The Humbling Experience of Working at a Restaurant - Scott Gold

In Chapter 16 of 20 of his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author and writer Scott Gold answers "How Has Working Restaurant and Service Industry Jobs Shaped Your Character?"  Gold believes everyone in America should be obligated to work in the service - or restaurant - industry for one year.  The experience teaches humility, providing high quality service independent of your feelings about the customer.  Working at a restaurant, Gold finds himself learning something new every day and always trying to improve how he serves customers.  Scott Gold is an author and writer based in New York City.  When not writing, Gold moonlights as a bartender at Char no. 4 restaurant in Brooklyn.  He earned a BA in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Why to Be Decisive as an Entrepreneur - Hattie Elliot

In Chapter 11 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, The Grace List founder and entrepreneur Hattie Elliot answers "As an Entrepreneur, Why is it Important to Be Decisive?"  Elliot notes entrepreneurship comes with no guarantees.  It requires deciding on what direction to take and having a constitution strong enough to maintain that direction confidently.  Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, which is redefining the dating world by creating opportunities for singles to revitalize personal interests and find intriguing people who will influence their lives.  Before founding The Grace List, Elliot worked as a social entrepreneur and business development consultant.  Elliott graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Entrepreneur Life Myths and Realities - Hattie Elliot

In Chapter 13 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, The Grace List founder and entrepreneur Hattie Elliot answers "In Retrospect, What Has Been the Most Difficult Part About Being an Entrepreneur?"  Elliot shares how entrepreneurship is an exhausting pursuit full of fast and unexpected changes and lots of hard work.  She notes how youth culture is conditioned via media to expect big prizes and rewards come with little effort.  Elliot notes how far away this is from the entrepreneur life reality.  Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, which is redefining the dating world by creating opportunities for singles to revitalize personal interests and find intriguing people who will influence their lives.  Before founding The Grace List, Elliot worked as a social entrepreneur and business development consultant.  Elliott graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

Stacie Bloom: A Day in the Life of a Bench Research Scientist

In Chapter 10 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "What Do You Respect Most About People Doing Bench or Laboratory Science Research?" She believes the people who are working as the bench scientists are the people who are solving the problems of the world. She shares the challenge life scientists encounter in their work and the persistence and commitment required to succeed in the job.

Stacie Grossman Bloom is the Executive Director at the NYU Neuroscience Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center. Previously, she was VP and Scientific Director at the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS). She earned her PhD in Neurobiology and Cell Biology at Georgetown University and did a post-doctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University in New York City. She earned her BA in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of Delaware.

Transcript: 

Erik Michielsen: What do you respect most about people doing bench or laboratory science research?

Stacie Grossman Bloom: The people who are working as the bench scientists are the people who are solving the problems of the world. I think every physician who is treating patients in the clinic should have to have a glimpse into the day of a bench scientist, on a day that the experiment isn’t working well.

Erik Michielsen: What does it look like?

Stacie: It’s really frustrating and it’s really hard and usually you are surrounded -- if you are a life scientist -- you are usually surrounded by a million little, tiny, labeled tubes, and pipette tips, and radiation shields, and freezers, and maybe mice, and you’re probably there at two o’clock in the morning, 3 o’clock in the morning because everything is always timed. I appreciate their commitment to that job. That job does not pay well. It’s really hard. And for every experiment that results in a high-quality scientific publication, there are probably a hundred that failed.

Courtney Spence on How Non-Profit Shifts From Survival to Growth Mode

In Chapter 3 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit founder and executive Courtney Spence answers "What is Enabling Your Ambition to Shift Away from How to Survive to How to Thrive?" After seven years in operation, Spence finds her organization hitting an inflection point from a small budget and staffed organization operating in a recession to a future-focused organization ready to scale. She finds conversations shift from verbal support to actionable requests to help. Spence is founder and executive director of Students of the World, a non-profit that partners with passionate college students to create new media to highlight global issues and the organizations working to address them. Spence graduated with a BA in History from Duke University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is enabling your ambition to shift away from ‘how to survive’ to ‘how to thrive’?

