SchwartzBlog

As I enter the final 48 hours of my freshman year, I got a chance to look back on my accomplishments over this past year. In truth, the growing that I have done could be told over hours and hours of stories. The easiest way to explain it, however, would be to show how and why I rewrote my code of ethics.

Let’s first look at my original code, the first 4 bullets written in 2008 and the second 4 bullets in the summer of 2010:

1. Treat me as your equal and I will treat you as my superior. Treat me as your subordinate and I will treat you as mine.

2. Respect should only be given to those who do not abuse their power.

3. Live Life, Live It Hard, Let Nothing Stand In Your Way.

4. Failure is not taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.

5. At the end of the day, it matters not what you can say about yourself. What matters at the end of the day is what others will say about you when they are not in your presence.

6. A simple task is not always an easy one.

7. One reason you despise the flaws in others is because you yourself possess them.

8. You accomplishments are better received when voiced by someone other than you.

OK Let’s work through these

1 & 2 were written when I was 15. They came from the voice of a scared referee who needed some backing. I didn’t like the idea of not getting respect from others, so I made caveats to make sure I didn’t give anybody respect that didn’t give it to me first. In hindsight, not the best plan of attack. But at the time I wrote it, I can say I felt very strongly about those first two bullets.

Number 3 Comes from an email I once sent that year. Michael Taylor, my then assistant principal, had sent me an email with a link to a Chuck Norris video. The video was to point out that everyone has limits. I didn’t really care for that message, so I responded with one line: Live Life, Live It Hard, Let Nothing Stand In Your Way. It later became bullet #3

Number 4 , Like 1 & 2, were always in a way indirect statements at my parents. As I mentioned earlier, I wanted more respect than I probably deserved growing up, which is where 1 & 2 came from. Number 4 was drawn from the idea that I wanted to engage in extracurriculars like music, refereeing and student government more than I wanted to engage in academics. Being the stubborn kid I was, I tended to butt heads with my folks on the topic. Number 4 was my way of justifying to myself to keep going with extracurriculars. I looked at each activity as an opportunity to further my network of connections, and I gripped very tight to that idea.

The first 4 were the only component for the first few years, at which point I started getting a little wiser with the help of an incredible individual…

Summer in between junior and senior year my list got some help by a man known as Paul Corn. Paul is an assistant principal in Staten Island, as well as an incredible sax player and someone with a lot of heart if you can see through his outer layer. Paul took interest in building my character and it showed through where my code developed. #5 and #8 were really just cute ways of saying that I needed to close my mouth a little more often, but I didn’t exactly feel comfortable telling myself that just yet. Luckily now I do.

#5 through #8 were all written in that summer, and they were all written after I had conversations with Mr. Corn. Paul is the epitome of a mentor. He treated me in the only way I knew how to learn, by drilling lessons into me until they stuck. It took a few years, but he was the first person who made me start to think about my character and how my actions impacted those around me.

Nonetheless, I still had a lot of work to do, and unfortunately I didn’t realize that I had a lot of work to do. Fast forward a year to the start of my freshman year. I spent my first semester making connections, but also alienating myself in a way. I knew that I needed self-awareness, but I didn’t act on that need. Such a failure came back to hit me hard. Carnegie Mellon is simply not the place to be cocky, not when everyone around you is just as smart if not smarter than you.

I met some incredible people at this university, people that saw who I was on the inside and saw the potential for me to show others that I actually was a decent person on the inside. In the beginning of my second semester I scrapped my code of ethics and started over. The trick was not necessarily acting on these ethics instantly, but understanding their importance and letting life take its course.

Here is my new code:

1. No list as important as this can last a lifetime without constant change.

2. Live every moment as if your mentor was standing right behind you. Someday your next mentor will be…

3. It’s a small world out there…

4. People will find out about you whether you tell them or not. You won’t find out about them unless you listen at every opportunity.

5. You have two ears and two eyes but only one mouth. Use them proportionally as they were given to you.

I kicked it off by recognizing the fact of how outdated my old code had become. As a scared teenager, I needed that old code. I needed to make it clear that these ethics are made to drive my life in a better path, which means they would be ever changing.

