Throughout my career, I have been leading people who are older than me. In some occasions, these people can be more than a decade older. It wasn’t always like that. When I was a younger, I was the kid who everyone makes fun of while I worked my butt off to try to become accepted by people. The process had to start all over again whenever I move, as South Africa, Taiwan, Kansas, and California all had very different cultures. The turning point was when I started a chess club in high school, and during my sophomore year, was elected President. With a new sense of responsibility, I realized that the whole organizations success was dependent on my shoulders. I spent 4 hours a day making sure the young team is growing, and a culture of participation is maintained. And eventually the team became State Champions in my Junior Year (the team maintained the title for at least 4 years afterward and finished strong nationally). From that point on, I have been leading groups of great people, and accomplishing exciting things that make a difference in this world. After all, it’s all about making life more meaningful.

Leadership is, almost by definition, not something everyone has. It is like good writing: most people know how to write, but only few people can do it professionally. Most people know a little bit about leadership, but only a few know how to do it professionally. Some of the most intelligent people in the world are not good leaders, but merely fit to be advisors of the leader. Robert Kiyosaki says that, to be an entrepreneur, leadership is the only skill you MUST have. Being very young like I am, I cannot say that I am anywhere close to being the best leader I could be. However, I have put in a lot of thought into the issue, and have boiled down good leadership into 3 Pillars.

Before I dive into the 3 Pillars, I want to clarify that these are not the first 3 steps in being a leader. I believe the first step in being a leader is to feel comfortable about it. If you can’t even convince yourself that you are worthy to lead the group, how can you convince others? The second step in being a leader is being comfortable with others leading you, even when you are the leader. That means you need to trust peoples’ core competencies, be able to delegate, and believe in your team when you are the only person who supports a plan. In my opinion, a cohesive team with the second best plan will always beat a broken team with the best plan. Alright, now that your eyes are already tired, lets go into the Three Pillars.

1. A Leader must have vision, and an unwavering conviciton towards that vision. A leader must know what direction the team is headed towards, and what is the absolute goal people want to achieve. It is essential to have a strong sense of certainty because as long as you are doing something difficult or complex, team members will become lost in an ocean of tasks, distractions, variables, and uncertainty. This is when they look to the leader to bring them back to the big picture and understand where the group is headed towards. This also means that the leader must be very logical and be able to see the big picture. Members will challenge you with whatever they are uncomfortable about when they feel lost, and if you do not have the logical skills to justify everything the group is doing and connect it to the ultimate goal, you will fall apart too, let along convince the team. Finally, if the leader is not the most adamant and passionate person in the project, no one else will be. If the leader has a conviction of 10 towards the vision, his team members will have 8-9, and people working under them will have 6-7. If the leader has a conviction of 7, then the whole group falls apart. Know where you are going, and be sure of it.

2. A leader must have empathy towards the team and be able to connect with all the members. As a leader, you must emotionally and psychologically connect with all your teammates: what motivates them, why are they doing this, what do they care about, what are they insecurities etc.. You wouldn’t dare market and sell a product if you didn’t understand the demographics and psychographics about your target market, how could you lead a team if you don’t have the same information? When you sell, you understand the customer so you can effectively persuade them do something - buy your products. When you lead, you need to effectively persuade your team members to do thousands of tasks HAPPILY (bitter teammates are bad teammates), so there’s even more reason to know every little detail about them. With that knowledge, you can create the right culture and environment where everyone does things the best with the highest morale. The leader’s job is to make everyone else better. The best leader’s job is to make everyone make everyone else better. The environment is so essential to a productive team. I have seen extremely competent people become unmotivated and perform poorly because of the environment, and I have seen otherwise weak performers become highly competent in the right environment. Some people just need a “good job!” after some hard work, some people are interested in non-monetary incentives, and some people just want to tackle the hardest problem they can find. If you know how everyone feels and thinks, you can have everyone do what they want to do in the way they want, resulting in better productivity. At the end of the day, when your teammates know that you care about how they feel and what they think, they will give you their work, trust and loyalty. The smartest math genius in the world might be able to solve the most complex equations, but still have no clue how to please one person without pissing off another. You as a leader must.

