Education By Osmosis

The preacher said life is like monopoly.  It’s a roll of the dice.  You might end up with all the houses and the hotels, you might not.  But what’s certain is that, when the game is over – all the money, the houses, the hotels, the property goes back in the box.  The only thing that lasts is how you made people feel while you were playing the game.

Did you cheat?  Did you gloat?  Were you ruthless in negotiation?  Did you make alliances against others?  How did you feel when you got shut out and couldn’t get ahead?  Did you deal fairly with others and not use your power to obtain more power.  In the end were you happy for those that had much or bitter and disappointed about what you’d obtained?  I want to talk about User Experience - but not in the front end/back end way but in the monopoly sense that it’s not about “winning” - life IS the user experience. 

Fail #1:  Being let down by a friend: 

You’re a prominent airline in the southwest-ern united states.  You’re famous for your liberal policy of allowing anyone to take any seat but admittedly do manipulate the process of assigning the order in which seats are chosen - letting those that pay more and those that fly more choose their seats first and keeping the rest of the process nebulous.

 A person who flies frequently chooses your airline because they have a large number of frequent flier miles.  But this flight is different.  He’s flying with his family, whom he purchases tickets for using his frequent flier miles.   Per your policy he is entitled to be one of the first to choose his seat.

 Failure is allowing this person to board early but assigning his family of 4 to the very bottom priority so that they board last.  It’s important to families that they fly together. It’s critically important to those with small children that they be together to assist small children with the challenges of staying quiet, occupied, not being scared and adjusting to dreaded air-pressure changes.  Failure is forcibly disallowing the adult to board with his children, or even one child, because your airline has arbitrarily assigned that child to be a “c” and your boarding personnel are there to enforce that there are no cuts, no buts, and certainly no coconuts - but in a much more dickish manner.

Failure is forcing the adult to wait until “family boarding” so that they may board as a family – one adult with one child.  Making it more difficult to hold a seat for grandma who came for the express purpose of helping out with difficult transitions with multiple children like - oh say - boarding the plane!

 Good UX is:

- Hello Mr Smith – we see that you are traveling with your family to Orlando!  We know that is a special time for young children and we at [insert prominent airline of the southwest-ern United States] are proud to be the first and last legs of what we hope will be a magical journey!  We see that you’ve purchased four-tickets using your rapid-ly raising rewards points and that you’ve two children age 4 and 6.  We know how challenging it is for mommies and daddies sometimes and we’re committed to making even our littlest guest lifelong lovers of flying and flying with [prominent southwestern airline]. 

While all families are permitted to board following our A section – as a valued customer we’ve assigned each of your children an A-status for purposes of boarding.  So that you may all board together.  Our flight attendants will also assist you in reserving space so that your entire party can sit together for the flight.

We’ve gone ahead and assigned you a priority boarding pass for you and the two minors that are accompanying you.  Please have a magical journey!

That would have been much better than the crabby flight attendant and the - oh yeah - my bags flew free when they come back like this!

Last night my Netflix recommended to me a Japanese doc called “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” - about an 85 year-old master Sushi chef named Sukiyabashi Jiro and his restaurant. (Shout out to KAM from the windows Windows8 team for my free surface! Review coming soon). What caught my eye in the film description was that Jiro operates a restaurant with only 10-seats but where prices begin at $300 per person.  Really its more like a bar with 10 stools the entire footprint not much larger than mid-sized US families kitchen.  His is the smallest restaurant to be awarded the coveted 3-star Michellin rating, a truly elite honor.  The film is simple and riveting.  Thinking about my own education by osmosis here’s what I learned.

1) Bigger is not better, better is better - Jiro’s changed nothing after being awarded a 3-star rating. The film never discusses this choice directly (another testament to the cultural differences between American capitalism and Japanese perfection-ism) but the themes of the film provide Jiro’s answers to the audiences unvoiced questions.  He is not fixed on expansion.  There are no Jiro franchises, no line of frozen sushi products or chef knives, no instructional videos or even a chef school. He does not advertise.  While he could do several of these things amazingly well, he revels in the simple incremental improvement of his calling - to make the perfect sushi experience.  More money does not bring more happiness - he works at 85 not just because he knows nothing else (although this is a bit of a sad strain that runs through the film as well) but because the rosier side of perfectionism is that he is happiest when simply making sushi.  Over the years improving his restaurant has entailed such innovations as getting rid of drinks and appetizers, they serve only sushi.  The essence of focus. 

