In January of this year I read The 4 Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris. The book came into my life at a time when I was making some big decisions and has been influential and inspiring. After each chapter the author challenges the reader to take action. One challenge is called ‘Finding Yoda’ and the reader is supposed to track down a big player in their industry and ask them a question or two. If possible to reader should also ask for permission to follow up via email. This was one of the few exercises in the book that I didn’t do immediately. It’s taken me a while to actually do it, although I did place a couple phone calls.
Turns out it may be easier to meet some people in person. The pics below show me meeting three of my Yodas. Picture one is with Meg Whitman, two is with THE Seth Godin and three is with Chris Brogan.
Meeting Seth was by far the most influential encounter I have had this year. His direct questioning of my current projects and passions caught me off guard and forced me to think about where I was and where I wanted to be. His main advice was to pick one project and work on it full force rather than split up your time over many projects. Set a date and ship, you can always do a version 2.0 later. Seth responded to an email I sent him and is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met.
Meg Whitman was nice and earthy. I found her taller than expected but grounded. We discussed business in California and the need to make the State business friendly so we can keep industry growing and job creation possible.
Chris Brogan was a bit of a surprise. I didn’t know a ton about him other than following @ChrisBrogan on Twitter. He discussed business in the modern age with an amazing style of humor, candor and intellect that I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered before. One major tip that I got from Chris was that your blog posts are a legacy that keeps working after you’ve done the typing. He had a fancy analogy about commerce, jokes and exchange but the meat of it is that if your posts solve one persons problem there are most likely other people that have that problem and it can help them too. Next time you get an email from somebody asking for advice in your field answer it in the form of a blog post and then send the person the link. It’s like you’re messing with Karma because you’re putting all this good information out there and you know it’s going to come back to you someday.
I leave you with a quote from one of Godin’s recent posts titled Heroes and mentors:
“Like a custom made suit, a mentor is a fine thing to have if you can find or afford it. But for the rest of us, heroes will have to do.”
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