Global Entrepreneurship Week
Mentoring Madness
As a part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, a weeklong global initiative comprised of more than 30,000 events focused on the next generation of entrepreneurs, NYSE Euronext (NYX) invited local college students to Mentoring Madness at the New York Stock Exchange. The event, part of mtvU’s “Movers & Changers” competition, featured a panel of four entrepreneurs discussing how they got their start in business. “Coming from a downturn like this, small to mid-size firms will be building up the economy,” said Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext. Niederauer welcomed guests to the event saying that young people with great ideas need to gain the access to explore these ideas.
Guests to the event received a notebook with a card inviting them to submit an essay on what they learned from their Mentoring Madness experience. The panelists, TOMS Shoes Founder and Chief Shoe Giver Blake Mycoskie, B.R. Guest Restaurants Founder and President Stephen Hanson, Starwood Capital Group Chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht and rapper and entrepreneur Calvin “Snoop Dogg” Broadus, came from a variety of business backgrounds, but all rallied behind one word: passion. “Follow passion and it leads you to being an entrepreneur,” Mycoskie said. The following is the winning essay, written by a pre-engineering student at Borough of Manhattan Community College.
What I Learned at Mentoring Madness
By David A. Porter, Business Club attendee from Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)
When I was asked to attend a Global Entrepreneurship Week event at the New York Stock Exchange called Mentoring Madness, I thought the wrong person was being invited.
As a returning student studying pre-engineering at a nearby community college, I didn’t intend to become a member of my school’s Business Club. As fate would have it, when I came for the UNICEF club, I found the Business Club, the only one holding a meeting that day. In the spirit of open-mindedness, I decided to attend the Business Club’s meeting. It was this encounter that led me to Mentoring Madness at the NYSE. I put on my best suit and skeptically attended the event with other Business Club members.
The first speaker, Blake Mycoskie, had a hippie image symbolic of his globally aware entrepreneurial style. I identified with his having an injury that forced him away from his college athletic aspirations — as I’ve also had to switch from paramedic studies to something more “desk” oriented like engineering for health reasons, a reality I’m still uncomfortable with. Mycoskie’s resilient spirit enabled him to create a laundry service in college, come up with innovative media marketing ideas and also accept that sometimes a more established media conglomerate can steal your best ideas. But instead of being overwhelmed, he again employed his talents to come up with an innovative business that reflected his personal emphasis on charitable global awareness called “TOMS Shoes.” As young as Mr. Mycoskie is, he’s wise beyond his years.
Another speaker I enjoyed was Barry Sternlicht, who said maintaining one's “intellectual humility” was a very important entrepreneurial concept. The need to actively reevaluate ideas and decisions that seemed to work so well previously was a common recurring theme in the successes of all four of the panelists.
Stephen Hanson was a good example of the type of personality that’s required to survive in the hospitality industry. You have to constantly keep up with relentless competition and accept how sudden economic shifts can change previously reliable business models.
Snoop Dogg fondly recalled his mother who forced him to improve his math. His statement about the value of studying advanced math in order to make ‘advanced money’ was brilliant. He also spoke about stepping away from the nihilistic lifestyle of his youth, common to the socio-economic stresses that pervaded his local community. This allowed him to return to his old neighborhood in a position of greater financial strength and mental clarity in order to be of meaningful service there in a sustainable and community-enhancing way.
It’s been quite a journey from seeking the UNICEF club to ending up at the NYSE event, where I learned about both the entrepreneurial spirit and giving back to the community — be it the global community, as in Blake Mycoskie’s case, or the local community, as in Snoop Dogg’s case. It’s nice to be reminded that there aren’t just venomous snakes in the grasses of commerce, but quite a few warm-hearted mammals grazing there too.