2) Personally tend your garden - No Jiro does not grow his own vegtables.  But he is a master teacher.  Jiro’s restaurant has a staff of five - his eldest son, three apprentices, one experienced and two greener, and himself.  Jiro said that it took 10 years for someone to properly learn the trade and be called a master chef (it has a cool Japanese name I can’t recall).  The elder apprentice recalled how he almost cried when Jiro casually used the word referring to him on day.  The organization is remarkably flat.  While it is true that the chefs spend 10 years in training, I think its important to note that their training is personally overseen by a master and they are constantly learning.  Many apprentices don’t make it through the grueling, repetitive environment where criticism is constant and praise few and far between but oh-so-meaningful.  In this environment doing a task such as cooking eggs is an honor that takes years to be allowed to try and years more to entrusted with the honor of serving your food to a customer.  Inherent in this is an organization where everyone can and often do perform all of the roles.  Each role is painstakingly transitioned only after demonstrating mastery in private many many times. 

 3) Quality is by definition scarce - Another theme of the film, beyond the obvious rejection of expansionism is scarcity.  One of Jiro’s struggles is the daily competition to find fish worthy of becoming his sushi.  His 85-years give him a unique perch from which to comment on the effects of overfishing and commercialization.  As fish readily available in his younger years have disappeared he’s taken it as a challenge to find new substitutes but he laments that there is no substitute for the tuna that is the staple of sushi and that dwindles every year under the pressure of overfishing.  It seems that one reason Jiro is not bent on growth is that he is limited by his own standards.    An uncompromising commitment to quality and customer service is what builds brands and businesses into legends.  Growth and commercialism are not just undesirable but antithetical to his beliefs. Only one tuna can be the best and if he is to serve only the best, how can he serve lots of it?

4) In order to cook great food you have to eat great food - One thing you immediately notice is that the chefs in the film are constantly eating.  Jiro and his eldest son are constantly carefully tasting the products of the other chefs and returning the smallest criticisms - to slice the fish more thinly or handle it a bit more gently. But much of the dialogue in the film takes place in the small back kitchen where the staff of 5 communally eats the same elaborate sushi preparations they serve customers.  Here is where Jiro delivered the most crucial line of the film in my opinion.  He said “In order to cook great food you have to eat great food”.  His staff regularly and judiciously ate the same $300/plate preparations that his customers did.  The same food that Jiro painstakingly struggles to find enough of every morning.  The same food that could be used to add another dinner shift, or expand to another restaurant.  The same food the staff has been admonished over as they elaborately prepare by massaging an octupus for 45 minutes or marinating fish for 5-6 days. The five of them at two meals per day consume at least one entire dinner shift or $3,000 US retail value, per day!   He allows his staff open access to eat this food.  Allows is probably the wrong word as Jiro does nothing by happenstance.  Eating is actually part of their training.  Jiro explains that in order for you to delight your customers you must have a more refined palette than they do.  How will you learn what great food is, what it should taste like, or smell like but by eating great food regularly - by literally, eating your own cooking; but not just your own, but your best - so that you know what your best tastes like and then that becomes your new standard for yourself and for your customers.  How many organizations make this kind of investment in their people or share this philosophy of quality over quantity, or can relentlessly pursue perfection for a lifetime but still find joy in the process, to the point where the saddest thing is that there will never be a fourth star for him to attain but for the one he gives himself and his apprentices with a offhand word, after 20 years of intense study.    

So What?

Jiro has created a place where learning is the work for everyone, everyday.  He models the behaviors he expects with his own tremendous work ethic and self discipline.  He invests his time in personally training in a flat organization and reserves his best for his staff that they will be intimately familiar with excellence and be able to produce it for their customers with regularity.  There are stars and standards and critics who consider it their jobs to measure their success but Jiro’s internal standards far exceed anything that can be applied on them from the outside.  Money too is not a metric of success.  They have as much as they need and striving for more will actually detract from quality.  I’m sure many investors have come with ideas, or lamented on his foolishness for not cashing in on the commercial popularity of sushi over his 85 years. Equally, I’m sure there is a story however of how they priced their way to $300/plate - I’m sure this was a conscious choice vs. expansion and still came only after years of focusing on perfection.

I hope one day to create a place where learning is the work for everyone, everyday.  Where the commitment to development is seen in how the organization is shaped, how it spends its time and how it spends its resources.  I want an organization where everyone has enough money such that money is not the concern or chief driver of individual or organizational decision.  I look forward to being in an organization that embraces a qualitative goal and strives for perfection and the highest honor is not a grade or a star but a nod and a wink and acknowledgment of a job well done.    

