You Are Never Too Good to Stop Learning

I once read an article in Wired magazine about a guy who had developed an airplane with foldable wings that you can tow behind a car. It was a long article, and I was very interested in this airplane because at one point in my life I was studying to be a pilot. As I read the article I realized that this particular guy was having a ton of fun. He was trying to develop something that would revolutionize aviation and was really trying to change the world with his airplane. It was an exciting article, and I had read previous articles about this guy and his airplane at least one or two times before in other magazines. Apparently the airplane, called “The Icon,” would be going into production very shortly and selling for $139,000. This new airplane was predicted to change aviation for private pilots and make the skies accessible to the world. When I read this particular article, however, something completely amazing happened. I realized that I knew the guy. In fact, I had spent a couple of days with him only three or four years previously when I had decided to pursue a master’s degree at Stanford Business School. I had gone up and enrolled in Stanford Business School and met him during a weekend orientation for new students. We had actually become friends and spent a couple of days together. At the time he was older than me, around 38, and I was in my mid-30s. Incredibly, in the few months I had been reading about this airplane and this guy, I had not realized it was him. After picking out a dorm room, getting various textbooks from the school, and putting down a deposit on my tuition, I decided that I was no longer interested in going to business school. I thought that there was nothing the school could teach me that I did not already know about business, and that the businesses I was running would suffer too much if I went away to school. How arrogant that was of me at the time. Imagine believing that you are too old and know too much. Imagine how limiting this can be. You need to be constantly learning and stretching yourself. In addition, you need to take advantage of every opportunity to learn that ever presents itself to you. Had I gone to Stanford Business School, I realized I might be doing something with the guy I met up there. Who knows what could have happened? Every time I look up in the sky and see an airplane flying by, I will remember the value of education and the things you can do with it. You can develop airplanes or do tons of other things that will literally change your life when you pursue education with vigor. Education is about the most important thing you can do with your time. Another thing about education is that it does not matter how old you are. You can get an education at any time. Regardless of your age, if you keep learning it is going to change you. There is simply nothing more important than education. The guy who developed the airplane and was now marketing it was 38 at the time he enrolled in business school. It is never too late to pursue your dreams. Most people, at some point in their lives, decide that they have learned enough. This is a huge mistake. There is so much power in knowledge. Knowledge can empower you to become better, faster, and stronger in everything you do. It is astonishing to me that so many people go through their lives making the same mistakes over and over and over again. [Read more]

Carrot Peelers, Sales, Personality and Your Job Search

A couple of years ago, I started seeing a bunch of articles in Vanity Fair,the New York Times, The Village Voice and other publications about a guy named Joe Andes. Here is a portion of one profile of him from the May 2006 Vanity Fair:

In the early 90s a man named Joe Andes began showing up in the bar at the Pierre, Manhattan’s famously posh hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 61st Street. Joe liked the crowd at the Café Pierre, but the real draw for him was Kathleen Landis, the dimpled, piano-playing house chanteuse who still entertains there five nights a week. Joe was a five-nights-a-week man as well, always seated at the same round table with a front view of the baby grand and a back view of Landis. He drank only champagne, and never alone. His usual brand was Veuve Clicquot. On most nights he casually ordered a bottle, which always appeared with two champagne glasses—one for himself, the other for Landis. Even by the standards of café society, Joe cut a noticeably soigné figure in his classic, British-made Chester Barrie suits and bold shirts and ties from Turnbull & Asser. The clothes went well with his English accent and late-period Sean Connery salt-and-pepper beard. He looked so distinguished and was so free with the bubbly that the Café Pierre crowd, Landis included, at first had him pegged as one of the “owners”—the tycoons who actually live at the Pierre in stupendously high-end co-op apartments. The Café Pierre was way off about Joe, or so it decided after some probing. If no one was brave enough to ask him where he lived, quite a few people asked him what he did for a living. Holding his glass of champagne by the stem, Joe would say simply, “I sell potato peelers.” The probers had a good chuckle over that. “Right,” they all said. “Now pull the other one.” … Joe pushes his gear through the streets on a hand truck, which he in his English way calls a trolley. He and the trolley are often stopped by strangers ready with a heartfelt line: “Sir, you’re the greatest salesman in New York!”

The reason so many magazines and publications were paying so much attention to Joe was because he is someone who was able to make a great living selling carrot peelers on the street. When Joe died a few years later, publications all around the world ran obituaries about him. [Read more]

You Need to Sell, Sell, Sell

A strange misconception among many people, especially professionals, is that there is something wrong with selling. When I talk about selling, I am referring to any number of sales activities: -Selling yourself in an interview -Selling yourself in a cover letter to an employer -Selling yourself to a client -Selling yourself to any other person -Packaging yourself in a ”sellable” way In every single interaction we have with others, we are selling. The more you sell, the better you will do in [Read more]