Courtney Spence:  It’s interesting.  So we’ve been doing this for 11 years.  This is our eleventh year.  That’s—now we’ve been doing it as a national 501c3 nonprofit for seven, almost eight now.  I’ll start at, you know, at that eight year mark because that’s really when I was envisioning, you know, a national organization, a national nonprofit, you know, especially being as young as I was, you know, you set these insane benchmarks and so this concept of where would we be in 2011.  In my mind, when I was 23, looked very different than where we are now, but what has happened and what’s something I’m really appreciative of is that we’ve really done the hard work, and we’ve really, you know, what we’ve done with such a limited budget, with such a limited number of staff, through one of the most difficult financial, you know, crisis and times in our life, and, you know, in the history of this country, like I have to say I’m really proud of our team and of our students and of our organization for having been able to last through that, and its really been in the last six months that – what happened was I know there had to have been a change internally where all of a sudden I had more confidence, and I think coming off of this summer that was so incredible, coming off, you know, being able to be in New Orleans for the fifth anniversary of Katrina and seeing our partners there, you know, the inspiration that I took from the summer, I think probably changed something internally. 

Externally, what I noticed is conversations went from ‘oh you’re fighting a good fight, keep up the good work’, “aren’t you doing so great’ to ‘I wanna help, I’m taking out my Blackberry, I wanna connect with this person, and this person, and then let’s meet in two weeks and see where you are.’  So there was just this shift and that shift has happened in so many various relationships that we have at Students of the World that you just feel this momentum and this movement that’s happening.  And, you know, as the space that we live in, which is, you know, empowering young people to tell stories of progress through cause-related media, you know, young people have been interested in traveling the world and have increasingly had the capacity, and the skills, and the knowledge, and the equipment to do this work.  And finally, I think this -- the concept of nonprofit storytelling really is coming into its own.  You know, so all of these things kind of, you know, come together, and what you realize is that, you know, you actually have an ability to see not just where are we in three months, but where do we wanna be in three years, where do we wanna be in ten years, what is the real big difference we’re here to make, what’s our BHAG, what’s our big hairy audacious goal, what is our purpose. 

When you’re just trying to survive and you’re just trying to pay the rent, and pay your employees, and get the work done, and you’re focused like this, you’re not able to think and not able to see long term, and you have – there are moments where you have to be like that, but its been very exciting to watch sort of our horizons go from here to sort of like this, and like I’m able to now see possibilities where before it was – they weren’t necessarily there or I wasn’t seeing them.  So it’s a combination of a lot of things but this point where you’re, you know, between surviving and thriving, it’s a very exciting but it’s also a very scary place to be.

The 6 Stages of the Entrepreneur Journey - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 8 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares the six (6) stages of the entrepreneurial journey. The first step is the "You" stage. This is the beginning of using skills and abilities. The second is the "Question" stage where entrepreneurs find what specifically they seek to answer. Stage three is ideation, answering the question and birthing a product, experience or cause the world needs. "The Valley of Death" is stage four, where the entrepreneur must sell to a customer. Stage five is the "growth phase" or sustainability. Here what was the founding team becomes culture and scale questions must be answered. Stage six is "Re-Bootstrap" where the business must continually re-invent itself. Goswami cites Apple as the best example of a company rebootstrapping itself continuously over its lifespan. Goswami lives in Austin, TX, where he develops models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully. He teaches his models through community activism, lectures, writing, and online communication. Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software. Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History.

How to Recruit Talent Based on Vision - Dan Street

In Chapter 5 of 20 of his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, software entrepreneur and Loku founder and CEO Dan Street shares how hiring is the most uncomfortable part of starting a company. Street struggles to recruit others based on his vision instead of what he can pay today. He shares how he balances an iterative process shaping his vision with conveying that vision to others in both recruiting and team leadership. Street is the founder and CEO of Loku (previously named Borrowed Sugar) which develops Internet software to strengthen local communities. Previously, Street worked in private equity at Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts (KKR) and management consulting at Bain & Co. He earned a BA in music and business from Rice University.

