I’ve had many conversations with parents who were about to send their last kid off to college – there’s usually a combination of emotions coursing through the conversation.  On the one hand, happy dancing! Finally free to go back to having time to themselves!  But, inevitably, there is also a thread of sadness in the conversation… the house is going to feel so empty without him, etc. I am pretty sure they call it the empty nest syndrome and I imagine it is quite the adjustment to transition from being full time parents with a house full of children to being alone.

Of course, I will never have this experience being the quintessential bachelor with no children.  I am spared this particular experience – or am I?

While it’s true that I am not raising children or living a few decades with a house full of kids only to send them out into the world 20 something years later, I do consider the work I do at 270inc very much my “family” and it seems I have taken to adopting my interns as the “kids” of this house.  They come to me with little experience looking to learn and grow in business. They want to stretch their potential and explore the possibilities of their skills. They come here hoping to be a better person for the experience and I spend 12 weeks doing everything in my power to get them to that goal.  These people, (and yea, I call them the “kids” around the office if you must know) are an intricate part of this “family”.  From the moment they arrived, they jumped in and said, “let’s go!”  They challenged every boundary they thought they had, they took on projects they didn’t know they could handle with courage and conviction. They weren’t afraid to ask questions and they remained passionate as they accomplished their goals with a commitment to their work that is no less than excellent.

It amazes me how much courage it takes to face the unknown.  Each of these kids came here not knowing what to expect. For all they knew I would be the real world equivalent of Meryl Streep’s character in the Devil Wears Prada.  Or perhaps they would simply be stuck in a room filing mindlessly.  They didn’t know – but they came anyway, and they committed anyway.  Now, while I doubt I could be called a shrew, I am not the easiest person to work for.  I made them work hard and I pushed every envelope they had – I challenged them to believe in themselves because I believed in them and I knew they could handle the jobs they didn’t know they could handle.

Each of these interns is leaving here better than they were when they walked through the doors 12 weeks ago. They are amazing people with incredible skills and potential. Their confidence has grown tenfold – their abilities have increased exponentially and most importantly, when they go out into the world after they graduate college, I believe to my core that these 3 people will make a difference in the world. What I do know is that they made a difference in this publisher/editor’s life for the past 12 weeks. They weren’t the only ones learning and growing. I am as affected by them as they are by me.

So, while I know it’s not quite the same… I feel like I am getting a taste of what it’s like to send a house full of kids off to school and facing an empty nest.  I am admittedly doing a little happy dance as it is EXHAUSTING to work with 3 students all summer while juggling 5 jobs… but mostly,  I have a thread of sadness because this place is going to feel empty without them asking me every ten minutes if I need anything or reminding me when I have appointments or running to get me a soda cause I am so slammed I can’t even leave my desk.

Either way… I feel good about one thing – 270inc is better for having them be a part of our family – and for that, we are truly grateful.

This week, the interns talk about what it means to step outside their comfort zones.

BETH

It’s dark backstage. The house lights have just dimmed, the noise from the audience has quieted to a dull murmur, and the boy at the controls is getting ready to draw the curtain. My heart is beating so fast, I’m paranoid it will go into overdrive and I’ll collapse from a heart attack – dead on stage at the tender age of 16, brought down by a sinister chorus concert.

The curtains are pulled back. While a baby grand piano is wheeled to the front of the stage, I walk forward with an antiquated bar stool in one hand, a top-heavy cordless microphone in the other. I have to squint, the spotlight that’s on me is so bright. My choir director settles in, and I climb onto the stool.

At this point, I realize that it’s too late to turn back; I can’t just run off the stage now. There’s no time to go back and rethink my outfit or get in just one more practice run. As Mr. Hettenbach plays the opening chords, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and belt it out: “I took my love and I took it down…”

On that fateful night four years ago, I didn’t die of a heart attack, I didn’t collapse on stage, and I didn’t totally screw up. I took a risk, and it paid off. I couldn’t keep track of the number of compliments I got; everything from “I didn’t know you could sing!” to “That’s my favorite song. You did a really good job.” I stepped outside of my comfort zone, and I honestly enjoyed singing to an audience.

They say that, when you perform, you should harness the anxiety you feel and channel that into your performance – convert nervous energy into passion, excitement, anger, sadness, or whatever’s required. I think that doesn’t just apply to performance. You can carry over that lesson into any part of your life. Whether you hate talking on the phone or you don’t know much about where you’re working, the only way to know that you will succeed is to try.