3. A leader must know exactly what needs to be done to get the team towards the end goal and make absolute sure of progress. Now that the leader understands the far vision and knows everything about the team members, the final pillar is to get the team moving towards the goal. The leader needs to be the person who is accountable with execution, driving the group forward. In Good to Great by Jim Collins, Collin states that the best leaders (Level 5 Leaders) are usually not the charismatic ones, but often are very humble and non-exciting people. That’s because the charismatic leader always wants to do new projects and get everyone motivated and excited, but the Level 5 Leader keeps saying the same things over and over until it gets done. At the end of the day, if you don’t have stuff done, it doesn’t matter how great the plan is or who is participating, everything becomes meaningless. A lot of people have a tough time building a bridge between goal and the status quo. Many Y-Gens I know care about their career greatly, but never seem to understand what does it take to get them to their career goals. As undergrads, many people neglect getting good grades, internships, and self-development due to games, parties and the fun distractions you can find everywhere. As professionals, many people do the least they can do with a bad attitude, and become bitter when their “over-achiever” co-workers are getting all the promotions. Bridging reality to goal is not something everyone knows how to do, but that’s something a leader must master in order to become effective. Getting things done and focusing on action items is one of the concepts that don’t have libraries of how-to literature on, primarily because it is so simple and straight forward. Make sure everyone is accountable with their tasks and start executing! It’s that simple.

A lot of leaders out there possess 1 or 2 of the three pillars here, but VERY few of them have all. Some leaders are extremely passionate about the vision, connect well with all the members, but drive progress very slowly. Some leaders understand the direction very well, and are very good at driving progress but sometimes at the expense of pissing off team members. Fortunately, this is the type of leader that still produces results, but may not be the most effective in the long run (as people are not motivated both in work and commitment). Finally, you have the leader who connects with each member well and can drive progress, but has no longterm vision of where the group is going. These are often elected leaders who are simply picking up the past leader’s inertia.

Again, I am no where close to mastering any of these three Pillars of Leadership. However, I understand them enough now that I can continuously look at my own life and focus on improving these skillsets. Collins emphasizes on recognizing the Brutal Facts, and a leader must understand himself well in order to constantly improve himself and the group. Lets include “understanding him/herself” in Pillar 2.

Future Delivery is about productive gaming. The more hours you play a game, the more successful your real life would be. There is a whole industry called “Serious Gaming” (obviously coined by non-gamers, because real hardcore gamers would never let that pass) that is about using gaming in real world functions, such as educational games for kids. I personally believe there are some games, although a big inefficient use of addicted time, can develop an array of real world skill sets (like Starcraft and Utopia). However, many other games are just a brain mush, like addictinggames.com (don’t even click on the link!)

A recent article on Harvard Business Review, “Leaderships Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll, talks about how virtual world games like World of Warcraft can develop real world leadership skills. They gathered hardcore virtual world players with over 50,000 hours of accumulated experience and observed their patterns. The article claims that virtual world leaders have similar functions to business world leaders, including “recruiting, assessing, motivating, rewarding, and retaining talented and culturally diverse team members; identifying and capitalizing on the organization’s competitive advantage; analyzing multiple streams of constantly changing and often incomplete data in order to make quick decisions that have wide-randing and sometimes long-lasting effects.” One key observation they had was that, the leader often switches between people swiftly, and that a good leader is not always determined from their abilities, but the work environment. This shows that, often times, instead of finding the greatest “leaders,” it is just as important to create an environment where they can lead effectively. I have seen superstars do sluggish work when the environment is not motivating. I have also seen very average people become superstars because of an environment that promotes great work. That is why company culture is so important.

While I advice folks to limit their game play time, when you do play games, keep 2 things in mind:

1. Make sure it is a game that can develop some useful skill sets in the real world, such as strategizing, coordinating people, and creative problem-solving, instead of constantly clicking B as fast as you can. Eye-hand coordination is not as useful here in real life.

2. Whenever you play a multi-player game, try to lead as often as possible. Constantly figure out new ways to become a more effective leader. Understand how the gaming culture is similar to the working culture, and try to adapt the gaming culture into your real life leadership style.

In FD, people do serious work, just like hardcore gamers who destroy their monitors when they get killed in a game of Counterstrike, but our language towards each other is very casual and game like. People joke around all the time and things go crazy, but at the end, it’s about beating the competitors and achieving your objectives.

One will never reach distant shores,
if he chooses to remain upon the dock,
In fear his little ship of dreams
may be dashed against the rocks.
– F. Bolen.

It was my sophomore of high school. I was a shy, short, generic looking white boy. My English teacher that year-a vivacious, red haired Ms. Robertson-had assigned the class a public speaking assignment. I was horrified. I wasn’t confident in myself, and I based my self esteem solely on the consensus of others. To make things worse, Arden Fitzgerald, my high school crush, was also in the class and would be watching my presentation. I remember being extremely fearful and anxious about the assignment, all the way up to the day of the presentations. My fear was so bad that I actually considered taking the grade hit and not giving my speech. Thank god I didn’t, because after the presentation something changed in my thought process. Long story short, the speech went almost as bad as could be expected. I stuttered, missed lines, and my nervousness bled through horribly. But after I was done, my fear had miraculously melted away. I sat back down in my chair, relaxed and calm. From that day forward, I started to participate in class discussion, went to dances, and got involved with sports.

