Meet Anyone and Everyone

early on when i was a young, status conscious partner of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., i flew into Columbus, Ohio to give a talk on future technology with an emphasis on solid state circuits.  i believed a leading edge talk for the time.

it was cold and i arrived early.  rather then walk around to see part of the city , i went into the auditorium and sat on the floor to go over my talk.  while there a janitor came into the room to change a light bulb in the ceiling lights.  after a few minutes of silence, he asked me who i was and if i was the keynote speaker for the event.  i said yes and returned to my solitude, basically dismissing him as someone who could possibly have any interest or knowledge in the content of my talk.

again there was a few minutes of silence and then he said that he had set up the projection computer and that he had seen my slides.  i asked him if they were clear and readable from the audience; a question that i assumed was a fit within his skills.  he said that they were colorful and clear, but that i had an error on page 11 with respect to parasitic capacitance. in shock i went on the defensive and said that his issue was nonsense and rapidly dismissed his idea.  he persisted and after a brief conversation i realized that he was right.  he was a self taught physicist and clearly knew more than i did in this area.

when i gave the talk, i called out the error and cited him as the source of the corrective insight.  after the talk we spent an hour over a beer and i was his student.  he was a mentor and an inflection point (inflection points, a later conversation) in my life.  i am grateful to him to this very day.

meet anyone and everyone from all education backgrounds and all walks of life for you can learn from everyone that you meet if you are open to listen and really hear.