My boss had some excellent advice for me the other day: when you feel the fear and you start to tell yourself that you won’t succeed, that’s when you know it’s time for action. That fear tells you that the article you don’t think you can write or the website you don’t think you can manage is a challenge that you have an opportunity to overcome and excel at.

It might be a tired cliché, but I think it’s a cliché because it’s true: You will never know if you’ll be good at something unless you step outside your comfort zone and give it a try.

KATRINA

I hate talking on the phone with people I don’t know. I absolutely hate it. Most people find this very hard to believe, considering what an extroverted and talkative person I normally am. Despite this, I still hate talking on the phone with people I don’t know. I’m not really sure why, but I just get nervous about my words not coming out just so, being the perfectionist that I am, and ruining any chance at a good impression before I even have a chance.

However, this summer as an intern at 270, Inc, it basically comes in the job description that I will be making phone calls to many people that I do not know on a frequent basis. My first couple of days here, I found this seemingly mundane task to be a lot more difficult than it needs to be. I stumbled over my words, and forgot to introduce myself. If no one picked up, and I was forced to ‘leave a message after the beep,’ I would quickly spit out a garbled voice message with often no call back number mentioned.

Now, I’ve just finished my seventh week of work at my wonderful internship. Gone are the days of long, confusing voice mails, and awkward introductions. I begin every phone call with a concise introduction as to exactly who I am, and why I am calling. Voice mails are kept short, but informative, and I always leave a call back number for myself and Pattee. And believe it or not, I have come to enjoy talking to people who I have never met before.

Sure, there are hundreds of other things that I have learned this summer that will eventually be crucial to future job opportunities. However in my opinion, everything starts with a simple phone call, as much as I hate to say that. Now that I have finally mastered this petty task, I hope to be able to grow, and move forward onto bigger things.

JARRETT

Whether at home, school or work… A comfort zone is a place where an individual can be themselves. It is more than just an office or specific area; it is what we have become comfortable with as far as how our work is done and how it is presented.

When beginning this internship at 270inc business magazine I was well aware of my comfort zone. The difficult task is stepping away from my zone and learning how to work in an organization I wasn’t overly familiar with. As the summer has progressed my comfort zone has continued to grow as I allowed myself to learn from my surroundings. I have had the opportunity to see how others perform in this specific environment and take pieces from my observations to help me build on myself.

Before graduating and moving into my own career, I think it is very important to experience as many types of atmospheres as possible so that as I take the first step into my business future, the comfort zone I have will be as large and diverse as possible. 270inc Magazine is providing me with the individual growth I need to broaden my current comfort zone.

BETH

I’m not really sure how I’m going to update my resume after this summer. It’s the hardest part of any job, I think: stopping at the end of it, looking at what you’ve accomplished, and summarizing that into two or three easy-to-understand lines.

This is made especially difficult when you’ve been challenged to step outside your comfort zone; when you’ve accomplished tasks that you never thought you could have; and when you feel like you’ve learned more in one summer than you could ever learn in a year’s worth of college classes.

I came into this internship blindly. Katrina and I happened to have two classes together last semester, and when I told her that I was looking for a summer internship, she said she had applied to intern at a small business magazine with its office in downtown Frederick, and they were looking for another. It would be a tremendous understatement to say that I had no idea what to expect. Would I be writing articles? Would I be entering files into a database? I did not want a repeat of the temp job I had in the summer of 2008, opening envelopes and sorting mail all day.

Needless to say, I was not stuck with mindless tasks. Yes, updating the website can be pretty tedious – it seems like there’s always something that needs to be edited, and we can’t always agree on how we want it to look. But I learned more about managing a website than I think any professor could have taught me; and in doing so, I learned that I’m a really driven person. I can think of a million other little things I’ve learned about myself this summer, but to list them all would take hours.

They say that, “A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years’ study of books.” This summer, I feel as if I’ve had 3 months’ worth of conversations across the table with a wise woman. There is something about having an internship with a great mentor that is worth more than what any college classroom can offer.

KATRINA

In January, I began my search for a summer internship. At Hood, it’s required for all Communications majors to have completed at least one internship for credit by the time they graduate. Because I take a full course load as it is every semester, I knew I was not going to be able to throw in an internship along with all my schoolwork. So, the trying task began to find an internship.

