What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 Read Online Free PDF

confident you become that you can find a solution.
    I was recently in Scotland teaching in a weeklong entrepreneurship boot camp, run by James Barlow at the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, for fifty college students from across the country who were studying a wide range of disciplines, from criminology to cosmetics. Most of them had no exposure to entrepreneurship at all. At the beginning of the week, many were completely overwhelmed by the first assignment, which required them to come up with and then sell a new product or service. Each team was given fifty British pounds of starting capital at 6:00 p.m. and had a total of eighteen hours to complete the project. The goal was to get them out of their comfort zone and into the real world. Many of the students told me they were on the verge of going home. (They didn’t need to tell me this, because the panicked looks on their faces said it all.) But they all stuck with it and were pleasantly shocked by what they accomplished. One group became “umbrella walkers,” assisting those who got caught in the unexpected rain; one group set up an impromptu speed-dating station at a local bar; and one started a makeshift shoeshine stand on a busy downtown street.
    But this assignment was just the beginning of their experience. By the end of a week’s worth of challenging activities, including scouring newspapers to identify problems, brainstorming to come up with creative solutions, designing new ventures, meeting with potential customers, filming commercials, and pitching their ideas to a panel of successful executives, they were ready to take on just about any challenge.
    One team that stands out in my mind was composed of three young women, for whom all of this was brand-new. They were shaking in their shoes when the first assignment was given. By the end of the week, however, they had come up with a fabulous idea that earned high praise from the panel of judges as well as seed funding from investors. They developed a mobile, at-home service for bra fitting, based on their observation that most women are embarrassed by the process and often end up with ill-fitting bras. Their video commercial was tasteful and convinced everyone that this was an interesting opportunity.
    On the last day of the workshop, one of the young women said to me, “I now know that there isn’t anything I can’t do.” She, along with all the other students, already had the bulk of the skills they needed to accomplish amazing things. All we offered them was tangible proof, along with a healthy dose of permission, that they could turn the problems around them into opportunities.

BIKINI OR DIE

    The famous psychologist B. F. Skinner once wrote that all human behavior can be viewed as being adaptive to either the individual, the gene pool, or to society at large. 1 However, these three forces are often at odds, causing significant tension. The rules made by society are a huge presence in our lives, created by the government, religious groups, our employers, our schools, our neighbors, and our families. Because these social groups craft the explicit rules around us, we often find ourselves in situations where we are driven to break them to satisfy our personal desires or the drives of our species. These social rules and norms are designed to make the world around us more organized and predictable, and to prevent us from hurting one another.
    But when is a rule really just a suggestion? And when do suggestions morph into rules? Every day, physical signs tell all of us what to do, written instructions direct us how to behave, and social guidelines urge us to act within specific parameters. In fact, we also make lots of rules for ourselves, in large part encouraged by others. These rules become woven into our individual fabric as we go through life. We draw imaginary lines around what we think we can do—lines that often limit us much more than the rules imposed by society at large. We define ourselves by