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OPTEXPERIENCES
(the official blog of Mandell Experiences)

The system is flawed. The answer is us.

5/18/2018

 

by Chloe Mandell

“If you have come here to help me then you’re wasting your time. But if you have come here because you realize that our fates are bound up in one another, then let us work together.” - Lilla Watson
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The unrestrained voices of 5,000 women and allies filled the landmark Shrine Auditorium to the brim. Faded yellow and red silks, chipped paintings of camels and palm trees, and dimly lit chandeliers hinted at the lustrous times when the Shrine would host the Academy Awards. We were all movie stars in that room, and we were about learn what to do with that star power to address the harsh reality of inequality.

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I was attending the United State of Women Summit  (USOWS) in Los Angeles on May 5-6, a second year event designed to “amplify the work of organizations and individuals at the forefront of the fight for women’s equality, and provide tools, access and connections that help women see and step into their power to break down the barriers that hold women back.”1
 
The room (mostly women, over half of whom were women of color, and about 10% men) was buzzing with energy, excited for the incredible lineup of speakers leading the conversation about women in our nation, topped by none other than Michelle Obama. But the palpable energy was about much more than just fandom.
 
That growing tension that nagged each one of us enough to fly, carpool, bike, or bus to this summit was the reaction to a deeper current that had begun long before our lifetime, cresting into a groundswell of “aww hell no,” Black Lives Matter, and #metoo.
 
We’ve been conditioned to question the sustainability of landmark changes. A moment that is sure to fizzle like the dot com boom, the housing market, or the bitcoin bubble. But perhaps there is space for something more. 
 
In the words of Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement (started in 2006, not 2016), what people are feeling now is a discernable shift between simply bringing up the inequalities against women and doing something about it.
 
“The women who came before us fought for basic rights and human dignity, for inclusion and recognition, but today we’re launching a new fight,” added Ai-jen Poo, Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “Our activism in the past has changed the country but we’ve never run the country. We have changed the rules, but we never made the rules. We have changed the culture but we have never set the culture. From the boardroom to the state house, from the media to the white house, it’s our time to run it all.” 

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​Before age six, girls believe they can be anything, explained a representative from conference sponsor Mattel, makers of Barbie. But, much to our detriment, these girls will only see women in 4.8% of the CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies 2, 19.6% of the seats of the U.S. Congress 3, 25% of the tech industry 4, 36% of all legal professions 5, less than 30% of research positions 6, and the list goes on.
 
What are we told that form our beliefs around gender, sexuality, and consent? What are the significant moments in our lives that shaped us to be who we are today? Is life one giant behavioral interview, where past performance dictates future behavior? Or can we unlearn limiting beliefs and accept that what we walked in the room with is a sunk cost? 7
 
Let’s just call it how it is: the system is flawed. It’s not broken. It’s working exactly as it was built,8 without nearly enough, if any, representation at the table.
 
Immigrants, people with disabilities, domestic workers, indigenous people, blacks, Latinas, LGBTQ individuals, Asian Americans, athletes, students, elders, survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and school shootings. All these identities were represented at the USOWS, highlighting the important truth of intersectionality, which defines our very nation.
 
“Intersectionality is about the idea that we are not just our gender on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And we are not just our race on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and then we take Sunday off,” USC Professor Ange-Marie Alfaro preached. “We are all of who we are every single day in every single way. And what Google won’t tell you is intersectionality is about power being built and shared in solidarity.”
 
Everyone wins when women are embraced for their differences. When women are in positions of power, we’re more likely to share that power, explained Ai-jen Poo. Women know how to speak the truth, declared U.S. Senator Kamala D Harris. Women reward not only those who take charge, but those who take care of others and themselves. “Women get the job done,” exclaimed L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
 
It’s time to stop playing someone else’s game! Jen Welter, the first female coach in the NFL, explained that she didn’t get the job to be as manly as her peers. She brought unique skills to the team that no one besides her could offer. Showing up as your true self not only supports those around you, but empowers others to be themselves too. 8
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It’s going to take everything we’ve got, at capacity, to build something that hasn’t existed before. As many inspiring words and tweetable quotes were sung throughout the day, it was Michelle Obama who reeled it back in, explaining that there is still a lot of work to be done.
 
Joined onstage by actress and activist Tracee Ellis Ross, humbled by a 5-minute standing ovation and thunderous cheers, wrapping up a long day packed with world-class presentations, Michelle was thrown a softball. “Do you think young girls are dreaming differently today?” And instead of answering this leading question with whimsical words that would rise with the cheers then evaporate once the building emptied, you could tell she had the freedom to say what she wanted to say;
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“I don’t know that young girls are there yet. We’re still at that stage where we’re trying to figure out what it means to be women. Sorry, in light of this last election, I’m concerned about us as women and what we think of ourselves and of each other. What is going on in our heads where we let that happen. If we as women are still suspicious of one another, if we still have this crazy bar for each other that we don’t have for men. If we’re not comfortable that a woman can be our president compared to ‘what?’ We have to have that conversation with ourselves as women. This isn’t an external conversation ‘cause that’s on us.”
Michelle continued on to express her frustration with how girls are taught to be perfect. How she wished girls could fail as bad as men do and be okay. How women “are still too grateful to be at the table to really shake it up.”