Little did I know just how hard my hunt would be. I was already well aware that summer internships were the hardest to obtain, seeing that it is when most college students look for them. As I researched internships that were available for my field, I applied for almost anything that I could—over 20 places. However, I didn’t hear back from one. I wasn’t looking for everyone to accept me with open arms, I was actually quite ready to see generic emails telling me they had received too many interns, or were not interested. Yet, I didn’t hear back from anyone. By April, I had given up. At this point, most internships for the summer were all filled up. I accepted my fate, and knew I would be returning to cashier at Target for the third summer in a row.

Then in feature writing class one morning, my professor read us an email she had received about a magazine called 270inc located in downtown Frederick that needed interns for the summer.  I figured it wouldn’t hurt to apply, so I took a shot. For once, I heard back almost right away. I set up an interview right away, and was immediately offered an internship soon afterwards.

When I arrived for my first day, I had absolutely not a clue as to what to expect. Some of my friends had told me horror stories about their first internships; others rambled about what a great experience it had been. I, of course, was hoping for the latter. Lucky for me, I had an experience I will never forget this summer at 270inc.

Every day I was doing something different- and always learning. Some days were slow—I wrote emails for Pattee, made phone calls with potential radio show guests, and updated Pattee’s contacts with her most recently received business cards. Other days I couldn’t seem to catch a breath—I helped organize and plan events, did research, went to meetings, wrote and edited copy, and made sure Pattee was where she needed to be.

Having an internship is completely different from taking a communications class at school. There are some things that just cannot be taught in the classroom, and many of the skills that I learned at my internship are among them. For instance, I don’t think there is a lecture on polite phone etiquette with people that you do not know, but there should be considering the amount of people who rudely shout orders. In another example, copy editing is entirely different and much more crucial when you know the piece you are editing is going to be published. A typo in a magazine is embarrassing for the publisher, and makes the magazine look unreliable and sloppy. In my editing and layout class, the typos were common ones, like using ‘to,’ instead of ‘too,’ or ‘there,’ instead of ‘their,’ and at worst, the missed mistakes would only be seen my by professor.

After my internship this summer, I cannot wait for whatever is to come next summer. I can only hope that my next internship takes advantage of the many skills I have learned this summer and is as enjoyable and fulfilling as my experience at 270inc was.

JARRETT

An internship can be an incredible experience when put in a strong healthy environment. Some people find themselves in the middle of meaningless tasks that have nothing to do with their major at all. The internship to those who hired the students was nothing more than free labor for a set period of time.

Luckily for us, this summer internship has been a chance to not only use what we have learned in the classroom, but also see how those exact ideas we were taught are being used by others in the industry. It is one thing to be expected to apply what you have learned, but it is a totally new experience when professionals are applying the ideas themselves. This turns showing up to work into showing up to learn and build.

The right internship can not only help the college student progress as graduation gets closer, but also get over the initial fears of what life after school may bring. The internship can help build confidence, creativity and clarity into what may have before seemed confusing. This summer with 270inc has been a very rewarding practice for what is inevitable; graduation. There have been far too many things I have learned to name them all, but I can without a doubt say this internship has changed my perception of the Marketing and Publishing world for the good.

When I decided to go into business with Harby Tran and started this magazine, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It’s not as if I was a publisher of a magazine before. It’s not as if I was an executive editor either.  Don’t get me wrong, I have done a lot of things in my lifetime, but starting and building a magazine didn’t happen to be one of them.

Well, I can’t say that I am disappointed, because in fact, I’m not. I am thrilled that every day is a new adventure and every challenge is met with enthusiasm. Although, truth be told, most challenges are met with some severe language and then enthusiasm.  But my point is, sometimes you have to do the things you have never done before to find out you can do them. What if I had said… oh, thanks Harby, but I have never published a magazine before, so no thanks, I won’t do this project with you?  Or if I had said, gee, we need an editor for the magazine, but since I have never done that before I won’t take it on.

So often we fear challenging ourselves because we don’t believe we can rise to the occasion. We don’t believe we can accomplish something we haven’t tried to do. That fear of the unknown still penetrates our lives – just like the monster in the dark when we were kids.

I remember being afraid to go down the hill when I was learning how to ride my bike. My dad positioned me at the top of the hill and said, okay, put your feet on the pedals and go… I will be at the bottom to catch you… 3 times he said that, 3 times he walked to the bottom of the hill and 3 times he returned to tell me not to be afraid… the worst that would happen is that I would fall and hurt myself. “All wounds heal kid. The trick is to know they heal so you’re not afraid to fall.”

