16 How I got my idol to speak at my college.

This is the story of how I got one of the world’s most famous science communicators and my role model to speak at my college.

Every homecoming fall my college has the president’s distinguished lecture. This event fills the biggest auditorium on campus with people like Bill Nye the science guy, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and physicist Michio Kaku.

So who should be next after these all-stars? I knew there was a person I was dying to meet. Someone I and millions of others had seen every Tuesday after school on the Discovery Channel. Someone I knew the crowds of Mines students would show up for. The Mythbuster Adam Savage.

It's time to be strategic. I asked around to discover the process of how the lecturer gets decided. Turns out, the students vote to get a list of possibilities, which later get decided on. Finally, the executive in the president’s office for special events does some magic to reach out and organize it almost nine months in advance. Suddenly an idea hit me. The school may decide through student polls who should come but it is ultimately the special events coordinator’s decision because she does the work.

Now, if I had done nothing would Adam Savage have been the distinguished lecturer my senior year? The answer is definitely a maybe. But talking to the events coordinator a year in advance every week about how Adam Savage would create a huge turnout led to me meeting one of my idols.

:: When you want something to happen convince the doer over the decision maker ::

15 Why are few writers known in Hollywood?

I can’t think of a single writer’s name in Hollywood.  This seems weird because the writers are the ones who create the idea of the story. Actors, actresses, and sometimes directors get most of the credit and without them, the movie is not made but there is no movie without a writer too. For a country that prides the inventor over the innovator, you would think the writer would get more credit toward fame. Instead, you see things listed as ‘the writer of blank film’ instead of ‘written by Miranda’.

The author is known and celebrated in other literary endeavors like journalism and novels. Now you might say that is because they are the sole creator but in plays and musicals the playwrights are known and like a film, there are performers and directors too. At the Academy Awards, the awards are called best-adapted screenplay or best original screenplay whereas others are the best actor and best director. Unlike other parts of cinema, it is not about the person but the writing. The most powerful thing in the world is a story and its creators should reap the benefit of what they put into the world just as much as Shakespeare did, Lin-Manuel Miranda does, and actors and actresses will continue to do.

:: Writers of shows and movies should receive more credit and fame. ::

14 The Prospector - Part II

This is the story about how an idea turns into a movement. For the wonders of creating an idea, read The Prospector (Part I). 

Once the prospector was more than an idea but the singular mission of my friend Z it started down its long road. The next thing it needed was a vehicle. An organization to give it credibility and with people already assembled. At our college, that was Blue Key, an honor society Z belonged to. There he found six people to join him and grunt out his mission to revive the yearbook.

Z was smart. He knew he could not write a whole yearbook even with six others. But he could organize it. The idea was each Senior was going to write up a short piece they could put into the yearbook. Clubs/Organizations would do the same. Then at the end of the year, every senior would get a free yearbook to take home with them. This would ensure its success. But how to get the whole class to do it? How to get clubs to participate? How to get the funds to do the initial year? 

Here is where the idea came in. This was not only a yearbook. This was a new Prospector yearbook for graduating seniors by graduating seniors. This was a celebration of the hard work of four-plus years. It was a change for every senior to leave their mark on the school.

It is this idea that provided funding. This idea that got almost all the seniors to contribute their short piece of writing. This idea also motivated the group of six to complete the physical form in time for graduation.

::A captivating idea can move mountains::

13 Your Phone Is Smarter Than You

The morning starts with me eagerly grabbing my phone to see what new messages I have. The day ends with me frustrated that I have wasted my day on my phone reading and seeing things that are useless to me. 

I will admit it. I am addicted to my phone. There is a natural cycle I go through with certain notorious apps. I use them often. Then I get to a breaking point and delete the app. Then after a few months, I re-download them because of their utility. I want to see what is going on with friends, the world, and memes. Then the frustration at the endless scrolling returns and they get deleted. Apps where it is just friends like Snapchat or messages I can handle but others like YouTube and Twitter I fall into for hours on end. Those hours were almost always unproductive, which makes me frustrated and feel empty.

