You know what you are good at, what you like to do, and what you can learn to do. But there are many skills that you don’t have and you know you need them to accomplish your goals. This is where you identify these areas, then go out and find other people or companies to fill in your gaps. The process of doing this and doing it well has been a learning journey.
I have learned a lot while running CareBand and other ventures. Not only about working with people and partnering with companies but with how people work and the world works.
There is a lot to be discovered still about the brain, how and why it functions the way it does. Yet, I find something incredibly magical, almost undescribable, about how it produces ideas, thoughts, and insights that we have daily – some new and some old.
Every person on earth goes through life in a trillion different ways and circumstances. Throughout our lives, we take information through our senses, processing that information, and coming up with inferences and patterns that we formulate and express verbally or in writing. We start as naive individuals born to an unknown world in a unique period and grow into wise collective communities of worldly and intellectual people.
Life’s journey is wonderful, yet what captures and pokes at my curiosity most is how a thought or realization that I have today about our lives, relationships, and culture may not be new or as revolutionary as I anticipated. That thought may have been discussed and debated thousands of years ago and resulted in the same output as I thought today.
Over the last 2400 years, our world has changed in radical permutations. Yet the central concepts of how we operate individually, together, and in the community remain unchanged.
There most likely were other people before Plato and Aristotle, yet these two Greek philosophers are the most decorated and discussed. Their ideas and insights are central to our lives today.
Who were they?
Plato was a typical, carefree player from a wealthy family in Athens. He was stuck in his beliefs until he met a man named Socrates. Socrates taught him that the best way to live life was through rational contemplation, which leads to wisdom. This was the most rewarding life one could live.
Plato went on to teach his students that we are all part of something higher, a transcendent reality – though we only see a very small part of it during our time. Yet this reality unites us all into a single harmonious whole. Plato said, “want to crawl out of the cave of darkness and ignorance, and walk in the light of the truth.”
However, Plato’s most intelligent student has a completely different perspective. Aristotle was raised in a family of Greek physicians and learned early the importance of observation and experience. When he disagreed with Plato, he would say, “We don’t live in a cave; we live in reality” and “facts are the starting point of all knowledge.” Aristotle’s view is that we acquire knowledge through logical and methodical discovery of the world around us – piecing together facts to form a clear understanding.
Their differences were clear:
Aristotle
Plato
How does it work?
Why does it exist at all?
How do you fit into the world that already exists?
What do you want your world to be?
Wake up and smell the coffee.
What’s your dream?
Two vastly different world views
These two had two vastly different world views, yet their insights still matter today. Here are some examples
According to Plato, every human soul has a natural desire to discover higher levels of truth that will improve our lives and the world around us.
Aristotle believed that the light of truth is found in the material world. He encouraged people to find their place in it and understand it. This made him the father of Western science since he wrote books discussing different fields such as biology, physics, astronomy, and psychology. Furthermore, Aristotle was known for his logical, linear thinking, which contrasted with Plato’s belief in intuitive leaps of imagination.
Aristotle is the godfather of today’s Internet, entrepreneurial start-ups, and e-commerce. In his book Politics, he wrote that the entire purpose of the society is to enable each person “to attain a higher and better life by the mutual exchange of their different services.” On the other hand, Plato speaks more to those who want to protect the planet, people who see the Big Picture and want to “think globally, act locally.”
Plato and Aristotle also play a role in our relationships. Oftentimes, we are more compatible with someone who balances out our inner Plato or Aristotle than with someone who shares some of the same interests.
The long-lasting battle between these two ways of viewing the world has appeared throughout the entire history of Western civilization. It also plays a role in ourselves. This inner struggle between our spiritual and creative side versus our logical and material side causes this tension daily in everything we do.
They were right about so many things in our world. They were not perfect in their output, yet the ideas and insights they contemplated align pretty well with our “modern” society.
While I will continue to have thoughts and realizations about my life experience, I am encouraged by their similarities in my thinking. Revisiting the outputs of these great thinkers and philosophers gives me confidence in our society to grow wiser while not losing touch with the material facts of logic.
45 degrees, I’ll take it for Chicago spring weather.I thought as I left my apartment for work. It was the middle of the morning and I was heading to my office in downtown Chicago.