He went back down the hill and let me know we weren’t leaving till I tried it…

So there I was, 5 years old, petrified to the point of being paralyzed like late at night in the dark… and suddenly, and without reason, I put my little feet on the pedals, pointed straight forward and said to myself,  F-it!  And down I rolled… landed flat on my face a few seconds later when I lost control of the bike, and cut my face and leg pretty badly. My Mom was furious… but my Dad… he said – “see, you survived TC. And those cuts will heal. Don’t be afraid of what you Don’t Know… find out what’s out there so you can decide for yourself what you can and can’t do”.

From that day on, my life has been a series of F-it’s.  I couldn’t be happier that during an economic downturn in the most challenging time publishing has ever faced, when Harby asked me to start a magazine with him,  my inner child simply said – “sure – F-it!”

by Katrina Castner

I had no idea what to expect coming into my internship at 270inc this summer. I didn’t know if I was just going to be running around all day grabbing mochas, or if I was actually going to help be a part of something.

Thankfully, it was the latter option. Every single day I’m doing something different, and I love it! Some days, I make phone calls all day and get nothing but voicemail. Other days, I get to write, which is my favorite thing to do here. Last week, Pattee gave me an opportunity to write a piece for our Growing Green section – an opportunity that I nearly turned down out of fear. However, I took the chance and ended up writing something that I am extremely proud of and excited about.

This week, I took a foray into the marketing section of our industry, which I had never done before. The project involved recreating a brochure and two sell sheets for a client who was in the process of renovating a lot of their information. This project was one of the first that I was extremely nervous about, seeing as I had no clue what I was doing, and because this was going to an actual client I was working for, not just my boss. However, my fearless leader provided plenty of guidance and assistance to help me create an end result that we were both happy with.

by Beth Arsenault

For the most part, I’ve taken advantage of social media as a consumer. I use my Facebook account to keep in touch with my friends from high school and to find out what everyone has been up to lately, I use Twitter as a dumping ground for my random thoughts, and I have a few blogs of my own. I use YouTube to watch videos, purely as a consumer – I had never posted a video to the site until last week, when we set up 270inc’s very own YouTube channel (which you can check out here).

As an active user of social media, I’m very aware of how most people will respond when they have all this information to take advantage of. I can go from website to website with just the click of the mouse, learning more or letting my brain rot as I so choose. So coming at social media from the other side – as a provider, rather than a user – is a totally new experience for me.

Who knew that pushing content could be so involved? Whether it’s sending out Tweets or updating Facebook statuses, I’m always doing something to drive more readers to our website – and I can only hope that it works. What’s fascinating about social media marketing is the variety of things one can push. No matter what, we’re involved in some kind of online conversation, and that conversation can lead to more readership, an exchange of ideas, or even public action; for instance, events are often organized with the help of Facebook event pages, websites like EventBrite, and mass emails.

So how do you decide what’s appropriate? What I find works for me is the Golden Rule. If I wouldn’t want to read it online, I don’t post it. No one likes to be barraged with spam comments and unnecessary Tweets, so we don’t send those out. Improper grammar and typos imply carelessness on the part of the poster, so we edit comments and posts as carefully as we would edit articles in the magazine.

Pushing content like this has made me think twice about what I post on my personal sites. Sure, I’ll still use Twitter to dump my random thoughts, and I’ll post pictures on Facebook and publish my opinions on my blogs; these days I’m just a little more wary of the online image of me that’s being portrayed with my actions. In general, I think this is a good thing to keep in mind for anybody working with social media.

In the April/May issue, we had a fascinating round table event about social media marketing, and got some great feedback from local experts. To read all about it, click here.

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Members of the Frederick Key Note Speaker series: Ed Robinson, Heather Gramm, Bill Boggs, Pattee Brown, Richard Griffin, and Harby Tran

Putting together large events with important people, such as the keynote address by Bill Boggs on June 10, can be really stressful. Sometimes if feels like nothing is going to go according to plan … but I gotta tell you, when I got to the FCC Jack Kussmaul Theater and I saw Richard and Heather, our event partners …  my stress melted away into excitement. Everything was going exactly as planned; they were ready for anything and so was my crew. I was lucky enough to have my partner Harby Tran and three really great interns working with us that day. This project, which is produced by the folks from the City of Frederick’s Department of Economic Development, our company 270inc, and Ed Robinson of Vistage International, is a brainchild we are all so very proud of. Together we all did a fantastic job setting up the reception area outside the theater while we waited for Ed Robinson who was a rock star with Bill Boggs! Somehow he managed to get our star speaker to the theater, refreshed and ready on time, despite a train delay.

