Kevin Vogelsang

Over the past few months, a number of people have been surprised to find out that I’m trying to build a company right out of college. (“Isn’t that really hard?”, they’d say to me. “Well, yes, it is. It seems very hard as far as I can tell, ” I’d reply.) For good reason, the notion that starting a company is something you do when you’re older prevails.

Others, knowing me to be a thoughtful character, have been curious as to why I chose this path and what lead me to it.

So between various people questioning my decision making and people just being curious, looks like it’s a story I’ve got to tell.

Part I: Positioning is Everything

It’s important to understand one’s strengths and weaknesses.  It takes thought, experience, and honesty, but once you can honestly assess yourself, you’ve put yourself in a great position. And positioning is everything.

When I was a junior in college, I decided to turn over a new leaf in the fall semester and really focus on my school work.  I did this to a level that didn’t meet my expectations, but I tried very hard.  After doing this, my performance didn’t really improve, nor did my satisfaction with my school work.  This experience had two outcomes: 1) I could say to myself that I did try and 2) I realized I was positioning myself poorly.  I was doing something I didn’t want to do, when I had the opportunity to figure out what I did want to do.

During this time of my life, I began formulating some very important thoughts that were the seed for many of the thoughts you’ll find here at VogelWorks.  These thoughts were also very influential in the most important decisions I’ve made over the last few years.

One thought that I’ve already mentioned several times is my Equation of Performance:

Performance = Happiness * Commitment

Here’s another important influence on me, my Equation of Success:

Success = Time Spent Happy/ Total Time on Earth

I realized I wasn’t happy at all doing my work, even if I tried very hard.   This isn’t to say any student is ecstatic about their work all the time (in fact, quite the opposite, which is why it took me so long to realize I was facing a real problem).   But I eventually realized that few people are as motivated and hardworking as I am and that this somehow disappeared when it came to school work.  This tipped me off to a problem I had to fix.  I needed to find something I was happy doing so that I could perform and be successful, at least in terms of my definition.

I did a lot of thinking on this back then, and I didn’t quite have all insights until much later.  I did figure out the key to solving this problem however.  It came to me like this, all my life I’ve been so busy with sports, school, and work that I’ve never taken the time to do something purely out of interest.

Luckily, I was still young enough and still in school, so I could really try and correct this.  So I said to myself, I’m motivated and enjoy working.  Taking some time to do what I enjoy could be a great move on my part. I won’t waste the time. (I hate wasting time by the way.)

This lead to an important decision of mine.  In December of 2007, I decided I still wasn’t going to get a real job.  I was going to take the summer to do something I always wanted to do.  And for the spring semester of my junior year, I made moves to find a way to do something big.

This was somewhat a bold move back then because for most MIT students, the pre-senior year summer internship was usually the lead-in to your first job.  But I already knew I didn’t want a real job.

I was then left with the question: when you’ve got a block of time to do whatever you want, how do you figure out what to do?

Turns out for me, this question wasn’t a problem at all.  The funny thing is, my answering this question not only gave me ideas about what to do to prepare for my summer of doing whatever I wanted, it also gave me a lot of direction.

So, assuming you have no money, and don’t enjoy sitting around doing nothing, how do you figure out what to do with free time?

Answering this is easy.  All you need is a little creativity.  Turns out I have a lot of that.

Kevin
7.29.2009

Google Analytics keeps  a lot of good traffic metrics.  I was looking at it earlier today.  By far the coolest to me is their geographic overlay that maps where visitors come from.

Right now, Google Analytics tells me I’ve gotten around 200 unique visitors from 13 countries since I’ve started actively keeping the VogelWorks blog back in late June. Not all of these are genuine, real readers, but in all 13 of those countries, I can identify at least a hand full of visitors that I’m pretty sure are real readers.

Higher numbers of visitors are indicated by darker shades of green.

This, of course, got me thinking.  This a pretty good illustration why going to college can be a powerful thing, it really expands your network.  You meet a lot of people in one place.  MIT is pretty incredible for this.  My friends there came from a lot of places and have now gone off to a lot of places.

The geographic overlay of visitors gives a very tangible illustration of this. ( I’m afraid it’s a bit premature to credit my highly engaging content.)

Thanks to everyone that’s been adding thoughts and comments.  Your input is turning the VogelWorks blog into a very rich community of thought. (I just need to find a way to get all these thoughts onto one place on the site so that they can interact with each other.)

