Bryan and Tina Seelig, PhD What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

Tina Seelig, PhD explains...

"As the executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University School of Engineering, I get a chance to work with amazingly creative people. My new book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, focuses on challenging assumptions, breaking the "rules", leveraging limited resources, and creatively tapping into one's entrepreneurial spirit to make things happen.

In most schools, students are evaluated as individuals and graded on a curve relative to their classmates. In short, when they win someone else loses. Not only is this stressful, but it isn't how most organizations work in the real world. Outside of school, people usually work on a team with a shared goal, and when they win so does everyone else. In fact, in the business world there are usually small teams embedded inside larger teams, and at every level the goal is to make everyone successful."

More Information:
Tina Seelig's book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World  , is culled from her personal experience as an entrepreneur and teacher, as well as the stories of entrepreneurs and students she knows, Seelig avoids (and at times dissects) cliché and provides informative discussion throughout, despite a narrower focus than readers might expect. A chapter on acknowledging, learning from, and even seeking out failure ("Fail fast and frequently") provides valuable advice and comfort for the fearful, including Seelig's own "failure resumé" (broken into professional, academic and personal failures). The chapter titled "Don't listen to career advice" helps readers avoid the pitfalls of oft-heard, wrong-headed maxims like "follow your passions" and "stick to
the plan."