Life In Perpetual Beta

Melissa edited this interview herself.  Had a professional editor touched it with his/her golden hands you would have cried yourself to sleep with joy at the artistry. Mad props go to Matt Kliegman for his camera stylings and his very bright lil’ LED light.

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll know that I’ve already interviewed Jason Fried of 37signals, you will also know that in that interview I didn’t think that I asked him the "hard" questions. You’ll know that at the last interview I didn’t know squat about Jason Fried and I ask some questions that now just seem obvious.  You will also remember about how disarming his demeanor was for me.  Lucky for all of us, when I asked him to interview again he said yes.  My opportunity came at 8pm a few nights ago on a  park bench near Milwaukee’s river walk right after Jason delivered a talk to students and staff of Milwaukee Technical College. (A shout out to Vicky of Remarkable Parents for setting it up and inviting me to Milwaukee in the first place)

Once again, I think that I did a poor job interviewing, maybe I asked all the good questions on the car ride up – right before I lost my voice. I don’t know. But here is my take away: Jason talks about being real, he talks about this gut feeling about knowing someone is authentic, and I wonder if that’s not a little of my problem? The guy just puts out that "realness" vibe, and I think the intrinsic "knowing of it" is a real downer for the part of me that puts that knowing into questions.  Now, this could be a load of bull, I’m not closed to the possibility that I just don’t know what to ask yet, but I do know whatever the questions turn out to be they need to be asked.  To my credit, I’m a great listener, and not being too quick on the fire back questions portion is a good thing. And, I’m learning, I’m taking little steps towards a bigger goal, and according to Jason that’s a good way to go about doing things.

"For me it’s about the tiny little things because you can course correct along the way… I think there is this myth in entrepreneurship that you have to take the big risk and you have to quit your day job and sink all your life savings into this thing in order to be successful…  I think you’re better off taking small steps along the way.  You can still have a big plan, just take small steps along the way." – Jason Fried

So maybe I’m doing this right after all, and even if I have to ask for a third interview, I’ll be more prepared, I’ll have course corrected, I’ll have the right questions. It wouldn’t hurt if I wrote down the questions since it seems to be in my nature to be so in the moment that I forget the bigger goal.  Guess it’s time I took a little of my suggestions for my own coaching clients to heart and grabbed a pencil and paper – but then again, is it really such a bad thing to be fully present?

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This post is tagged "37signals", "goal setting", "jason fried", "milwaukee art museum", "milwaukee technical college", "milwaukee", authenticity, creativity, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, goal, life in perpetual beta, melissa pierce