Stay hungry and don’t be afraid to be different

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Katherine

Late last night I learnt that Steve Jobs had died. At the age of 56. The man who told students at Stanford University that “you’re time is limited so don’t waste it living someone’s else life” finally met the one destination that none of us can out run.

Jobs himself said that “death is the best invention of life.” He argued that death was life’s change agent, that it cleared out the old to make way for the new. I doubt that I’m alone in believing that his death was an exception to his own rule. He was a man that lived his life as if each day were his last and he was always new, always inventing, always recreating. He never got old and nor did his ideas.

I co-run a cell phone recycling startup so I am a tech junkie. I am also a Mac advocate. My first ever computer was a bondi blue iMac back in 1999. It was beautiful. Something I wanted to have in my life even before I knew I wanted it. It made school work less boring, with Apple everything seemed just that little bit more fun and creative.

Apple products have followed me, marking the stages of my school, college and career. More importantly, Steve Jobs has inspired me. He taught me to be bold, to trust in my gut and to take the risk to do something that I love. Steve, and people like him, made me feel just a little less crazy about giving up everything to start anew. About deciding to write, deciding to launch a business, deciding to move to New York with no job and just my dreams to pay the rent. In Steve’s words I learnt to embrace “the lightness of being a beginner.”

Steve Jobs thought in a different way than everyone else. He was crazy enough to believe that he could change the world. And he did.

New York Living: City by the beach

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Katherine

I learnt two things about myself this week. First, my rose-tinted memories of childhood summers all involve time idyllically spent by the ocean. Second, when the stress of life as an entrepreneur/writer gets too much for me I am all too tempted to escape. The combination of these means that, when the going gets tough in New York, I look longing towards the beach.

Shockingly this is a part of New York

On top of minor things like money and failure worries, I spent last week worrying that I was missing the summer. I spend most of my days working from home, looking at the blue glow of my computer screen. The window is normally cranked open and I can hear the old Italians shooting the breeze on the stoops below. It is not a bad way to spend my days but it is largely an indoor-bound affair.

So this weekend we decided to embrace the spirit of July 4^th, take the day off work and feel the sunshine on our skin. We toyed with the idea of heading out to the Hamptons but it felt too industrious for a Saturday morning so we decided to check out one of the city beaches less than half and hour from our apartment.

The Rockaways are a strange place. Half looming high rises and half unexplored semi-wilderness. I had been in the off-season and, much like winter in Coney Island, the beaches gave off a wind-sweep melancholy. I had been told that the beaches were heaving with people in the summer. However, I had read about a stretch of pristine, secluded shoreline far to the west (thank you New York Times). So we set off to Fort Tilden, somewhat tentatively, towels and books in hand.

In short it was perfect. The ideal escape. There were sand dunes, only a smattering of people, not a building in sight and the Atlantic Ocean lapping temptingly at our feet. The only people I saw looking industrious all day were two cops and they were riding horseback in the surf talking to a few girls in bikinis…it felt like the whole city was taking a break.

The Rockaways are technically in Queens but they summarize much of what I love about Brooklyn. An urban smorgasbord of ugliness, beauty, chaos and peacefulness.

If you live in New York, go. Go now. Take a picnic. Happy 4^th of July!

It hard to be mad at a place with road signs like this

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Katherine

A writer.

The answer was always a writer.

Today is a sort national holiday for writers worldwide. It is Bloomsday and a fine day to reflect on a career that has always held a fascination for me.

As a child, I envisioned an older version of myself in a house in the hills of Italy, writing my ink-stained manuscripts by day and cooking meals with friends every night. Small details never hindered my imagination. My lack of fluency in Italian was never an issue to my invented friends, I was never lonely, money rarely entered my thoughts. I certainly never had to deal with any sort of rejection.

In reality, making it as a writer is very different. It is not always easy, it can be painful, it is full of rejection and I am often racked by self-doubt. It is not the idyll that I had in my mind’s eye.

And yet I have to admit, with James Joyce on my mind, that writing is wonderful. When the blank page gives way to words that flow or sentences speak beyond their distinct outlines. When an article comes together, when a chapter of my book sits proudly on my desk, or when I feel I have eloquently described my chaotic inner monologue. Writing is a drug. An addiction that drives you through the low points and pummels you towards something worthwhile.

