Monthly Archives: December 2006

What Makes a "Great Guy"?

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"So and so is a great guy," I said.

A few minutes later my lunch partner noted, "And Jake, he’s just a great guy, a really great guy."

And it struck me: What is a "great guy"? (Note: this applies equally to women, I think "guy" has become gender neutral like "dude".)

When someone asks somebody else about you, what will the person say? What will their first words be? Some possibilities:

  • Great guy
  • Nice guy
  • Smart guy
  • Funny guy
  • Interesting guy

For me, the top of the pecking order is "great guy." I don’t call everyone a great guy — just those people who fully encompass all the above characteristics. Nice (not an asshole), smart (not dim), funny (not humorless), interesting (not dull).

I’m obsessed with finding out what "A players" have in common (and how I can spend more time with them), and I think it’s a total package of these key characteristics. If someone is brilliant but humorless, I wouldn’t use the label "great guy." If someone is super nice but a pushover, same thing.

Speaking of great guys, Colin Wiel is a great guy (an official Friend of Ben no less), and I had the pleasure of seeing him again at the Keiretsu holiday party the other night, and we had a rare photo op:

Meandcolin_blog

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Reflections on International Travel

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Every time I finish something I always try to reflect on it — to take time to think (and write) about how it went, what the highs and lows were, what I learned, etc.

Since I returned from Asia I’ve been so consumed with my book project that I haven’t actually spent the time to reflect on all my international travel. My six weeks in Asia concluded the "international travel" segment of my gap year. In June I spent seven weeks in Europe.

Two years ago, I had never been out of America. Now, I’ve been to nearly 20 countries! Mostly solo. I have seen some of the most famous paintings in the history of art in Italy. I’ve eaten dumplings in Shanghai. I’ve wandered the back roads of Dublin and Delhi. I’ve taken a hot bath in Japan. I have walked the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong, and ridden the tube in London. I have climbed the Great Wall of China and inspected the Forbidden City. I’ve seen a bullfight in Madrid, a baseball game in Tokyo, and a Bollywood film in Bombay. I’ve drunken beer in Munich, lounged in a cafe in Paris, and thrown a coin into the Trevi Fountain of Rome.

More important, though, I’ve met dozens of people in all these countries. I’ve stayed at the homes of friends and blog readers. From Dublin to Delhi, London to Lisbon, the generosity spanned the globe. From CEOs to students, sports agents to stay-at-home-moms, engineers to musicians.

To say I’ve been lucky to travel as much as I had would be an understatement. But it ain’t over. I have so many wonderful memories and I can’t wait to explore even more of the world.

Favorite Countries: Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong

Craziest Story: Probably the Delhi Train Station or the guy I met on a Lisbon train. Still, I had enormous good fortune. I didn’t get mugged, I didn’t sleep on a street for a night, etc.

Moments / Situations I’ll Never Forget:

  • Baseball game in Tokyo with my Mom
  • Being picked up by a blog reader at Dublin airport, the first overseas stop
  • Re-uniting with my Swiss friends in Zurich
  • Meeting my friend Austin at Barcelona youth hostel
  • Seeing Michelangelo’s "David" in Florence
  • Taking a cooking class in Florence
  • Japanese hot bath in Hakone
  • Almost dying on Hiroshima – Dalian flight because of malaria medicine
  • Hunting for water in Spain
  • The pollution of Beijing
  • "Hello BEN!" a blog reader in Shanghai screamed after I rang his doorbell
  • Riding in back of auto-rickshaw in Mumbai
  • Arriving in Hong Kong from Delhi – and going straight to the Western style toilet
  • Listening to "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw on my iPod outside the Eiffel Tower in Paris
  • Watching politically charged Brits go at it in debate in London
  • Wandering through a Tokyo park in the pouring rain
  • Reading the Financial Times on Massimo’s deck in Northern Italy, and then eating home cooked pasta and bread. Mmm….

What I Learned: Hard to boil down. In general, all the cliches about travel turned out to be true for me: it was mind-expanding, perspective-broadening, culturally interesting, uncomfortable at times, etc. After traveling I’m simply more interested in the current affairs of all these countries. When I see an article datelined from Beijing, I can visualize the city in my head. Knowing a little bit about all these places makes "going deep" easier. Plus, from a business perspective, there are opportunities abound in this globalized world.

If you’d like to read all about my travels you can visit my Gap Year Travel Blog archives. The next big chunk of travel I’ll be doing is a USA Road Trip April ’07, which, as a San Franciscan whose never seen many states in his own country, will probably be equally broadening. In fact, I wonder whether visiting certain states in the midwest or south will be more of a culture shock than, say, Zurich?