Its Thursday. February 14th. I told Adam, COO of StartupWeekend that I’d get back to him on Tuesday.  I’m still struggling with the decision.  

The StartupWeekend Education film has been accepted to SXSW (EDU) and will be screened there.  Adam called on Monday, the first time we’ve talked since he and Frank and Marc jumped on a skype call to fire me on December 6th.  

Post being fired I still worked on getting the film into SXSW. Making the film meant a tremendous amount to me.  Vinny Verma and Darius Basharya the director and producer from the film company “1880” have become two of the best friends I’ve made in a decade. We’ve shared so much and learned so much and are really proud of the film which unfortunately is just the tip of the iceberg of what we produced.  Not only did we produce the film which is a 28 minute real-time story of two educators going through a StartupWeekend 

I’m incensed by the arrogance of the request.  That they’ve never apologized or felt the need to apologize.  Pride and rage are the theatrics that cover up hurt. I was lied to, exploited. Ingratitude is one of my hot buttons, but they’ve actually gone past the point of no return by repaying passion and energy and ownership and sacrifice with indifference and dismissal and malice.      

I’ve been stuck her for a while but today I give up pride for lent.

Here are my principles.

1) I will not represent SW or make an appearances at any cost to me.

2) I am willing to represent the film as a catalyst for a movement but not as a promotional tool for StartupWeekend Education

3) I will not be part of a general panel of individuals that had no role in the making of the film and somehow give credence to their presence. 

Those are my principles and here is the note that I sent to Adam:

On Feb 17, 2013, at 0:02, Khalid Smith <khalidrudo@gmail.com> wrote:

Adam,

Thanks for your patience.  I’m excited about teaming up with Vinny to talk the why and the how behind the film.  Here’s what I can agree to.

• Travel \ accommodations \ per diem:  $4k

• Panel discussion members:  limited to Vinny and I

• Film rights:  i’ll need official use rights if I’m to promote the film.

 If that works for you then let’s get something signed and get to the sxsw people.

Khalid

On Feb 18, 2013, at 3:08 AM, Adam Stelle <adam@startupweekend.org> wrote:

Khalid,

As much as I’d love to have you there to represent the film, there is (as I’m guessing you know) simply no way I can agree to either of those points. Thanks anyways for getting back to me, and if you do end up in Austin, I’d be pleased to see you.

Best,

Adam

Sent on the go - please excuse the grammar or brevity.

Adam:

I’m not sure of your objections, there are actually three points, but I found your opening offer of, well … nothing, objectionable myself.  I tired to keep my requests as straight forward as possible but I’m happy to discuss the principles behind each to see if we can come to something we both can live with.      

To be continued…. 

I’m going to take a pause in my year-end list to acknowledge what I feel very well could be one of the most amazing and inspiring stories of determination in human history.  I know big words, but I don’t think an exaggeration.  This Sunday Adrian Peterson running back for the Minnesota Vikings came 9 yards short of breaking the single season rushing record of 2,105 yards with a monstrous 199 yards rushing in the final win-or-go-home game of the season against bitter rival Greenbay.  By itself this is a super-human feat.  Carrying a team with a marginal quarterback and a receiving core whose only impact player was lost to injury is what great runnings backs do.  For added perspective there have been six other human beings that have rushed for 2000 yards in a single NFL season.  But for those of you adept at reading between the lines, this post in not about football stats.  

Sunday was the the one-year anniversary of Adrian’s surgery to repair a torn ACL and MCL, an injury that means 12-18 months of recovery and possibly a drastically shortened career. Peterson not only came back from this injury, not only came back in 9 months to start the first game of the season, but got stronger as famously grueling NFL season progressed and in the end of the day his season performance ranked as the second greatest running back performance of all-time - this is the stuff of legends and storybooks.  In the time it takes others to finally give their repaired appendages a go and attempt to be even a shadow of their former selves, A.P. had already set a new benchmark for grit, determination and a model for anyone incurring an injury or setback.

I cringed when I saw the horrific way his leg buckled sideways last December - so unnatural and so obvious.  Blown ACL, probably worse.  Adrian Peterson running style could only be described as, well, violent.  Known for being a physical specimen with an unreal work ethic everyone knew this violent style would take years off his playing days. Running backs bodies can only sustain so many hits.