Kevin
7.28.2009

From April 17^th, 2007 to August 18^th, 2008;  Luis wrote these essays for me based on the premise of a question I posed at the dinner table when I was a sophomore in college: What are the 5 most important things to learn in this life?

The fact someone was so committed to delivering an answer speaks to the value of these essays.  Like I said, I asked the right person.

And to Luis, you wrote well, and I listened well. All I can say is, you done good, and we thank you for it.

Chapter 1 of the Guest Essays: Things to Learn in this Life

• Luis’s Introduction
• Taking Responsibility
• Accepting Help
• Communication
• Laughter
• The Tranquility of Reflection

Kevin
7.25.2009

The Tranquility of Reflection

When you first asked me if I could tell you the 5 things I thought were most important to learn in this life, I was pretty sure that either you or I was going to bullshit the other of us, I didn’t know if it was going to be that you weren’t going to really listen to what I had to say or if it was going to be me that wasn’t going to really say anything. I was positive one of the two would happen, if not both. Over time though, the question really started to take hold of me and I realized that it was an opportunity to really think about what I valued in life and to share it with someone, and not just let those thoughts roll around in my head for a while taking different forms whenever it seemed appropriate. I decided it wouldn’t be me who wasted our time; I wrote that first prologue without any idea of what the 5 things would be.

This last one, I didn’t know would be a part of this list until after I’d written the letter on communication. That’s when I realized how important reflection was. And it’s not easy to do, either. There are so many occasions in life when making an impulsive decision is so much easier. Not only making it is easier, but not thinking about the decision after you’ve made it is also easier. Not thinking is probably the easiest way to go through life and to forget you’ve gone through life at the same time.

For me, reflection provides a wealth of benefit. There have been so many experiences throughout my life that had I not reflected on them after they occurred, I would simply have forgotten they happened to me. [When you learn to reflect, to think upon the days behind and those ahead, you will start to remember your experiences with a clarity that allows you to fully utilize previous experience, especially when you find yourself in a situation that repeats some aspect of your previous experience.] You may even have more stories to tell. Unique experiences will float to your mind that relate to just about any situation that arises in the natural course of your life and that of those around you. Others will comment, “You’ve been through so much, I wish my life was that interesting.” And you will know that you haven’t gone through more, you’ve just had the benefit of reflection. Reflection enhances recollection.

There’s more. Reflection brings new wisdom to upcoming decisions. The benefit of clear-headed thinking is without parallel. As humans, our decision-making is strongly influenced by our emotional state. When we make impulsive decisions, we are guaranteed to make a decision strongly influenced by emotion. Often times, these types of decisions can lead us into situations that are unfavorable. If at least we can learn to reflect over the decisions which are a few hours or a few days away, then we greatly increase the chances that we will put ourselves in favorable positions throughout life. And for those decisions that we make impulsively, at least we will have formed the habit of reflection, and we will learn from our impulsive decisions and we will increase our ability to think on our feet.

On the other hand, without reflection all of life is in danger of becoming a pile of photographs. The memories are there, but they lack order and coherence. We might remember different experiences, but those memories may fail to bring us new wisdom.

Reflection is the binding force for all the four things which precede this letter.

I hope these letters have answered your question. At least I hope they’ve given you new things to think about or brought old things back into the light. At the VERY least, you know my mind a bit better. I’m sure if you ask someone else there will be some repeats and some new things.

Luis
8.18.08

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the trend of disintermediation and its relation to the provision of capabilities to a larger audience.

An astute friend of mine, Alexander McMath, commented the following via FaceBook:

The flipside to the rise of disintermediation solutions usually has something to do with problems regarding quality assurance, scaling, and transactional authority (where applicable). It’s the idea that some value was being created by the intermediary.

Alexander hit the nail on the head with this one and stole the words right out of my mouth.

When a tool becomes highly accessible to a large group of people with low costs (little time, effort, etc.), a lot of people start using it.  A percentage of the users use the tool very well and create value.  A larger group of people use the tool sporadically and perhaps poorly, creating noise if not negative value.

The internet is the example of thousands of agents interacting on a platform.  Thank goodness for Google.  Google lets us find web pages that are relevant to our search terms (oh yeah, it’s a “decision engine” too…).  Google acts as a filtering tool.  But we’re only at the beginning of search on the web, and we’re only at the beginning of the need for better filtering.

Addendum:

I was at an informal meet-up with members of the Atlanta Technology Angels today, and Ron Conway, “the Godfather of Silicon Valley”, and his current investment focus on “real time data” services (Twitter is the primary example) came up at some point in the discussion.  If these real time data services are to be the next billion dollar market, bet your bottom dollar that there will only be an exponential need in better filtering.

