Before he was Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel was stuck on a ship returning to the States from Europe listening to the thump thump thump of the engine. Inspired by the rhythm, he wrote his first children’s book: And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street.
The rejection of Dr. Seuss
He pitched the book and was rejected 27 times before a chance encounter with a friend who had just landed an editing job. Geisel told his friend about his book, about the rejection, and told him he was fed up and about to destroy the book. The friend read it and Dr. Seuss was born.
#28
You never know where inspiration is going to come from. It could be from a T-shirt or an engine.
Knowing when to listen to and when to reject the opinion of others is key. Imagine a room full of all of the people who have rejected your ideas and work. Geisel’s room had 27 people in it. Now imagine going around that room and telling each of them your idea and each of them gives you a big thumbs down. Do you walk out of the room and go find #28?
Unless you do, you’ll never know the places you’ll go.
In 2011 our house flooded, we became a stay-at-home family, I wrote a post about TOMS shoes that got me called a lot of names, I tracked down Amilcar, and my next project was announced.But I won’t remember 2011 for any of these things. I’ll forever remember 2011 for this one…
2012 is going to be a busy year. I’ll be picking, catching, lugging, and sorting food all over the world. Check out the official announcement about book #2 in Publisher’s Weekly!
(This is what I imagine the red-faced voice in my head looks like. Photo by PHUDE-NYC )
My face still gets red
Last night I was at a meeting where there was one person who didn’t know me. (It was a small meeting.) At the end of the meeting he asked me what I do for a living.
What I did was…my face got red.
It was an innocent enough question. It’s not like he asked me what type of underwear I prefer — boxers or briefs. Here’s the thing, though, I’ll stand in front of a room of more than a thousand college students and show them my underwear and my face won’t get red. I’ll be on a stage and challenged by a professor and my face won’t get red. I’ll be on that same stage and not know something I should know and my face won’t get red. I’ll talk until I’m “red in the face” and my face won’t get red.
In high school and even into college I blushed a lot more. It was somewhat debilitating. I was less likely to join a class discussion and more hesitant to meet new people.
Mainly it happened like this – I would meet someone I knew or didn’t, or I would be talking in public and I would think to myself, “Do you know what would be really stupid, inconvenient, and socially awkward at this moment? If my face got red.” And then it would.
The technical name for this is erythrophobia – the fear of blushing. Erythophobia can lead to social anxiety syndrome, social phobias, and depression. Mainly it just pissed me off.
Blushing is caused by an overactive sympathetic nervous system, which is part of the involuntary nervous system, making it hard to control or predict. Add in my light complexion – someone once asked me if I was an albino – and nature was stacked against me in the blushing department.
I feel like I had a pretty mild case of the “red face.” It didn’t hold me back much, but I’ve heard about others who’ve suffered from much more chronic cases of blushing and I can only imagine how much it has held them back. Heck, there’s a pill for blushing. It costs $50 per month. Yes, to some folks not blushing is as valuable as a month’s worth of internet service! (note: I have no idea if this pill works, but in my experience this is a mind over matter issue not one a pill should fix.)
Overcoming Blushing
I’ll go a year without thinking about my red face these days. Working retail helped. If your face doesn’t get red when an impatient, angry customer looms over you while you are changing the paper out of the credit card machine, you’re pretty much good to go on the “red face” front. Public speaking helped too. First I delivered dive boat briefings to tourists in Key West, and then I started to talk about my travels and writings at universities across the country. Once I decided that even if my face got red I was going to ignore it, it just stopped happening.
Once I decided that my red face wasn’t going to hold me back, it didn’t.
2 tips for overcoming blushing:
Be more engaged in conversations. This is the big one. Once I began to listen intently to what others were saying, I no longer heard the voice in my head talking about how stupid I’d look if my face got red.
Be more proactively social. Purposely put yourself in situations in which your face would get red and practice tip #1.
Once a blusher always a blusher
Still, yesterday. A room of six. One simple question from someone I just met and bam! Red face, we meet again.
I think part of the problem in this instance is that my “job” is unbelievable. I can’t believe I get to do what I do and make a living doing it. When I tell people (my exact words last night were), “I’m a freelance troublemaker. I’m a writer and speaker,” I imagine that they don’t believe me. That they think, “Yeah right, buddy. You’re unemployed aren’t you?” It’s awkward for me. I don’t want to validate my career by listing accomplishments. I don’t want to be that guy.
How do you tell someone that you are a successful-enough author/speaker without looking like that guy? I haven’t figured that out yet.
Also, I had disengaged from the conversation a bit. I was thinking that I needed to get home and help put the kids to bed. My mind was wandering. I was in my own head – where that stupid “red face” voice exists – and not in the conversation.
