The other day at work I met a girl; let’s call her Anne. Anne is temping at the front desk and she saved my ass by sending a fax for me. As we talked, I realized that Anne has way more personality than 90% of the people that I meet. I was intrigued, so I struck up a conversation. It turns out she went to film school in Kentucky and then moved out to California to pursue her dream of getting into film. As is typical of major Universities, UK didn’t prepare her too well for the quotidian details of breaking into the business. She spent her first 8 months in California temping for the University of California in their food services department. But now she’s at a major ad agency at the front desk for 3 weeks. This is her big chance. So I ask her, “Do you realize we have an entire production department upstairs?”

“Well, kinda.”

“And have you talked to anyone upstairs?”

“No, I mean, wouldn’t that just be awkward?”

“That’s one of the blessings of this business, you become immune to awkward. I’m going to get you in front of some people.”

It took me ten minutes to take her picture, put it on the company intranet with the headline “Meet Our Newest Producer” and then write a little paragraph telling her story and inviting people in production to stop by and talk to her.

I wish I moved that fast when I had an idea for a project of my own, but somehow it’s easier for me to sell someone else than it is for me to sell myself. That made me think, what if I treated selling myself like I treat selling someone else? How can I do that? And the answer I received is, “I’m never selling my Self.”

This is the part of the post where we get into some Eastern philosophy. Your “Self” is the part of your mind that watches your life, observes all the tiny details of your existence. “Self” doesn’t do anything, “Self” merely witnesses the thoughts that pass through your mind and the actions you take. Sometimes I think of my Self as a big brother to me. Self doesn’t judge me or correct me. Self just watches proudly as I learn and grow through each new experience. Self gives me the freedom to make mistakes and the confidence to take risks because I know no matter what, Self will always be there with me.

When I learned that a funny, quirky, super helpful and very kind person wanted to get into film production, my instinct to help kicked in automatically. If I can start thinking of each project I undertake as its own person, I can treat those projects with the same mentality that I treated Anne’s. Think about the project you want to launch as a person. That person is young, inexperienced and unsure. You aren’t selling your Self, your Self is watching over the young person that is your project, giving that person love, understanding and limitless patience. Your job is to take care of that project like it was a human being. To nurture that project the way you would nurture a child. Your job is to recognize all the great things that little child wants to do in this world and support him or her so she has the confidence to go for it. That doesn’t feel much like selling, does it?

Faithfully,

Fernando

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