Kevin
7.23.2009

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of understanding one’s own thought patterns in order to improve self-awareness (read: knowledge of self).

Then there’s the other side of the coin: understanding other peoples’ patterns of thought.  And this is extremely valuable when it comes to communication.

One of the first things I learned at the very beginning of my entrepreneurial career was the difficulty of communicating a new idea to someone, especially one that you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.  When attempting to communicate a new idea, you’re essentially trying to communicate something that is very real in your mind that doesn’t exist in the other person’s.  Your job as the communicator is to get them on the same wavelength and get the image that’s in your head into theirs.  (I still struggle with this.  In my previous life, I thought I was a great communicator.  But as you learn, you learn there is much more to learn.)

In this process of communicating, the strength and the weakness of two brains attempting to connect is that the human mind is associative: people take the first piece of information they recognize and associate it with something they already know.  This has some interesting, and often funny, consequences.

For instance, you complete a sentence, “So what we’re trying to do is build a better form of ground transportation that’s cost effective and environmentally friendly.”  And if  the person is extroverted, you’ll quickly get a reply to the effect of, “That’s really cool, something like the new electric bicycles? have you seen those?”

“Errr, no.  We’re actually working on a solar-powered car…so…”

(This also illustrates a second obstacle: people want to talk about what they know and what they think. )

I’ve had this happen to me enough times pitching numerous ideas in multiple ways to start getting a bit wiser. And while communicating a new idea may be the more extreme example (especially since sometimes the lexicon just isn’t there), communication is a challenge in general.  Everyone runs everything through their own personal filter of experiences, thoughts, and attitudes.  The trick is to find a way to push their buttons and catch their attention using an example or analogy or some device that they understand and, ideally, are interested in.

This is why I love blogs and some other forms of social media, although I think blogs are the best.  Blogs can be relatively frequent, but usually require enough effort that somebody has to care about the topic in order to write a blog post about it.  This creates a valuable source of information about a person.  If you read through someone’s blog carefully, you have a ton of information about them.  You have their thoughts on a page.

And if you understand their patterns of thought, you have a much better chance of influencing those thoughts effectively when you communicate with them.

Kevin
7.23.2009

Laughter

I don’t think this is much of a revelation to anyone, but I know this list is incomplete without including laughter as one of the important things to learn in this life. Laughter is the universal social lubricant. When you can laugh everything is easier. Some people say that’s what alcohol is for, but it’s not the alcohol that makes things easier, it’s the laughter that results from the alcohol. Many people say that alcohol is necessary in their lives precisely for the role that it serves as a “social lubricant,” I think we’d be much better off if we concentrated on learning to laugh rather than avoiding the whole learning thing by using alcohol to stimulate laughing. We’d definitely avoid all the terrible accidents that result from drunkenness including drunken driving accidents, fights, drunken falls, poisoning, etc.

I digress, this letter is not about the evils of alcohol, but about the value of natural laughter. It’s hard to imagine a child that doesn’t laugh. If we do see a child in a solemn mood, what do we do instinctively? We try our damnest to make him crack a smile. We distort our faces, turn him upside down and throw him around like a rag doll, push his carriage around like it’s a race car, you know the drill. Why do we do that? I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m going to propose that part of the reason has to do with how easy the kid is perceived to have it compared to us. He sits around all day, doesn’t even have to get up to poo, doesn’t even have to chew his food, and (at risk of sacrificing my integrity) gets to suckle on breasts anytime, anywhere. He should be laughing all day long, stopping only to sleep.

As children our days were occupied with figuring out ways to cram the most fun possible into 24hrs. The only thing getting in the way was our annoying parents whose only task in life seemed to be making sure we had as little fun as possible. The world consisted of two forces, our will to laugh and the force of the belt hitting our exposed backside. We made all kinds of promises to ourselves “When I grow up, I’m going to have Coca-Cola everyday!” “My house is going to have hidden rooms and slides in the walls and 10′ x 10′ beds!” Who knew that these things required real honest labor to acquire?

Anyway, eventually we reach our teens and things start to change. We go through a terrible place called high school where all the good times suddenly come to a screeching halt. Some of us fail classes, some need to start supporting our families, some lose their virginity to predator “boyfriends,” some get betrayed by “best” friends, some don’t get into their top choice college, some become “responsible” adults, and some decide to be “free spirits.” Just about all of us stop building blanket forts in the living room.