If you suffer from blushing, don’t let it stop you and it won’t. You’ll likely overcome it or grow out of it, but once a blusher always a blusher.
I’m Kelsey a 32-year-old author and public speaker and my face still gets red sometimes.
Don’t be shy. When was the last time your face got red?
I admit, I am not a fan of winter, but you have to agree that there is just something magic about the first snow of the year. I called it quits early today and Harper and I built a snowman.
If you’ve had four kidneys – two that were yours and two that were someone else’s — cancer, and are nearly blind, you’re allowed to be pissed off at the world.
If, on the other hand, instead of scowling and complaining – which are well within your rights – you travel, compose music, and make the world around you a bit happier, you are one of a kind.
Brian worked at Indiana Public Radio, the local NPR station, and he loved his job. I first met him when the World Vision Report sent me to the IPR studio to record an essay. It was an essay about teaching an island village how to play baseball in Honduras, but mostly it was about not having much and appreciating what you do have.
Brian and I had lunch a few times. He came over to our house to help me with some audio once. And whenever I was near the IPR studio on Ball State’s campus, I would stop in to say “hi.” On one occasion, I had my daughter Harper with me and he pulled her in a wagon around the studio.
This morning I was watching videos of Brian on YouTube and I asked Harper if she remembered him. She said that she did. You can never quite be sure what an-almost-three-year-old will remember, but yesterday she did help solve the mystery of the missing nose-hair trimmer:
“Harper,” I said. “Do you know where my nose-hair trimmer is?”
Harper put her finger to her mouth and tapped her lips, lost in thought.
“Hmmm…” she said. “It’s in my backpack. I put it there so I could play with it on a picnic.”
I didn’t believe her, but checked one dog backpack – not there. Then monkey backpack #1 – not there. Then monkey backpack #2 – sure enough, there it was.
Harper only met Brian three times or so, but I believe she remembers him. That’s the type of guy Brian was. You remember him. You remember the smile and the laugh. You remember his acts of kindness. You remember the wagon rides.
X-Man
It wasn’t that his ailments made you feel guilty for complaining about your life; it was that he inspired you to be better and happier and to enjoy life. Even if he had been the healthiest guy you had ever met, he would have inspired you. His challenges only made his life and his personality reach that many more people.
At the station they called him X-Man, perhaps because his last name started “Ecks,” but more likely because, like the mutants under Professor X’s tutelage in the comic books, he was a freak. His mutant superpower… perfect pitch. Play any note and he could name it and recreate it. His kindergarten teacher called his mom one day, “Did you know Brian can play the piano?”
Later in his life, due to hand injuries, he only had four fingers on his right hand and three on the left that could be used to play the piano. Still he played at his church. He composed the 2008 theme music for Delaware County’s Relay for Life.
“Music has been a sanctuary for me — a retreat from the rest of the world,” Brian told a program (see video below) doing a feature on him earlier this year. “It’s the one thing that God hasn’t taken away from me.”
You are your passions
Brian reminded us that you aren’t your ailment. You aren’t your job. You are your passions. And Brian shared his with the world.
His voice still can be heard on the IPR airwaves. There’s something about doing radio that’s like praying. You have to believe in invisible airwaves that you can’t touch, taste, or smell. You sit in a room by yourself and you have faith that someone else is listening.
I was fortunate to have shaken Brian’s hand, to have seen Brian, and to have known him.
But most of all, like so many others, I heard Brian.
—
Brian’s family is directing donations in his memory to Indiana Public Radio. If you knew Brian or inspired by his words and his music in videos below, I hope you’ll consider donating.
One last thing…Brian and I had talking about meeting for lunch for the past six months, but we never worked it out. We should have.
Do yourself a favor and call a friend you haven’t seen in a while and make lunch plans. I will.
Brian sharing his passion with the world the day before he died…
If you never had the pleasure of meeting Brian, watch this video to catch a glimpse of his light…
I’m on a flight to Dallas and I hope to God know one asks me about the book I’m reading. Why? Because of all the millions of books I could be reading, I’m reading the only one I wrote. Of course, maybe if I cover up the author photo, laugh really loud now and again, and pepper in a few hmmm’s of interest, it would be good marketing.
“You’ve just gotta read this book! This dude named Kelsey goes to all of the places his clothes were made….”
But this isn’t why I’m reading my own book.
My publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has asked me to do an update and revision. When Richard my editor called me with the idea he asked, “Do you think you could do a revision? Have any ideas for new chapters?” Boy, did I.