Number 2 is derived from the fact that there are people in this world that I never want to disappoint. I call them my mentors only because I can’t think of anything else to call them. They keep me in check and build my character. I am in there greatest debts. One of the first things I did when I started rewriting this list was create a reminder to live each day like Mark Bayer was right behind me. Mark Bayer was another assistant principal ( I don’t know why that happened that the only mentors i’ve mentioned so far are assistant principals, just go with it) who I gave more respect to than anyone else on this earth during my later years in high school. So every day of second semester, at 9am, I got a notification from my phone to live the day like Mark Bayer was right behind me. I would be lying if I said it didn’t help.

There are always those who we want to impress. So if we act like they are right behind us, we are simply better people. And thus Number 2 came to be.

Number 3 came from my troubles at Carnegie Mellon. It started to occur to me that even in a campus with thousands of people, It seemed to be very easy to make a name for myself, for better or worse. Relating back to number 2, this was a way of making sure I took every interaction and made a good impression. Thinking through it, it seems a little redundant. But I like it anyway.

Number 4 and 5 are my way of telling myself to just shut the hell up once in a while. Now that doesn’t mean that I won’t voice my opinions when necessary but I did tend to be the kind of person who voiced any opinion that I had, and It didn’t always put me into best light. It goes back to the lessons Mr. Corn had tried to instill in me, but it took a while to sink in. I still have a ton of work to do in this category, but at least I’m making progress.

It’s been a long year. I have met some incredible people that have pushed me to better my character, just as my mentors did in the past.

I love this place, even if my brother calls it Watermellon University. I would never want to be anywhere else. And the best part is I’ve only just begun.

Thanks for reading.

I am not the most likable person on this planet. That is, well, putting it lightly. Those who know me from Carnegie Mellon will understand that I love to voice my opinion and tend to be difficult to work with. Those who know me from high school will probably take a more extreme view, and rightfully so. Then there are those that have known me for almost two decades. Ill let you figure out the rest…

I like to be a productive person and at times I loose sight of the impression I make on those surrounding me. It’s something I strive to improve, and that is for another post.

There are three people who have truly had to put up with the brunt of my personality. My two parents and my brother Daniel. An extreme difference would be the fact that Dan never had the authority to punish me when I got out of line, he essentially just had to deal with me.

So let’s just get one thing out of the way early. Ask anyone that knowns him and they will tell you that my little brother is one of the kindest people you will ever meet. Now that we have established as such, I would like to go deeper into the kind of challenges my brother face when growing up. You might think this is an exaggeration, but I hope you realize the significance when I tell you that the challenge he faced was me.

I had some serious issues growing up and often any outrage I built up at school was brought home. My brother got the short end of the stick every time he got into an argument with me. For years and years he was constantly handing over the remote, sitting in the back seat of the car, and the first one to do the dishes. I would get mad at my brother for reasons that lacked any serious sense, and yet it was extremely rare for him to ever act as irrational as I did. He was calm, and over the years he was assertive in ways that actually caused me to change my behavior. He truly made me a better person after everything that I had did to him, and for that I am eternally grateful.

My brother has this enormous level of dedication which on March 23rd 2012 paid off. My brother shot the best golf game of his life, a 79. For those of you who don’t know, shooting a 79 is extremely similar to the type of games that College Players shoot. It’s insane for someone his age to be putting up those numbers, but it goes way past his dedication to the game.

As a youth in an adult game, my brother had to considerably change his attitude towards society. In short, he became an adult when he decided to take golf to the next level. I remember his chemistry teacher telling me how proud he was of my brother for the change that he underwent in his junior year of high school. This game that my brother had was excellent, but the true goal he accomplished in my mind is becoming an adult.

In the last few years of my time in New York, dan was my person. He was always there to help me with any issues I had and he truly was the best friend I ever could have asked for. I owe him my life for the person he has made me and I can’t wait to see the person he becomes in the future.

It is truly an honor for me to call Daniel Jared Schwartz my little brother.

Hi All!

Wow it has been a while since I have put one of these up. Since we last spoke, I’ve traveled eastern Europe and had a semester of college (and joined a fraternity, Delta Tau Delta). That, however, is for another post. In addition, since I start my second semester tomorrow, I doubt I will actually ever get to blog about it. If you really want more info, you’re welcome to shoot me a text .

