#413 How To Run Down A Dream

a town with a population just under 5,000.

“Sam's dad worked for an oil and gas company.”

Sam was gifted with intelligence and was his high school's valedictorian. From an early age he loved numbers, he loved math. He was fascinated by the power of exponential growth. At the University of Oklahoma, he majored in finance. He loved sports. He briefly considered becoming a coach, but if you had asked him at the time,

Sam probably would have told you he wanted to become a CEO of an industrial company or something like that. After a freshman year, he applied for an internship at Conaco. He was invited in for an interview and it was all going well until the interviewer asked Sam where he imagined he would be in 5 years. Sam was honest. He said he figured he would go to business school. The interviewer was like, "What? You don't want to work at Conaco in 5 years?"

And Sam said, "No, definitely not. I'm not interested in that." Instead, he interned in the accounting group of Earth and Young,

which happened to be the world leader in providing third-party opinions on the purchase of professional

sports teams, giving Sam some early exposure to the world of sports business. After he graduated, Sam was offered a job at Bain Capital. He was the first University of Oklahoma student ever hired by Bain. He enjoyed the work at Bain. It was long hours of rigorous analytical work.

“He liked to bring large amounts of data to important decisions.”

About 18 months into his time at Bain, Sam was at lunch with some other young analysts and two men he considered mentors. The two older men went around the room asking the young analysts, "If you could do anything, any job in the world, what would you do?" Most of the answers are something along the lines of private equity or CEO. When they got to Sam, he just said, "Sports GM."

It was the first time he verbalized this idea, but it had been forming in his mind for a while.

I remember they laughed at me. It made me so mad, Sam said. At the time Sam said this, almost nobody was bringing the tools of data analytics into the world of professional sports. Then, in 2002, the Boston Red Sox hired DO Epstein, an espouse fan of advanced data analytics as the team's general manager. Making the 28-year-old Epstein the youngest GM in baseball history.

As Sam was thinking about all of this, the author Michael Lewis published the book "Money Ball," which is a look inside the innovative approach of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Bean to assemble a competitive baseball team on a small budget. Sam read "Money Ball" in two days. He loved everything about it. He could not stop thinking about it. Sam decided he was going to quit his lucrative job at Bain

and start working towards his dream of becoming a general manager. When he told his parents, they confessed that they thought he was crazy. At this time, in every meeting Sam had, he would give his one-minute feel about wanting to disrupt professional sports by using data to make better decisions. In all these meetings, you could just see their eyes roll, Sam said. And so at this time, Sam starts going to business school.

At Stanford at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Sam was able to take a sports management class for the first time. He also reached out to Peru, Murathoth.

The former Bain analyst who was already working with the 49ers. Sam had never met him before,

but told him in an email that he had heard of him, that he thought his path was interesting and that he had been thinking a lot about this and would love to ask him some questions. Parag agreed to meet. We went and ate burritos across the street from Stanford, Sam told me. And I didn't ask him 20 questions. I asked him 200. While attending Stanford, Sam also met with Billy Bean, the age General Manager at the center of Moneyball.

He spent time with Michael Lewis. During his first year at Stanford, Sam also sent both emails and physical letters to NFL franchises all over the country, offering to work as an unpaid intern in the front office. He suggested that he could bring a new way of thinking about value in the salary cap era. His pitch was simple. I can help you. You have a limited pile of chips

“and you need to turn it into as many wins as you can. I can help you reduce risk and boost return”

or both. I'll be in your town we should talk. When spring break came around, most of his fellow students went to places like Aruba or Cancun. But Sam was focused on his goal. Instead of a trip to the beach, he went on what he calls a road show on Southwest Airlines. He visited five or six different football teams that week, mostly to introduce himself. I was just trying to get a foot in the door. Sam said, one of those teams was the Houston Texans. Sam was invited to

intern at the team's front office. The initial internship lasted eight weeks, but the team asked Sam to stick around during his second year of business school, which meant Sam had to fly back and forth from Palo Alto to Houston several times a week. But Sam was willing to take every chance to be in the building. He asked questions as often as he could without burdening anyone. In most meetings, he didn't say anything at all. I've had a few meetings, a few conversations with

them, and they were like that. He spent most, I'm talking about Sam hinky by the way, which I'll

help the team evaluate each player's relative value in an effort to maximize return on draft day.