Giving a speech was pretty much the most horrifying thing I could image- I would have literally rather taken a beating or any number of other awful alternatives. The fact that I did it, and it went badly, and it was o.k. caused a bit of a personal epiphany. It made me realize how much fear was holding my back. From that point on I started talking to girls, going to dances, participating in sports, and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

I invite you to recognize a personal fear that’s holding you back and face it. Maybe it’s changing a career path, starting a business, having a difficult conversation, going for a difficult major, getting out of an abusive relationship, joining a group, or public speaking. Living a life around fear will ultimately keep a person comfortable but unsuccessful. It is difficult to build self confidence and new skills if one continues to take easy paths around fear. Whatever the fear may be that is holding you back, I challenge you to honestly acknowledge it, and face it. You will feel better about yourself afterwards, whatever the outcome. Take life seriously, but never yourself.

Instead of ignoring weaknesses, boldly take them on headfirst. The things we spend the least time doing are usually the ones that need the most attention. We hate doing what we aren’t good at; overcoming this disdain is key to enjoying all aspects of life.

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile… initially scared me to death.
– Betty Bender.

Once upon a time, there was an corn farmer who lived near a baseball field. On the weekends, the neighborhood boys would play baseball on the field. All the homeruns would fly into the farmer’s cornfield, and as the boys retrieved the ball they would damage the farmers crop.

At first the farmer yelled at the boys. The boys would simply run away and come back a few minutes later. The farmer tried everything you could imagine- he bought guard dogs, notified the police, and even tried calling the boys’ parents. Everything failed- the boys continued to play, and the farmers crops continued to be ruined.

Exhausted, the farmer eventually decided to stop these direct tactics. The farmer was a smart man, and eventually he came up with a plan. One hot afternoon while the boys were playing, he quietly approached them. As they began to run, he told them to wait, he merely wanted to offer them something. The boys cautiously approached the farmer:

“I just love seeing you boys play, it brings me back to when I was younger… tell you what, I’ll pay each of you $5 just to let me watch you all play for an hour.”

The boys suspiciously accepted, and after the farmer had made good on his word, were rather thrilled to be paid for playing. The farmer told the boys to come back tomorrow, and that he would pay them again. This continued for quite some time.

Eventually, some of the boys stopped coming, and after two weeks the farmer had completely rid himself of the boys.

One of my college professors, John Greathouse, opened his Entrepreneurship class by telling the students not to let money be the main reason to get into business, and never make earnings your primary goal. I can remember thinking that statement was a load of moral manure. That’s easy for him to say, I thought to myself. Greathouse is a retired chief executive who sits comfortably behind a successful VC firm. Of course he is going to say money isn’t important, he probably wipes with twenties. I was like the impatient twelve year old in karate class- I didn’t want to hear about social responsibility or turning the other cheek- when do we learn how to snap some necks!?

Learning that money isn’t an effective motivator is something I would have to learn on my own, the hard way. I grew up in a middle class household, and as far back as I can remember I always wanted what my rich friends’ families had. SUV’s, camcorders, big screen TV’s,plush carpets, and rich mahogany furniture. I felt secure with these lavish surroundings; I would even go as far as to say I resented my parents for not being rich. I went to a rich high school and it was the same story. Most of the kids were learning how to drive in BMWs. I was grateful for what I had, but I always wanted more.

In college my craving for material things was far from satiated. I felt that a the mark of a true man was his earning potential. I went into this summer with the same beliefs. I took a crappy sales job because of the potential for high earning based on commission. I did well my first weak, close to a thousand in commission-but I am hating life right now. I work 12-14 hour days, and I have no life outside of this job. I pushed myself hard because I wanted the money, but because I don’t even enjoy sales, my motivation is already tapering off. This week’s paycheck will be much slimmer, and I don’t see it going up in the near future. I can no longer mask the fact that I hate what I am doing- I have lost motivation, and it is energetically taxing trying to do something that feels forced.

It’s not that I think money isn’t important- it is. But you need to find something that you are good at and that you like, focus on doing that and the money will follow. I don’t care how much you are getting paid to do a job; you will never do it as well as someone who enjoys what they are doing.

