How Photography Passion Plays into Creative Career - Doug Jaeger

In Chapter 11 of 17 in his 2012 interview, entrepreneur Doug Jaeger answers "What Role Does Photography Play in Your Life?"  Jaeger shares how a childhood passion progressively has developed into an income earning resource.  He shares examples how he is learning both on the job and in daily life as he captures his world on film and shares the experiences with family and friends.  Doug Jaeger is the co-founder of JaegerSloan, a multimedia design services firm in New York City.  His street front office doubles as the JS55 Gallery. Jaeger is also an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts (SVA).  He graduated from Syracuse University.

How Julie Hession Turns Cooking Passion Into Food Career

In Chapter 4 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Biederman Hession answers "What is the Source of Your Cooking Passion?  As a child, Hession's mom gives Juile the freedom to experiment in the kitchen.  Growing up she gets more comfortable around food by playing restaurant, building 5-course menus with a Sesame Street Cookbook.  Many years later, while in business school, Hession re-immerses herself in cooking, building confidence in dinner parties and food events.  Near the end of business school, Hession finds a mentor in food entrepreneur Sarah Foster, who connects Julie to Patricia Kluge.  Hession goes on to work for Kluge and build a farm shop, launching her career in food.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

How Children Inspire Parents - Ramsey Pryor

In Chapter 4 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Ramsey Pryor answers "How Do Your Children Inspire You?"  Pryor finds inspiration in children's honesty and transparency.  He also finds inspiration experimenting with different ways to raise the kids, learning from these decisions along the way.  Pryor is currently a product management executive at IBM focused on cloud-based communication and collaboration software.  Previously he was VP Product Marketing at Outblaze, acquired by IBM.  Pryor earned an MBA from IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain and a BA in Economics and Spanish from Northwestern University. 

How Childhood Informs Adult View of a Life Well Lived - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 1 of 22 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "When are You at Your Best?"  She finds she is at her best when she is doing something meaningful.  She goes into detail about when and how this happens and what it allows her to project that energy into the world.  She shares how as a child she learned to appreciate and embrace dance.  As Godiwalla focuses more and more on dancing, she learns progressively cultivates her passion, deriving happiness from the process.  Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street". She is also a public speaker on workplace diversity and founder and CEO of Mindworks, where she teaches mind-based stress reduction techniques to help organizations improve employee wellbeing.  Godiwalla holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, an MA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth University and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  When are you at your best?

Nina Godiwalla:  I’m at my best when I’m doing something that I think is meaningful.  I think in general, kind of 99% of us are just kind of going through life for what it is and then there’s those rare moments where something just really sparks for me and I have something that I’m just extraordinarily excited about and when I’m in that – when I’m concentrated and focused on that, I find that – I find that usually it can be above average but when I have that, I find myself just kind of soaring above everything and part of it is just that I’m thrilled and happy with what I’m doing.

Erik Michielsen:  Do you remember back to your childhood when you first remember that happening?

Nina Godiwalla:  There wasn’t a whole lot in my childhood that -- I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for things like that.  I – one thing I really enjoyed in my childhood, it was – we didn’t have a lot of hobbies.  My parents were immigrants and it wasn’t the – we did not have the life where you go do piano and then this and then that and that. The one thing we did was dance because my mom always wanted to be a ballerina and so she had me and she tried to get all of us, there’s four girls.  Each child, she would just be like, “Okay, that’s our thing, we’re doing dance.  You guys are going to dance classes.” So, me – two of us caught on to the dance thing, my older sister, my younger sister, they never really did much of it but me and my – the two middle kids, me and my sister, we really enjoyed dance so we would be in dance probably like four or five nights a week, we joined a company and we’re dancing. So for me that was something I loved and we did for fun but otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot we did for fun.  It was just kind of you know, we just did what we needed to do, we had to do well in school, we hung out with our friends, like more social but the dancing for me was like where my passion lied growing up.