So how to control your phone? Get rid of all notifications. Important apps can have notifications but not ones that buzz your phone. Delete and keep deleted the notorious apps that are hyper addicting to you. If they are fun/useful in moderation you can use them on your computer but only once a week. Another good tip is to say out loud what you are doing as you get out your phone so you do not get distracted by some other task.

::Control your phone, don’t let it control you::

12 The Prospector - Part I

All massive movements, incredible initiatives, and world wonders started with a quiet question. A group or single human had an idea and questioned to themselves: “What if?”

Many such questions have gone through my head and many have been forgotten as the mind cannot make all questions into movements. Everyone has such ideas. Unfortunately, most ideas do not get acted upon. However, some people get consumed by these ideas and end up reshaping the world around them. 

One such question was posed to me by an alumnus of my college. He asked simply “What happened to the Prospector yearbook?” The simple answer was the school no longer made it but there was another question hidden behind the former. A quiet question I asked myself: Can it be brought back?  All quiet questions get me excited because turning the seed of an idea into a tree of impact is hard. Or in other words fun. Seeing a huge tree and knowing it was a small seed cultivated by you at one point is one of the most joyous, fulfilling experiences a human can have.

The next question I always find myself asking is do I want to put the effort into growing this tree? In other words for this story, should I start the Prospector? In this case, I did not have enough bandwidth to put in the insane cultivation effort. Hence I shared the idea with my friend.

The Prospector - Part II is the story of how he ran with it. 

:: Starting something is as simple as asking what if?::

11 The Wise Man’s Default Action

Imagine you meet a wise man who has lived for 100 years. He looks healthy and his eyes are alive. You go up to him. What does he say to you? 

There are two thoughts that people could have:

1. I should not say anything because it is unnecessary and people might think I am stupid.

   AND

2. I should say something because it is necessary and people might think I am stupid if I say nothing. 

This paradox has an easy explanation. There is a third option. Listening.

The old man says nothing! That fits doesn’t it. He waits and listens. In our minds, wise men speak the bare minimum and listen more than they talk.  What does that tell us about listening?

::Listening is a powerful action::

10 Beneficial Butterflies

One spur of the moment decision in college changed my whole life. It was a moment where I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed, scared, and all the butterflies were in my stomach. I made the risky choice and my life changed forever.

By the end of college, I realized my purpose was to make the lives of current and future students better. I did this in myriad ways but one of the principal ones was as a member of the student government. I can honestly say that student government led me to this mission and this mission informed much of my success, joy, and deep connections through college. By senior year, most days I was filled with pride, confidence, gratitude, and love. So how did one decision lead to all that? I’ll tell you. It was the second week of freshman year at the club fair. I passed the student government table and they told me I should run for freshman representative. They said I needed to fill out a form and get 50 signatures. I had met a lot of new people but not fifty so I said something polite and walked away feeling safe. Suddenly, I had a creative idea. As I went around the event signing up for clubs I could also get the students at the tables to sign my packet. It would be easy to get fifty that way. Then there was the moment. A moment of being on the fence. A moment filled with panic at the thought of looking stupid while getting signatures, being awkward campaigning, and feeling dejected losing. But also knowing that risks are good. I might regret this decision. And a gut feeling telling me to do what by body feared most. It was so easy to do nothing and be safe. Instead, I dared myself to try. I went back to get the packet.

That year I became freshman representative by one vote and I started giving my time to the present and future students. That purpose got me through a tough college with personal confidence. Person confidence to take on the world and bend it to help others.

::It is often the decisions you are the most uncomfortable, embarrassed, and scared about that should be taken:: 

09 The Rabbit Hole of Choosing a Career Path

Forget everything you think you know about your future. It’s time to build your own career hypothesis. Ask yourself What job do I think I want? Let’s descend into the rabbit hole.

For me, the question was complicated and had a lot of baggage attached to it. Baggage from friends, family, teachers, and my past experiences. So naturally, I resorted to a conference room with empty whiteboards. The questions that helped me most were: What makes me excited? What do people tell me are my talents? What types of articles do I read? After a few long sessions of exploring my thoughts, I had my career hypothesis.  I decided that a robotics startup fit me as a possible career. Because I love building stuff with my hands, love wearing many different hats, love learning new skills, and love always having something to do at work, it seemed like a good hypothesis. My choice took into account what I liked to talk about with friends, times when I was hyper-focused or felt alive when time drifted away from me (flow), and previous jobs I had had. 

