On the perpetual quest for challenge, novelty (and productivity): Business Today International Conference (BTIC 2013)

Freezing...

This weekend I had the incredible fortune to participate in Princeton's BTIC in New York.
Fully funded trip to NY to stay at the Hyatt and learn about emerging markets? Quadruple win.
Business Today is run wholly by Princeton students and every year they put on this amazing conference.
This year there were 130+ students from 20+ different countries attending.

Seriously awesome.
From Belarus to Pakistan to SYRIA to Taiwan to India to New Zealand to Kenya to Nigeria to so many more.
Did I mention there was a guy here from SYRIA? Jesus.
Unfortunately I didn't actually get to meet him but I did get to meet a plethora of really cool people who are doing amazing things with their lives.

Also got to meet Eric Rose (first person to ever do a heart transplant on a child) ... so just a tensy bit of a badass (heavy sarcasm, this guy is amazing).

And David Cush, CEO of Virgin America. Also an awesome (and obviously absurdly accomplished) human being.

Eric Rose, CEO of SIGA

Also on my flight back I sat next to a hella cool guy going for his PhD at Colombia who casually happened to know Nicholas (Nick) Dirks, aka: new Chancellor of Berkeley.

His research is focused on British-induced Indian (real Indians, not Native-American Indian) slavery, post actual slavery. Absolutely fascinating. I had no idea that Indians were shipped to countries like Sri Lanka and Trindad and Tobago to essentially work as slaves. I won't go into further detail about what he's researching because I have no idea if it's proprietary/someone might steal it.
Best not to risk it.

But anyways, what are the chances.

Life is awesome if you just talk to people.
More and more I'm becoming convinced that it's not the places that change you life, it's the people and the interactions with them.

So don't be shy, put yourself out there, initiate conversations. Sometimes you'll get rejected and people will be like "uh, wth, don't talk to me."
The hardest part is telling yourself to get over that rejection and just move on. It's certainly something I'm trying to get much better at. Just talking to people without worrying that they will think I'm weird...cause if they do, well whatever. Let's be honest, I'm definitely a bit of a weirdo and spaz.