As an athlete, one of my greatest fear is a catastrophic injury that would rob me prematurely of my athleticism. I had my own knee injury in the summer of 2010 and I couldn’t deny its physical or psychological effects.  Like most, I hoped that Adrian would be able to come back, but also braced myself for reality - that it would be a long time before he was back, and most likely he (and I) would never be what we were.  In December of 2011, like many others I thought to myself that maybe I’d witnessed Peterson’s brief moment in the sun and that decades from now we’d talk about what might have been and how he might have measured up against the greats or could have redefined the game. 

Instead, I and the world got a great gift this season.  Here’s what A.P. taught me:

1) Greatness exists in the mind.  Survival in the Body:

Everything about Adrian Peterson’s recovery was ahead of schedule. He said later that he decided there while laying broken on the training table that he was going to come back, that he was going to come back by the start of the 2012 season, and that he was going to come back better than he ever was.  That meant he had to get to surgery as soon as possible and that meant fighting his body.  The bodies response to injury is to recoil and cocoon.  Swelling and pain are both meant to immobilize.  Swelling makes you physically unable to perform by limiting the range of motion - while pain literally exists only in the mind and is the body’s way of exerting control and forcing the brain into submission by jabbing it every time it sends a signal for a damaged body to do something else potentially dangerous. The key to not just survive trama but recover and thrive is to not let your natural instincts to recoil take over, don’t go into defense mode, immediately assess the situation and take decisive action.  Remember - the body doesn’t care about returning you to greatness, the body just wants to survive.

Anyone who’s injured a knee will tell you that one of the most counter-intuitive parts of rehab is how much it focuses on the hip and the ankles muscles because they deactivate to protect the injury and subsequently atrophy and destabilize the newly reconstructed joint.  Immobilization may be the body’s way of preventing more near term damage but it also cause weakness, instability and is a leading cause of reinjury when you attempt to do something you used to be able to do.  Immediately after injury, the faster you elevate and ice and reduce the natural swelling response the faster you’ll be able get into surgery and more range of motion you’ll preserve, the less tenderness you’ll feel and the more effective your rehabilitation will be.  The body has a natural sequence but by maintaining a clear mind you can intervene and choose a smarter course of action that not only protects you from further damage but prevents your setback from taking you so many steps backwards. The first step to returning to greatness was when Adrian Peterson decided not to get sad or depressed or allow things like pain or fear to guide his course of action.  He exerted his force of will and set the course for not just recovery but greatness. 

2) Get up.

Ice and elevation and getting back a range of motion in a matter of weeks allowed Adrian to have surgery to repair his destroyed ligaments inside of three weeks. Yes it was Christmas, yes he spent New Years in a recovery bed but having the surgery earlier allowed him to capitalize on one of his other greatest assets - the amazing physical shape he was already in.  The best way to fix a problem is to avoid compounding it by staying down and letting other former strengths that you’ll depend on atrophy as well.  Does it hurt?  Oh - yeah.  But the day after surgery he was doing leg lifts, three days later he was walking in an immobilizer.  Every day is about embracing and working through the pain in the smartest way possible.  There are great trainers out there but anyone whose been there will tell you that there comes a point where no one can fix it for you.  It’s about your willingness to educate yourself on how to work smarter, then work harder despite the pain and frustration.  Only you can feel your body and know what exercise strengthen it where you need it most but it all starts when you GET UP! 

3) There’s only one way to run, with abandon.

But there’s another thing that anyone with a knee injury will tell you.  You can be smart, you can endure pain, you can show up to rehab every day and do what your told but the hardest thing to do is to get back into the exact same situation where you got hurt and trust that knee again.  To run full speed and stick a repaired appendage in the dirt and apply all your pressure to put on the brakes and push off in the other direction is as much a feat of will power and conquering of fear as it is a physical triumph.  

I don’t know how A.P. did this.  If I had one chance to ask him a question, this is the one that I’d ask because its the trait I respect the most.  I know that every NFL story is tainted by the specter of a questionable substance abuse testing policy.  But there are no steroids, no growth hormones no substances that can get yo over this hurdle.  You have to trust so much in your preparation that when the moment comes you don’t even think about it, just approach it with the same reckless abandon you have the other 10,000 times when you performed in the same situation and didn’t get hurt.  