Between you and me, I’ve always felt like “Where Am I Wearing?” was incomplete. I went to Honduras because my T-shirt was made there, met a worker named Amilcar, didn’t ask him the questions I wanted to, went home and it bugged me that I knew so little about Amilcar’s life and, for that matter, all of the lives of the people who make our clothes, so then I went to Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China. What about Honduras?
What about Amilcar?
Next week I’m heading to Honduras armed with an 8X10 photo of Amilcar taken nearly five years ago and the location of the factory he worked at. This time I intend to ask Amilcar the questions I wasn’t prepared and deep down really didn’t want to know. Does he have a family now? Does he remember me? Does he still work at the factory? Has the job made life better for him and his family? Does he still have the Tattoo T-shirt that I gave him? I have so many questions for him.
I also want to share with him how he changed my life – the way I see the world, the way I shop, the way I give, the way I volunteer, what I do for a living. I’ll tell him everything.
I’m anxious to find him, worried that I might fail, and excited to bring my “Where Am I Wearing?” journey full circle.
What’s new?
In addition to the new chapter which will cover my search for Amilcar, I’ll …
… share my experiences visiting the soleRebels factory in Ethiopia
… include end of section updates on Bangladesh, Cambodia, and China. I will try to get updates on the lives of the workers I met, but it hasn’t been easy keeping track of them. In some cases I might have to write a general update about how life for garment workers has changed in each country. The financial crisis and increase in food prices have made things even more difficult for workers around the world.
… a discussion / activity guide for classes and book clubs.
If you’ve read Where Am I Wearing? what would you change? What updates would you want me to include?
Living the journey
I can’t believe I’m still living the Where Am I Wearing journey and that I’ve been able to share the stories of the workers I’ve met on the level that I’ve been able to.
It has been and it is an absolute honor. Thank you all for being a part of it.
“He’s newly married without any kids. He still can be awesome.”
A buddy with four young kids said this to me the other day. It wasn’t said in a bitter way, but laughing. After saying this there was a bit of a pause in our conversation as we imagined (or at least I did) how much we would get done – how awesome we’d be – if we didn’t have kids.
When I get up early to work (I’m writing this at 6AM) there would be no chance an early riser would demand breakfast. (+4 hours/week).
Instead of a two-hour “bed time” routine followed by an hour of exhaustion, my bed-time routine would consist of a 15-minute shower. (+14 hours/week).
That’s 18 hours per week (10% of a week!) right there that I could spend writing, reading, working, and being “awesome.”
Are parents less productive?
Employers seem to think that mothers are. Researchers conducted a study in which they sent out 638 fake resumes that were identical except one was a mother and the other woman wasn’t. The childless woman got 2.1 times more callbacks. But for men, which is where I come in, there was no difference. In fact, a study of lawyers in Canada showed that men with school-aged children are more productive.
• Mothers with school-aged children are less productive than non-mothers, whereas fathers with preschool-aged children are more productive than non-fathers.
• Fathers, on the other hand, seem to benefit more: family resources are positively related to their productivity and family-friendly benefits allow them more time for leisure.
That said, my buddy wasn’t talking about hours worked, he was talking about being awesome. Yes, parents have less free time to spend and/or waste. We have to (try) to be more efficient with our time. Unlike Google, maybe we can’t give ourselves 20% free time to follow our passions and pursue something that may or may not be worth pursuing.
It’s tough to find the time to be awesome to the world when you’re a parent, but awesome happens to us everyday. When I’m away, I miss bed time. I miss morning cartoons. I miss being read to by someone who can’t read.
I have less working hours in my week than I did a few years ago, but I have more awesome.
I was going to make a few more points in this post, but my 2-year-old daughter is hollering for me from her bed room. We’ve got a busy week of bed time, chalk drawing, Halloween. Harper is going to be a cowgirl..
If my book were self-published, I wouldn’t have been reviewed in TIME.
If my book were self-published, it wouldn’t have found its way onto the shelf of an airport bookstore and into the hands of the sociology professor at Wingate University who was the first to champion it as a common reader text.
If my book were self-published, I’d still have a “real” job.
If my book were self-published, universities wouldn’t purchase a thousand copies at a time for their entire freshman class to read.
If my book were self-published, my wife would’ve had to find a new job instead of deciding to stay at home.
I have nothing against self-publishing. In fact, I foresee a future in which I’ll traditionally publish and self-publish (eBooks). I think all authors moving forward need to diversify. I also think that self-publishing is the right path for some people. That said, the thing that has led to what success I’ve had as an author and allowed me to support my family is the authority that comes along with having a traditionally published book.
If my book were self-published, I wouldn’t be typing this from my home on a Wednesday afternoon. I would be in an office working on someone else’s dream.
The inspiration of Dr. Seuss
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