What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World

by Tina Seelig

If your goal is to make meaning by trying to solve a big problem in innovative ways, you are more likely to make money than if you start with the goal of making money, in which case you will probably not make money or meaning.

This exercise is a great way to open your mind to solutions to problems because it demonstrates that most ideas, even if they look silly or stupid on the surface, often have a seed of potential. The “good” ideas are usually expected and incremental, but the “bad” ideas open the door to some truly unique solutions.

My old buddy John Stiggelbout used the notion of turning a good idea on its head when applying to graduate school. He did something any normal person would think was a terribly bad idea, and it turned out to be inspired. He decided at the last minute that he wanted to go to business school. Having missed all the deadlines, he chose to make his application stand out among the others in an unconventional way. Instead of touting his impressive accomplishments, he asked a former professor of his to write a humorous letter, claiming to be John’s best friend and cellmate in prison. The letter described John in the most colorful terms that any admissions committee had ever seen, including his ability to open a mason jar with his belch. Instead of knocking John out of the running, those in the admissions office were incredibly curious to meet this audacious candidate and invited John to visit the school. John was nice enough to dig up the letter so you can see it, too.

Consider companies such as Lyft, Airbnb, Netflix, and SpaceX, which all challenged long-held, traditional assumptions in their respective industries. Lyft challenged many assumptions about local transportation, such as people would not get into cars with strangers. Airbnb challenged the assumption that people would not want to rent out a bed or a room in their own house to a stranger. Netflix challenged the assumption that a movie distributor could not create its own content. And SpaceX challenged the assumption that space exploration should be run by governments as opposed to private companies.

At the time, there weren’t any popular books on the chemistry of cooking. I wanted to read such a book, and since there wasn’t one available, I decided to write one myself. I wasn’t an expert on the topic, but as a scientist, I figured I could learn the material along the way. I put together a detailed proposal, wrote some sample chapters, shopped it around, and landed a contract with Scientific American. After that book came out, I was disappointed by how little promotion my publisher did, and I decided to start a business to help authors get more exposure for their work and to help readers learn about books that might interest them. Again, many people asked me what made me think I could start a company. This was clearly a stretch for me, but I assumed I could figure it out. I started BookBrowser in 1991, several years before the web was born. The idea was to create a kiosk-based system for bookstore customers that would “match books with buyers.” I built the prototype on my Mac computer using HyperCard, a program that allowed users to create links between cards, just like links on the web today. Users could then follow links for a particular author, title, or genre.

Nobody told me I could or should do this. I just did it.

Over time, I’ve become increasingly aware that the world is divided into people who wait for others to give them permission to do the things they want to do and people who grant themselves permission.

Paul realized that Stanford was missing a huge opportunity by not finding ways for the medical school community to work with the engineering community to invent new medical technologies. The medical folks, including doctors, students, and research scientists, needed engineers to design new products and processes to improve patient care, and

the engineers across the street were looking for compelling problems to solve using their skills.

Soon after earning my PhD in neuroscience, I set my sights on working in a startup biotechnology company. The only problem? I wanted a job in marketing and strategy, not in a lab. This seemed nearly impossible without any relevant experience. The startup companies with which I met were looking for individuals who could hit the ground running. I interviewed for months and months and often got close to job offers, but none came through.

But on the spot, with nothing to lose, I outlined the similarities between brain research and management consulting. For example, in both cases you need to identify the burning questions, collect relevant data, analyze it, select the most interesting results, craft a compelling presentation, and determine the next set of burning questions. He was impressed enough to arrange for six more interviews that day, and I walked out that evening with a job offer!

What are your core values? What are your priorities? What are your strongest skills? What inspires and motivates you? What are your short-term goals? What are your long-term objectives? What are your wildest dreams? Who will be on your personal advisory board? Who are your role models? What knowledge do you need to build? What skills do you need to learn? What qualities would you like to develop?

For every failure, each student must describe what he or she learned from that experience. Imagine the looks of surprise this assignment inspires in students who are so used to showcasing their successes. However, after they finish their résumé, they realize that this assignment has forced them to come to terms with their mistakes and to extract lessons from those experiences. As the years go by, many former students continue to keep their failure résumé up to date, in parallel with their traditional résumé of successes.

What is his biggest failure? That his failure résumé ended up getting more attention than his entire body of academic work!1