What got me back on my blog was a different post I had read by a dear friend and mentor, Tom Krieglstein. He was asked by a friend if he had a mentor. And his response (in a blog post of course) was that there was never a specific person who fully inspired him to do what he does today.

I am paraphrasing considerably, so I recommend you just read his post, but here what I drew from what he said.

Tom mentioned that he “had this idea planted in me that I’d find “the one.” Not in terms of love, but in terms of mentors”. I would like to reflect on Tom’s current status. He has a love, but no mentor.

I never planned on finding Tom, and even when I did I never assumed he would become the type of influence on my life that exists today. I don’t think he planned on it either. But I think one of the reasons our relationship exists was that there was never a bar. I know Tom, and I think based on his personality that if he ever met someone who he thought could be his mentor, he would set the bar very high for this person. And this person who would not know they were being tested.

I think the reason Tom never found a real mentor was because he was looking for one, and an incredible one at that. Tom was looking for the next great entrepreneur, capable of creating something from nothing and inspiring the world around him.

What Tom failed to mention in his blog post is that instead of finding this person, he became it. Tom has grown multiple ideas from a single thought to a multi-million dollar business. He has inspired thousands of people all over the country. He has inspired more people than most of us will ever meet in our entire lives, and this guy is 30.

We all have dreams, and most of us have people to look up to. But no one is perfect, and the only people we can truly motivate are ourselves. Don’t look for success in others, find it in yourself. At the end of the day, how awesome would it be to become the exact person you looked up to?

Tom never found a mentor, but I am kind of glad he didn’t. Because if he found his, who would have found mine?

Today I embark on what will surely be the greatest journey of my life. I will be traveling throughout Europe for a little under 6 weeks. While I will not be able to receive any communications, I will be using a prepaid cell phone to tweet and update my Facebook for those of you who would like to follow.

For those of you who do not feel the need to follow my every tweet (which I completely understand), here is my complete itinerary:

June 29th – Fly From JFK to Geneva, Switzerland

July 1st – Travel to Les Deux Alps, France

July 6th – Travel to Verona, Italy

July 8th – Travel through the Dolomites, Italy

July 13th – Travel to Interlaken, Switzerland

July 15th – Travel to Saas Fee, Switzerland

July 19th – Travel Back to Geneva, Switzerland

July 20th – Travel to Zurich, Switzerland

July 22nd – Travel to St. Andrews, Scotland

July 26th – Travel to Budapest, Hungary

July 28th – Travel to Prague, Czech Republic

July 31st – Travel to Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic

August 1st – Travel to Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

August 3rd – Travel to Dürnstein, Austria

August 5th – Travel to Vienna, Austria

August 8th – Fly back to JFK, New York.

This is going to be the greatest experience of my life. Pictures, tweets, status updates, and blog posts to follow.

See you all in August…

These past 2 months I have had one game that has ruled my life. The winner of the game was Vincent Groppa. Below is an article I wrote on the matter. Enjoy

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For those of you who haven’t heard of Assassins, ask a Senior. Because Senior year, assuming there is someone willing to run it (my advice, don’t), you will be part of the most complex “cat and mouse” game you have ever seen. Assassins has been the focus of my existence for the past few weeks, so what I have decided to write is the complete guide to how this game was put together. Enjoy.

When I was asked to run Assassins, I realized I could think of it as a challenge. I had heard in previous years that the game had lost some of its competitiveness because in the end, the rules were easy enough to bend and if you wanted to be honorable, your chances of winning would slip. I knew there must be a way to run this game without a hitch. If everyone knew they had a fighting chance, more people would fight. So I started on a journey I would end up regretting more times than I would ever imagine.

The first step was to organize communication. With 220 players, I needed a way for people to report kills without contacting me directly. Each player was given a game card with their name and a passcode. When there was a legal, legitimate kill, the victim would simply hand over their card to their assassin. The assassin would then go online and fill out a form that would automatically check the passcode with the name. This gave me more time to focus on other topics in the game. From that point, I would only need to address disputes.

The initial rules were simple: Nothing at school. Unfortunately that was the only easy rule. So I asked the people who really were into it. I wanted this game to survive, but that didn’t mean I needed to write the rules. In my mind, I just interpreted what others wanted.