“With ample data, Sam could explain why a mid second round draft pick is often half as valuable”

as a first round pick. But at 10% of the cost, but the coaches were all set in their ways and

resisted any new approach to personnel, especially from a baby face 26 year old kid from Stanford. Sam realized that succeeding in this career would involve not just analysis, but also earning the right to influence the stakeholders in the team. This is what he said, earning the right to get them to listen to make good arguments, to realize the facts are on the side, and that it is in your best interest to do this for this particular goal. After he graduated Stanford Sam had a two-hour

conversation with Les Alexander, who owned the Houston Rockets MBA franchise at the time. They talked about how data could be used to make better basketball decisions. Les was a bond trader in the 1980s, so when Sam talked about reducing risk and boosting returns, Les understood immediately. At just 27 years old, he was hired as a special assistant to the general manager.

“Sam and his wife moved to Houston and slept on an inflatable mattress while Sam worked from”

6am until midnight every day. With an a year less Alexander hired Daryl Murray as the team's assistant GM. Daryl shared Sam's analytical philosophy. A year later, Daryl was promoted to

general manager, making the rockets the first MBA franchise to hire GM dedicated to integrating

advanced statistical analysis. Sam was promoted to Vice President, making him the youngest VP in the league. Together, Daryl and Sam built the best basketball sports analytics department in the country. A few years later, Sam was invited to interview for the general manager job of the Philadelphia 76ers. The conversation did not go well. We could not get on the same page in a bunch of ways Sam told me, and I was aggressive about it in a bunch of ways to surprise them, and so I told

them I couldn't come and I didn't. Sam decided to stay in Houston for another year, but he made a few predictions for what would happen that year in Philadelphia, most of which came true. In pressed, the owners of the 76ers came knocking again. So in 2013 at the age of 35, almost exactly 10 years from the moment he told his parents he wanted to be a GM, Sam Hinky was hired as the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers. Sam's tenure in Philadelphia was complicated. Sam's time and his

dream job was covered extensively in the media. He eventually left. So what do you do if you finally have your dream job and then lose it? Sam knew when he started his journey that a job as a general manager of a sports franchise could be tenuous. He knew that there was some personal risk involved with his rebuilding plan, and he knew that he needed to take some time to think about what he wanted to do next. He moved his family back to the Bay Area and started teaching

a few courses at Stanford. He tells his students, "You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion." That is the most hinky thing to say, and I'm sure he has said that to me multiple times. Sam also used this time to start his pathway towards a second dream job, and knowing Sam pretty well, this job was way more suited for who he is as a person in 2020, Sam launched his own VC firm called 87 Capital. The name comes from a key moment in Robert

Carrow's means of a scent, which recounts Lyndon Johnson's 1948 Senate election victory, which he won by a margin of only 87 votes. I'm going to put the book down for one second, a few years ago, Sam was interviewed by my friend Patrick on his podcast and vest like the best, and in that he gave a great description of why he named his business 87 Capital. The description is only two sentences, but it's very deep. The name 87 Capital is from means of a scent. The

years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Carrow, these are the two sentences. One candidate wins by 87 votes and gets the presidency. The other candidate lost by 87 votes, but effectively wins back his life's work and his family. Back to the book. I've had the pleasure of knowing Sam for almost a decade now. He is one of the smartest people I know. Sam has been thoughtful and methodical at every stage.

“Yes, for sure. That's how exactly I was. He's earnest and direct. Yes, he is. He gives back. Yes,”

he teaches. He mentors. Yes, he's played this role in my life. He wants to help fellow dreamers,

and he has never stopped learning. He is a various reader. He loves working with the people he

works with now. This is a quote from Sam. I'm investing money on behalf of other people. I like them. I like them a lot. And that is meaningful in ways that I wouldn't have guessed. If one of them calls me, I'm excited to talk. I know our conversations will be fun and generative. And I didn't always have that with the people I worked for before. This is why I said, this is actually his true dream job. Sam belongs in a world with infinite wins. I'm surrounded by people that are

really bright and really curious and I'm curious about them. That is an excerpt from the book and the talk and we're talking about today, which is running down a dream how to thrive in a career. You actually love it is written by Bill Gurley. If you've been listening to founders for a long time, you know, I haven't shut up for many years. Probably like half a decade ago, I randomly discovered this talk on YouTube. The title to talk a slightly different of the book. It's running

