I was young and naïve — Learn from my mistakes

Published by Ryan Paugh on September 25th, 2007 in Blogging, Career Development | 7 Comments

Back in college, a journalism professor told me if I wanted to get noticed, I needed to start a blog. I was too busy enjoying my social life to really care.

"That's BS!" I'd say. "Who spends their free time blogging?"

Oh the irony…

A couple months into Employee Evolution, Healy and I were looking for all the help we could get. We searched high and low. Healy found Penelope, but I was still coming up dry.

Then I thought of that professor, whom I gave so much trouble. She was an active blogger under several aliases and I knew exactly where to find her.

That evening I wrote a lengthy email. I explained what I was doing with my life and asked her to give me some feedback. Of course, I was hoping for a lot more, but feedback was a reasonable jump-off point.

Days went by, then weeks, then months – NOTHING. And here I am on the verge of the biggest leap I've ever taken. There are a million things to be concerned with, and yet, I continue to think about why she never wrote me back.

There are dozen possibilities. Maybe she accidentally deleted it, or maybe my email got spammed. Hell, maybe she retired early and PSU forgot to take her off the faculty roster. Who knows? But for some reason, I feel like she dogged me.

And who could blame her? I was the kid who showed up late (if at all) and didn't exactly take things seriously. Obviously, I'm a very different person today, but all she had to go on was that college brat who was "too cool for school."

The worst part was I utterly discounted her passion for blogging. I thought it was stupid and worthless. And here I am today – about to start a company that stemmed from a blog.

Now the lesson here is not that you shouldn't be a brat in college. Nobody could've curbed my selfishly reckless behavior (and I don't really regret it). The lesson is to never take other people's ideas for granted.

All too often we shrug off great ideas because we think they're "stupid and worthless." We act like "college me," and completely miss out on something with the potential to be great.

I see it in the working world all the time. More often than not, it's management discounting their employees, not giving them enough credit as creative thinkers. But it's also co-workers discounting each other, for no apparent reason, other than pride.

Since starting Employee Evolution, I've learned that the best ideas are born in simplistic ways. At first, they may not even seem like they're going to work, but you try. If you don't, you're just as dumb and naïve as me in college.

Today I decided to write another letter to my professor. I want to tell her what I'm doing with my life. Not to brag that I did it without her help, but to tell her I was an idiot for not listening to her ideas.

Maybe it's worth nothing else than my own piece of mind, but that's enough for me. If nothing else, I've learned from my mistakes. From now on, I'll keep an open mind, because the best ideas are usually the ones we question. But sometimes, when we answer those questions, the outcome is nothing less than great.