SchwartzBlog

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…