How Drummer Learns to Practice More Effectively - Conrad Doucette

In Chapter 7 of 21 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, musician and Takka Takka drummer Conrad Doucette answers "How Have You Learned to Practice More Effectively as You Have Gained Drumming Experience?"  Doucette finds himself returning to the fundamentals drumming curriculum he used early in his career, including early marching band practice regiments.  After falling out of a fixed practice schedule, Doucette is introduced to a drumming book, "Stick Control", which brings him back to a regular practice routine.  Doucette is the drummer for the Brooklyn-based band Takka Takka.  He also performs with The National, Okkervil River, and Alina Simone.  When not performing, Doucette works as a copywriter, blogger, and digital media producer.  He has worked at Blender, Fuse TV, and Heavy.com.  Doucette earned his BA in History from the University of Michigan. 

Why Study Electrical Engineering - Ben Hallen

In Chapter 4 of 21 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, business school professor Ben Hallen answers "What Made You Decide to Study Electrical Engineering in College?" Hallen notes his childhood aspiration to pursue a business management career and how he saw electrical engineering as a means to that end. He also finds studying electrical engineering allows him to study his passions for mathematics. Hallen is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at University of Maryland. Hallen earned his PhD from Stanford University and its Stanford Technology Venture Program (STVP). He has been a startup CTO and graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  What made you decide to study electrical engineering in college?

Ben Hallen:  I wanted to be an executive, and so the experience I had growing up, I had seen a lot of companies and managers, junior executives, who came from an engineering background, so engineering seemed to be an appropriate place to start if I wanted to do that.  You know, now I would have to say, given more of what I know, there’s a whole variety of paths to do that, you know, ranging from the liberal arts to I particularly think business schools can be very good at that but I happened to choose engineering. 

And then, why electrical?  You know, a couple of reasons.  One, I was interested in computers; they were taking off.  That was before they had computer engineering as a major.  That’s effectively what I ended up majoring in but that wasn’t quite around yet.  But, more broadly, it was – it involved a lot of the math that I really liked, and I think at the time I would have justified it as very instrumental, that this makes sense because these are skills I can use. 

I think in retrospect, what it afforded was an opportunity to really study in something I was passionate about.  You know, do I use that math at all?  No.  Not a whole lot.  You know, yes, I do a lot of computer programming.  I do a lot of discrete mathematics from my time at graduate school but, you know, in terms of differential equations and, you know, Fourier transforms, that’s not something I use every day, but to have that opportunity to really get passionate about the mathematics, just for the essence of the mathematics itself, I’m really glad I had that experience, and so I learned a lesson that I didn’t think I was going to learn there in retrospect.

Stacie Bloom on Discovering a Passion for Science

In Chapter 1 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, Stacie Grossman Bloom answers "When Did You First Become Interested in Science?" She shares how it began as a child, from capturing fireflies to choosing Trivia Pursuit green (or science) questions to naturally being inquisitive to reading an Encyclopedia Britannica set end to end.

Stacie Grossman Bloom is now 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: When did you first become interested in science?

Stacie Grossman Bloom: So, I became interested in science as a little kid, I think. I was always sort of running around the yard and capturing fireflies and looking at insects and playing with things, playing trivial pursuit -- I always wanted to land on the green, I was always I think naturally inquisitive and always really interested in science. I can’t remember really a time that I wasn’t questioning things, my surroundings, myself, religion. And I just really can’t remember a time where that wasn’t something interesting to me.

Erik Michielsen: What about this encyclopedia set that you picked up when you were 6 or 7 years old?

Stacie Grossman Bloom: So, when I was a kid there was a traveling encyclopedia salesman who came through my town and my father bought, at our front door, bought a set of encyclopedia Britannica’s -- those really big leather bound expensive sets of books. And, either he bought it separately or it came with like a children’s encyclopedia set. And, I remember literally reading the entire encyclopedia set. Starting with A and going all the way to the end and it was all illustrated, it was perfect for kids. Literally read the whole encyclopedia.