When I started planning this game, I thought all I would need to do was plan it. I figured once I started the game, it would run itself. In short, I could not have been more wrong. I found that for quite a few people, it was simply easier to lie about a kill then forfeit. In addition, a lot of players chose to use the smallest water guns possible. The problem is it’s easy to stay dry when you are being shot by a water gun the size of a fist.

The biggest issue I have had to tackle is dealing with everybody. With 220 players and 1 of me, it is easy to say that I was getting quite a few phone calls each day. I will point out that some people did volunteer to help me. However, most of them volunteered at a time when my only task was resolving disputes, which is a task that I cannot delegate to anyone else.

I had three different types of communication with people that could lead to an argument. The first was registration. Since I had to make game cards for everyone in the game, assign and distribute targets, and study for APs at the same time, I needed to get all of it out of the way early. But after I closed registration, I then got a wave of students who still wanted to play. When this happened, I took a very simple approach. Anyone that contacted me, apologized for being late, and asked politely was given a spot in Assassins. After registration, 40 players were admitted to the game, and 1 was denied. The one exception was for people that asked me after targets were given out. At that point I couldn’t take any more teams and still be able to study for my APs.

I knew that once I made one rule, ten people would ask me to create rules that were similar. Furthermore, I didn’t want the Assassins rulebook to be a paperback. I took the same approach in dealing with new rule requests as before. Anybody that asked politely for a rule to be created, I took a long look at. Astonishingly, quite a few of my friends seemed to think that they could just tell me the rules they wanted in the game and I would just go along. I got calls at any hour of the day, and some requests as late as after the game had already started. All in all, my goal was not to impress my friends. It was to create a game that would give everyone a fighting chance.

The last communications I received were after the game had started. Rule clarification, protocol clarification, and dispute resolution. This needed a different approach. In prior scenarios, I had more time on my hands and less people getting in contact with me. Once the game had started, I would receive 50 or more communications per day. When I received a communication from someone who knew the rules and had a question that could only be answered by me, I normally answered it within minutes. What I simply could not deal with were people that would ask me questions that could have been answered by the emails I had already sent them.

Assassins has been a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I have had to start turning off both my phone and computer at 10pm because I am just too tired to keep talking to people. On the other hand, I have changed the way people think about Assassins.

Most people knew I was in contact with the school administrators about this game. Most people don’t know I was also in contact with the New Castle Police Department. When I first started talking to them about Assassins, they told me I was the first organizer to ever bring it to their attention. In addition, I found that this year, the amount of issues the department had to deal with were “reasonable.” In their minds, the game hadn’t become completely safe, but it was on its way.

Assassins is played all around the country. Some games get a lot of scrutiny from adults, and some get none. My goal for this game was to make it in such a way that in the future, it could be played openly. We wouldn’t need to hide it from the administration or the police.
That was my goal for this game. Only time will tell if I succeed or not.

In summary, Assassins was a huge undertaking. But If I had the choice, I would do it again.

Just kidding. I will never do this again.

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Thank You For Reading

Over 2 years ago I ran into a man whose name is Tom Krieglstein. I can’t give you intimate details because at the time I had not previously met Tom ergo I did not have a blog.

Tom’s message was incredible, that with the right level of intensity, a group of people could change an entire campus. It was a revolutionary idea to me, so I made sure I “ran into him” again the next morning.

The next morning I went up to him at breakfast and started a conversation. I told him I was interested in bringing him into my school, and he seemed slightly intrigued. I ended up giving him a copy of my Wall Street Journal. I know now that he doesn’t read the newspaper. But he got a kick out of the fact that a 15 year old gave him one.

The following year I was on Student Council and thought he would be a great keynote speaker. I made the calls, got the contract signed, even met him for dinner in New York City one night to discus the details. For Tom, it was the first time he had ever spoken to a school where he only communicated with a student prior to his speech. Most of his speeches are at colleges, so the fact that this happened at a high school was even more surprising to him.

At the end of Seminar Day 2010 he offered me the chanced to come intern for him. I had a little time before I went away for the summer so I agreed. It was an amazing experience. I won’t go into full detail because it is at the beginning of my blog.