Next, I tackled what I now call the indirects. The indirects are location, salary, climate, impact, size, amount of autonomy, title, and anything that is not the job function. As an example, for me the impact of the company mattered, the salary had to be enough to live on, and the size had to be small because I wanted to be at a startup. The other indirects I did not care about. Now I had my career hypothesis and indirects. The indirect ended up being super helpful because they narrowed down my list of jobs to something manageable. I found that when searching if my options exceeded 20, it became overwhelming and harder to pick target jobs. Adjusting the knobs of the indirects is a great way to get to less than 20. 

Now you may ask yourself. Now what? Well, go to SaT-7 Earning a Calling: The White Hole of Opportunity, where you can find out how to land your job hypothesis.

::Your job hypothesis is a result of what excites you::

08 Tactical Luck

Some people are super annoyingly lucky. It’s almost as if they have an unfair advantage that makes them get exactly what they want.

Most people agree that luck and skill both contribute to ‘success’. And they are right but the problem occurs when people see these two separate things, as well... separate. There are several connections between the two.

Every day I think about how I was born into a loving family who was well off in the US. In one respect I feel privileged and thankful for the situation I was born into. Part of this luck is I get to be surrounded by role models and teachers that give me skills to do well according to the rules of life. In other words, my luck in where and when I was born contribute to my skills as a person. From another perspective, I spent a lot of my time growing up making LEGO and robots and fixing things around the house. When I applied to colleges this came in handy and gave me a better chance to get in. Thus both your luck and your skill affect each other. That begs the question, can you be skillful to get luckier?

YES! Tactical luck is possible. The reason some annoying people appear so much luckier is that they ACTUALLY ARE. They increase their chances to get lucky either naturally or by choice. The best example of tactical luck is meeting more people. After getting my first full-time job I realized I had gotten extremely lucky. The number of mechanical engineers in early-stage robotics companies was small and the amount that wanted to be was big. How did I get so lucky? I went to a conference and introduced myself to everyone around me and asked them about their robotics startups and if they had room for me. That landed me interviews which landed me a job. Just leaning into the discomfort of introducing myself and having the courage to tell them what I wanted gave me way more chances to be lucky. And low and behold, I was in the lucky minority.

::Luck can be increased through strategy::

07 Earning a Calling: The White Hole of Opportunity

What is the secret to getting a job? First I had to realize there was no easy way such as applying online. See the black hole of death post (SaT-5). The secret is obvious but for some stressful.

Now an equally important question to “how do I get a job I love” is “what job do I think I want”. That is a rabbit hole for another time and a great story. See this future post, which may or may not be posted yet. If it is posted READ IT FIRST before you finish this story.

Back out of the rabbit hole you are probably still wondering what is the secret to earning a calling? What I did to find my career is networking! A lot of persistent networking. You must talk to everyone you know about what job you are looking for. In America this is easier because everyone asks you what you do for a living so you have a natural in. These conversations get you connections to people in your chosen field of career, which lead to interviews.

My chosen career hypothesis was a robotics startup. This was a pretty niche area so I did not find too many connections through people I knew. Therefore I networked in other ways, which everyone should do. I went to meetups (there is an app for that), conferences, and trade shows. I cold emailed the CEO or other top talent persistently. Persistence means three attempts per person. If someone I knew referred me or a relevant company had an alumni from my college I almost always got headway. I flew to a robotics conference over 1,000 miles away and ended up meeting my future boss. You may say that sounds expensive but a plane ticket was nothing compared to the opportunity cost of earning money from a job. Another bonus was that the people at the conference were super impressed I had traveled that far to network with them and gave me interviews on the spot.