​I thought of my own experience, competitive by nature with an athletic record to show it. I would sit next to another woman at a coffeeshop, and without even knowing her name, I perceive her as a threat; this total stranger. Why? Because we have been conditioned to think that we live in a world of scarcity where women are pitted against one another. Breaking myself of this paradigm, I found my muscles relax, my mind turned toward compassion for this stranger, and I was liberated of this matrix where women hold each other back instead of helping to raise one another up. 
9
 
A woman shouted out, “Michelle 2020,” from the audience. Michelle wouldn’t have any of it. “When I hear people say ‘you run’ it’s still part of the problem. We’ve got a lot of work to do before we’re focused on the who. We are the who! We are the answer to our own problems. It’s not finding the one right person who can save us from ourselves. It’s us.”
 
Let’s take the Me Too movement as an example. The hashtag facilitated a means to collect data that proved sexual harassment and assault is a pervasive problem. But Tarana Burke expressed a partial resentment toward its continued existence because it’s taking away from Step Two, which is to build a strategy to make change stick. The media is a corporate response to the movement, but it’s not the movement. “The work that has to happen is the work that happens after you say me too.” And what does that look like? Us. “We are the answers,” Burke affirmed.
 
It’s on each of us to take action, and that’s how the summit closed: with a challenge to put together one million actions for gender equality before the end of 2018. Here are just a few of the top ones I found most inspiring:
  1. Exercise your purchasing power and share about it (#notbuyingit)
  2. “BAM” – bring a man along to a “women’s event”
  3. Start a regularly scheduled equity training at your workplace
  4. Start by noticing who’s in the room and who is missing
  5. Request an equal pay audit at your workplace
  6. Start saving so you gain financial freedom
  7. Get to know the domestic and service industry workers around you – housekeepers, caretakers, security gaurds, servers, delivery people, etc.
  8. Surround yourself with people you want to be like
  9. Get a free $100 by going to ellevest.com/disruptmoney, who aims to close the gender investing gap
  10. Be a woman other women can trust
  11. If you’re the only white woman in the room, recognize that you’re still part of the problem and demand the inclusion of other women and people of color
  12. Attend a bystander intervention training
  13. Know your employer’s sexual harassment policy, or see if your employer even has a sexual harassment policy
  14. Ask questions when you hear of a woman being let go for “being difficult.” Pull on the thread to unravel the truth
  15. Find out how the people who are interacting with your child on a daily basis are vetted
  16. Always believe survivors when they report abuse and assault. (e.g. Had U.S Women’s Gymnast Tiffany Lopez been believed when she first reported Larry Nassar’s sexual assault, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Jeanette Antolin, and 260 other female gymnasts could have avoided the assault and suffering that they endured.)
  17. Find a few other people who think like you and form a discussion group
  18. Accept that having a mother, daughter, or sister is not enough to say that you can understand fully the struggles faced by women
  19.  “Realize that the lens through which [you] have been looking at race is too shallow. … Study. It takes more than empathy, it takes intention to even begin to comprehend what people of color face everyday.” – Jane Fonda
  20. Make sure your actions align with what you tell your daughters they can do and become
Sitting in red velvet chairs, eyes sparkling with the LA stage lights, we collectively filled the lungs of a national conversation around equal rights that had breached in 2017 with the relentless work of so many amazing figures who appeared throughout these two life-altering days.
 
We were told to get rid of our inhibitions, to trust ourselves, to be the change. A woman who yelled out from the crowd of thousands to share her pain was not escorted out by security. She was listened to, asked how the audience could help her (she had founded a nonprofit to support incarcerated women called Fierce Over 40), and thanked for sharing her voice. An attendee called out a panel moderator for selecting more white people than people of color during a Q&A. A young student sitting in front of me turned around and introduced herself, explaining that she and her classmates had received a scholarship to attend from a university in Minneapolis. She said she wanted to run for office.
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In that room, we were safe. We were respected and saw the beauty in others. It’s time to make America that room, and it’s on each one of us to do something about it so that women can focus on more than just survival. We deserve to thrive. 10
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1.  United State of Women
2.  Catalyst
3.  Center for American Women and Politics
4.  United States Department of Labor
5.  American Bar Association
6.  UNESCO
7.  TaMiya Dickerson, United States of Women Summit 2018
8.  Brittany Packnett, United States of Women Summit 2018
9.  Janice Levenhagen-Seeley, ChickTech
10.  Yara Shahidi, United States of Women Summit 2018

What does Optexperiences mean?