was giving to a bunch of MBA students. I've said it multiple times. I think it's one of the best talks on YouTube. The reason I want to start it there is because I literally have personally used ideas that I discovered in this talk to build this podcast. It is amazing how things can come for full circle in your life. In the talk and in the book, Bill Gurley profiles a bunch of people wanted them as Sam Hinky who as I am using the ideas from this talk to build the podcast and to make

it more valuable for people to listen to, Sam discovers the podcast and we've built a relationship over the last several years. I consider him a close friend and kind of like an older brother to me. And so when I was thinking about starting the episode, I have to start here because it's all connected. And so what I want to do is I want to run down my notes. Most of the notes I'm going to reach you now are actually from the talk. The book is an expansion of that and there's some people

added to the book that are not in the talk. So I'd recommend buying the book and watching the video. And I think Bill does a great job of really bucketing everything in five main ideas. So I want to cover three people first. So Bill Gurley is studying three people that get to their top of their profession and vastly different domains at different points in history. And he says I was inspired after studying the stories of three people that you might call luminaries. And I noticed an overlap pattern

amongst them. And so then he breaks down who these people are and what they did to run down a dream.

“And first you talk about why this is important. A dream job means you should chase a career where you”

have an immense passion, immense passion is one of the most important phrases that Bill uses over and

over again. His friend and partner says life is a use it or lose it proposition. Most people only take one career path. But if you've got only one shot, why not do what makes you happy? And so then he starts running through this list of three people. The first one is a legendary college basketball coach, Bobby Knight. And really what sticks out is just how bad do you want it? Like how bad do you actually want to do this? And what lengths are you willing to do? And are you willing to

go to to actually build a life and career that you love? Before we get back into story, I want to tell you one of my favorite quotes I've ever read in any biography. So surround yourself with the smartest people you can find. When you see such a person do all you can to get them on board that extend your reach and terrific people are usually fun to work with. That reminded me of Jeff Basel's from day one in his very first shareholder letter. Jeff would emphasize the importance of having the very best team.

He said setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been and will continue to be the single

“most important element of Amazon's success. Jeff would tell you that you have to build a team that”

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In the first five years of his coaching career, he befriended five of the top basketball minds. And here's just one example of how he was building relationships for two of these coaches. He went to a coaches luncheon where they knew where he knew. They were going to be and beg them to let him sit next to him. He would then keep following up and spending time with both of these coaches. He didn't stop there. Then he starts building a relationship with one of the greatest

basketball minds at the time. He's getting Pete Newell. He also intentionally built relationships with other coaches, not just basketball coaches. He became friends with the University of Michigan football coach. He meets a young Bill Parsells and studies him. He becomes friends with and studies the swimming coach at Indiana University. At age 31, Bobby Knight becomes the head coach in the Indiana University five years later. They went undefeated both in the regular season and postseason

and won the national championship. That has never been repeated since in over four decades.

His career in Indiana, he accomplished a lot. Three national championships, four coached earwards, eleven big ten titles. When he retired, he had nine hundred and two victories. He had the most wins of any coach at the time. Pete Newell, who he sought out as a mentor and somebody learned from, would later induct Bobby Knight into the Hall of Fame. So as a brief overview, we're going to get to how they do this. I'm just giving you a brief overview of the first three

“people and then we'll dive into what I think is the most interesting part of the talk in the book.”

Which is essentially like this blueprint almost of like how to run down a dream.

when he's ten years old. When he's a little older, he falls in love with folk music.

“Over the course of eight or nine months, he studied every folk album he could. He didn't have”

any money. So at the time, he'd walk into the record store and listen in a booth. He would do that for hours and hours and hours. He became friends with other people that also liked folk music, but that had money. He would go to their house and listen to their entire record collection. And then he does something, which Pills says is probably the most ambitious action he's ever heard of somebody that was trying to pursue their dream job. He hitchhiked from many

apples to New York City. He had a guitar, a suitcase, and ten dollars. That is a 1200 mile trip. If you ask him today why he did it, he would say he was chasing the performers. He was listening to them in Minnesota, but the performers he was listening to were in New York City and he wanted to see them. And there was really one person he wanted to see, which is Woody Guthrie. Woody Guthrie had become his hero. I read Bob Dylan's autobiography, which is excellent. I did an episode

on it's episode 259, if you ever want to listen to it. Bob Dylan talks about in the book that he devoured Woody Guthrie's biography. So he finds Woody, he builds a relationship with them,