How Childhood Passions Lead to Design and Technology Career - Jon Kolko

In Chapter 3 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer and educator Jon Kolko shares the stories behind his childhood interests in art and technology. Early studio art ceramics work pushes Kolko to be creative. As a child, Kolko plays with early Internet computers to call pirate bulletin boards and hack RIT password files. Collectively, these shape Kolko's education, leading him to Carnegie Mellon University and catapulting him into his career. Kolko is the executive director of design strategy at venture accelerator, Thinktiv (www.thinktiv.com). He is the founder and director of the Austin School for Design (www.ac4d.com). Previously, he worked at frog design and was a professor of Interactive and Industrial Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). He has authored multiple books on design. Kolko earned his Masters in Human Computer Interaction (MHI) and BFA in Design from Carnegie Mellon University.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  Where did your passions for technology and art originate?

Jon Kolko:  My passion for art originated through a ceramics – ceramics mentor of mine named Alec Haislip.  He’s one of the premier potters in Upstate New York. He studied with a number of the folks that were responsible for Bauhaus and things like that and – so I studied wheel thrown ceramics for as long as I can remember. 

I think I started when I was 5 or 6 and that was like a thing to do and then it became a release and then it became – now, it is a, ‘Wow!  I wish I had more time on Saturdays to spend in my studio.’  Very much art driven.  It’s functional ceramics but it’s also, let’s make it the way I want to make it.  There’s no constraints.  There’s no clients.  There’s no deadlines. 

On the technology side I’ve spent a great deal of time playing with the early foundations of the internet and I was using dial out remote BBSes on remote voxes at RIT when I was 7 or 8 years old to call you know pirate bulletin boards and stuff like that.  Like, we got a cease and desist, my dad actually still has this letter, we have cease and desist from one of RIT’s heads of technology ‘cause we’ve – we’ve hacked their password file back then.  It was like you run crackerjack overnight and it brute force hits it with anything, what I am gonna do with a bunch of accounts to RIT’s vox but I do remember you know getting my first Magnavox 28612 and going to town on it, also the Apple 2c and all that good stuff so I know both of those – were – were pretty prevalent in my life growing up and then it sounds like it was well designed but it was in fact very arbitrary that I ended up going to Carnegie Mellon. 

I remember I got a brochure to attend pre-college there for design, I thought it was cool.  I went - I went to undergrad there, I continued to do my Masters there and years later, you do some research and you’re like, ‘Wow!  That’s like the epicenter of everything technology leading up into what is now normal culture.’  So, you know I think I got super lucky with all of those things, sort of leading to what is now my – my job, my career, and my passions.

How Passion for Studying People Develops - Hammans Stallings

In Chapter 3 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, innovation strategist Hammans Stallings shares what keeps him curious about learning new things. Stallings constantly looks for gaps and sees them as opportunities to improve. Always comfortable as an outsider, Stallings embraces studying human behavior and learning from it. Stallings is currently a Senior Strategist at frog design. Previously he worked in business strategy at Dell and investment banking at Stephens. He earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and a BA in Economics and Psychology from the University of Virginia.

How International Upbringing Benefits Child Development - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 3 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares his personal experience in answering what are the benefits of an international upbringing. At its core, it teaches both the diversity of experience and the commonality of experience. Born in Bangalore, India and raised in Hong Kong, he learns to see people as individuals and not as races or nationalities. He also learns to appreciate where he lives, for example the United States, by gaining perspective living abroad. 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 Cultivate a Passion for Teaching - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 7 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares how he cultivated his teaching passion. He learns when and how to use teaching as a communication tool. He finds he learns more from teaching that what he gives. Ultimately, Goswami finds the greatest reward when a student applies what he teaches to their lives. He reflects back on his childhood and the formative teaching experiences that have shaped who he is today. 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 Parents Encourage Child's Creative Development - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 2 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how his parents have allowed him to develop as a creative. Hinkle challenges authority early and through his journey, his parents, classically trained musicians, support his decisions, including dropping out of high school as a freshman. They allow Hinkle to make his own choices, including helping him move to Florida to live with artists. This allows Hinkle not only to become more creative but also more confident and independent. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

How Chocolate Passion Teaches Storytelling Skills - Michael Margolis

In Chapter 4 of 13 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with Erik Michielsen, storyteller and entrepreneur Michael Margolis shares his passion for chocolate, its history, and its relevance in his life. Margolis, who describes his Switzerland-based early years as a "Willie Wonka Childhood", explains how his love of cacao and chocolate have helped him bring people together and also understand narrative and storytelling. Margolis is the founder and president of Get Storied (http://www.getstoried.com), an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative. As a consultant, educator and writer he uses storytelling to create more effective branding, innovation and culture change. Margolis earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University.

