How To Make Opportunities Come To You
A year ago, my friend Alex Martino wrote this post about getting a job by wearing a flamingo hat to Startup Career Fair.
I remember seeing him that day, wearing that flamingo hat. He looked absolutely ridiculous.
I thought to myself: “Is this guy serious? He must have some big cojones.”
He did, and he knew something that I, and everyone else there, didn’t. He knew what it meant to “go first.”
“Going first” can take on a variety of meanings. It can mean participating in your own life, or, in Alex’s case, it meant being the first to do something different and being content with standing out because of it.
It paid off for him, didn’t it?
Here’s another story:
Every day for six years James Altucher has been writing down 10 ideas. Who else does that? No one else I know does that.
That’s the idea of “going first.”
But wait, that’s not all. Sometimes he came up with 10 ideas directed towards a specific person’s problems. For example, one day James came up with “10 ideas to make self-publishing easier.” He was able to come up with some pretty good ideas since he had self-published books in the past. Then, he sent his ideas to Amazon.
What happened? They invited him out to Seattle to meet all the people in the self-publishing division. By going first, James was able to create allies at Amazon and see the inner workings of something truly important to him.
I like those examples of “going first.” They remind me of the Steve Martin quote: “be so good they can’t ignore you.”
That’s why I took those ideas and made them my own. That’s also what “going first” can be about.
Last week was Startup Career Fair again. It’s clear at these career fairs, more than anywhere else, that the first move matters. People decide whether they like us within the first 15 seconds of meeting. Professors set the trajectory of a course in the first half hour of class. This principle applies to just about every situation job search-related or not (with some exceptions), so we have to make our first move count.
That’s what I did.
Instead of a pink flamingo hat, I wore a poster with a condensed, more fun version of my resumé,
My fellow students stared, they chuckled amused or dumbfounded. Every time I walked by a table, the recruiters had trouble keeping their eyes on the student standing right in front of them. They were drawn to the board and wanted to hear what I had to say.
A few days after the career fair, I looked up the website of my favorite company that I had talked to. I saw they were doing a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, so I came up with five ideas/suggestions to make their campaign and website better. I emailed my ideas to the co-founder. She was intrigued, so we met a few days later.
Then, she asked me to help them reach their fundraising goal in the last week of the crowdfunding campaign. I wasn’t expecting that…how could I have? Expectations have no place in “going first.” (more on the campaign at the bottom).
Let me make this last point clear: “going first” doesn’t have to be a grand, courageous gesture. Some of my favorite “going first” moments are the small ones. For example, just the other day while I was sitting in the business school, a random girl plopped her stuff down on the couch across from mine and began mixing up some blueberries and granola into her yogurt. That’s right: blueberries, granola, yogurt. Yum!
So, I said to her: “Ah. Why are you doing this to me?…that yogurt looks so good!”
Her response: “What? Oh, yeah I got it at Siegle Cafe.”
Me: “Nice. I didn’t know they had yogurt there.”
A few minutes later she got up to leave and said to me, “have a good day!”…I reciprocated.
Totally insignificant? To anyone else: maybe, but for me: it was one unexpected moment of positivity that made my day a little bit better.
“Going first” can do that for you too. It can do that for all of us. We just have to recognize the opportunities and act.
Your move.
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This is the end of the post, unless you want to hear more about what the startup is and their campaign.
The startup is Spellbound Books, and they’re on a mission to make reading books an extraordinary experience for every child and adult through the use of augmented reality technology. Spellbound launched a mobile app that, when pointed at the page, transforms a paper children’s book into a 3D virtual experience.
This is reimagining reading, and it’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. They’re currently raising funds on Indiegogo to advance their technology and create this engaging 3D experience for more books.
I’m helping them with this Indiegogo campaign (<click to view it) for the next five days. Oh yeah, they’re also donating books and the app to patients at Mott’s Children’s Hospital.
So, If you’re feeling generous or you just think this a cool app, then please donate: $1, $20, $50, or however much you want.
Whether you can donate or not, I’d appreciate if you shared the campaign on social media because that too will help Spellbound. Specifically, if you know any parents of young children, teachers, school librarians, or hospital administrators or nurses, please send this to them!
I’m positive they’ll thank you for it.
Thanks for reading.