After high school, we tell our little cousins and siblings “Enjoy it while it lasts, I wish I was 7 again, that was the perfect age.” And all the adults are telling us, “Have fun in college, they will be the best years of your life.” “What?” we think, I didn’t think it could get any better than when I was 7 and each summer day lasted for 48 hours. So, we are rejuvenated, we look forward to college life, and a new era of laughter, a fresh beginning away from the trauma of high school and the oppression of adults.

Of course, we get there and it feels like high school, looks like high school, has all the high school students, what could possibly be so great about college? Ah yes, no parents. Those pesky parents that never let us stay up on school nights are gone. It is time to laugh again. Unfortunately, something is drastically wrong: it still feels like high school with classes, broken relationships, and new student groups, and I’m not having the “best years of my life.” How do I get back to the laughing days of childhood? Drugs, sex, and alcohol, naturally.

And I’m back to talking about the evils of alcohol.

So here’s the problem: we want to live like we did when we were kids but we have too many problems that don’t allow us to laugh like that anymore. How do we fix the problem?

A) Turn back time, literally.
B) Have fewer problems

We can’t turn back time since we don’t have a flux capacitor, so solution A) is out. We can’t get rid of our problems because they are 1) our responsibilities such as work and family and without these things we don’t have the means to have fun anyway (after all we do need to eat) and 2) problems that arise out of the normal, chaotic flow of life. So solution B) is out too.

I propose a third solution, and it’s not new. I think I wrote a bit about this idea when I wrote about taking responsibility. The solution I propose is investing ourselves in everything that we do to the extent that what we do is not simply a task to accomplish but a real part of us. Let’s think back to our childhood days again; why did we have so much fun? Wasn’t it because we were never worried about anything except what we were doing at that time? We could play for hours and not even realize we were hungry because we were completely invested in playing. The same concept should and can apply to us now. By investing ourselves completely (i.e. playing) in our responsibilities and problems we eliminate them. No more responsibilities or problems means no more excuses for not laughing according to our problem statement above.

And the fun doesn’t end with us. Learning to laugh is so valuable because laughter is also incredibly contagious. Once we are able to start laughing, those around us can easily recognize that not only are we in a good mood but that we are never in a bad mood. They can tell that it is not a fake happiness but a real honest serenity and light-heartedness. Our mood helps lighten other people’s loads and the more laughing heads we have the less responsibility there is collectively. What a wonderful world… a world without responsibility? Is it even possible?

Learning to laugh unassisted (I feel like I’m writing about sports and performance enhancing drugs), is important for our own lives so that we can finally fulfill all the dreams of our childhood and have fun 24/7. Laughing is also important for those around us; once we learn to laugh individually we can stop perpetuating the myth that our best years are in college and free students to focus once again on their primary task while in college: learning to become productive and capable citizens of the human/world community.

I think one last point about laughter bears mentioning. It’s important to note that there is a difference between the ideas I’ve outlined above and another popular alternative with which they can be easily confused. That is laughing AT your responsibilities. Laughing at your responsibilities is exactly the kind of laughter that is to be avoided. You cannot make a mockery of your responsibilities by laughing at them and reducing their gravity, and, simultaneously hope to learn to invest yourself in them. Rather, learn to invest in your responsibilities first and then the laughter will be natural. Understanding the difference between these competing types of laughter is important.

Addendum: I realized after writing this letter that an example might be instructive. Let’s take the common and annoying experience of being stuck in an airport waiting for a delayed flight (this also happens to be the situation I find myself in at this moment). There are at least a few ways to respond to this situation.

1) Annoyance and sulking- characterized by calls to anyone who will listen to your complaints, or if no one answers the phone, complaints to all those sitting around you.
2) Sarcastic acceptance- characterized by loud laughter and proclamation of “acceptance” of the situation to friends and family as well as those around you.
3) Panic- characterized by a need to be updated every five minutes on the status of the delay, and often accompanied by animated requests for flight change and requests for assistance before other passengers
given your “unique” situation.
4) Serenity- characterized by an understanding that the flight status will not change based on your will, also characterized by a conscious decision to use the time to accomplish other things.

I don’t mean to imply that passive acceptance of an inevitable crisis is to be a virtue. To the contrary, serenity implies a calm and contemplative outlook, if there is indeed a need to find an alternative flight regardless of the delay then that alternative should be pursued in a reasonable, persistent, and dedicated manner. Serenity implies an ability to remain composed in any given situation because of an internal commitment to always find a best course of action or inaction.