Now I have another story to tell. Last June I was approached by my assistant principal about an idea. He runs ideas by me all the time, but this one in reticular intrigued me. He had this idea to take a group of seniors after AP Exams and let them do some internship instead of having to spend the last 5 weeks of school in a classroom. I loved the idea and told him as such. The following fall that idea took form. It was called Senior Experience.

Again, I am not going to go into huge detail on Senior Experience because it is in another part of my blog. But even before Senior Experience became real, I had already spoken to Tom about it. See, I had known about Senior Experience before its inception, so when my mini internship ended last summer, I told Tom there was a good chance it would not be the last time I entered his office.

As it turns out, it would be the last time I walked into that office because they moved. But that is beside the point. For the last 5 weeks I have been working for Tom. And what a 5 weeks it has been.

As you might recall from previous blog entries, I started my internship listening in on sales calls. I would take notes on only on the business part of the conversations but also the personal aspects of the conversation. The idea was to know the customer in every sense, to connect to them on a personal level. Because personal connections are unbelievably stronger than business connections.

Further down the road Tom recognized a skill of mine. While I was good at taking notes, it was not my specialty. Tom started sitting me down and pitching me ideas. I was a springboard. If you gave me nothing, I would give you nothing back. But if you gave me a small idea, I could turn it into something bigger within minutes. It was the same thing my assistant principal had been doing with me for years. The difference is, Tom was able to point it out.

The last week of my internship was spent at a Social Media Conferenced called Likeable U. In those two days I attended various Keynotes, Seminars and Panel Discussions. I heard from CEOs, Public Relations experts from the NBA, and even a current NFL punter. Full disclosure, the punter is the current punter for the colts, and the colts rarely punt. Still, he was a cool guy.

One of the most important things I learned at Likeable U was that it was more than possible for me to excel in the job market at a young age. I met people who were not more than a year older than me and had already started in the market while they were in college. They told me that my enthusiasm would be a bigger factor than my age if my enthusiasm was big enough.

I learned that the best core ideas don’t come from a boardroom, but from the most unlikely places. The boardroom is where those ideas are further developed or implemented, but not initially created.

The people I met at this conference were the people I wanted to become. Those that didn’t let their age get in the way. They just kept moving forward until their goals were achieved.

This internship gave me 3 key advantages. First off, I learned a lot more about social media. How to avoid its potential downfalls, and more importantly how to further use it to my advantage.

Secondly, I learned how to sell. I spent weeks on sales calls understanding what techniques worked and what didn’t for each type of customer.

Lastly, I learned about myself. I learned that I am not the kind of person you want creating something. Rather, someone who will take an idea and run with it. This internship gave me an understanding of what I am going to be in the years to come.

That was my Senior Experience 2011. And I promise I am going to talk about assassins soon…

I love New York. I really do. I love the fact that even at 4am, there is still traffic in Time Square. I love the pace of this city. And even more than that, I love the people.

There are a lot of people in New York on a given day. I classify them into three groups; Residents, commuters, and tourists. I classify a commuter as someone who spends more than 20 hours a week in the city. All of these groups are easy to identify.

Resident’s are like commuters, but are more laid back. This is because they don’t have to wake up as early to go to work. They simply have more time in the day. Commuters get between one and three hours less sleep than residents, so they are more likely to be in a rush.

Either way, both resident’s and commuters go by a New York code. It is the code that differentiates the two groups from the tourists. For example; A new yorker knows that the traffic light is not the best way to tell when to cross the street. A new yorker knows to take their metro-card out of their pocket BEFORE getting to the turnstile. And a New Yorker knows that if you get a phone call on a Metro-North train during peak hours, you ignore it. People pay hundreds of dollars a month to ride those trains and expect silence. If you break that silence, you will be known as a tourist.

There are a few ways to know if you are acting like a tourist in New York City;

1. If you spend more than 5 seconds at a subway turnstile.
2. If when everyone else crosses the street, you wait for the light.
3. If you can’t walk more than 5 blocks without someone stopping you to offer a bus tour of Manhattan
4. If you answer your phone on the train and don’t care who is listening.

Wherever I go, I try to blend in with the culture. I’m not shy or anything like that, but I never like to be labeled as a tourist.

When I travel with people, I don’t like when they label themselves as tourists either. Because when they do, they label me one as well.

When you travel, what do you do to blend in?