It s a shame I've been sitting on this book for about two years now. A friend of mine gave me Never Eat Alone , by Keith Ferrazzi a couple years ago (thanks Rey), and it s been on my bookcase ever since. It was resting there not because I didn't want to read it, but because I already had so many others in the pipeline. I finally got around to reading it last month and I definitely recommend it. In very simple terms, Ferrazzi explains why networking is important and how to do it. From how to make call lists to planning dinners to personal branding to goal setting, it s all here. He also maintains a valuable blog .
Inevitably there will be times when you have setbacks or things don t go your way. Maybe you didn't get a job you thought you were sure to get. Maybe you lost a job unexpectedly, didn't win a contract, or lost a major client. Your car always seems to break down right after you've had some other unexpected expense. These kinds of situations immediately place us in crisis. They don t feel good, but sometimes they re what we need in order to grow. The beautiful thing about crises is that they force us to take a step back and reevaluate what s going on in our lives and rediscover what we truly want and need. When we get over that initial shock and feeling of disappointment, we might realize that maybe that job wasn't really the best for us anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that wasn't what you really wanted to spend your life doing. Maybe that friend was holding you back instead of pushing you forward. The way I deal with crises of these sorts is simple: If something doesn't go my way professionally, I try to create a situation that would be more rewarding than the situation originally planned. A while ago, I was offered a job that looked very promising. After I accepted the offer, they pushed the start date back three times, later informing me (via e-mail) that they wanted to bring me on in the near future but I should feel free to explore other options. I was extremely disappointed. I felt disrespected and angry, but decided to make the best of the situation and follow my dream of working internationally. I then flew to Santiago, Chile and had great professional and personal experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. Later, reflecting back on the original opportunity, I realized that working for a company that avoids a start date three times and then can t pick up the phone to explain the situation is probably not where I need to spend my time. Use setbacks as an opportunity to put your goals in order and act on them. In the moment, it s difficult to look at a setback as temporary, but they are. They happen to everybody. It s how you respond to them that will determine how they affect you.
The education system in the United States has devolved. Rather than a stepped system of progressively difficult intellectual challenges that temper a mind into a force of reason, our schools have become clone farms producing unthinking labor pawns.
Elementary education seeks to make sure our children learn and develop the basic skills needed to function in society. It is important for kids to practice the social interactions they’ll need throughout life and to master the fundamentals of reading, rhetoric, and reckoning upon which they are graded. It is at this very first level that our system makes its first error.
By a gradual creep of standardized tests, teacher evaluations, and school performance ratings installed to fairly disburse the thin funding our public schools receive, we built a mechanism that blames educators when students fail. Doing so creates a system in which teacher and school are best served passing the student, even if it’s not in the best interest of the student. Teachers teach their students answers, not knowledge, because the school knows that its funding is connected to the answers, not to the knowledge. The people that could fix this problem - involved parents - do not, because they are content with the good grades and steady progress that their child is showing within the system.
Complacency remains throughout primary education. Teachers do not promote reason or encourage thought. They toss softball questions at the students who have been trained to gently bat the appropriate response in return. This creates an illusion of discussion, but rarely is it allowed to become a debate. To debate would be an invitation to question the black-and-white, true-or-false, question-and-answer system that the teacher depends upon. If debate occurs, thought develops, opinions form, reasoning is activated, and suddenly questions don’t have one answer, they have many. Solutions are geometric rather than linear. Geometric solutions don’t fit on standardized tests. System failure.
But these are the ails of the primary education system. By college, those students meant to stay at the bottom are filtered out, and only those with serious academic interests are able to advance and become productive contributors to our economy, right? Not quite.
Our broken primary education system infects the universities in two ways. First, it delivers students that are neither rigorously conditioned nor inclined towards higher learning. Second, the same driving force that puts students through primary education regardless of their ability to reason is working at the college level as well. That force is funding.
Modern universities are not the hallowed halls of learning that we imagine them to be. They are middle men. A student makes a commitment to pay for four or more years of “education,” getting money, usually, from years of parents’ savings or borrowing on a very long-term loan. In exchange for that high price, the school sells the student the promise of a career with a higher wage than would be had without the college’s product. The college has a greater interest in passing students than failing them, regardless of that student’s ability, because passing students keep paying. They also have an interest in passing those students with high grades, because it provides the illusion of a quality education, which people will line up to buy.