In psychology this is know as intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is what you create- you want to make the most commission this week because of you, not because you need to prove anything to anyone, but because you love your job and you are good at what you do. Extrinsic motivation is something like money. It could also be your boss breathing down your throat or any number of external factors.

In a study with second graders, the difference between internal and external motivation was documented. All the children in this particular class loved to paint- they did it everyday on a regular basis (internal motivation). The researchers then began to pay the children 1 quarter for every drawing they did. After a while, the children would only paint if they were paid, and even when they were the quality of the paintings deteriorated rapidly. The children appeared uninterested in drawing time, and eventually stopped drawing altogether, stating that 25 cents wasn’t enough. This was the point I was getting at with the parable in the beginning of this post- extrinsic motivation is no replacement for intrinsic motivation.

It’s true that money can buy happiness, but if the way you earn money is a struggle, you will never be happy- or rich for that matter. You cannot struggle your way to joy- the two states of being are inherently separate. Struggle and joy can not be fully appreciated at the same time- money and joy can, and struggle and money can. Most people fall into the latter category.

Focus on creating value, and doing what you love. The money will follow. If you do something well and enjoy it, you will excel past anyone who is in the field for monetary purposes- your intrinsic motivation is stronger than their monetary motivation, and as a result you will be better, work harder, and thus earn more from it.

Some times when you lean desperately towards something you push it away. If you are too eager to seal a deal, you often get a poor deal or no deal at all. If you try to hard and appear desperate for a girl, chances are she will be repelled as well. Money is the same way. If you are desperate for it, you often end up paying too much to get it.

I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven;
When I awoke I spent that on a necklace-
I told God I’d be back in second,
Man, it’s so hard not to act reckless…

In regards to conversations, if you know the person likes something that you don’t, do not lie and
pretend you like it. You’ll lose any sense of credibility very soon. You could reveal that you do not know much about that topic but is interested to learn about it. That’s a good way to have a good conversation on something without needing much knowledge to it. Most people like explaining and teaching things they are passionate about, as long as you can keep yourself from drooling. However, besides having an open mind to learn, being genuinely concerned about the other person often helps in being more interested towards subjects that he/she is passionate about.
If you know what makes people smile, your day will turn out much better.

So I’m here to tell you how to really approach this question and score big points with your interviewer:

Overview
This question tests how you handle yourself under pressure, your level of self-confidence, and your ability to be clear, concise, and direct. Be calm and self-assured when you respond. Believe in what you say. Sometimes this question is the tipping point, and the interviewer will make a decision based on what you say. At other times the question is merely a way to test for additional characteristics. Either way, it is among the most important questions you can receive, so develop a strong response.

Key Points

1. Talk directly about your strengths and how it will bring value to the company
2. Stay cool, calm, and collected
3. Differentiate yourself from your competitors
4. Confidence is everything minus 1.  Smile, be enthusiastic about yourself and passionate about working for the company
5. Your answer should be about 2 minutes (You want to keep it short because you want to be clear and memorable about why your interviewer should choose you for the company

Approach

1. Offer one concrete quality that can bring value to the firm
   • Show how your strength is real and “stronger” than those of your competitors by describing a key example of how you used your strength
   • Choose a quality that is unique and shows your personality.  A few examples are ones that relate to work ethics, technical skills, or a real passion you have for the firm and its work.
2. Tailor your response to the firm and its industry
   • Each firm and each industry values different characteristics, so share the ones that are relevant
3. End with passion
   • Be enthusiastic throughout your answer and end with passion for the company
   • If you believe in your response, then the interviewer will believe in your response

Remember, the interviewer is only looking for two things:

1. Can this person bring value to the firm?
2. Can this person fit within the company culture?

If you can demonstrate these two qualities effectively, then the job is yours.

Which bring us to the questions: “How do I get a competitive internship as a 1st or 2nd year?”

The obvious disadvantage to being a 1st or 2nd year is inexperience. You are competing against 3rd and 4th years (even MBA students at times) for a competitive internship and it is extremely hard to stand out. Well actually, being the young kid actually makes you stand out that much more. You will definitely get noticed for getting an interview and being so young. The hard thing to do is showing that you deserve the internship much more than your more experienced counterparts and that you WILL create much more value to the company than your competitors.

So the objectives inside the interview room are always the same:

1. Show that you can create great and unique value for the company
2. Show that you can fit in and contribute to the company culture

As an inexperienced 1st or 2nd year, your unfair advantages are your Energy/Enthusiasm and Confidence.

