Walking the Halls

Today was the last day of one of the classes I'm teaching. During the time where the students fill out the teacher evaluation forms, I left the room and walked the halls a little. While meandering around, I overheard this girl talking on her cell phone make the following statement.

"...that's when I changed my major to Sociology. Then my advisor said I was too smart for that and I should switch to Psychology..."

To the normal person, that might sound like typical girl talk, or even a girl explaining to her parents why she has switched majors twice this semester. However, to me I took it as a great opportunity to make myself feel better about myself.

You see, my wife, who is way smarter than I ever could be and had a much higher GPA than I ever dreamed of, majored in Sociology. I, on the other hand, majored in Psychology (business too). So, I now have definitive proof that the reason my GPA wasn't as good as my wife's wasn't because she was smarter than I was, but rather because my major was a much harder major. Ahhh - my self-esteem has risen 2% thanks to some ditsy girl in the hallway.

What I Learned From My Students

This past Friday, while sharing the video I posted on Marie Digby, with one of my classes for discussion on the ethics of this marketing campaign, I suddenly found myself sidetracked by the students wanting to show me their favorite YouTube videos.

Two things I have learned from my students:
1. I need more time to do things like watch dumb videos on YouTube.
2. I still have the sense of humor of a college student, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Here are their favorite videos:
The Sneezing Panda -make sure your volume is up a little so you can hear

Soup Nut Shot - the name says it all

The Grape Lady - 100% schadenfreude

The Grape Lady Remix - only if you liked the original

Though not very educational from a starting your business standpoint, I do think it was the most fun we'd had all semester. I can't wait to see what we "learn" tomorrow.

The Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

The second week of class is in session here on campus and college students can be seen scurrying between buildings, carrying backpacks loaded with books. In today's class, Entrepreneurship 100, I had the distinct privilege of educating 44 freshman about mission statements and setting them on their path for success framed with one concept. "Mantra, not Mission for a start up"

The text I'm teaching from came with a DVD loaded with video clips. About the only one I'll use was one from Guy Kawasaki describing the pointlessness of a mission statement for a start up company. As he talks about minds being ruined with the thought that you have to have a mission statement to be successful, I felt somehow, I was doing my part by giving these young and impressionable students the idea that they don't have to have a mission statement to start a company, and perhaps they will never need one. If they do, we had fun in class playing with the now famous Dilbert Mission Statement Generator so they could avoid the two day, off-site process it takes to write one.

You can watch the video clip I used today in class here [link]. Sorry I couldn't embed it for ease, I'm not refined enough to figure out how to pull that off without Youtube's embed code.

Though I've never called it a mantra, the four words I live by easily fit the definition of my mantra. "Work hard - Have fun" I'm interested to see if anyone has a mantra for their life / business or what it might be if you don't have one yet.

On a side note, Guy Kawasaki is giving free autographed copies of his book, "The Art of the Start" by installing Truemors to your Facebook. [Details here]