Monthly Archives: July 2006

Who Knows What Could Happen If You Raise Your Hand?

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I’ve been a long-time supporter of the BizWorld Foundation; we deploy entreprenership curriculum into 5th grade classrooms. Since I’m in Europe I couldn’t speak at one of our recent youth events so I asked my buddy Ramit Sethi to go and on his blog he relays his experience. He did a wonderful exercise.

After giving them a simple overview of entrepreneurship–"entrepreneurs think about failure differently, take initiative, and challenge assumptions"–one of the things I said was, "Who thinks they can do something risky right now?" A few of them raised their hand, so I picked one of the students out and asked him to come up to the front of the room, where I gave him $5 and had everyone applaud him. His name was Em. See, I told them, there are 2 lessons I see:

1. Sometimes you can get great things just by raising your hand.
2. The world isn’t really fair. A few students raised their hand, but I picked him for no good reason. It’s easy to get discouraged, but the people who want to succeed will shrug it off and keep trying next time something like this happens.

This is similar to my post about calling that person you’ve always wanted to know. Who knows what could happen? The "worse case" scenario in Ramit’s exercise and in a cold call is embarrassment. It’s amazing how much fear of embarrassment drives our actions. As Steve Jobs said,

Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.

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The Perceptions Of America From a "Populist" in the Pub and an "Elite" In a Restaurant

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On my trip I am meeting a nice mix of highly educated businesspeople / writers / academics (through my network) as well as the more "comman man" (in bars, restaurants, on beaches, etc). There are consistent contrasts in how they respond to me, an American, and America more generally.

In Barcelona my friend and I went to an Irish Bar one night. We have both studied Irish writers and I had a successful stay in Ireland a few weeks ago. Unlike many Irish pubs, this one was Irish owned, showing Irish football on the TV, and we happened to sit down next to an Irishman comedy-club/music manager who immigrated to Barcelona a few years ago. He was a fun guy but "doesn’t want to visit America anytime soon". He has a kind of unacknowledged split in how he views my country. On the one hand he adores some of its cities (New York and San Francisco, he mentioned) and enjoys many of its cultural exports. On the other hand he deplores George W. Bush, the War in Iraq, etc. His opinions are more emotional than philosophical.

In Madrid we had dinner with a private equity business guy named Luis, who Chris Yeh introduced me to. Luis is a Madrid-based investor who attended Harvard Business School for a couple years and thus has acquired a honed "pro-market, pro-capitalist" outlook toward the world, making him seem like an alien to his Spanish business colleagues. We had a great time discussing Spanish politics, business, media, and life. Unlike the guy in the bar, Luis has a more favorable disposition toward America. It’s less charged and more nuanced: he admires the American model but qualifies his support saying what works for one country may not work in another.

Me_andluis_blog

These are just two examples. It’s been healthy to interact with all kinds of people on my trip — in train stations, over dinner, in a park, at a tourist office. I’m not necessarily surprised that the businesspeople, scientists, and academics I’ve met have a considerably more enthusiastic view of the U.S. because they personally experience the country’s contributions in all those arenas. The guy in the bar isn’t employed by an American multinational, doesn’t collaborate with America’s science labs, doesn’t sell to the American market, and thus only bases his anti-Americanism on the America government as reported by European media.

I’m not big on "populist" techniques to learn about the world. I don’t buy the idea that "media elites" or academics are out of touch with "regular Americans." Heck, maybe I’m an elitist myself (ok, I confess, I am). But this doesn’t mean I should avoid the "bar conversations" altogether. Indeed, I would argue it’s the aggregate of thousands of conversations in bars around the world which together constitute the "public opinion" of a nation, a statistic so often quoted in newspapers. It’s this aggregate, not the "chattering classes" of academia, which is measured and is where one must influence minds.

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Pickpocketing, AIDS, Marijuana, and Condoms – A Conversation in Lisbon

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Today I was on the train coming back to Lisbon after a brief visit to a suburb to visit Microsoft.