Some courses of action that could be undertaken in this situation are reading, writing, sleeping, shopping, meeting new people, exercising, eating, contemplation etc. A person that “takes responsibility” in this situation finds a best course of action and commits himself to it. In committing himself, he ceases to worry about any other things unrelated to his chosen task and can therefore enjoy freedom. Freedom brings joy and a heart full of laughter.

Luis
10.1.07

Communication

Before I travelled to China, I had always been intrigued by the Chinese language. I was intrigued because so many people said it was impossible to learn. I was always doubtful and wanted to prove everyone wrong. Now I’ve learned Chinese, and in the course of learning I’ve realized that the more intriguing thing isn’t the difficulty of languages, but the subtleties of communication; especially communication across cultures.

Communication is an essential skill. Without communication there is no hope for personal or world peace. Personal peace relies on our ability to share our experiences with others. World peace is simply an extension of the “shared experience” principle. We can’t hope to get along with others if we cannot communicate our experiences and perspectives with each other. Even worse, we can’t hope to grow in experience without communication because we would be forced to live out all experiences individually rather than build on the experience of others. It is the dream of people everywhere to achieve communication by direct connection of the mind. In the absence of such a development, we must learn to communicate as best as we can, at least for our own personal happiness.

When most people speak about communication, they speak about the ability to “talk to anyone” and communication skills. Some people seem to believe that there is a set of communication skills that only some people possess, and they all have to do with being comfortable talking. This isn’t the type of communication I believe is important to learn. Being able to talk is only a small part of communication. I’m sure you’ve met plenty of people who can talk all day and not communicate anything. To my mind there are at least 4 ways to communicate, here are some:

Speech
Writing
Listening
Manners

Each of these is extremely important in one setting or another. People of speech are needed in diplomacy (sharing experience for persuasion). People with writing skill are needed in history (sharing experience for societal benefit). People with listening skill are needed in counsel (sharing experience for personal benefit). And people with skill in physical communication are needed for intimate communication (sharing emotional experience, wordless experience).

I believe learning to do each of these has value, but it is enough to learn to do at least one of these extremely well. If you learn how to speak extremely well, you can be the voice for people of similar experience. If you learn to listen, you can be the counsel of people with different experience. If you learn to write, you can expose the
experience of all objectively. If you learn to communicate with your body, you can bring people together who all share the same human experience. Those who are able to learn all of these will become the leaders of all people.

The importance of learning to communicate is magnified in the modern day simply because so many people of dramatically different backgrounds have been exposed to each other in a historically short period of time.

Communication is the key to living with each other and for each other. Alone we can do nothing, and the only way that we can associate with each other is by communication. Learn to do one type of communication  well, if possible two. Sometimes the most effective communication is simple: laughter.

Luis
8.26.07

Mythos, n.

1. A story or set of stories relevant to or having a significant truth or meaning for a particular culture, religion, society, or other group.
2. Anything delivered by word of mouth: a word, speech, conversation, or similar; a story, tale, or legend, especially a poetic tale.

I love that word. Simply put, it’s the story of the adventure and the meaning that comes along with it. Our personal story is incredibly important. We all have a great one to share. And that’s exactly what this category is about: the personal adventure, both my own and the adventures of others.

Whenever I meet someone new, I want to know their story, and it’s one of the few things that I will openly claim to have an incredible memory for (This has been a key skill for me). Our story defines us, and it’s vital for understanding the people around us.  For these reasons, the story of individuals’ personal adventures deserves a huge role on the  VogelWorks blog.

Kevin
7.21.2009

Accepting Help

Learning how to accept help seems like such a simple thing to learn, but I think it is rarely practiced. Yet the benefits of learning how to accept help are probably better than the benefits gained from learning any of the other 5 things I will talk about. If the benefits are so extraordinary, and accepting help is such a simple thing to do, why is it rarely practiced? The problem is that accepting help is not as simple as advertised. Let’s take a few examples where you might want help as you age:

A) Tying your shoe

In the first instance, we have a child of about 4 years and he needs help tying his shoes. We’ve seen how children react when they’ve got an untied shoelace; some children tug at their mother’s leg and impatiently stick their foot out to get their laces tied so they can get back to the urgent job of playing. Other children ignore their untied laces as long as possible; only when they’ve fallen 3 or 4 times will they reluctantly go to the nearest adult.

