Overheard at Cornell

It’s been a wild stretch for the past few days.

Just today, I simultaneously attended two events: Cornell’s culminating two-day Entrepreneurship Celebration, and the Skoll World Forum for social impact at Oxford University. I also had a job interview and several meetings in-between.

I am exhausted. I had to hype myself up for a while to even commit to shipping this post. It’s still easier than the easiest day of being a founder, in my honest opinion.

But I’m also very happy being out in the field again. On days like today, I push myself to meet as many people as possible and draw as many meaningful connections between awesome people as possible. I feel like it’s habitual after building a global community with my startup, InCommon.

I can’t wait to report back more soon. For today, I’ll share a very flattering question I got from a student that I thought warranted reflection.

Yesterday, an MBA student asked me, “How did you become an Entrepreneur in Residence at Cornell at such a young age?”

As verbose as I can often be, I was stunned for a second.

In the moment, I gathered myself and simply said, “I tried a lot. I failed a lot. I learned a lot and pushed myself to translate lessons from my failures into valuable advice for founders. But that was for positioning. In the end, you just gotta ask for what you want.”

The student looked in disbelief. Almost as if she was expecting some kind of “magic pill” or “secret strategy” reply.

I continued, “But I don’t mean to sound glib. The backstory is, I’ve had time. I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur and I started my first business when I was 8. My parents are entrepreneurs. I’ve experienced so many weird and diverse areas of entrepreneurship. I started a business that made half a million dollars but made no social impact.

Then for InCommon, it was like the opposite - all impact, tiny revenue. I failed in so many ways because we tried exploring so many areas. Non-profit, for-profit. Consumer, higher education, healthcare. Solo founder, but not for lack of effort - I spent $2K on LinkedIn recruiting services for a technical co-founder.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. The point is, despite all the failure, I’ve been able to live that experience, translate it into relevant and accurate advice for founders, and make connections because of it.

And it’s just like how you got into your MBA program.

How do you become an MBA student? Easy - you just apply.

But how do you really become an MBA student? You work to position yourself for years, even if you never knew about it before. You do the work.

And then, yeah, in the end, you have to ask for what you want, and you gotta step through that door even if you don’t know what’s on the other side.

We’re not all that different - it’s just that my choices led me constantly to entrepreneurship.”

We had a great discussion after that, and I thought this was worthy of reflection.

This student’s question really surprised me, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve long been fascinated by the discussion around the “young genius” versus the “old master”, and the life narrative tropes that ensue. Regardless of how accurate these paradigms are, I always considered myself a “late bloomer” (a great topic for another post).

As such, I as a “late bloomer” was stunned when someone saw me as a “young genius”, and asked me a “young genius” question. It not only speaks to how different your own view of yourself might be compared to the external world, but also to be careful about the narratives you internalize, because they are so core to our identity. Shedding beliefs that don’t serve us - and might even be inaccurate altogether - takes work, but it’s so necessary for growth and leadership.

I need to turn in for the night, but I thought that was worthy of reflection.