Once networking occurs usually the communication defaults to email. This happened with two companies after the robotics conference. I knew that sending a first email back after meeting was important. What I later learned is every email after that is important networking too. And there will be a lot of them. There were 60+ emails back and forth with the company I ended up choosing before I got an offer letter. Do not wait. Email back as soon as you can.

Finally, you get the job of your career hypothesis and you learn if that position fits you and if you fit it. You also learn about the indirects you guessed earlier. This learning helps you on the journey to the next steeping stone of the next position whether it is in the same or a different career.

::The best way to start a career is to network with people::

06 The Fun in Hard

I made a super simple word change recently that has made me completely change the way I think. Instead of using the word “hard” I substitute the word “fun”.

Things that are hard are also fun. Now sometimes they are not fun but I inevitably say to my boss when he tells me to do something hard, “that will be fun”. One benefit is instead of giving up immediately I keep going. Another is I focus more on the fun part of the task or journey.

Lifting weights is not hard it is fun. Going on dates are not hard they are fun. Finding a job is not hard it is fun. Starting to read, write, or sleep is not hard it is fun. Somehow the hard stressful cloud dissolves into sunshine when you use the word fun.

::Change the word hard to fun ::

05 Getting a Job: The Black Hole of Death

I am about to give the best and worst piece of advice I ever discovered. Worst because it sucks that finding a job is not as simple as a few paragraphs and clicks and best because it is true.

In college a lot of people are trying to get jobs. My friends all took slightly different approaches but they all had one thing in common. Applying online. One friend applied to 80 companies online, heard back from six, interviewed with two, and got one job. He is what I would call a great candidate and he spent time creating EIGHTY slightly different resumes, cover letters, and applications. Now applying online is easy but multiply it by 80 and it sucks to accomplish. Also, there is a chance it might not yield to anything.

Thinking logically I determined that the brute force approach sometimes works but what if you do not like the few or one job you end up with. You’re applying to so many jobs that you can not be too choosy. Personally, I do not want to like my job, I want to love it. You live a third of your life in a job, might as well make it count. So I decided to logically target the few jobs I wanted. Then apply online right? NO! I call applying online the black hole of death because you often rarely get an email back and if you do it is likely a job that is akin to a slow death.

So what do you do instead? Well, find out in the next blog article titled: Earning a Calling: The White Hole of Opportunity (SaT-6). If you want some answers now look at the title and you can glean some insights.

::Applying online is a lot of work with a small chance of success::

04 The Largest Complaint at College

Almost everyone in college complained about one thing... parking. I got around this issue by not owning a car and living within walking distance to campus. However not everyone made this choice; thus I would hear people’s woes.

“ I missed my first class cause I couldn’t find parking” “I spend a lot for my pass and in return get no spots close” “I spent 40 minutes looking for a spot and ended up going home”

It’s easy for me to say I hate complaining when I did not have the same problems but I’m still going to say it. I hate complaining. Students would say it is the schools fault then turn around and not change their own parking habits. Now, it is in part the school fault for not catering to students needs but they also have to think about financing expensive parking spots. Who should advise parking services on the students behalf? In my opinion that should be student government.

As a member of student government my goals were simple. Make students lives better. Therefore improving parking would be a big win. My senior year, the school decided to increase parking costs by 50% for the following year. That is an OUTRAGEOUS increase. The school had good reason with a new parking garage being added but students were not going to like the cost increase. Now although I was going to be gone the next year and I did not pay for a parking pass, I knew this was important to students. It was time for action.

Members of student government and I had several meetings with administrators in which we clearly and professionally gave the students point of view. It was ultimately the school’s decision but we gave them the students side of the story with facts, student rationals, and a suggestion to make the 50% increase only a 25% increase. Several weeks later I got an email saying that the plan was excepted.

::Stop complaining and do something about it::

03 Public Speaking: A Better Way Then Memorizing

What if I told you that you could save time by not having to laboriously memorize a public speech. There is a faster way. It still involves work and practice but no memorization.

Senior year of college had a class called science communication. The final project was giving a speech to the class on a scientific topic. This speech had two things not enough speeches have. It had to be super engaging and understandable. We read books and learned techniques all year to give a great final speech.

