I had a fun day today. I participated in TechCon, a new conference in its second year in San Diego. I had the opportunity to interview several of the speakers. During those conversations, I learned a lot, gained valuable perspective, and had some good laughs. For the most part, I was impressed by the amazing caliber of humans that I had the honor of spending a few moments with. There were several themes that came up during the conversations, and we all talked about AI, of course. I was interested in how they got started and what their initial journey was like. Although they all had diverse paths in their climb to success, there is one universal theme.
When setting out to accomplish things in life, you need to be audacious, unpredictable, and a little crazy. I did not talk to one “normal” person today. They were all dynamic, brilliant, and well-spoken. All of which you would expect to be a leader in the technology industry. However, they all possessed a similar quality. None of them did what was expected of them. They all were pursuing what they were passionate about, all had invested an incredible amount of time into a business concept, and they all carried a sense of wild eyed wonder about the prospects for the future of what they were engaged in. These were people who were told that what they wanted to do would not work or were doomed for failure. They knew the feeling of pursuing a dream when all others were predicting disaster.
As I worked my way through each interview, I realized what precisely made each of these people unique: their willingness to do the unpredictable, their acceptance of risk, and their pursuit of a path in which they already suspected failure could be around the corner. They accepted this with a badge of honor and a sense that they would repeat the process each and every time they did fail.
If you have the chance to think of something that would be considered audacious by most, then take it. Do not let those moments go by too fast. You will rarely get opportunities like this, and if you ignore them, then they will close off even more. Take the chance when you can because so rarely do you have the opportunity. I am confident that this capability lies within all of us, just some of us are willing to answer the call when it comes.
