Hi Seth,

I feel really grateful to have the chance to work with you.

Welcome to my home!  It’s built with love, and I hope you like it.  I’m a believer that if you want to know a man, look at his work and the impact he’s had on others.

You said no points for fireworks or other shenanigans, so I’ll give it to you straight.  If you want to get to know the real me, start here.

Also, I take no responsibility for people who troll the internet, posting willy nilly on their friend’s blogs.  Especially not the recommendations below.

Good luck looking through all the applications!!

Warmly,

Kevin

PS. For any friends dropping by, here’s an awesome opportunity.  If you’re not familiar with Seth Godin, he’s one of my heroes / a TED speaker / a bestselling writer / an uber successful entrepreneur and just opened up a short internship to help build his next project for two weeks. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.

The last internship launched the Domino Project and published 12 bestsellers in a row. If this tickles your toes one bit, apply. It will only take an hour and might be a gamechanger. I know what you’re thinking, “But you’re applying, Kevin?  We’ll be competing.”  Maybe.  Probably not.  My impression is that he’s building a team, which means our skill sets are most likely suited for different roles.  I’m here to help

Attention Superheroes:

BIG news from Superhero HQ!  It’s our 6 month anniversary.  Put your party hats on everyone, it’s time for a Superhero Experiments month-birthday, which coincidentally coincides with my 22nd birthday!!  How dandy.

When we started, my mom, dad, and I formed a fierce community of three readers.  I didn’t think it could get better.

6 months, 22 posts, 20,501 words, and an explosive experiment or two later, over 100 people tune in each time our superhero show comes on.  I’ve found my voice as a budding writer.  Even more fantastic, the ‘experiments’ that used to live in the cartoon world of my mind (with the a Road-Runner-esque me blowing things up in my hypothetical little world) have come to life.

Books and seasoned writers will tell you to write for someone – a friend who will resonate with your work, a specific audience, or a hypothetical person.  I write for myself.  Every time I put pen to paper (or tickle my mac keys in a coffee shop) I’m writing myself a letter of sorts.  Call it a mini manifesto.  And each time, my goal is to move myself to action.   I want to read what I’ve written and change in some way, think about the world a little differently, or be inspired to action.  I want to be moved.

You have responded with a wave of positive feedback and – most awesomely – pictures of Month-birthdays!  Justin wins most epic picture thus far.  Our 36 Relationship questions, as goofy as they are, are spreading to mentorship groups at NC State and being used by pen pals.  I had NO IDEA you all were so awesome.  I can’t stop smiling thinking about it.

You blow me away.

We started with a simple idea: everyone is a superhero.  We are all born with amazing superpowers hiding inside of us, waiting to be unleashed on the world.  These superpowers bring the unreasonable dreams occupying the dusty recesses of our minds to life.  We can make everyday awesome, and we can change the world.  It’s up to us to uncover our superpowers, unlocking every ounce of awesome that’s hiding inside us.

We’re also all human, plagued by our inner demons.   No matter who you are, the same fear, apathy, and mediocrity wages war inside of you that sieges my mind ever single day.

We’re all the same, and we’re all special.

Today is my birthday and I would just like to say thank you, special people.  For reading, for making this fun, for your love along the way, and for who you are.  I’m too lucky for words.

Written with love,

Kevin

You are a baby elephant

Growing up, you tromp around the green landscape of rural India, enjoying freedom like a 4^th of July fireworks show.

Mom is your biggest fan, showering trunk kisses on your floppy elephant ears every chance she gets.  Then, a kind Indian man comes into your life.  He’s in charge of training you to grow up to be a good, strong elephant.  An elephant fit to have man ride you.

The two of you take a field trip to the local market.  Scared and bewildered, it’s the first time you’ve set foot outside of your bubble at home.  As the hustle and bustle of market life pass in front of you, your little elephant feet can’t help but get excited.

To make sure you don’t wander off, the kind trainer ties a hefty rope from you to a small sapling.

Angry elephant shouts escape your trunk as it shakes around like a firehose.  You dig your feet into the earth trying to break free.

You’re trapped.

Every time you and your kind trainer head into the market, the same scenario plays out.  All the strength a baby elephant can muster doesn’t even make the tree creak.

The market planted a seed of curiosity inside you, but after a few months of wandering about at home, your trainer starts tying you up to keep you beside all the other elephants.  Without the water of exploration, that little curious seed inside you shrivels up and dies.

Fast forward 20 years.

The same trainer takes you to the market, spears his bamboo walking stick into the ground, and ties your reins around it.

At 7.5 tons, you’re a big bad adult member of the largest species of land mammals on the planet.

You don’t budge.

It’s no use.  You tried to move a thousand times as a kid without success.

Trained Helplessness

Elephants are some of the smartest animals alive yet they can be tricked by training to submit to 2 feet of wood speared into the dusty ground.

They could break free with a little effort… but training deleted that possibility from their mind long ago.  They’ve been trained to be helplessness.

We’re just like these poor elephants, trapped by the well intentioned training of our friends, family, culture, and school.

“This is possible and that isn’t,” they tell us, unaware that their opinions define our reality.

Let’s take this into the real world.

School.

“There’s only one answer – and its at the back of the book.  Just don’t look!”*

With ingenuity off of the table, I – and sadly many of my friends – have become extremely good at the art of regurgitation.  Memorize and forget, memorize and forget.  Wash, rinse and repeat.  Welcome to the reality of school!  We hope you like our cookie cutter student.  He’s what’s good, right, and successful.

Wrong.