Today I am a writer, a public speaker and the Creative Director of a young business (www.ExchangeMyPhone.com). I could have never dreamed up that long-winded title as a naïve adolescent. I would have never imagined that my dream to be a writer would have taken me around America, would have introduced me to a new world, would have landed me in New York starting a business with someone I love.

My real life, and my hybrid career, works. In reality, the house in Italy would be lonely. I would miss the chatter of the big city, the amazing friends and family I have here, the buzzing potential of the start-up world.

In the immortally cool words of the Rolling Stones…

New York, New York: Sinatra had it right

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Katherine

Spring has finally come to the big apple and it is time to forgive the city anything.

When Jeremy and I first arrived on New Year’s Eve, we had sublet a beautiful but miniscule space in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The snow had formed 4-foot walls down the semi-ploughed roads and we were paying three times our old rent in Chicago. It was a baptism of fire and there were times when we questioned our sanity. New York had been a dream, an east coast adventure and a chance to live in the pulsing heart of the publishing and business world. As we hibernated in our apartment and gave up on any sort of privacy we wondered if the city was too much for us, too expensive, too gritty.

Last Tuesday, teaching my first class on public speaking (here is the next one), I played a spontaneous speaking game with my students. In their own way each of them told us a story about their New York, the city they called home, good or bad. One hated and loved Times Square in equal measure, one told us about a crazy saxophonist on the subway with questionable personal hygiene and one told us about her apartment nightmare living with a dominatrix housemate.

This city is like marmite, you love it or hate it, and sometimes you do both at the same time, but once it gets under your skin it is hard to shake off. Today, sitting in our apartment with the sun shining through my window, I love it. I love the beauty of my neighborhood, the old Italian men who sit on their stoops every day, the morning coffee at my local café, the bookseller down the road who has used tomes scaling the walls and spilling out on to the sidewalk.

Of all the cities I have been to, nowhere has the sheer diversity of New York. It is hard to beat the experience of all that variation than from the back of the bike. Brooklyn and Queens have great bike rides that I will tell you about some other time, but my New York story, the New York journey that I love the most is the one that takes me from our place in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, to the best bagel I have ever eaten on 107^th st on the Upper West side of Manhattan. It is not a short bike ride but it is an ideal way to spend a Sunday in the city.

The rush of adrenaline as cars screech past me on midtown Manhattan’s 6^thAve, the intense gaze at each parked car for fear of a door flying out into my path, the joy ride up central park, the in-line skaters, the table tennis players in Tompkins Square Park, the mysterious Chinese gamblers in Columbus Park. On top of it all is the food. In my mind, cycling 15 city miles entitles me to some treats on the way. There are hundreds of places on route but here are a few favorites:

1. Ted and Honey – fueling up with a breakfast sandwich and an iced coffee in Carroll Gardens.

Image: Cobble Hill Blog

2. Grabbing a few biscotti from a cart here in Little Italy after rolling over the Brooklyn Bridge.

3. The Pickle Guys – if you like pickles, my favorite is the somewhat controversial pickled pineapple but you’re never short of choice. If you’re not so into pickles and prefer your treats a touch sweeter, check out the lower east side location of the Doughnut Plant across the street.

Image: Robbie Virus

Moishe’s bake shop – anything is good for a pastry picnic in Tompkins Square Park.

The grand finale of them all is the best bagel I have ever tasted. I realize that some people are partial to H&H but we were introduced to Absolute Bagel by a friend and I think my loyalty may already have been forged. An everything bagel, hot out of the oven, with a thick layer of white fish spread…it gets me on my bike every Sunday.

Image: Carnivore and Vegetarian

Tell me a story…do you have a favorite New York place, food mecca or journey?

Bill Withers: Still Cool

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Katherine

It is one of life’s more pesky ironies that I cannot sing. My virtual tone-deafness has always seemed unfair in light of my stutter. Away from the delicate ears of others, I have been known to belt out the odd 80s classic in the shower and I have never once stuttered. In fact, of all the stutterers I have met, I have yet to hear about one person who stutters whilst singing. Grabbing on to this little factoid a surprising number of people have suggested that I turn my daily conversations into a real life musical. No doubt I would be completely fluent singing away in my padded cell.

Stuttering singers span the breath of music history from Carly Simon to Mel Tillis and Gareth Gates (for those of you Brits who were teenagers back in 2002 and remember the early novelty of Pop Idol). But there is no stuttering singer as quintessentially cool as Bill Withers. I remember thinking that when I interviewed him back in 2009 for my book on stuttering and I felt that again last night when I stumbled on the recent documentary ‘Still Bill’ in my Netflix account.