Our event sponsors, Key Financial Group and CorpOHS, were set up in the front area with the reception table. As I walked into the open area outside the theater, I started greeting our many guests. The food, set up against a back wall, drew our guests into a lounge area, and a cash bar encouraged them to mix and mingle.

When I saw who was arriving at the event, I was even more excited. Three city council members were in attendance and

Members of Key Financial Group with Bill Boggs, middle

Helen Riddle from Economic Development was there. Performance RX President Catherine Mock was charming as ever chatting up Moore Wealth owner Shabri Moore and Jasmine Sneed of Jasmine Sneed Promotions. Bill and Adam Swaney, owners of NEXimage, came out for the show as did Frederick County Bank President and CEO Marty Lapera and Paul Frey from Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. I got to chat up Pat Haley of BridgePath Scientific and Nick Damoulakis of Orases … well, you get the picture—there were more than 100 people there, I couldn’t possibly name all of them, but I think I spoke to almost everyone at some point. The place was chock full of the who’s who of Frederick.

Success tends to rub off on the people around you; hang out with someone who has a positive attitude, a strong work ethic and a little bit of luck, and you’ll start to see that success is entirely dependent on driving yourself forward. Bill Boggs is that kind of person. He’s interviewed more than 6,000 celebrities and power players in multiple fields, like music, business and entertainment. You name it, and he’s talked to the leader of it. He studied what made their careers soar, and from that he wrote Got What It Takes? - A book about the characteristics of success.

Bill Boggs inspires local business leaders

At the beginning of his keynote, he asked the audience a series of questions he wanted us to ask ourselves … and one really stuck with me. Are you doing what you really want to do or are you settling? The rest of the talk was about reinforcing the importance of that question and understanding how all these incredibly successful people got where they are because they didn’t settle. I wish I could recap in detail what he said, but I can’t. I do have an autographed copy of his book, though, so I will go back a thousand times and read and re-read his lessons. If you weren’t there, I wish you had been because it was such an inspiring evening … intimate, enlightening and entertaining.

Keynote speakers like Bill Boggs do more than just talk at an audience; they inspire ideas in us that lead to tangible results. Bill motivated me to do better than my best, and he gave me a reality check. While people can sometimes get lost in their day-to-day routine, he reminded me that the keys to success are hard work, confidence, following your passion and not being afraid to take risks. By the way, the answer to his question for me was… I absolutely LOVE what I do.

And according Bill Boggs … I definitely “GOT WHAT IT TAKES.”

PHOTOS BY BILL MILLIOS

by Beth Arsenault

On the top floor of a converted 1840s warehouse, tall loft ceilings float over the offices of the Diversions Publications group: Frederick Magazine, Montgomery Life, and our very own 270inc. are all produced out of these workspaces.  As visitors walk up the final flight of stairs – the last 20 of a total of 53 – they can look to the left and have a clear view of the interns’ workspace, which consists of a 3-by-4 foot desk, a bookshelf crammed with old copies of Frederick Magazine, a paper-folder, and three boxes full of old copies of Montgomery Life.  A large glass door leads out onto the roof of the building; in front of that door sits the piece de resistance of the workspace: an eight-foot tall tree nestled in a decorative red clay pot.

On my first day at the office three fateful weeks ago, I met one of the other two interns who would be joining me this summer, Jarrett.  Jarrett, who admittedly has more of a green thumb than I do, decided we would water this tree, whose leaves were brown and crispy and in danger of dropping at any second.  “Maybe by the end of the summer it’ll reach the ceiling,” he said, referring to the exposed beams of the 12-foot roof above our heads.

And so our journey began.  Like this tree, each of us will enter the workspace, dead and dry, with leaves of knowledge threatening to fall from our brains as the humidity of the summer grows more oppressive.  But with help – water in the form of advice every day from our gardeners Pattee Brown and Harby Tran, and sunlight in the form of experience at meetings outside the office – hopefully by the end of August our brains will also reach the proverbial ceilings – maybe even the sky.