How Film Director Rethinks Career After Initial Success - Tricia Regan

In Chapter 3 of 10 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, filmmaker Tricia Regan shares how she is rethinking her film career. In her 2009 interview with Capture Your Flag, Regan had recently won an Emmy Award for her documentary "Autism: The Musical". Since, she has had multiple projects fall through. In between film projects and working in television, Regan thinks about next film opportunities, including documentary and scripted or narrative film. Regan is an Emmy-Award winning filmmaker. She directed, produced and shot "Autism: The Musical." When not shooting documentary films, Regan has worked as a director, producer, and writer at ABC, NBC, FOX, and Lifetime. She earned a bachelors from Binghamton University and masters from New York University.

How to Find Mentors and Receive Support in Difficult Times - Doug Jaeger

In Chapter 6 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer Doug Jaeger talks about finding support from mentors and friends in difficult times. Jaeger shares approaches he has used through low times he experienced losing a parent and also a business. He finds mentor support to understand business challenges and not resist looking at both positive and negative sides to solving a particular problem. Ultimately this helps Jaeger identify what is truly important so he may address the problem or issue with greater clarity. Jaeger is a partner at design firm JaegerSloan - http://jaegersloan.com/ - and is also president of the Art Director's Club - http://www.adcglobal.org/ . Previously he founded thehappycorp and has served in creative director leadership roles at TBWA/Chiat/Day and JWT. Jaeger holds a BFA in Computer Graphics and Art Media Studies from Syracuse University.

Simon Sinek on What the Military Teaches About the Importance of Planning

In Chapter 12 of 20 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author and leadership expert Simon Sinek shares what working with the military, including the Air Force, has taught him about planning. Specifically, Sinek learns planning is much more valuable as a process than as an event. He paraphrases President Dwight Eisenhower's statement "In preparation for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Sinek learns plans too often go wrong but the process of planning creates more responsive reaction and problem solving in the face of adversity and uncertainty. Simon Sinek is a trained ethnographer who applies his curiosity around why people do what they do to teach leaders and companies how to inspire people. He is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". Sinek holds a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen: What have you learned about planning from the military?

Simon Sinek: One of the things that I think is very interesting, the difference between at least the Air Force, and -- and the military at large – and the private sector, is “planning” quote, un-quote, is something that happens in businesses either once a year – it’s either you know, your annual strategic whatever -- or when something goes wrong. We have to have planning sessions. And that’s pretty much the only time there’s planning, right? In reaction to something, or this prescribed annual event.

In the military, and in the Air Force, they’re constantly, constantly, constantly planning. And they will produce thousands of plans a year of which only maybe a few hundred will get implemented. And, you know, Dwight Eisenhower said a long time ago – and I never understood what he meant until recently – when he said, “planning is everything; the plan is nothing.” And basically what that means is the plan is irrelevant the minute you try to implement it because your competition, the enemy, whoever it is, they’re not following your plan, you know? And your plan will go wrong almost as soon as it’s implemented.

And it’s this constant process of planning. That it’s not the plan, per se, but it’s the process of planning, that if something does go wrong, you can react to it. One of the interesting practical applications for this was the housing crisis, the economic crisis. Which was, the actuaries had figured out that there was a 99 percent chance of success for this mortgage-backed security thing. And they thought, “oh my god we’re all gonna get rich, let’s do this thing” and they did, and we all know exactly what happened. The problem is there was no plan for that one percent that happened, which is the housing market collapsed. There was no plan ever developed or thought about if the one percent were to happen.

In the military, I can promise you, they would have thought about that opportunity, if that – “what would … how would we react if that happens?” Um, and panic is what ensued and nobody knew the answer, and things collapsed, and banks collapsed, and people lost money because there was no plan. And now the planning began and we’re still digging ourselves out of the hole, only because planning was an event and not a process.

Simon Sinek on Why to Use Momentum to Define and Measure Career Success

In Chapter 5 of 20 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author and leadership expert Simon Sinek shares why momentum, not results, is how he measures success. He notes how success is something everyone pursues but few can measure and define. Sinek is less concerned with financial or lifestyle markers as success measurements and more about momentum, and seeing things start and begin to roll by themselves. He compares this to a rolling stone that gathers no moss and layers his purpose to keep that initiative moving. Simon Sinek is a trained ethnographer who applies his curiosity around why people do what they do to teach leaders and companies how to inspire people. He is the author of "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action". Sinek holds a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University.

