The Big Bags

Thanks to Dweebist for this one.

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.” -Mahatma Gandhi

There are many incredible people out there. They are those driven individuals who inspire, and change the world for good every day. They are idea people. They push the limits. They test the boundaries. They make change.

I will be one of them.

I’ve been told my whole life by parents, teachers and religious leaders that I was meant for great things. Most of the time I shrugged it off as one of those things that everyone is told through their youth. “You can do anything you want if you just put your mind to it.” Lately, I’ve started to believe it.

I know there are people out there who think I’m arrogant to say will do great things with my life. For example, half of the PR program (over 1,000 students) at my college hates me right now, because I’m the only non-PR major (out of 40 applicants) to apply to go to New York in March to network and score myself a job after graduation… and I was selected. In their minds, I don’t deserve it.

They haven’t seen the years of work I’ve put in to get myself where I am today. They haven’t seen me giving up countless weekends just so I can attend a meeting to shake hands with a few business professionals. They haven’t seen the library of books I have read and re-read by thought leaders in their industry… thought leaders that they’ve never heard of. They haven’t witnessed the hundreds of blog posts, articles and columns I’ve written in an attempt to hone my writing skills.

In their minds I’m like them.

I’m not like them.

I’m not like 99% of the world out there.

I aspire to greatness, not mediocrity. I am a mover and a shaker. I am not afraid to take responsibility for my ideas and my actions. I create change… if you can’t handle that, well, then ignore me, laugh at me, fight me. We’ll see who wins.

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” -Albert Einstein

This semester is passing me by. It’s starting to both scare and excite me. Being scared, I guess, is a good thing. It motivates me to find answers to the events and opportunities looming over me.

Today I caught one of my professors contradicting himself.  This is the same professor that just gave a test that the entire class failed. (The highest score I’ve heard announced so far was a C.)  He is teaching my “Principles of Marketing” class. He has years of experience in the marketing industry… but his product was electricity, which to him, is boring. The boredom of his career coupled with the droning of the required text book, and monotonous PowerPoint presentations is sucking the life and creativity out of the class. I can see it happening as the days go by. Fewer students show up to class every day. The ones that do show up only do so to mark the roll and either work on homework for other classes, tinker around uselessly on Facebook, or, if they’re like me, they catch up on the current events on Google Reader and the New York Times.

Anyway, back to ‘catching’ my professor. I think I threw a wrench in his lecture today. As he stammered through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I raised my hand. He called on me and I said, “I know you have some extensive professional experience in the marketing industry. Can you give me an example of when you used this?”

I honestly wasn’t trying to be one of those students like those from math class who complain, “When are we ever going to use this?”  I am just a firm believer that professors should always teach from their experiences.  It provides opportunity for students to see the application… and for me, it just makes it easier to understand, remember and then apply in my own life.

He fumbled through an answer that, to me, was not really satisfactory.  I felt like he was stretching to tie things together, thereby proving the value of his lecture.

Before he could continue back to his regularly scheduled programming, I raised my hand again. I asked him for one gold nugget. One piece of marketing information that he deemed to be most valuable that we could take with us when the semester was over.

Sadly, I don’t think he’d ever thought of this before.  After a couple of attempts,  I could see something ignite within him.  He got passionate, and started talking about giving the customer what they want. “Always put the customer first,” he said.  “You’ll be tempted to do otherwise in your careers. You’ll be tempted to sacrifice what the customer wants for your boss, or for money or profit or shareholders. Your job is to give the customer something they want. Without customers, you’re nothing.”

Sound advice.

Now I just wish he’d realize that in the setting we’re in, he’s the business and I’m the customer… and thus far in the semester, he’s not delivering.

I was one of the many students who failed his first test.

I’m holding on, white knuckled, trying to pull off passable grades so I can hit the ground running as graduation blows by me. I’m doing this while balancing an awesome job, and trying not to be overcome with every little side project that comes my way. The limited hours in a day do not permit me sufficient time to pursue all of the dreams and opportunities that my heart yearns for every day. Come on graduation… make my day.

Oh, and also… Seth Godin… yeah, he vouched for me today.

Dear internet,

I’m sorry it’s been so long since I said hello… I’ve been busy having the Best. Week. Ever.

For starters, I had what the worldly would call a kick-ass presentation at work. One of the things I’ve noticed after spending a few years working in a corporate environment is that people are generally weak and complacent. I recently decided to give up the facade, and just go after the things I want. If I get chewed out, so be it. The risk of achieving something incredible that nobody else has ever done is worth it.

So, I called a meeting with the executive team of the company I’ve been working at for only a month. Basically, I drug their website through the mud… probably a little too harshly, but in the end I got what I wanted. We all came to the consensus that we needed to make a change.

I am now spearheading the site redesign so I can effectively put into place my internet marketing plans to drive hundreds of thousands of people to our site. I’m so excited to transform this company, and show them that I can do things they never thought possible.

To celebrate my personal victory in the board room, I purchased a new phone. It’s a Palm Pre, and I love it more than the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland… and that’s saying something. I promise.

The following day, I applied for graduation. I can’t explain in words the feelings of joy and accomplishment I gained from this experience. I can, however, show you what my victory dance looked like.

Not 30 minutes after completing my graduation application, I received an email (on my  new phone) informing me that I’d just won $50 from an internship competition I’d entered a few months earlier. We were supposed to write an essay explaining why we had the best internship experience ever. I won the Best Carreer-Building Experience award, and will post a link as soon as it goes up on the Career Services website.