We in the startup world always laugh at those hockey stick projections that shoot up and to the right.  But that’s exactly what Adrian Peterson’s yards/month look like as you watch him gain confidence in that knee over the course of the season.  He got lots of advice along the way by trainers, coaches and critics and even wise and well-meaning former greats but he never waivered from his plan.  Get up, show up every day, practice relentlessly and then don’t change the way that you play the game.  Anomalies will happen but greatness only occurs when the mind wins the battle over flesh and fear and foils, fumbles and failures.

4) The great run but never chase.

Adrian Peterson turned in the second greatest running back performance of all-time by the slimmest of margins.  27 feet in a race of 1.2 miles or less than 0.42%.  But wining a rushing title was never his goal.  He simply wanted to be HIS best.  That meant competing, running and winning.  It so happens that when you are one of the best, when you are doing something that you were created to do, the simple act of being at your best will put you in the most elite of company.  Over the course of the season, Adrian Peterson began to be in the discussion for “Comeback Player of the Year”, “Offensive Player of the Year” and then finally “Most Valuable Player of the Year”.  The progression showed a gradually footnoting of the fact that he was returning for injury in recognition of the amazing feats he was accomplishing healthy, unhealthy or otherwise.  Adrian Peterson never let anyone else either put limitations on him, or equally importantly define success for him.  He didn’t stop when people considered him a shoe-in for comeback player of the year, or offensive player of the year, or even MVP (though he should win, even over a resurgent Payton Manning).  He didn’t focus on the rushing record.  His 199 yards on Sunday were amazing but following a 20 yard burst that put his team in position for the game winning field goal.  A lesser man (aka me as I jumped on my couch in excitement) would have thought of squeezing in one more rushing attempt to pick up the 9 yards in the final 10 seconds or even missing the game winning field goal to send the game in overtime like some buffalo wild wings commercial.  But not Adrian.  He walked off the field without a thought to let the field goal unit set up for the win.  Seconds after the game expired reporters swarmed him and asked of his disappointment at coming so close to the record.  He did two things that were amazing.  1) He didn’t even know how close he was.  He wasn’t counting.  He was too busy giving everything he had towards helping his team win.  2) He shrugged it off and said he was happy with his performance and that his team had won.   In a press conference later on he said: 

 ”I don’t let awards identify me,” Peterson said. “I don’t do it. I go out and define myself by what I do on the field. Whether I win it or not, and I’m not saying I don’t want to, just like I wanted to break the record, either way, in my heart I’m the MVP. That’s all that matters.”

He may be robbed by a quarterback loving league that saw Payton Manning return from neck surgery to lead to the Broncos to the best record in the AFC.  But Adrian defined success for himself as the greatest coach of all time said “Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you are capable”.  Success is NOT winning, but in the never ending quest to succeed it so happens that you’ll win quite often.  

5) Greatness in the first, heroes in the second, but legends are written in the third act.   

One of the reasons I think Adrian was so content to let the record stand is that the great need to continually find their own motivation.  If he could come that close to the record in the process of recovering from catastrophic knee surgery what do you think he will do with a full season of offseason conditioning and strength training on his entire game? 

Act 1 comes from talent:  No one denies that Adrian is a physical specimen.  208 lbs, 4.5% body fat, 10.3 100-meter speed, 4.3 football field speed and incredible upper and lower body strength are all the stuff of greatness.  But just as many who’ve had these skillets have ended up as late night “Where are they now” biographies as are enshrined in the hall of fame.  

Act 2 comes from work ethic:  Those truly great that are held up as heroes are just as infamous for their drive.  The intensity with which they approach preseason workouts and midseason practices sets them apart.  Jerry Rice was famous for his San Francisco hill running workouts, Kobe Bryant for his relentless preparation and studies of the game.  Tiger Woods for his fanaticism about golf.  Those two things may get you to greatness but not legend. 

Act 3 come from adversity: Hollywood knows well that the an action hero’s journey is defined not by the heroic acts of the hero but by the depth of the villain and the adversity overcome.  Legend requires adversity.  How you respond to adversity is what inspires others to greatness.  You can be given talent by the genetic lottery, you can earn respect by honing that talent through long hours of practice but no one can deny the character and determination that is revealed when you respond to adversity with determination.  Those that are legend, those that are the greatest were not just talented, or determined to point of being willing to die but legends inspire us with their response to adversity.  Michael Jordan left basketball running from media, crushed by his father’s murder and returned triumphantly to win another three-peat at an age when people doubted if he could still muster the ability.  Muhammed Ali was stripped of his title for objecting to an unjust war and returned to reclaim it not once but twice.  The Tour de France still hasn’t figured out why no-one cares about their relentless hunt for Lance Amstrong’s smoking gun, because he is legend.  He wasn’t racing against other cyclist - he was racing against cancer and no one cares HOW he won just that he did.  People need inspiration and inspiration only comes from how you face adversity because not everyone is born with world class talent and it may be too late for some to hone whatever skills they have to elite levels but everyone faces adversity and can summon within them to strength to face it with determination.      