“and then Bob Dylan is hanging out at the epicenter for what he wants to do at the time. I think this”

is a grand-age village if I'm not mistaken in New York City. It was the epicenter of folk music at the time. So he would sit in all these venues for hours upon hours and just study what other artists were doing. Years later, one of the artists would say he could perform any one of our songs like us. He was able to make a complete accurate copy. He was studying, studying, studying. He eventually gets signed. He resists his first album. It does okay. But it's his second album that

really makes him a star. In 1963, he released a free-willing Bob Dylan. Since he started he sold

over 100 million records. He's won 11 Grammys. He won an Oscar in an Emmy. He's inducted to

the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He won a medal, Freedom Award, and he won a Nobel Prize in literature. And then the third person that Bill was studying was Danny Meyer. Actually, he did an episode on Danny's fantastic autobiographies. It's like probably nine years ago. It's an episode 20. So Danny grew up loving food, loving restaurants. He was a complete obsessive. But it took him a while to make the connection that he should just work in the field that he was intensely interested in.

And so at the time he's working for this company called Checkpoint, they would manufacture those things if you ever go in like a store and they have the things they touch the clothes. So you can't steal them. And he was making incredible amounts of money. I think at the time it's like 125,000 a year. I think inflation just would be like, you know, 400,000 dollars a year. And he has this idea that he's going to go to law school, even though he's not interested in it all.

And the night before he's going to take the LSAT, he goes out to eat with his uncle, his aunt, and his grandmother. And he's talking about this. He said, I'm going to take the LSAT, become a lawyer, and his uncle replied, well, you just stop it. Why don't you go open a restaurant?

“You know that's what you're supposed to do. Danny says it's coming by. His uncle caught him off”

guard, but it woke him up. He wakes up the next day, takes the LSAT, but never applies to a single school.

He then quits his job as a salesman, where he's making all this money, and then goes works in a restaurant for one tenth of the salary. He'd work in the restaurant during the day and then at night, he starts taking classes, so he takes a wine class. He makes a list of 12 icons that he respects in the restaurant industry. He starts studying them. He creates a notebook for each and every one of them. What makes them special? What do they do that's unique? He studies their recipes.

Then he goes to Europe and works in a restaurant there for free. And one of the rest of the restaurants are he worked at. He actually had to pay $500 a month to work there, so he goes for making $125,000 a year. All we down to $12,000 a year to now negative $25,000. He's burning through his savings. But at every place he goes, he studies and watches every single thing that's going on. He watches the chef. He watches the recipes. He goes with them on sourcing trips to see how they pick

out their food. He takes tons of notes. He studies the decor inside the restaurant. He studies the wine list inside the restaurant. He gets back to the United States. It spends another six or seven months searching over a hundred locations to find the very best location to launch his first restaurant. He is 27 years old when he opens Union Square Cafe in New York City. And Bill says I love this quote from Danny. I spent nearly two years doing the best work ever as a student. Think about what he's

saying. Danny's most proud of the studying he did on his own, not the studying he did in college. He viewed this as the best work he had ever done as a student. Danny would go on to launch 16 high-end restaurants in New York City for have won Michelin stars. Several years after that, he found ShakeShack, which is now a multi-billion dollar public company. And so now Bill doesn't incredible job of essentially tying everything together over these five guidelines. This is really

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find your passion. My first piece of advice would be to find your passion, pick a profession in

which you have a deep personal interest. There is nothing that's going to make you more successful than if you love doing what you're doing. You're going to work harder than anyone else at it

“because it doesn't feel like work. It's going to feel like fun. I think this is the most important”

decision you could possibly make an career. Make sure you have an immense there's that word again and immense passion for what you're doing. This should be your personal passion. Now your parents, now your sisters, now your family, it needs to be something that you're doing on your own. Do not make this decision based on status and compensation. There are a lot of high profile careers that make a lot of money and they are generally perceived to be areas where successful people go. If you

run at those things and don't have a passion for them, you're going to burn out. This is one of my

favorite things. It's just so, so, so true and everybody talk to you. You cannot fake passion.