“Some people are born cool”, he observes in his trademark rolling voice. It seems like he must be talking about himself until he cracks a smile and carries on, “I was an asthmatic stutterer from Slab Fork, West Virginia.” His playful wit establishes from the beginning that this is a rare musician’s documentary. There are no fawning crowds, no crumbling rock and roll hedonism. Rather we are given a picture of Bill’s daily life as he spends time with his family, records music with his daughter, shoots the breeze with friends and celebrates his 70^th birthday.

We are shown a humble man who chose to walk away from fame for a quiet life, and is happy that he did. As he tells his kids, “It’s OK to head out for Wonderful, but on your way to Wonderful you’re gonna have to pass through All Right. And when you get to All Right, take a good look round and get used to it because that maybe is as far as you’re gonna go.” Is he talking about himself? It seems hard to believe but the line reminded me of something he said when I interviewed him years ago. I had been sitting with him in his wife’s office for almost two hours when he got a call from Simply Red’s management asking him to come as a VIP to his next show. His surprise morphed into gratitude and, when I asked him if that kind of thing happened all the time, he laughed, “No sugar, most people think I’m dead these days or too old to walk over there.”

Both in the documentary and in person you can see only a hint of Bill’s lifelong stutter. It is so slight as to be barely noticeable but there is a strong feeling that this seemingly minor challenge has shaped his life. He comes across as a deeply emotional man and we see him quietly cry twice in the film. Once from fatherly pride and once as he talks to a group of children that make up Our Time’s theatre group for kids who stutter. Intimately indentifying with them, he observes that stuttering can make other people nervous and says, “We have to go just that little bit further to help them feel at ease.”

Bill seems like a man that treads softly and makes a big noise. The film is peppered with wise, unscripted words. It is about a man who knows who he is. He’s still the same guy he was growing up in Slab Fork, he is still the guy he was when he started his family and he is still a stutterer.

If you missed it, you can always catch it on Netflix here.

Public Speaking: Bringing back the show and tell experience

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Katherine

I have recently taken to the public speaking circuit in New York. The irony is not lost on me. Eloquence, wit, clarity and charm might be the more ‘normal’ attributes of a public speaker. Stuttering is not one of the more typical traits of the trade. And yet it has its upsides.

1) My audience is remarkably engaged. Whether they are leaning in to listen a little harder or whether they are genuinely fascinated in the subject, I’ll take it. I have noticed that stuttering makes people listen. Not in the mindless, doodling, half-hearted way that I used to listen in university lectures. Rather in a what-is-going-on and how-can-I-catch-every-word-she-is-saying kind of way.

2) My voice and my words work as a team. This is not an entirely usual experience for me. At times I can feel like my words and my voice are at odds, both vying for attention as they send out conflicting messages. Yet, when I am talking about stuttering, my voice serves as a prop, neatly underlining what I am saying about my speech. I turn into a walking show and tell performance.

3) No one is afraid of speaking up in the question and answer sessions. Having recently watched me stutter through a 20 minute speech, they feel markedly less self-conscious. Whatever difficulty they have in public speaking they feel a little less worried about exposing it.

4) No subject is off limits. I offer the class the chance to ask me anything they want after my speech so the classroom becomes a very honest place very quickly.

5) My speech will probably not blend in with the other lectures they had that day. If I allow myself to be truly narcissistic I would love for my audience to be inspired, fascinated and motivated by my talk. I hope some are but I’m sure there are others who are less enamored. My less ardent supporters might be bored, might feel uncomfortable and may even hate what I’m saying but they will probably still remember the talk by the end of the day. If nothing else I have given them a memorable story to tell their friends.

I’m not Sir Ken Robinson yet. My sweaty hands still gesture wildly and I have moments of briefly loosing my train of thought and lapsing into a desperately searching silence.

My talks so far have been to graduate speech therapy classes so my audience is not exactly a fair representation of the population at large. I have trapped them in a classroom and they seem to have some genuine interest in the subject. As far as audiences go, they are not too terrifying.

They are also expecting me to stutter. Standing in front of their hopeful faces I worry about letting them down. What if I am suddenly struck by fluency? I worry about disappointing them. I think how awkward we would all feel if I didn’t say one stuttered word. Luckily I haven’t let them down yet.