Snapshots by Daniel Hindin

New Beginnings: A Natural Process

As some of you may have learned through my Facebook profile or Twitter stream, I’m happy to announce that I have accepted a marketing position with Big Teeth Productions, a web video production company here in Chicago. I’m very excited about this new opportunity for many reasons.

It is, of course, good to have a job in this economy – any job, with any company. But this isn’t just any job, and this isn’t just any company.

During my nearly yearlong search for work, I have applied for dozens, maybe hundreds, of positions, mostly with large companies. They all have their systems for application submissions. Fill out this form. Send your resume through this portal. Wait this long before we acknowledge your existence (if ever).

After suffering through this impersonal process countless times, I finally just stopped. There are better ways to spend my time than crafting cover letters to be scanned by faceless, keyword-searching HR bots.

And that’s when things began to fall into place. Shortly after my moratorium on resume sending began, I came across the Facebook profile of Gregg Jaffe, who was raised in the northern Chicago suburb of Glencoe, the same 8,000-person town I grew up in.

Gregg was one year ahead of me in school back in Glencoe. I don’t think we ever had an actual conversation with each other, but we knew of each other’s existence in the way that kids growing up in a small town do.

So, knowing his name and seeing that he was a member of the Facebook group of Social Media Club Chicago, an organization on whose advisory committee I sit, I perused his profile and noticed that he ran his own company, Big Teeth Productions.

Searching the Big Teeth website, I found no mention of job availabilities or expansion plans. What I did find was solid work created by a passionate man (along with his wife, Elise) with an endearing sense of humor and a refreshing outlook on life.

And, though I had no expectations of landing a job at Big Teeth, I felt a natural inclination to reach out to Gregg as simply a likeminded individual who I might like to get to know.

Sure enough, he was quick to respond to a Facebook message I sent him and, a couple of weeks later, I found myself sitting in his office engaged in a lively conversation that ended up lasting more than two hours, during which we discussed some of our mutual passions and several ideas for creative projects we thought we might work on together.

Over the next month or so, we met several more times and continued to be in touch frequently until we finally realized it would make perfect sense for both of us if I would begin to work with Gregg within his company.

And that’s where I find myself now. No position was vacant. No resume was sent. No protocol was followed. Two semi-strangers simply got together and a common bond was formed.

Of course, this is just where it begins. I certainly have my work cut out. The beauty of being part of a small company is that you can make a profound difference in a short amount of time. The other side of the coin is that you have nowhere to hide if your methods are not successful.

The expectation is that I will catalyze growth for Big Teeth and essentially earn my keep. I will be attempting to do so through a number of channels, including further development of the company’s website, expansion of its presence in social media forums and production of promotional materials, to name a few.

At this point, I’m a little nervous about the task at hand, but I’m also excited about the possibilities and confident that I am prepared to meet the challenge.

I’m sure you’ll hear more from me about my ups and downs as I engage in this new endeavor. So buckle up, it should be a fun ride!

Hot and Cold: My Own Personal Theory of Relativity

I might be at rock bottom, or I might be on the brink of something great. It’s hard to tell.

It’s possible that both are true. It’s a matter of perspective, really. I’ve always been a cup-half-full kind of guy, and I also believe that life is one giant self-fulfilling prophecy. Enter your favorite cliché here: You get what you give. You reap what you sew. My personal favorite, by way of the Grateful Dead, is: “If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind.”

Whatever saying you prefer, the idea is if you enter a situation with a certain idea of the outcome, it’s more than likely you’ll end up exactly where you thought you would.

Where you are, where you’re going, where you’ve been – it’s all a matter of perspective. And everything is relative.

Here in Chicago, there’s a strong case of cabin fever going around right now. It’s April, and we had a snow storm last week. We try to remain patient for the arrival of the pleasant weeks of late spring and early summer, but after these many months of ugly weather, it’s difficult not to become overly anxious.

Last week, the mercury rose from the mid-30s one day “all the way” to the upper 40s the next. Suddenly, everyone was smiling. I’ll admit I shed my winter coat and went for a walk along the lake. But my brazen “reach” for spring was downright mild in comparison to the many people I saw wearing shorts and T-shirts. And I’m not just talking about a few loony teenagers. There were grown men and women – parents – acting like summer was upon us.

I couldn’t help but think back to last fall. October, November – I’m not sure which month, but it was the beginning of the end of the pleasant period of late summer and early fall. The temperature had dropped from the upper 50s one day to the 40s the next. That’s when I went out and bought a serious winter jacket and started wearing my wool socks. And I wasn’t alone in hunkering down for winter. Everyone was breaking out the cold-weather gear and bracing for worse to come.

So we’ve got two days of similar weather. One in the fall, moving toward winter. One in the spring, moving toward summer. Almost identical days when looked at without context – sunny, in the 40s. On the autumn day, people are wearing winter coats and wool socks. On the spring day, people are wearing shorts and T-shirts. A matter of perspective, no? Everything is relative indeed.

While the cycle of seasons – global warming or not – goes in the same order every year, my life does not have the same predictability. But for better or worse, though there is the occasional moment of self-doubt, I prefer to see sunshine in my future. And I believe this perspective will help to lead me in that direction.

That’s not to say that by simply picturing good things, those good things will automatically happen. But if, for example, I’m presented with a potentially promising opportunity, my disposition at the moment of presentation will no doubt affect how I react to the opportunity.

If I’m in a positive frame of mind and ready for good things to happen, I’m likely to look at a scenario and see how I can make it work toward the vision of success I’ve been picturing in my head. By the same token, if I’m in a negative frame of mind, I’m likely to look at the exact same scenario and wonder why I should waste my time working on yet another project bound for failure.

I truly believe both reactions would be likely to prove accurate. Am I headed toward a dark and lonely winter, or am I headed toward a warm and happy summer? The choice is up to me.