Someone else that really loves that job will outrun you. Someone else has a deep passion for whatever career path you're going down and they're going to smoke you if you don't have it yourself. Here's an example of what you do when you have this just immense deep passion. Bill starts to quote Bobby Knight. Bobby Knight says, "The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. Everybody has the will to win.

What people don't have is the will to practice. This is a test of whether or not you're actually pursuing your dream job. So, whatever you would consider studying or for your work or your practice for your work, do you actually enjoy that part? Do you enjoy the preparation? Everybody enjoys

“winning. Do you enjoy the preparation? Number two, hone your craft. Again, I think it's obviously”

if you listen to a bunch of these episodes. I just use a bunch of these ideas. I'm obviously

extremely passionate about history, reading, biographies, podcasts, entrepreneurship. Those are my main passions. Founders just sits at the intersecret. If you had a vendor, I'm founders just sit right inside of that. This is another hugely important thing. hone your craft. hone your craft constantly. It's extremely important to be obsessive about understanding everything you possibly can about your craft. So that's number two, hone your craft. It can sit. This is so good. I think about this

this quote all time and half years. Consider it an obligation. Hold yourself accountable. Keep learning over time. Study the history and know the pioneers. How many times have you united conversations? Is there a single person we've profiled on the podcast so far that got to the top of the profession that didn't study and learned from the great people that came from them? Zero, nobody just said. It is the bedrock in the swipe. It is the bedrock foundation for what you're going to build upon.

And it would help you in networking that you're able to talk the language of the people that came before you. Strive to know more than anyone else about your particular craft. He's not,

“so this is really important. He says you have to be the smartest person. You don't have to be the”

most brilliant. You just have to collect more information. It is quite doable to be the most knowledgeable. It is possible to gather more information than somebody else. So here's a few example of collecting more information. One of the piece of advice he has is like, you know, depending what you're doing, you might want to go to epicenter where it is. In Bobby Knight's case, he goes in travels and finds the coaches. And so he actually talks about this. He goes in 1972.

I went to Pete knew his house. And I sat down in the middle of the floor with a stack of three v i five cards that he used to diagram each separate option. So he's filling out 74 cards on all these different plays. And he says, hey, Pete, will you come through these, like work through these with me? And Pete did. And they both learned from it. For Bob Dylan, he would call himself a musical expeditionary. And so Bill actually goes and looks up what's the definition of an expeditionary.

And expedition is to travel for scientific research or exploration. That's what Bob Dylan was doing. There was no one who knew more about folk music than Bob Dylan did when he broke out. He knew more than anybody else and he did. Again, he did that by collecting more information. Danny Meyer from his book said in the table says the same thing. He's going to set up this restaurant in New York City. It's a barbecue place. This is what he does before. He goes to Texas

and eats it every single barbecue restaurant he can find. He studies what he calls the elements of barbecue. Ribs, brisket, pulled pork, chicken, colosol, beans, etc. Then he takes a road trip through North Carolina. And he says during this road trip, I tasted 14 variations of chop pork. Each defined by subtle and dramatic differences in texture. The degree and type of smoke used the amount of tomato and vinegar in the sauce. How much heat was applied to the meat?

in? That is the level of detail that Danny thinks about for food. That is what it means to study to hone your craft. You understand more about it than anyone else. And then he ends this section, which again, with the quote, I just I've been thinking about forever. And I try to apply myself information freely available. That's the good news. The bad news is that you now have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable person in any subject you want. Zero excuse and men's

passion hold yourself accountable. These are things that just at least they just locked into my brain. I like things that are simple but not easy. These are very simple ideas. But they're

“obviously not easy to do because so few people do it. That's why they're valuable.”

Ideon number three, develop mentors in your field. Take every chance you can to meet people that are known for success in the field of chosen. And again, he used that example. How important is this? Bob Dylan starts with a guitar $10 and it is thumb. Any hitchhikes to New York City. 1200 miles just to get this done. When you meet these people treat them with respect, learn from them, document what you hear and share it with others. Ask them all the questions you can. Try to

get the mentors interested in your own development. Send them notes. Tell them when you use their advice, then you use their advice to be successful. Send them gifts when you've had accomplishments,

get them bought into you. Never stop pursuing mentors even after your wildly successful. This is

advice to be used not just at the beginning of your career, but all the way through it. And so Bill goes an example, Bill's a investor, a venture capitalist, and his day job, he says, "I had a marble fortune this year in my 20th year's investor to meet Stan Druckenmiller and Howard Marks." They're two people I've admired for a very long time. I've read everything that they wrote. I got to sit down with both of them for a couple hours and talk about investing. It was awesome.