We’ll see. In the meantime, if you’re thinking about traveling, do it! We regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did do, said Mark Twain.

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The Joys of Wandering Through Life Where Opportunity Tugs — Without a Map

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Am I ambitious? I’d like to think so.

But when I talk to many young people, especially entrepreneur types, I often think to myself, “Whoa, these people are way more ambitious than me.” I’ve come to learn, however, that these people are not exactly more ambitious than me, they simply craft and articulate their ambitions in a different way.

See, I’ve never said to myself, “I want to be the president” or “I want to be a Fortune 100 CEO” or “I want to make a million dollars by age X” or whatever. My parents have never said to me, “Ben, you can do or be anything you want, shoot for the sky!”

Rather, I’ve just lived year by year, slowly but surely ratcheting up my activities. I never said, “I want to be a CEO one day!” I just started building a company. I never said, “I want to publish a book by the time I’m 18!” I simply started writing a book and, sure enough, one day it got signed by a publisher.

It seems I often skip the “dreaming” phase. Maybe this is a good thing? One of the most brilliant business quotes of all-time is the Southwest Airlines Chairman Herb Kelleher: “We have a ‘strategic plan’. It’s called doing things.” I could adapt it: “I have a life plan and strategy. It’s called doing things.” The nice thing about not having too long-term a plan or living your life in pursuit of “a dream” is that it provides enormous flexibility for taking advantage of whatever life throws at you.

Although I do have some kind of larger vision — mostly around impacting on the world — in general I take life day by day, week by week, month by month. The only thing for certain is that tomorrow I have six hours of meetings, Thursday I have a coffee, two lunches, and a call, etc. Each day life pulls you in various directions and, like it or not, we’re often reacting. We have to do our best to make the most of the circumstances and try to do stuff doing that time instead of simply talking about what we’d like to do.

As much as I believe in “goal setting,” aiming high, and being open about your ambitions for sucking the marrow out of life, for me, the path of “wandering where opportunity tugs without a map” works splendidly, too.

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Social Relationships Built From One of Four Kinds of Interactions

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Alan Fiske, a professor at UCLA, has done some interesting research on the language of human relationships around the world. According to this Philadelphia Inquirer article, his research shows all relationships are built from one of these four interactions:

Fiske labels these communal sharing, equality matching, authority ranking and market pricing. Here’s what he means:

Communal sharing is how you treat your immediate family: All for one and one for all. Or as Marx put it: From each according to ability, to each according to need.

Equality matching, by contrast, means we all take turns. From kindergarten to the town meeting, it’s all about fair shares, reciprocity, doing your part.

Authority ranking is how tribes function, not to mention armies, corporations and governments. Know your place, obey orders, and hail to the chief.

Market pricing, of course, is the basis of economics. It’s what we do whenever we weigh costs and benefits, trade up (or down), save or invest.

Don’t get Fiske wrong: He’s not saying that each relationship in your life fits into one of these four slots. Rather, these are paradigms – mental models – that we use to help make sense of our interactions…

(Hat tip: Brad Feld’s delicious feed)

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L.A. Diversity May Decrease Trust, But Optimism Reigns

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Where’s the most ethnically diverse place in the world? New York maybe? London? Nope. It’s Los Angeles. The Financial Times reported on acclaimed political scientist Robert "Bowling Alone" Putnam’s new report on the corrosive effects of diversity on communities:

Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”, but his findings also held for rural South Dakota, where “diversity means inviting Swedes to a Norwegians’ picnic”.

Trust among neighbors may be low in L.A., but optimism still seems to be at a California high, according to this amusing NYT piece:

”What I hate about L.A. is that you have to seem young, happy and successful at all times,” said a Showtime producer I know who dared not speak for attribution for fear of alienating colleagues. ”In New York you can whine and complain, and everybody lets it roll off because they accept ups and downs. In L.A. if you’re negative, you get treated as if you have some kind of emotional cancer and people are scared to be near you.”

Today’s NYT travel section also notes L.A.’s diversity — and one of its many pluses:

There are probably more Chinese in Los Angeles than in any metropolitan area outside of China. The same very likely could be said of Mexicans, Iranians, Koreans, Japanese and more, which is what makes Los Angeles the best international eating city in the world.

To wrap up our L.A. report, the Los Angeles Times today puts its stamp of approval on Claremont, CA, where I’ll be living for a few years starting in the fall:

You’re as likely to hear young lovers discussing epistemic theories of truth as you are to see them smooching.

It’s referring, of course, to the Claremont Consortium, or what the Fiske guide once called "The most extraordinary assemblage of educational excellence in the nation." 

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