Transcript

Erik Michielsen:  Why is momentum fundamental in measuring and understanding success?

Simon Sinek: Success is an elusive thing, right? What is it? And I think it’s very interesting, that if most people can’t define success – “well it means you made x amount of dollars,” or - but if you make x amount of dollars but you spend more, are you successful? Or “well it means you come home happy everyday” Okay, how do you know you’re happy, you know? Uh, so, I think success is a funny thing, which is, we all seem to pursue it but we don’t know how to measure it or actually how to define it. 

So how do you pursue something that you can’t measure? Fascinating. So, when people say to me “how do you measure success?’ The a question we all have to ask ourselves, “Am I successful?” I don’t know, I mean, I had a good year last year, uh, and what does that mean? Does that mean I made a lot of money? Does that mean I was really happy? I’ll let you decide, right? Maybe neither, maybe both. I had a good year last year, but am I successful? And the answer is no, I don’t feel I am, because I am trying to build a world that doesn’t exist yet. I’m trying to build a world in which 90 percent of the people go home at the end of the day feeling fulfilled by the work that they do. So I definitely took a step – a big step towards that goal but I’m still so far away. So somebody said to me, “then how do you know if you’re successful?” And the answer is, if it can go by itself. 

And so what is more interesting to me as a measurement of success, it’s not the markers per se, it’s not the financial goal, or the size of the house that you want to buy, those are nice things. Go for it, but those, those are not measurements of success, those are just nice things to collect along the way. For me, it’s momentum, I want a measure of momentum, which is – you know – when something is moving and you start to see it lose momentum, you’re like, “uh oh, give it a push,” because if you don’t give it a push it’s gonna stop. And an object in stasis is much harder to get going. It requires a lot more energy to get something started than it does to keep it going, right? 

And so, if you don’t let it stop and you can keep it going – you know it still might slow down there but you can get it going again much easier. And for me the opportunity is to get the ball rolling faster and faster and faster and faster and bigger and bigger; it’s like a snowball. And my responsibility is – because it’s not going down hill yet, it’s not on automatic yet – I need to still keep it going, to find that critical mass where it can go ‘Psssshh.’ 

And at the point it can go by itself without me, I need to find something else to do. And that may not happen in my lifetime. I think we must all stop measuring promotions, salaries, and these things, but rather measure the momentum of my career. “Does my career have momentum? Can I see it moving in the right direction? Can I see it gathering moss?” You know? “Can I see that’s it’s easier, becoming easier for me to keep the momentum? It’s becoming easier for me to grow, the size of this thing, it’s requiring less effort.” That’s the thing that we need to measure. That’s the thing that we need to be cognizant of, which is the momentum of our careers, not just the markers that we think define our success.

Why to Work in Innovative and Disruptive Industries - Geoff Hamm

In Chapter 10 of 16 of his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, online media sales executive Geoff Hamm shares why he enjoys working in innovation rich industries. Hamm, a 15-year Internet industry veteran, notes the necessary perseverance investment and potential payoff, highlighting a big career moment when a large telecommunications company Chief Marketing Officer - CMO - committed the majority of its advertising spend to digital, rather than television. Hamm graduated from the University of Illinois - http://illinois.edu/ - and is now SVP of Sales at at Scribd http://www.scribd.com/ in Silicon Valley. Previously he held online sales management positions at Electronic Arts, Yahoo!, Orbitz, IAC, and Excite.