If that child could just ask his mother or siblings to teach him how to tie his shoes, his life would be so much better, he could play all day without having to find an adult; he might even be able to teach the other kids and become the “hero” and “leader” of the group. But the child can’t see that, it’s annoying to ask for help: the other
kids are watching and waiting, remember.

B) Trouble in a class

When you are in school, the worst thing that can happen is being humiliated. Your peers and what they think of you are everything to you. You’re the best athlete in school, but you are having trouble in English class. Instead of asking for help you decide you’re just going to be the dumb jock. If only you’d ask for help, you could be the best
athlete AND a leader in class. How are you supposed to know that kids look up to smart athletes way more than they do idiots? and that after you graduate you’ll be much better off being smart than dumb.

C) Difficulty managing a group of people

At work, our whole value to a company is based on our ability to do a job. We can’t ask for help to do our own job. What would be the point of being in a position that you can’t even do? The people I manage would quickly realize that I can’t do my job, and they would stop doing theirs. It’s hard to see that by asking for help, even from our
own people (the ones we are managing) we are actually showing that we care about how they can be best managed. And these people would be much more appreciative and more responsive employees. Who knows what
managing success could do for our careers?

D) Raising children

We can’t ask help with our kids, everyone else has problems with their own kids. Besides I don’t want them to see how bad my kids are.
E) Going to the bathroom

When I’m old, I’d sooner die than let someone wipe me. I guess my grandchildren can live without hearing my life experiences.

Help is actually a very hard thing for us to accept. We have a hard time accepting help in school, asking for directions, and doing our jobs. Accepting help is somehow a tremendous sign of weakness. If I ask for help in school, it is an admission to my classmates, but more importantly to myself, that I don’t really know the material. If I ask help for directions, it is an admission that I am a foreigner in this place. If I ask help in a job, it shows that I am not fit to do the job I was hired to do. The truth is that when we ask or accept help, we feel that we are somehow not fit to be in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Making matters worse, many of our friends and coworkers enforce this notion by jeering at us and making fun whenever we do overcome our fears and actually ask for help. It is a negative feedback loop. We behave just as rats do when presented with food but everytime they touch it, they are electrocuted, eventually they are conditioned to avoid the electrocuted food. If each time we overcome our fears and ask for help, we are ridiculed; eventually we stop asking for and accepting help.

How can we avoid this negative loop? The way forward is found in changing our perspective on help. Until now we have been concerned with our own vulnerability. We need to instead focus on the tremendous opportunity.

1) Help is an opportunity to excel in what we are doing rather than “just get by.” When we ask for help it is usually because we think we could be doing better, help is a chance to do better.

2) Help is an opportunity to meet someone new. We often see a good-looking girl in a strange setting and think “If
only I could approach her, maybe she’d be my girl.” If we have something we need help with, all of a sudden we have something to say to the unapproachable girl.

3) Help is an opportunity to influence people. My father always says, “If you want to influence people, you first
must allow them to influence you.” When we allow someone to help us, we allow them to influence our lives; they now have a “stake” in our success. Part of human nature dictates that when we have a stake in something, we take an interest in that thing and its course. In this case the helper becomes interested in us, presenting us with the
chance to share ourselves and our perspective.

4) Help is an opportunity to see beyond the status quo. If we always stay within our own capabilities, we cannot expect to grow in experience. When we accept help, we accept a new perspective. This change in perspective is an opportunity to see a new way forward in small things, but occasionally in large things. When I was in Phoenix interviewing for my job with Intel, I was trying to get into the Phoenix Suns game. I ran into a kid who needed a cell phone to call home. I was reluctant at first, I didn’t know if he was going to steal it or something. I gave it to him, then after he made his phone call, I decided to ask for help, too. He told me the best place to watch a Phoenix Suns game was to go to this bar down the street. I thanked him and went on my way. The “seeing beyond the status quo” happened when I got to the bar and a lady was standing in the doorway trying to sell her COURTSIDE tickets for $20. I snapped one up and 10 minutes later I was seven rows from the floor.

Have you ever heard a company say in its presentations to prospective employees, “Our biggest asset is our people”? Forget the company, YOUR and MY biggest assets are the people around us, and we have 6 billion of them waiting to offer us their services free of charge.

Once you realize that being able to ask for help is a tremendous sign of strength rather than a weakness, you might feel like you’ve learned something, but HOW do you ask for help? Well, you just learn the 3^rd Thing to Learn in this Life… (my personal favorite)

Luis
8.26.07