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Beth Arsenault, from Ellicott City, Maryland, is a rising senior at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.  She is majoring in both English and Communication Arts, with a concentration in Journalism.  Her career goals seem to change every other day; one minute she wants to work for a publishing company, the next she wants to live in a remote Irish village and pen her memoirs, and then she wants to take a year off after college to volunteer abroad.  (And let’s not forget the phase she went through when she was absolutely positive she would be a professional backup singer.)  She studied in London for the Fall 2009 semester and loved every minute of it.  Her motto is, “If not now, when?”  She enjoys singing, writing, reading, watching movies, playing volleyball, and working out when she can find the time.

Katrina Castner, from Clarksville, Maryland, is a rising junior at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.  She is majoring in Communication Arts, with minors in French and Studio Art.  With this internship, she hopes to gain valuable experience in the workplace.  She says she’d love to work on a magazine – “If I’m lucky that’ll happen, but we’ll see.”  She has a positive attitude: “La vie est belle!” is her favorite expression.  She enjoys practicing photography, writing, cooking (and eating), shopping, and reading trashy romance novels.

Jarrett Nash, from New Market, Maryland, was a Gunners’ Mate in the US Navy on board the USS Saipan.  He was part of the amphibious assault battle group that started Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Upon finishing his time in the Navy, he began college and is currently a senior at Hood College majoring in Management/Economics, with a concentration in Marketing.  With this internship he hopes to gain real-world experience using the concepts he has learned in the classroom.  He enjoys going to the beach, Orioles games, and reading autobiographies.  His favorite quotes are, “A person’s life is dyed with the colors of his imagination,” by Marcus Aurelius, and “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to prosper,” by Benjamin Franklin.

BETH

I don’t always know what to expect when I come into the office every morning.  In my first week alone, I fetched soda, taste-tested homemade hummus, took notes at an event for area business leaders at a gorgeous country club, and helped organize for our next issue, due in August – and that was back in May.  So you can imagine that every week since then has been a different roller coaster ride of experiences.  Last week was no different; we had been planning the Keynote event featuring Bill Boggs for weeks. Jarrett and Katrina were making calls and stuffing goody bags, and the whole team chipped in on the day of the event to make it run as smoothly as possible.

When I think of interns helping out at an important event, my mind automatically flashes to episodes of “Running in Heels,” a short-lived reality show on the Style Network about a group of 3 interns working at Marie Claire magazine that ran in the spring of 2009.  Like me, they seemed to do typical intern-y type things: they fetched coffee, they ran errands, one girl even picked up a staff member’s wedding dress on the day of her wedding (which I thought was a bit ridiculous, but I guess that’s the New York magazine world).  They got to dress up to go to flashy red carpet events, interview the directors of fashion lines, and even contribute to the layout of the magazine. When I was watching the show, I remember being drawn to it not for the content the girls were working on – I’ll flip through a girly magazine occasionally, but I’m not totally dedicated to fashion and beauty the way these girls seemed to be – but for the opportunities they had.

First of all, they were on a reality show: OK, so anyone can do that these days. Big deal. Second, they were already doing tangible work for the magazine, which they could see the results of – just like I’m doing by helping to run 270inc’s website. Last, they were meeting top people in the fields they were interested in. They had the opportunity to make a good impression and, if they had a new or different career goal after their internship with the magazine was through, they could use their connections to move on that way.

In a way, I have the same opportunities: I can mix and mingle with the top businesspeople in the area, make connections, find out what’s going on in the business world. These days when my parents talk about the news at the dinner table, I can contribute to the conversation, and talk about what we’ve been doing at 270inc.  This internship isn’t just about getting the credits I need to graduate or getting office experience (although that’s certainly helpful); it’s about learning as much as I can about the business world, especially in the part of the state that I’ve spent 15 years of my life in. The event featuring Bill Boggs on June 10 was an example of one of those opportunities, and I’m glad to be participating in an internship that provides me with this.

JARRETT

Often times I have attended events simply for the event and never took notice of all the work that goes on behind the scenes to keep everything going smoothly. You tend to notice the overall picture, but not the little things that it took to make it look fantastic. From sending out emails blasts to create awareness to the final clean-up, there are people constantly moving and working to keep the wheels on the track.

This was the first event that all of us interns were here for so far this summer and it was an educational one to say the least. The goody bags alone were a time staking, tedious job, but it had to be done. After goody bags came the food: ensuring it was on time and set up correctly, and then cleaning it up once everyone was done. Once the reception area was ready, the event began and was smooth sailing. The guests were able to relax and enjoy everything Boggs had to say to them; they didn’t have to worry about something going wrong at check-in or the food not being up to par. As the magazine’s events’ organizer for the summer, I think that’s all I can ask for – and it’s the sign of a successful event.

