ethos Water, to name a few.

Most recently, Lucy has left corporate America to work as a consultant, focusing on small businesses and start-ups to design effective social media and marketing strategies to jumpstart brand growth. In addition to strategic business development efforts, she directs media relations, branding, advertising and website development.

As a social media consultant, Lucy works with companies in auditing their current social media efforts and creating a comprehensive social media strategy that aligns company-wide objectives through social business practices.

With an early background in journalism, Lucy regularly contributes to a number of NFL and music blogs, as well as her own, with a diverse focus encompassing Lucy’s passion not only for networking and marketing but also for fitness. She spends her free time honing her photography skills, running and watching an excessive amount of true crime shows.

Let’s connect! Twitter & Linkedin

 

Having The Courage of Your Convictions by @LUCYrk78

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by Lucy Rendler-Kaplan | Featured Contributor

8.24.14 me in mirrorWhen I was 17, I started smoking. I was afraid that my parents would find out and be upset with me, so I hid my cigarette pack under the driver’s side seat in my car. Perhaps one of the most obvious hiding place, my mom found them. Her response wasn’t what I expected – rather than being upset with me for the act of smoking, she was more upset with my hiding it. I’ll never forget what she said, “Be who you are. If you smoke, say you smoke.”

I wish I could say that from then on, I always had the strength of character to be “who I was,” but as I’m sure we can all relate to, that’s easier said than done. We still live in a pretty judgmental world. And I believe that as long as we do, we will care or worry what others think. Perhaps we don’t always suffer from those feelings of wanting to be liked or fit in more than we feel we do, but I don’t think anyone could honestly say that 100% of the time, they never think about it.

Personally for me, it has taken over 30 years to get to a point where I’m not afraid to stand up for what I believe in, or share honest opinions and thoughts when asked a direct question. For a long time as a child I was really shy and didn’t want to share strong opinions. I’m not even sure I allowed myself to form them, content to just agree with the majority in hopes that would make me look like I was “one of them.” Trying to be “one of the crowd” has brought me through some experiences that were nothing if not learning experiences – of what NOT to do my life. I allowed myself to be led astray almost exclusively each time I tried to do something simply to fit in. That has played a HUGE part in shaping the Lucy of today. How do we build more of that self-confidence and self-esteem? My answer? By doing esteem-able things. And the more you stand up for yourself, the more I find your self-confidence and esteem grows.

Do I worry that people won’t like me for some of the things I believe or say? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it prior to sharing or admitting certain things, but worry isn’t the word I use. I hope that people feel like I do – I respect people more FOR sharing their beliefs and thoughts, whether I agree with them or not. Obviously there is a caveat to this – I wouldn’t respect someone if they said something in the vein of “I think we should kill all the people that _____,” but those people aren’t in the communities I keep myself in, so it’s a non-issue. I have friends of different ethnicities, religious beliefs, that work in different industries and that grew up completely opposite the way I did. How boring would life be if everything agreed with you? Would you not be a bit mistrustful of those people? I mean, how can anyone honestly think the exact same things you do? And if you were to find that 1 in a million person, what you could you possibly talk about? I find that discussions or debates, even arguments, always lead to my looking at things through a different lens. Does that mean I’m then swayed to their way of thinking? No, but sometimes.

When you know that someone speaks their mind and is constant in their thoughts and their actions and way they conduct themselves in life follow those thoughts and beliefs, it’s much easier to know how to engage with that person. You don’t have to worry about which “side of them” you’ll be dealing with, and you’ll know what people to have what conversations with. These are the people I find myself looking at as my “influencers,” those that I know are strong enough in their beliefs that if I want an honest opinion or thought or piece of advice, I can go to those people and not have to wonder if they’re just saying what they’re saying to appease me, or to make me like them more than I already might. I find it exhausting when people seem to “go both ways” on topics – it’s confusing, one day they say one thing, and the next time we talk about the same topic, they suddenly seem to have flip-flopped into thinking something else. I understand that feelings change and grow and that’s FINE, but I’ve seen it happen mid-sentence and that just makes me feel the person is saying what they THINK I want to hear. How well does that ever work out? For me? Never well. I’m not a mind-reader, and I don’t want to be one.

Does this always work in my favor? Nope. But because I have the courage of my convictions, I recognize that I might face disapproval, but I’ve gotten to a point in life as an adult that I believe in myself. I, as much as I can, surround myself with other people that are confident in who they are, and people I can trust and believe when they talk. Does this make me arrogant? I hope it’s not seen that way. Just because I believe in myself, that doesn’t mean I’m right all the time. Haven’t we all had a situation we thought was 100% one way, and it turned out it wasn’t at all? I don’t find that confidence = arrogance, unless ego is involved. If you come from a pure place, ego doesn’t generally enter into it, right? Am I like this every minute of every day? Nope. I am not sure that’s even possible as humans. Of course I have self-doubt at times. But I work on it. Is it sometimes easier to just “go with the flow” and not express yourself or your differing ideas? Sure. We’re human, we make mistakes and sometimes it’s easy to take the easy road.

Have you ever experienced a time that you stood up for yourself and your beliefs and it wasn’t taken well? I’d love to hear some of your experiences with this….

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Lucy Rendler-KaplanLucy Rendler-Kaplan is a marketing veteran, with close to 17 years experience in field marketing management public relations and social media marketing. Both in-house and as a consultant, Lucy has created, developed and managed marketing projects for organizations including: Red Bull North America, ONE Coconut Water, Camel and Ethos Water, to name a few.

Most recently, Lucy has left corporate America to work as a consultant, focusing on small businesses and start-ups to design effective social media and marketing strategies to jumpstart brand growth. In addition to strategic business development efforts, she directs media relations, branding, advertising and website development.

As a social media consultant, Lucy works with companies in auditing their current social media efforts and creating a comprehensive social media strategy that aligns company-wide objectives through social business practices.

With an early background in journalism, Lucy regularly contributes to a number of NFL and music blogs, as well as her own, with a diverse focus encompassing Lucy’s passion not only for networking and marketing but also for fitness. She spends her free time honing her photography skills, running and watching an excessive amount of true crime shows.

Let’s connect! Twitter & Linkedin