The next day I was sifting through my Google Reader and stumbled upon this petition for Interns from Andy Sernovitz of Gas Pedal. If you don’t know who Andy Sernovitz is, or what GasPedal is, well… that’s ok. But, in a nutshell, he’s a hero of mine, and it’s a company I would LOVE to work for. I applied that day, and heard back almost emidiately. I have a call to discuss an internship tomorrow (Tuesday).

You’d think this would be the end of the best week ever, wouldn’t you? Well, it’s not.

On Friday I found out I was a finalist for a trip to New York over spring break. A professor in my department scored a grant and is taking 7 students to network with industry professionals for 5 days. Fourty students applied. Twelve were called back for interviews.

I felt really good about the interview, and not 3 hours later got a call with the news that I was chosen to participate.

At this point, my brain exploded. The amount of awesome experienced in one week was just too much to handle. There was really only one thing I could do at this point.  I sat in my bedroom and did a slow clap for myself.

If there is one thing I’ve learned from this week, it’s that the only way to be freakin’ awesome is to take risks and do all of the crap nobody else wants to do.  When you get down to the nitty gritties, most people are pretty much pansies. They don’t have the cojones to think they can succeed. They fear failure. They quake at the idea of competition. And that, my friends, is why I succeeded this week and will continue to do so. I refuse to be satisfied. I don’t care who I have to compete against to get what I want – I’m going to fight tooth and nail to get it, and unless my competition is willing to do the same… well… you can guess who will end up with the WIN.

Thanks to Ryan for pointing me to this video… it expresses exactly how I’ve been feeling lately.

I love seen what Google recommends from time to time. Today, I wanted to see what people regret… here’s what I found. Kind of disappointing if you ask me.

Merry Christmas to all.

Last year I created a playlist of what I called “Tolerable Christmas Music“… I looked it up today, and most of the songs still pass the test. Continuing with my one year tradition, I give you the Big Bags Playlist of Tolerable Christmas Music Part II. The music in this list isn’t necessarily new… but most of it is just really good, not-overplayed goodness.

Mr. Grinch – Lower Barday

Silent Night – House of Heroes (Thanks Jenn)

Maybe This Christmas – Ron Sexsmith

All I Want For Christmas – Matt Costa

Winter Song – Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson (Thanks Stacy)

Have Yourself a Merry Little Xmas – Daphne Loves Derby

Put the Lights On the Tree – Sufjan Stevens

Winter Wonderland – Phantom Planet

All That I Want – The Weepies

So This Is Christmas – Acceptance

My buddy, Jeff is an amazing friend. He told me what he’s doing for Christmas this year, and it was so cool that I felt I needed to share it with everyone else. Rather than tell my version of the story, I felt it appropriate to have him write a guest post.  Enjoy… and leave comments on this one, he’ll like that.

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Ask my wife and she will tell you that I am a “Grinch” and don’t appreciate the Christmas season. In a general way she is right.  I hate having to buy things for people that don’t need it, don’t appreciate it, or don’t deserve it. I hate that a holiday that is meant to represent and celebrate what I believe to be the greatest gift to this world, is reduced to a consumer spending spree.

Around this time last year, in an effort to be better, I was feeling the “spirit of the season.”  I decided to give a gift to all of my friends and family, instead of just the “secret Santa” gift to one of my family members.  In this endeavor I asked one of my best friends what he wanted for Christmas… I was surprised by his response.

“Do something nice for someone else.”

Really, that is it? At first I thought, that isn’t a gift to you, that is a gift to “someone” else. However, I did as he asked and gave his gift to another that was most definitely in more need.  This single experience has well and truly changed my outlook. It WAS a gift to my friend, and it was a gift to me. I have thought of the look on that man’s face all year.  He is a homeless man that lives in a park that I pass on my way home everyday.  I still do not know his name, but he recognizes me and waves when he sees me. Sometimes we even chat for a minute or two.  I know that he appreciated it. That is my friends fault.

This year, I decided to head up something else. I decided that since I and all my co-workers still have a job in this economy, we shouldn’t give gifts to one another. I organized my department and had them donate money to the local homeless shelter instead. It is a welcome success! Moreover, my firm has decided that they will match whatever we give! There is potential to sponsor this local shelter for well over a week. I had not anticipated that we would be able to do so much for someone else…

Merry Christmas Bags, you change the world more than you know.

(This is Bags again… and it’s proof that with a little effort, you really can change lives. Thanks Jeff, for being awesome!)

Yesterday I learned that the way you perform mundane, everyday tasks can demonstrate the way you live your life as a whole. As I thought about it on my way to school this morning, I experienced some sort of parable-like epiphany.

When I go shopping (even if I decide to make an organized list beforehand) I spend the majority of my time frantically running up and down rows and rows of products in a very less-than-intuitive manner searching for the list of products I desire.  I guess I still haven’t aclimated myself to the fact that most stores are laid out in a semi-logical manner. I’ll often walk down the same aisle multiple times in search for various objects on my list… and, not surprisingly, I almost always leave the store with more than what I came for.

How does this relate to my life, you ask? Well, sometimes I feel like I do a lot of running around, often in circles, trying to get everything done. I’ll make a list of important things with a determination to find them. I almost always end up getting what I’d hoped for, and often times I leave with even more.

Regardless of how well I plan a trip, however, it’s almost a guarantee that I return home exausted, determined not do make another trip till absolutely necessary. But somewhere, secretly, I’m satisfied with my accomplishment.

Does that make sense to anyone else but me? Meh, I guess it really doesn’t need to. This post was more for me than you anyway.