One day I got a text from a staff member at the school to come to a faculty and staff audience to talk about whatever I would like. The staff member and I were close and her last minute faculty speaker had fallen through so she asked me. She gave me five days notice then I promptly forgot. Two days before she asked me again and reluctantly, but knowing it would be a good learning experience, I said yes. I told her I would come after my science communication class was done. This would give me around 30 minutes to sit in the ballrooms and formulate exactly what to say.

The day arrived and I was in my science communication class. I was going to talk about the makerspaces on campus since I knew the subject well. Suddenly my phone buzzed and the text said loudly, “WHERE ARE YOU?” I had told her the wrong time by one hour. Quickly responding that my class ended in 15 minutes, I asked her if she would delay. Immediately after class I rushed over to the ballrooms. The staff member welcomed me and went to the stage to introduce me. The room was filled with over one hundred people, a third of all the faculty and staff on campus. And I was late. Loudly my heart picked up beating faster and faster. Using the extra blood going to my head I relaxed and formulated some of the ideas I wished to say and which idea to start with. No details but rather large concepts. Then I took the stage.

The speech went amazingly. I had prepared almost nothing but on a subject I knew well. Later while reading a book for science communication the author recommended going into a speech with several clear arguments about a topic that one knows or learns a lot about. The book recommended exactly what I had been forced to do under compressed time. Reusing this technique, I spent around an hour practicing the science speech beforehand always making sure the ideas and facts were right. The actual words I relied on my head to think up as the speech progressed. Compared to many hours of hard memorization, I instead practiced the main arguments. The final course speech went great despite spending little time preparing.

::One can save a lot of time public speaking by learning the topic and arguments well rather than memorizing every word::

02 The Other Reason We Hate Hearing Ourselves

How I learned to shut up and the peace it brought me. 

You hear it all the time. Listen more, talk less. You have two ears and one mouth. Actively listen instead of thinking of what to say next.  It seems simple but why should I listen when I have good ideas to share.  I love talking, especially about me. Most people do. 

Here is how the story went. My sister and I started a podcast called Swift.ly. I was editing the podcast and was cringing hard. And not for the reason most would think. Yes, listening to one’s voice is cringeworthy but that is a different story. What bothered me was how inattentive I was being to my sister. Actively listening to the conversation I realized that the character that was me in the podcast was not actively listening to her. He kept interrupting. Or he would guess what she was going to say next and be wrong. It was embracing. I was being a terrible conversationalist and brother. Clearly I was preparing for what I was going to say next instead of actively listening to her. It was at that moment that I reflected on all my conversations ever. This was not an isolated mistake. 

It was then that I realized how little understanding occurs in a conversation. Since, I have started to really listen to conversations. It has brought me a sense of peace when I do it actively. It allows me to worry less about what to say next or what someone might think of me. Instead, I focus on one thing, understanding the other person fully. Only then can I respond. 

::Shutting up and only listening brings peace::

01 The Problem with Growth Books

Let me tell you a story. It involves you overcoming wasted time.

I like to read. The types of books I read are about business, habits, thinking, beliefs, principles, leadership, growth, and mindset. Basically they are self-help books. I like them for two reasons. One, they give me a dopamine rush when they say I have solved a problem correctly. Two, after reading many books, I see patterns that I can bring to my life to become a better person and leader. Listen more is a great example of the second reason.

Thinking this all to myself in the shower I come to a startling conclusion. In order to see these patters I have to read several books, which takes me a lot of time. When finished the whole book or each main idea can fit into one sentence. In that case why should I read a long book? You may think to yourself one of two things. One, “you can’t put a book into a single sentence” in which I would reply, try it! The second more serious barrier is, “the book is long because it has to convince you of that thesis with logic and stories”. I agree with you on the second point. But then I think there must be a strategy that makes best of both worlds.

I think to myself as I exit the shower, the part that can be dropped is the logic, the story is enough. A short story is enough! A warm smile spreads across my face and I think to myself, the thesis can follow the story to really hammer the idea through. The smile is not caused by the thought but rather a new idea.

::Telling a relatable, short story followed by a thesis is a great way to communicate an idea quickly and effectively::