12/31/2015

 
PictureImage courtesy of Portland Timbers YouTube channel.
Standing on a rain-beaten stage at Providence Park facing thousands of fans celebrating the Portland Timbers’ first MLS Championship victory, Coach Caleb Porter’s inspiring words rang loud and true: "Life. Life is about memories and moments…and every once in a while a little bit of magic…and no one can take it away from us." I couldn’t agree more.
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Experiences are more valuable than materials, psychologists discovered in 2003.1 This fact stuck with me like gum on the bottom of my mind. First a seed of understanding, which then grew into the very meaning and purpose that would define my life's path.
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Behavioral economics was a hot topic in 2009 when I graduated from college, implications magnified with the onset of the recession. News outlets like CNN, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and The Wall Street Journal were all tantalized by this new basis for consumer decision making that Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich, and later Ryan Howell and Graham Hill, had proven. And I, a millennial, was very much shaped by these new trends.
 
Why are experiences more valuable than things?

  1. Experiences are often shared while materials are generally enjoyed alone, filling our innate social tank and need for companionship.2 It’s the reason you’re more likely to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the second time with a friend who hasn’t seen it rather than spend the afternoon home alone, surrounded by all your stuff.
  2. Experiences are less susceptible to comparison, which therefore limits buyer’s remorse, jealousy, and anxiety – all negative feelings that often result from product purchases.3 Hard to regret partying in Phuket even after hearing about your friend’s backpacking trip to Machu Picchu.
  3. Experiences contribute in a greater way toward our sense of identity – what makes you, you.1 While the new iPhone 6s you got for Christmas is exciting, people tend to be way more interested in scrolling through photos of your 10-year high school reunion or hearing about that time you dropped it in the toilet (no wonder Apple’s marketing is so effective).
 
The most compelling argument I found in favor of experiences’ value addresses the truth about its actual psychological duration.

An experience lasts more than a night at a show or a weekend on the beach. There’s the time before an
experience that brings us much anticipation and excitement as our imagination runs wild with the possibilities (hard to do with products because you already know what you’re getting).4 There’s the time during the experience that gives us an increased sense of vitality and fulfillment.3 Lastly, there’s the memories and the stories we tell after the experience that can stay with us for life. Even if something went wrong, at least it makes for a good story.1

​Discussing this topic with friends, I have often heard the rebuttal, “but most experiences wouldn’t be possible without stuff, so aren't things like climbing shoes actually more valuable because they allow for experiences?” Exactly, these materials provide the most satisfaction when associated with the experiences that they allow. Framing our material purchases in this way – emphasis on the experience vs. the thing – can help combat the negative feelings like buyer’s remorse that sometimes come with material purchases.

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Even a major lightening storm can't ruin the Psicobloc experience.
What does "value" mean?
 
While value is often associated with monetary worth, we scratch at the deeper meanings of value – usefulness, importance, meaningfulness – when we look beyond dollar signs to the full value of an experience. It’s easy to think this computer that has lasted me seven years was a good deal, but the psychological truth is that experiences, though intangible, are far better at cultivating happiness,5 and that is the real meaning behind value.

Bingo. Happiness.

“Happiness is the meaning of life,” the Dalai Lama answers simply in his bestselling book, The Art of Happiness. That age-old question answered in one simple word. Happiness has been proven to contribute toward productivity, health, and strong relationships. Economists measure the health of a society based on happiness levels. The positive ramifications of happiness are endless.
 
We can be robbed, a natural disaster can strike and we can lose all our earthly possessions, but we’ll always have our experiences. Experiences not only stick with us but memories and stories have the ability to evolve. Materials, on the other hand, remain frozen in time. We get used to things and that excitement of a big purchase wears off.6 Experiences slip naturally into a higher truth that Western society unfortunately spends so much effort fighting: that nothing is permanent and change is inevitable.
 
“We are the sum of all the moments of our lives.”7

When it comes down to it, I started Mandell Experiences to create and spread happiness in the best way I saw possible (and love doing). And that is what this blog is all about – sharing my experiences, helping others create them, and hopefully inspiring thousands more to optexperiences. 
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​Thank you for taking the time to read Mandell Experiences’ first blog post. We encourage you to subscribe by clicking the button on the right, “Optblog,” to receive notifications when new pieces are posted.

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1.  Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich, “To Do or to Have? That Is the Question,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (December 2003).

2.  Peter Caprariello and Harry Reis, “To do, to have, or to share? Valuing experiences over material possessions depends on the involvement of others,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (February 2013).
 
3.  Ryan T. Howell and Graham Hill, “The mediators of experiential purchases: Determining the impact of psychological needs satisfaction and social comparison,” The Journal of Positive Psychology (November 2009).
 
4.  Amit Kumar, Matthew A. Killingsworth, and Thomas Gilovich, “Waiting for Merlot: anticipatory consumption of experiential and material purchases,” Physiological Science (June 2014).
 
5.  Paulina Pchelina & Ryan T. Howell, “The hidden cost of value-seeking: People do not accurately forecast the economic benefits of experiential purchases,” The Journal of Positive Psychology (February 2014).
 
6.  Christina Armenta, Katherine Jacobs Bao, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Kennon M. Sheldon, “Is Lasting Change Possible? Lessons from the Hedonic Adaptation Prevention Model,” in Stability of Happiness (July 2014).
 
7.  Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (1929).

    Author: Chloe Mandell

    Portland based experience maker and seeker. Founder of Mandell Experiences. ​

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