“You know, I’m 65 years old and I have a broken knee and replaced hip; I just can’t run anymore,” said the elderly woman, sporting a suit with salt and pepper hair. “I am thankful the bus driver waited for me to get on as I need to get to work pronto.”
In 1950, my Grandpa moved from his childhood hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to Wilmington, NC in search of a career. He was a trained optometrist who was seeking to open a new practice, yet he realized that his hometown already had its fill of optometrists and he needed to find a new home for his practice. He had a few characteristics of the ideal place, but really was open minded. When he landed in Wilmington, he set out to start his new life.
What do we do when the path forward is unclear. Do we trust our gut or believe in faith that it will all work out?
Tonight, the climax of a long relationship has come to this point and I am at odds with myself. There is evidence to show that the path leads to a dead end. Over months and months of observation, this appears to be the outcome destined for the future. Yet, you have to consider the options and believe in the positive optimistic perspective that this will all work out.
I was talking to a friend of mine, let’s call him Dan, the other day who works at an incubator. We were talking about this program that he became in charge of through a transition for the organization and now no longer runs it. The discussion was interesting as I was very impressed with the program as it had been around for 9 years and had incredible results with each cohort. In the startup
In the startup world, you see a lot of hype for the next best accelerators or incubators that can “truly help startups accelerate their ventures”, but many of them disappear after a few cohorts or years. When I heard about this program that Dan had run and its track record for 9 years and over 100 companies that have gone through it, I was thoroughly impressed. Programs just aren’t built for sustainability these days. I was intrigued and proceeded to ask Dan how he was able run the program so well and ensure its lively hood after he finished running it. He replied that “it does no good to just have a great program while I am running it.” He said, that his goal with taking over the program was not to be the end all be all but to build out the processes and standards to make the success repeatable in order to train the next leaders. I was clearly very impressed.
Just hit up an old friend that I met in 2013 at Startup Weekend, Benedict. I was attracted to his creativity and passion for changing the world for people like him. You see he lives in a wheelchair while the world around him lives without one.
When I met him I was inspired, because he had this vision and drive to change the way travel accommodations were for people like him. He started this company called Trekable, which was a rating system for hotels based on their level of accommodation for people in wheelchairs. The company not only would travel around the world to rate hotels, but provided employee training on helping people in wheelchairs. It was simply a great idea! Unfortunately, after working on it for a few years he didn’t get the traction he was hoping for and left it in the dust of startups.
Where else can you be sitting in a coffee shop and listen to conversations all around you on funding, success, failures, and product market fit? There aren’t many. There are fewer where you can interject and start a new conversation…which is my specialty. I am in San Francisco for a conference that is starting tomorrow. Today I explored the city and am now in a coffee shop in downtown San Fran near the financial district. As I was sitting, here I saw these 2 guys walk in. It appeared to be a founder and an advisor as one (advisor) was older with a notebook and the other in slacks and a zip up. During their conversation, I listened and heard about the founder’s successes over the past year. Raising millions of dollars and succeeding. He is now cashflow positive. The advisor said, “Just think about how amazing this is and you did it all. Think about how many companies in the 1-mile radius of us have tried and failed..and you did it, you broke through.” More
The other day I was having a conversation with my sister’s friend who is about to graduate from college. She was explaining to me how for the entirety of college she had studied marketing and international business without knowing what she wanted to do with her life. At the beginning of her senior year, she had decided, with the support from her family, that law school was the “right thing” for her. She proceeded to spend hours on hours studying for the LSAT and took the exam in September. Yet upon reviewing her score, she was not happy and felt uneasy. It wasn’t what she wanted, it wasn’t the score she had trained for, and now she was stuck trying to figure out what her true passions are and where she fits into this world. More
At first I didn’t remember that southwest had open seating, but I embraced the opportunity to pick my seat when I got on. Being in the last group to board, I knew that I would have the opportunity to pick my seat, so I looked around and found the most interesting looking, friendly looking person (with my limited options) and sat down. I knew like with most plane rides that I had to figure out my neighbors story so as the plane started moving I started talking and we didn’t stop till the wheels came out to land, 3 short hours later.
Here is the story of Ruth: The Chicago native, book store owner, cat lady, best grandmother to her only grandson, letter writer, and lady who believes love and respect to all is the way to a happy and good life.