KATRINA

Bill Boggs came to Frederick on June 10 to give a keynote address to business leaders from the local area.  As an intern at a magazine that was made to inspire and challenge these exact same people, I was honored to even be attending the event. Even though I was not staying for the talk, the reception itself was exciting. Everybody who was anybody in Frederick was going to be there, and many interns would never get an experience like this. For my first two weeks here, I had been doing work in the office that I didn’t always get to see the results of; finally, it felt as if everything we were doing was leading up to this event. So when the day finally came, I couldn’t believe the big day was here, and I was curious to see how everything was going to work out. Weeks of planning had led to this moment – Jarrett and I had stuffed dozens of goody bags, and we weren’t even sure how many people were showing up.

As the guests began to trickle in, they were handed those goody bags. As people wandered around in the lobby mingling, they munched on the snacks that had been picked out by Pattee and Jarrett earlier that day. While sitting behind a desk selling Bill Boggs’ books, Got What It Takes? I watched all of this going on, and was amazed how everything had fallen perfectly into place. The reception area looked classy and fabulous, it was organized and guests moved smoothly from check-in to mingling, and everyone seemed to be excited and anxious to hear what Boggs had to say. The event was a hit, with over 100 attendees. Nothing went wrong, and we were prepared for everything that happened. This being my first major event with the magazine, I don’t think I could have asked for a better experience.

Click here to learn more about Boggs’ latest book Got What It Takes?: Successful People Reveal How They Made It to the Top.

You know, I have spent most of my adult life learning how to hide my “feelings” in a professional environment in order to ensure that I am perceived as “strong” or  “together” or “well adjusted” etc.   Insecurities are the devil’s work, no doubt.  But the thing about being human is that insecurities are part and parcel of the entire package.  And frankly,  if I am working with people who I hope will respect and even admire me, don’t I owe them  authenticity?  And doesn’t authenticity speak to revealing our flaws and confronting our “demons” honestly without pretense?

Personally, I don’t like dealing with  “posers”.   When I can choose,  I won’t choose the inauthentic.  So this begs the question… isn’t hiding my own insecurities inauthentic?  I’m going out on a limb here and saying… yeah, it is.   And yeah, I don’t want to do that anymore.

So, the other day I took a leap of faith and shared an insecure moment with my business partner. Instead of holding in my feelings and pretending to be “okay” with the situation,  I told him in detail about the emotional spiral into the shame-filled world of insecurity  I was experiencing at that moment.   I admitted these thoughts and feelings were completely irrational, and I detested admitting to having them.  What is most interesting is how little weight these feelings had when I said them out loud. They were FAR bigger in my head!  Frankly, as soon as I said them out loud they started sounding absurd to me.

In the end, after allowing me to vent, my partner did what any good partner would do under such circumstances… he asked me if I was done and then told me to snap out of it. He told me I am the smartest person in the universe; which under the circumstances was the exact right thing to say to me.  He reminded me that I walk on water and that everything about me is perfect.   In other words, he helped me laugh at myself and gave me some clarity during a very human moment of  insecurity.

The thing about being human is that we are ALL human, and we all have these feelings sometimes and we all get stuck in a spiral of shame or insecurities sometimes.   And don’t we owe it to ourselves to be human with each other?  Isn’t it better business to work with someone you feel is authentic?  I mean, come on… don’t you know when someone is SO perfect and SO poised, that they aren’t being authentic?

I think we have to embrace our humanity and allow each other to BE human.  Think about it… what could have resulted in hours and days of angst and unfocused wasted time, where I  would have marinated  in horrible feelings of inadequacy and paranoia,  was instead a minor blip in my day only lasting about 20 mins.  I expressed my insecurity,  saw how absurd I was being and moved on with the rest of my day without a hitch.

I try to count my blessings everyday, especially when it comes to the amazing adventure I am currently on with this new Magazine. I have so many reasons to be grateful… and so many reasons to be scared!  So when I am having one of those crazy human moments where I begin to think I don’t know anything and begin to wonder what made me think I could DO this… I opt to embrace my humanity and trust that my authentic self is far more interesting than the “Poser” I used to be.  I am not the strongest person in the room at ever moment. Shocking? Uh, no.

Wanna exorcise YOUR poser?  Lets start a revolution!