Energy/Enthusiam

Showing high energy in the interview room means that you are highly motivated and are very enthusiastic to work for the company.  Say that you are ready to do what it takes to work for the company and bring value to the company.  A lot of entry-level work is grunt work anyways, which means that you can do it just as well as any 4th year can.  Tell the interviewer that you’re enthusiastic and ready to make copies, make binders, do data entry, but that you’re more than capable of doing high-level work.  Relate to your previous experiences in organizations and how you were able start new initiative, create new programs, or establish more efficient processes for your organization.  Another very important skill is adaptability and the ability to learn quickly.  Describe experiences with organizations where you had to quickly adapt to new environments and learn how to do things very quickly.

Do your company research!  Know everything that is going on in the company and any big events that have happened.  Showing that you have done your in-depth research on the company (and even on the interviewer if you know his or her name beforehand) shows that you are passionate to work for the company.

Confidence

This is the X-factor.  Some people sound and feel impressive with their first impression.  As a first year, you will have to feel impressive from the moment you shake the interviewers hand.  There are many intangibles and subtle body movements that demonstrate high confidence:

1. Talk through the person: Most people talk to the person.  This means that your voice reaches the person and stops.  Speaking with confidence means that you are speaking with power.  To speak with power, you need to speak through the person instead of just at the person.  When you’re talking to your interviewer, imagine that he or she is sitting 2 feet further back.  Don’t yell at the interviewer, just project your voice through them.  Doing this means you will talk with power and feel more confident.
2. Talk smoothly.  Get rid of all your “ummms” and “likes”.  Get rid of pauses in your speech.  A confident person not only has high quality things to say, but is able to choose his or her words carefully and relate them perfectly to you.  This of course takes practice.  Ask a friend to stop you every time you say an “um”, a “like”, or if you pause for too long in your speech.
3. Lower your tone of voice.  Speaking with a lower tone of voice gives you more power and more authority when you speak.

As a 1st or 2nd year, you need to join as many groups and organizations as possible and take leadership positions.  Now go out there and start leading teams!

I have two theories about choosing a major. My first theory is that you should choose a major that is very relevant to the career you want to pursue. So for example, if you want to go into investment banking or accounting, then Business Economics w/ an Accounting minor is very relevant. If you want to get into management consulting, then any major would work (do take note though, management consulting firms love engineer majors).

My second theory is that you should choose a major that you love. I personally love philosophy and psychology, that’s why I dropped my accounting minor and did the philosophy minor instead. And you know what? I did so much better in my philosophy classes than in my Econ or Accounting classes.

If you are entering the corporate world however, you will have to play by their rules. They are looking for specific types of majors, specific types of personalities, and specific types of people who will fit in their company and play their role.

Now you have two options:

1. You can give in to “the man” and take a major that you don’t LOVE so that you can get a career that you think you want
2. You can “stick it to the man” and take a major that you are truly passionate about.

In the end, I believe life is about happiness. When you’re an undergraduate, join every possible organization so that you can figure out what it is that you love to do and you get exposed to as many people as possible. If they don’t have the organization you’re looking for in school, then start one. That’s what I did. Internships are perfect to find out what you want to do with your life as a career. Take as many internships as possible as an undergrad in as many different industries as possible so that you can compare each one and so that you find out which one is best for you.

So in my humble opinion, “stick it to the man” and choose a major that you are passionate about. Also important to note is that you can definitely get a consulting position with a psychology background. Just show that you have a high GPA, great experience, and a bomb interview and you’ll get the offer. So please, don’t just take a major because you think you have to.

I am in the entrepreneurial world, specifically in the high-tech industry. My business partner Yu-kai Chou and I debate all the time about what major would be perfect for the industry that we are in. We have different opinions, but here is my conclusion:

If you’re looking to start your own company (in the Web 2.0 industry), then I feel the ideal major would be a double major in Computer Science and Psychology. Why you ask?…

Programmers are in HUGE demand. There are so many business minds out there and few amazing programmers. So by the law of supply and demand (I guess I did learn something in Economics), programmers get paid more than business people (and I’m talking about non-executive positions).

Business development is crucial for every company. With a Social Psychology background, you truly understand the psyche of your target marketing and are able to market your product or service to them more effectively. There are so many subtle factors that affect the subconscious mind that psychology teaches you.

So, I feel the ideal person in my industry is a CS/Psychology double major person with a great business sense. He or she is able to drive the overall business of the company, and is able to communicate very well with the programming team. The person would not necessarily be coding, but he or she understands the programming languages so that he or she can effectively lead the programming team.

Anyways, would love to hear your thoughts on what your ideal major would be.