Questions to ask on an Interview
My roommate recently asked to interview for the "Urban Education Studies Master's Program for the Teacher Preparation and Education Studies Program at Yale University" . I'm quoting from his most recent e-mail. I have no idea what that means.
(Eds Note: His e-mails Usually get cross-posted to his blog, but this one isn't there yet)
He has a list of questions that he'd ask on an interview of that type. Two of them were not related to teaching, and I found kind of interesting. I thought I'd give a swing at my answers.
1.) What are some things on your list of 100 things that you would like to do before you die? Have you accomplished any of these activities recently?
I never made a list of 100 things to do before I die. As depressing as it sounds, I'm about 10 years past accomplishing everything I ever wanted to do with my life. It threw me for a loop for a bit, and I still haven't recovered. I only half-heartedly got behind other goals I tried to set.
I guess there are two goals I can think of right now:
- Be successful in business
- Retire
I think the second is going to be a product of the first. most other mini-goals I have are just extensions of those first two. I'd like to be debt free, for example. That could tie into either one. When all is said and done, my debt is very calculated. I have a house and a car. The car will be paid in ~3 years or so. The house has about 25 years left on the Mortgage. If I can pull off a few wildly successful years, I can pay off either one early.
Everything else is I have, I own and most of it is just waiting to go to e-bay.
2.) Tell me one thing that everyone knows about you and tell me one thing that no one or only a couple people know about you.
I think this would make a great interview question. There was a meme like this floating around a while ago, I think.
What does everyone know about me? I'm a entrepreneur. I like to start / run businesses. I have a ton of experience doing so. It is very easy to put together a successful business plan. I even put created one for my podcast, The Flex Show. This was a surprise to Ryan my podcasting partner. But it got us on the same page before we recorded our first episode.
Executing the plan is not so easy, though. I've learned to become a devil's advocate of my own ideas just to accurately access risks. Such a cynical view has turned me into the crank I'm known as today. The truth in business plans is usually somewhere between what you see with rose-colored glasses and what you see through the dirty cracked pair that you found sitting in a mud puddle underneath a train.
What do few people know about me? I don't know, I think I'm a pretty open book for those that care to ask.
I get jealous of people who are more successful than me. I don't think that is so uncommon, though. X was more successful in business, Y blogs better, Z is just so freakin' smart, A is more professional, B is the nicest guy ever, etc.. etc.. etc.. etc.. I can fill in a name (or two) for each letter in the previous sentence.
I like to look at what other people do succesfully, and see how I can assimilate some of their habits or actions into my own routine. Hopefully the result is that I'm able to improve in areas where I'm not all that I can be.
But seriously, there isn't a human being alive who can say they've accomplished everything they ever wanted. That's life. Never get depressed about the things you missed out on. The past is irretrievable. Focus on present and near future. I'm all for planning, but sometimes you just need to just DO something and stop thinking about it. That's my problem. Too much thinking and not enough doing.