How Learning by Doing Shapes Creative Career - Cathy Erway

In Chapter 1 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with Erik Michielsen, author and food writer Cathy Erway shares how experiential learning, or learning by doing, has impacted her career development. Childhood experiences putting on shows, rather than watching them, shape Erway's storytelling interest. After college, Erway chooses trial and error over instructional writing to learn to cook. Erway is the author of "The Art of Eating In: How I learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove." She writes two blogs, "Not Eating Out in New York" (http://www.noteatingoutinny.com ) and "Lunch at Six Point" (http://www.lunchatsixpoint.com ). Erway earned her B.A. in Creative Writing from Emerson College.

How to Align Career Purpose With Childhood Ambition - Doug Jaeger

In Chapter 8 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, designer Doug Jaeger shares how his aspirations and goals have changed from his childhood, through his 20s, and into his 30s. After finding early success and the associated financial rewards, Jaeger begins aligning his creative career aspirations with early childhood aims to contribute by creating lasting media. 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 How Childhood Influences Cultural Anthropology Research Career

In Chapter 10 of 20 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, author and leadership expert Simon Sinek shares how his childhood and education have shaped his approach to cultural anthropology, ethnography, and research. Sinek believes research should be done away from focus groups and in the field, especially in uncomfortable environments. His curiosity turns discomfort into a motivating factor he uses to better understand his subjects. 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: How has your anthropology background proven helpful working in unfamiliar environments, including with the United States military?

Simon Sinek: Being trained as an ethnographer being trained and sort of having this cultural anthropology background, significantly changes the way of how I do my work, or being in strange or different situations. This is why I’m against focus groups. I think the concept of a focus group is laughable. That you bring people in to a sterile research environment, so that the researcher can be comfortable and safe and happy, but the respondents – the people who you want to be open and honest – are the ones who are uncomfortable and on-edge, that’s backwards to me. 

It’s the responsibility of the researcher to go to the respondents. It’s the responsibility of the researcher to go into the environment, into the homes, into the societies, into the buildings, into the offices of the people that they want to study and understand. It’s the responsibility of the researcher to deal with the discomfort, rather than forcing the respondent to be uncomfortable. 

So that’s how I was raised, both academically, and also that’s how I was actually raised. I lived all over the world. As a kid, we traveled around a lot, and so I will always go to somebody if I’m interested in them, and I believe they are the ones who should be comfortable and I’m the one who should be uncomfortable. That’s correct, because that way you get the best answers. And so, because that’s how I’ve always done things, I have no problem going to very unfamiliar environments. For me it’s an object of curiosity, if I’m uncomfortable I want to understand what’s making me uncomfortable and I think that’s kind of cool.

How Manager and Director Leadership Roles Differ - Caroline Giegerich

In Chapter 3 of 10 of her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, marketing innovator and digital strategist Caroline Giegerich shares what has changed moving from a manager role to a director role. As a manager at HBO, Giegerich was not responsible for a team. Instead, she focuses on managing up, which she relates to growing up and building relationships with parents. In her new role, she learns to lead and empower a team by both managing up and down. Giegerich is currently Director of Innovations at Initiative, where she brainstorms and executes cross-platform marketing strategies. She has worked in online marketing roles at both HBO and the Los Angeles Times. She holds a BA in Pre-Med Sciences and Philosophy from Brown University.

How Dad Teaches Son Valuable Social Skills - Geoff Hamm

In Chapter 1 of 16 of his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, online media sales executive Geoff Hamm grows up going to work, a community college, with his father. Hamm's dad encourages him to take the initiative and introduce himself to the many people he meets each week at his dad's office. Over time, this openness to meeting people helps Hamm navigate a school change in college and sets the foundation for his sales career. 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.