What it means to me?

One year ago as I write this. Adrian Peterson was taking his first ginger steps from a hospital bed.  A man of potential to be the greatest of all-time staring at catastrophe that could have been the end and he made a decision.  He would do whatever it took, he would work as hard as humanly possible, he would overcome both the physical pain and psychological doubt and hurt of the injury to not just return, but to be better than he’d ever been.  He would use this injury, not as a setback, but as a setup, as a definitive moment in his life.  In retrospect, when he looked back over his life, he wouldn’t undo the pain of that moment, he wouldn’t undo that catastrophe even if he could. Just like Michael Jordan wouldn’t take back those years away from basketball, or Ali wouldn’t undo the loss to Frazier because it was there in failure that they found the motivation and opportunity to be legend.  

Every once in a while sports are not a game.  Adrian Peterson’s season in which he gained strength as the season progressed and turned in absolutely inhuman performances to carry his team to the postseason (literally) is the stuff of storybooks.  

For me?  I’ve had a knee injury which after this very moment I am officially never going to mention again.  But more so - I was unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired from a organization that I’d dedicated a year of my life to building.  I thought I’d found the right place and the right system where I could do something that would change the world.  I was well on my way, having completed a film, having built brand recognition and strong group of supporters, having carved a niche in the most vital area of the ecosystem suddenly my legs were cut from underneath me. This setback could very well be career ending if I let it, i could cry about all the work that I’d put it and how its wasted or will be misused or abused.  But I also look up and see opportunity.  I see that it’s going to be hard, and painful and scary, but I know that if I work hard enough I can come back from this better than I’ve ever been.  I can make this a definitive moment in my career so when I look back on it a year from now I’ll be able to see how this set me up for history.  I’ll be able to see how, as painful as it is right now, I’ll be at a point soon enough where I wouldn’t undo the pain and loss even if I could because it was that fuel that propelled me to what was next.  There’s a formula to be an inspiration for masses and to seize your place in history.

Thanks Adrian Peterson. 

So today is the first day of 2013.  It is also the time for year-end reviews.  There are few subjects that I would dare try to tackle in one of those definitive year-end reviews, so I’ll stick to talking about what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.  It turns out that I’ve got a few a few things that I’d like to say, some I’d like to share, and a bit that I really need to let go of.  I need to start fresh, I have no time for delays in 2013 - but I can’t move forward until I process some of these emotions so I can move on, or at least just link to the long story without feeling the need to rehash whenever my thoughts turn a bit dark, mid idea.  I probably need a month to actually accomplish what I’m giving myself the better portion of the afternoon to get done - so my hope is that my few readers will bear with me as I update these thoughts over time.  This past year has been amazing and amazingly painful.  I’ve learned what I can accomplish when focused on my purpose and learned that some of the most important lessons about your purpose can come dressed up in the trappings disappointment or failure.  I made more friends in 2012 than I think I have in all of the last decade.  I created things that I will show to my grandchildren and lost things that can never be replaced.  I’ve sat at the feet of great thinkers and been able to absorb their wisdom, I’ve shared my story openly and talked about purpose, education, entrepreneurship, leadership and coaching.  I am proud of what I’ve done and how I’ve done it.  So here are my thought    

1) Cofounders, Founding Employees and Consultants:

2) StartupWeekend Education - the History

3) Making a documentary, Discovering my story - 

4) Occupy EdTech - Designing an Education Movement

5) The Wisdom of Athena - Following your passion comes with a price. 

6) Acts of Faith - How I proceeded on my path to my purpose when I had no idea how it was going to work but I just showed up, and God showed up.

7) What EdTech can do:  Because knowing the problems is half the battle.

8) Startup Weekend - The lids of leadership

9) Why the Lean Methodology doesn’t fit with Education philosphy

10) What to do when you’re fired.  30 days.  

So dear reader, thanks for reading.  Let me know your thoughts and I’ll sign you up for a free copy of the book when it comes out.