The things that they pushed me on changed some of the actions that I take today in my work. Number four, embrace peer relationships in your field. Develop deep relationship with peers that are on the same journey as you. Have discussions and debates about what defines greatness in the field. Don't be afraid to argue passionately. This is one thing I wish someone had told me when I got my MBA. Everybody said network network network and I thought it was a social activity.

“I thought they were telling, "Oh, you need to develop your social skills." And that they want”

me to randomly talk to people I have no similar interests with. What I've come to realize is, no, it's not about that. It's about connecting with people that you have the most overlap with because you're able to help each other along the way along the journey. So my entire life, if I'm not spending time with founders, I'm talking to other podcasters. I have literally flown across Ghana plane and flown across the country. Just to have lunch or dinner with somebody else

it does the same thing that I do. Just to learn from them. Embrace peer relationships in your field. And then we do, I have a network of podcasters that I'm friends with, that I built

relationships. And this is exactly what we do. What he says next, always share best practices and

don't worry about any proprietary technology. It is not a zero-sum game. It's just a good trade. It's just smart. If you get caught up in worrying about it, you're going to fail in advance. It's so important. The activity of sharing a mentor's and peers will lead to many positive things that will hope you go up. Celebrate your peers accomplishments as if they were your own. And peers don't need to be in your exact field. So he gives example, Bobbi Knight said down

and developed a peer relationship with a swimming coach. And he gained knowledge from that relationship. They used to coach basketball. And then number five is always be gracious and pay it forward. I don't think this is exactly what Bill Gurley means in this section. But something that I thought about and really kind of motivated me and changed my perspective on this. I was listening to podcast one time and this guy said, you know, this idea of like being a go-getter. You're chasing after

something you have a goal and you're getting after it. But he says he tries to be a go-giver. And he noticed something that the more service he put onto the world, the more he did for other people. The more products he made that made other people's lives better, the more that came back to him

“automatically. And I think this is really important. He says always give the majority of the credit to the”

mentors and peers that help you along the way. It's the right thing to do and it keeps you from being an asshole when you're successful. Send letters, send gifts anytime you accomplish something in your career. Take the time to send messages back to the people that helped you. Eventually you have to pay this back. Become the mentor for others that are coming up the ladder. And so Bobbi Knight talks about learning this from Pete Null. He says when Pete Null represented to me in this case was a responsibility

a teacher has to share with others. I never held anything back. At clinics are in conversations with

fellow coaches, especially the young ones. And he gives an example. Surely after one of his sessions with Pete Null, and the next year Indiana's playing one of Pete's teams, they end up in the tournament together. Bobbi uses the stuff that Pete taught him and beat Pete on the field. He recalled that notion in his book and he said, you know if Pete was willing to do that for me, I've got to do that for everyone else. And it's beautiful how all this connects because one of the people he did is for

was a young coach K. And I would say his name, but I can't pronounce Coach K's last name. Bobbi Knight mentored Coach K. And eventually Coach K passes Bobbi Knight on the all times career wins list. And which Coach K was getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, he asked Bobbi Knight to induct him. And so Danny Meyer has a great quote from his book about this. I am convinced that you get what you give and you get more by giving more. Generosity of spirit and a generous

for your business. And then build a great job tying us together in the conclusion. I don't think

“a single one of these people started what they're doing for money. In each and every story,”

they were chasing a passion and a dream that allowed them to study. Go back to Bobbi Knight said about needing the will to practice. They did this on their own. Danny Meyer uses a phrase in his book

“called Professional Research. It is an interesting phrase because most of us think about the”

studying and the research we do around a curriculum and a teacher. Yet it is what you do on your own

that is most important. Do you go home at night and study to improve your own skill set? Most people

“don't. I think that's interesting. And so the list is number one, pick a career about what you”

have in immense passion. Number two, be obsessive about learning in your field. Number three, develop mentors in your field. Number four, embrace peer relationships in your field. And number five,

always be gracious and pay it forward. And Bill says, I stole the title of this speech from Tom

Petty, who was once asked what advice he'd have for people if he were giving it. Run down a dream.