Summary and Critique of “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20″ by Tina Seelig
Summary of What I Wish I knew When I was Twenty.
Important: In writing this short critique (and summary) I am merely engaging in my own thought process. Truly would I never be so arrogant as to suggest that my ideas are better than people far more highly educated and experienced than I.
The title of this book is interesting because had it been called “What I wish I Knew When I was Thirty”, it still would have been applicable to me because I am over thirty.
However, the philosophy of the book is something that I am strongly against. Hindsight is always 20/20, one can never go back and change things. You are who you are today because you are the sum of all your experiences, both good and bad. This book requires a summary, so here it is:
Seelig begins her book by describing the “five dollar challenge”. In this challenge students at Stanford were required to innovate in order to get the highest ROI. Some students came up with unethical ideas, such as scalping tickets, but others sold their presentation time and made over $600. Now, this was a five minute window at Stanford, where a five minute ad shown to the world’s brightest minds is worth $600. Could this have happened at your garden variety university? Probably not, or probably for not near as much. Although this exercise had good intentions, innovation simply doesn’t happen in a two hour window in the real world. Real entrepreneurs with bold intentions are innovative, but it requires a lot of time to become introspective, which is a requirement in order to innovate. As an example, some shady inventor might develop the “slap chopper” in two hours or the ginzu knife (I actually bought a set), but these are niche products.
It’s just my personal opinion, but proper innovation takes time, and the type of innovation one engages in a two hour window will be far different than say, developing a plan to sell inexpensive shoes to the underprivileged for a few pennies over cost (and still retain a small profit).
Seelig then suggests that “attitude” is perhaps the biggest determinant of what we can accomplish. I suppose she really means that if we “think we can’t, we can’t”. She follows this with an anecdote about Jeff Hawkins, the developer of the Palm Pilot. He had problems since the very beginning of developing this revolutionary hand-held computer. One innovation that Jeff developed was handwriting recognition software, which allowed the palm pilot to become much more consumer friendly. Jeff is an example of someone with a good attitude, because he faced his problems directly and turned traditional assumptions on their head. Seelig later admits that Jeff possesses a one of kind mind and stresses that few are capable of such feats. Considering that this is true, what purpose does it serve to a mainstream audience to use a statistical outlier as an example?
That logic reminds me of those who always claim that you don’t need a college degree; after all, just look at Bill Gates! My reply is always to say: “well, you aren’t bill gates.” I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s true. Bill Gates is also a statistical outlier, and like Jeff, the inventor of the palm pilot, is not a good example to use for a mainstream audience.
In contrast, though, her section on “Do-Bands” was well played. The Do-Bands was a project where people started to trade rubber bands. It was designed to create positive social change through self-empowerment. The goal of the project was to be innovative, to convince others to support your cause by accepting a do-band. They then passed the do-band around to their friends, and apparently tracked them through the internet (each band had its own ID). The do-band project was a success, some people even ended up contacting long lost relatives, which was probably an unpredicted side effect of the project. But again, this was at Stanford, which is a school that caters to statistical outliers. You are at Stanford not because you are mediocre, if you know what I mean.
Another part of the book that I did like was her analysis of the types of risks. She describes five primary types of risks: physical, social, emotional, financial, and intellectual. Some people are more comfortable taking physical risks while others are uncomfortable taking emotional risks. She asks her readers to map their own risk profile, to gauge exactly where their risks lie according to this risk spectrum. Personally, I am not a physical risk taker – you’ll never see me skiing unless it’s on the Xbox 360. The other areas I tend to take big risks, especially intellectual risks.
Seelig then mentions her colleague at Stanford (surprise!) who is an expert in the field of risk management. This expert suggests that when you analyze a risky situation, you should define all of the possible outcomes, and guess the odds of each one. You then need to create a plan for each eventuality. I strongly disagree with this. I would never advise another to take a foolish risk, but you can’t ever unravel uncertainty. An entrepreneur / innovator is constantly faced with uncertainty, and it is his quick analysis of the battlefield and his ability to quickly innovate a solution is what separates him apart from his competition. One must constantly surmise the risks that lie ahead but to think too deeply about them might motivate one to take no risk at all.
Most of the book is filled with similar anecdotes which don’t resonate with a mainstream audience. One has to be realistic. I hate to sound negative but it is unlikely that most of us will ever develop a cadre PhD friends at Stanford, like Tina Seelig. We aren’t going to be invited over for tea at Jeff Bezo’s house, nor will Obama call us up and sit us down to share a beer over a perceived racial injustice incidence. The majority of us will need to innovate; certainly, and innovation is the thesis of the book. But in reality we will create strong niches and develop our own social networks, but these are unlikely to include statistical outliers. I am not going to say that it can’t happen, it is unrealistic to expect or even to desire for it to happen. Surely you might one day get on Oprah and receive the Oprah hug, but you don’t require such extreme social climbing to market your personal brand, your zephyr, and your niche.
Unfortunately, Tina’s book just doesn’t connect with a mainstream audience. Well, it simply didn’t connect with me.
I prefer ME 2.0 by Dan Schwabel, who was a regular guy who worked his way to stardom. He wasn’t a professor at Stanford when he wrote the book, he was struggling to find his way just like the rest of us.