There was a time that the rubber-stamp degrees and grade inflation would have been impossible because the workforce would have found those graduates to be sub-par. But sub-par is the new par, and employers prefer to simply set a standard for entry and then shape qualified applicants to their specifications. What is that standard for entry? A degree. It doesn’t matter what kind or from where, just have one. It doesn’t matter because the companies don’t really care how well a student is educated, only that they will commit and conform. They want a person who has done what they were told, without asking why, for years on end, until a goal was achieved.
When a student in the United States graduates, that student has learned little of value unless that student was inclined to seek knowledge on his or her own accord. Teachers, administrators, members of boards of education, some parents, and many students (particularly college students) will take issue with that statement. Who am I to level such criticism against the curricula or hard-working faculty of our country’s learning institutions? I haven’t been a student, officially, in over 15 years. I quit community college. What gives me the right?
I’m just a guy who thinks about things. I’ve also found that when I compare myself to college graduates that I’ve met, I tend to be more well-read, have a greater vocabulary, and possess a broader understanding of a wider variety of subjects. I’ve laid eyes upon chronic spelling and grammatical errors written by degreed individuals. I’ve listened as college graduates demonstrate limited comprehension of the basics of geography, history, science, and U.S. law. I’m not bringing these things up to prove how smart I think I am. I’m bringing them up because a degree is supposed to mean that the person holding the degree possesses all of that knowledge and possesses additional specialized information. It means no such thing anymore, and thus diminishes the degree. All degrees.
Modern education has become meaningless in every way except as a golden ticket. Though an extended education may be worthwhile for highly specialized fields, most workers would be best served through apprenticeship and self-study. The men who designed the pyramids or the Roman Colosseum did not hold structural engineering degrees. Why should someone today need one to build a fast food restaurant?
If anybody ever needed a reason to study marine biology, here it is. Although minuscule, the pistol shrimp makes tremendous waves (actually bubbles) that force larger animals to take notice. The pistol shrimp uses it’s abnormally large claw to both communicate and shoot bubbles. These bubbles, which can reach temperatures of up to 4,700ºC (close to the temperature of the sun), are capable of taking out larger fish and breaking small glass jars, and compete with much larger animals like the Sperm Whale and Beluga Whale for the title of “Loudest animal in the sea.”
What does this teach us about small business and personal philosophy?
Small business in important
Many find small business insignificant. However, according to the the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), small business drives the economy, employing 99.7% of all Americans. Larger companies make the headlines, but smaller companies often account for the technology, ideas, and innovation they acquire.
You don’t have to be a major player to make noise
The pistol shrimp uses one claw to generate a sound that competes with the noises made by the Sperm Whale and Beluga Whale. In business, as in society, you don’t have to be huge to be heard. Dell Computers began from a guy selling computers out the back of his car. With new communication tools like blogs, Twitter, etc., you don’t have to be famous to start or become involved in a conversation.
Partnerships are paramount
Back in the day, competition reigned. Today, we have to work together. There are more options than ever, and people buy products and services based on affinity with a brand. The pistol shrimp typically involves itself in a symbiotic relationship by sharing burrows with goby fish. The goby fish, with its sharp vision, provides a warning mechanism to the pistol shrimp, while the pistol shrimp provides protection. Who can you work with to make bigger waves?
Without goals we can’t build strategy
The pistol shrimp must be accurate to ensure survival. Because of its relatively small size, if it misses its mark, the shrimp risks becoming the one that falls prey. We need to develop a clear set of goals in order to develop a strategy for obtaining them. Also, having goals is not enough. Putting a plan in place and acting on those plans are necessary to reach them.
Conclusion
The pistol shrimp may be small, but is far from insignificant. They teach a valuable lesson for business, society, and personal relationships. Whether you’re a small business owner, an employee, a person with an idea or thought—don’t feel as though you aren’t big enough to make a difference. Figure out what you want to do, develop a plan, and do it.
Two others animals using projectile weaponry are the Archer Fish and Velvet Worm. Check them out.