I sit down next to an early 40 year old man dressed in a suit, well-kept. After I sit down he eyes me up and down. He says something to me in Portugese. I say “English.” He says, “Oh, thank god, I thought you like club XYZ. Club XYZ bad. Football. I don’t like. Your shirt is their colors.” I smiled and turned me head straght again, staring aimlessly.

“You’re from England?” he asks me.

“No, San Francisco. California.”

“Oh, California! Why are you in Lisbon?!”

“Tourist and some friends. It’s a beautiful city.”

“Pugh. Yeah right. No beautiful. Not compared to California. Ugly. Ugly city.”

“What, do you even live here?”

“I live in Lisbon. Grew up Lisbon. Work Lisbon. Have kids Lisbon. Married Lisbon. Whole life, Lisbon.”

“Uh-huh, well, I like your city.”

[1 minute pause]

“Where do you go next?”

“Paris.”

“Ah, Paris…..Be….Be…Be care, be careful.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Uh, um, um, uh, uh…AIDS.”

“AIDS?”

“Yes. AIDS. I mean, it nice city. Beautiful. Beautiful people. But AIDS. Don’t do prostitution. Always cary some, some, some, condoms in your pocket. Be careful.”

“Ok,” I laugh.

[train arrives in station]

“Can you tell me how to walk to Plaza de XYZ?” I ask him.

“Ah, follow me. I go that direction.”

As we walk along the street, he brings up my favorite topic: pickpockets and safety.

“Be careful for [hand gestures to signal pickpocketing].”

“Ah yes, I know, I’m being careful.”

“Too many people walk around with hands flailing and look up at sky and BOOM, watch, documents gone.”

“Yeah, I know, thanks.”

Literally a minute later a husky man comes out of no where, grabs the guy I’m talking to, reaches into his suit jacket for wallet, and runs off. Holy shit! I was just witness to a real pickpocketing right in front of my eyes, with the victim being a man who had just warned me! We both pursue the assailant, who runs into the sidewalk crowd, but then stops. My train friend grabs him. The assailant is laughing. What the fuck is going on I ask? I’m starting to think I’m being set up, all this is too bizarre. It turns out the husky man had heard the guy talk about pickpocketing, knew the guy, and then played a practical joke.

As I walk off my train-friend calls out one last time, “Be careful for pick pockets!” A few minutes later I meet Austin in a plaza and see him in conversation with a dark skinned man holding sunglasses. I think to myself, “He better not be buying face Gucci sunglasses.” I walk up behind him and play the same practical joke I had just witnessed — on Austin. Feeling his backpack zipper opening he flips out.

Only later do I realize I had chosen the best — or worst — time to play the joke. It turns out this “sunglass seller” was in fact hawking marijuana and cocaine, and Austin was just realizing this, and the vendor was becoming aggressive and Austin was trying to leave. He feared an accomplice would pop out of nowhere and steal wallet, which is just what happened (me)!

We were approached a couple times later in the day by druggies.

What a day.

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Conversation of the Day in Portugal

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In hotel lobby at front desk.

Me: “Do you know of a nearby laundry place where I can wash clothes?”

Receptionist: “Hmm…in the metro station there’s a laundry place.”

Me: “Self-service? You know, machines, I do it myself?”

Receptionist: “Oh self-service, no, no self-service.”

Me: “Do you know of self-service?”

Receptionist: “Nah, we don’t have self-service laundrymats in Portugal.

Me: “Really? Every European country I’ve been to has had laundrymats.”

Receptionists: “Look, I’ve seen your American movies, I know what you’re talking about, but we don’t have them in Portugal. Think Iraq or Africa. That’s the mentality of Portugal. No self-service.”

Me: [laughing]

Receptionist: “See, I made you laugh, that’s what’s important, who cares about dirty clothes?”

Indeed.

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Quotes of the Day About Money and Water

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“Part of me doesn’t even want to go to dinner tonight, so then I’ll be 7 fucking euros up on you.” – My traveling companion in Spain and Portugal. We are keeping track of the money we’re spending. Frugality is in.

“You are absolutely insane. You are totally insane.” – My traveling companion after I said I would charge him for drinking half my water bottle. Yes, I’m insane. I need water. What can I say?

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