How Patience and Perseverance Build Career Momentum - Brett Goldman

In Chapter 3 of 10 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, real estate development acquisitions director Brett Goldman details how patience and perseverance create career momentum. He highlights the need to have patience in order to persevere and have the will to continue. Brett Goldman is a Real Estate Acquisitions Director at Triangle Equities - http://www.triangleequities.com/ - in New York City. Goldman holds a BA in General Studies from the University of Michigan - http://www.umich.edu/ - and a masters in real estate development from Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation - http://www.arch.columbia.edu/ View more videos at http://www.captureyourflag.com

How Project Design Informs Conservation Biology Career - Alayne Cotterill

In Chapter 10 of 13 in her 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag Host Erik Michielsen, wildlife biologist Alayne Cotterill shares why designing a project from scratch, from concept to funding to execution, has been a major milestone in her wildlife biologist career development. Cotterill, a conservation biologist who studies large animal behavior, including lions, details how working in the African bush necessitates adaptability in her project work. Learn more about Alayne's work at http://www.lionconservation.org.

What Do Entrepreneurs and Food Professionals Have in Common - Sarah Simmons

In Chapter 11 of 16 of her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Food and Wine Magazine 2010 Home Cook Superstar, Bon Appetit contributor, and food entrepreneur Sarah Simmons shares common approaches between entrepreneurs and aspiring food professionals. Simmons, who left a digital marketing career for one in food, shares how commitment and perseverance help both sides through the long work hours and bootstrapping process. Learn more about Sarah at http://sarahmcsimmons.com.

Why Your Biggest Competitor Should Be Yourself - Sarah Simmons

In Chapter 10 of 16 of her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Food and Wine Magazine 2010 Home Cook Superstar, Bon Appetit contributor, and food entrepreneur Sarah Simmons competes against herself by setting micro-goals and stretch goals. Leaving a retail digital strategy consulting career behind to follow her passion for food, Simmons uses micro-goals to complement her enthusiasm and curiosity to progressively structure a career path. Learn more about Sarah at http://sarahmcsimmons.com.

Courtney Spence on How Rejection Can Strengthen Fundraising Resolve

In Chapter 15 of 15 of her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Courtney Spence answers "How did the Duke University Administration help your organization get started?" Spence shares how she secured school administration financing to launch what would eventually become her non-profit Students of the World. Spence pitches the idea to several Duke University administration officials. Early rejection pushes Spence to refine her pitch and continue presenting it to potential investors. Ultimately, Spence connects with the Vice President of Student Affairs, receives financing, and goes back to those who had rejected the idea and ultimately finance the project.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: How did the Duke University Administration help your organization get started?

Courtney Spence:  I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the Duke Administration, both for the people that said yes and for the people that said no.  I think I went on this journey my sophomore year and I tried to take a meeting with any person at Duke that would sit down and talk with me. Even if I didn’t think they were necessarily directly related to international documentary work and student activism and organizations.  I would take a meeting just to say, “Hey, let me tell you about this idea I have.  What do you think?”  And if it made sense for me to say, “Hey, would you – your office – would this be something you would invest in?” Or approach people for money, or who else should I speak to, or just for advice.  And we got a lot of “No’s” at the beginning and a lot of people were, I think sometimes, I think rightly so, administrations are a little bit hesitate to start up student organizations because they happen so frequently and because of turnover you see them die out once the founder graduates.  So, there is a hesitancy to invest heavily in sort of the crazier ideas initially, but I think by the people saying “No” it challenges you to go back and be like, “Do I really want to keep doing this? So, yes I do and yes I can.” 

And it also challenges you – “Well, what’s not quite right about this?  Why am I getting so many ‘No’s’ on this front?”  And then for us, it was a woman, Janet Dickerson, she was the Vice-President of Student Affairs at Duke at the time.  An incredible woman and I’ll never forget, we walked into her office – it was me and another student that was sort of co-founding the organization at that point.  We walked into Janet Dickerson’s office, told her what we wanted to do, had our little presentation and she said, “Yes.” When she said, “Yes.” She said, “Five thousand dollars.” “I’m going to set up a lunch meeting other related administrators and faculty members and sort of put their feet to the fire because I think this concept is new and kind of exciting.”  But what was really the most rewarding was there was a gentleman who had said, “No” you know that fall, so and you know, as we were trying to start the organization.  So, I went to him and he was like, “I think this is a great idea, but not one I think my office can invest in.”  I went back the following year and said, “Hey, so here’s what we did and this year we’re going to Cuba and is this something you want to be invested in?”  And he said, “Yes.”