What use is it to regurgitate?  I’m sorry to break it to you, but anyone can Wikipedia the answer to half of the questions I was asked in undergrad.  At times, memorizing material is important, but anyone leaving school now can attest that a sad number of teachers subscribe to this philosophy.  The best teachers threw conventionality (and mediocrity) to the window.

Travel.

An epidemic has swept through the US, striking fear into the hearts of possible travelers.

Mommy and daddy say , “No hun, (insert dream adventure country here) is too dangerous!  Haven’t you seen the terrible drug cartels, terrorists, and muggers on the news?”

Guess what?  We have all of those here in the US too.  My answer is always, “If you or I walked through downtown Houston at the wrong time (or any other major US city for that matter), there’s a good chance we would get mugged.  So that’s why I wouldn’t walk around at night abroad, just like we wouldn’t here.”

Anyone can travel, practically everyone can save up the money if they want it enough.

In Nicaragua I met a 25 year old Canadian in a wheelchair who had traveled the world.  Paralyzed from the waist down, he had worked and surfed through every travel obstacle thinkable. No set of stairs or the cultural conditioning of fear could hold him back.

In Belize I met a petite Danish woman in her late 20s with plans to make it down Central America to Columbia.  A friend was waiting for her, and the fact that she spoke no spanish, was a woman, and was deaf didn’t deter her.  Communicating through doodles on a pad of paper, she lived.  Much more than most people.

The list goes on.

We’re all baby elephants that have had ounces of courage, creativity, and honesty trained out of us.  But it’s ok.  Now we know.

Go get it back.

My question to you is: What else have we been trained into thinking isn’t possible?

Written with love,

Kevin

*Props to Sir Ken Robinson for this phrase.

If we are more than 5 feet apart, I’m sorry in advance if I offend you.  The difference between men and women in my blurry world is a question of hair length.  My drivers license even states that I become a danger to society the second I take a seat behind heavy machinery without spectacles.  I would be offended, but it’s true.

Welcome to the world of the blind.  

But with the wonders of modern science, contacts and glasses give my world definition. Life goes from the static of a 1950′s antenna TV to crisp 20th century HD.  In a weird way, I’ve always wanted to take a few blurry days. If I had been born before glasses existed, what would semi-blind life be like?

Maybe it’s all the Kung Fu movies I watched during childhood that produced such a shortsighted fantasy.  Is it weird to want to hone my senses with a wise old sensei dropping knowledge during a round of blindfolded-nun-chuck-training?  In any case, some dreams are meant to happen.

Last week was a blur.

Step 1: MC an event

On stage in front of at least 100 people – mostly strangers – and one goal is running through my mind: entertain and keep the show running.  It’s time to introduce our next speaker.

In the middle of an anecdote detailing how he and I hitchhiked on a canoe (true story), my left eye twitches with pain and the left side of the auditorium gets blurry.

Uh oh.

For those of you gifted with the ability to see, this happens from time to time for us blind folk. A contact goes rogue.

Stopping the event to search around on my hands and knees for a near invisible piece of plastic is a big no no. Occasions like these are why we have glasses!

Contacts, KO’d.

Step 2: Take a power nap

4 hours later I tossed my limp body into bed, exhausted from the event. Waking up, I roll over on my…

Bifocals? Bye bye 20th century, these glasses just took a tumble back in time, and no amount of duct tape can mend this break.

Glasses, KO’d.

Step 3: Try not to offend people

And that, ladies and gentleman, is one of the many ways one can go blind.  But alas, life must go on.  From Saturday to Thursday I hugged ever person I met.  Not by any choice of my own, it was a strategic decision to figure out if this stranger and I have a history.  Half the time, our history begun with the awkward post hug stare I give them. I can’t tell who the hell anyone is until their blurry ass warms a seat across a table from me.

So, if I offended you this week by ignoring you, don’t worry. It’s not my fault.  It’s genetics.

Step 4: Acceptance

Over 4 hours, I went blind. Before this week, I didn’t give my glasses or contacts a second thought. After 6 blurry days, I verbally accosted an eye doctor that I’d never met.

You are a god. I LOVE you.

He seemed a little shocked, but got over it.

This little surprise made me think.  A feeling of gratefulness repeatedly washed over me each day. What if I had been born before glasses existed?

What else do we take for granted?

For those fortunate enough to be with family this weekend, think about how beautiful that is.  I can’t help but be grateful as hell.  Having a family that is together – no matter how screwed up or crazy they are – is beautiful.  My family is a trip, and they’re a gift.

Snap.

That’s how easy it was for my life to lose it’s definition.  We never know when something we take for granted will be abruptly be taken away. Fate doesn’t listen to our Gcal schedule.

So let’s do ourselves a favor.  No matter what’s going on, try and not take life, families, or our bifocals for granted.  They’ll appreciate it.  We never know when the glasses might break.

Written with love,

Kevin

Photo cred to the Bold Academy

(36 Questions study at the bottom for you TYLSers)*

To be honest, I hate small talk.  I despise it like a New Year’s Resolutioner despises free ice cream cake on January 10^th.   The first 9 days were bearable, but free ice cream cake?!  Blasphemy.

Relationships develop like an onion is peeled.  Layer by layer, we slowly get closer to the core.  Small talk keeps us at the superficial first level.

Scientists call it social psychology, and that healthy metaphor leads us to why it’s common for us to stick to small talk when we’re with someone.

It’s a necessary evil, allowing us to dip our toes into an interaction with someone without the risk of burning our whole body if their water is boiling.  It’s harder to dislike what someone says when the topic of conversation innocently travels from the bipolar nature of last week’s weather to yesterday’s instagram pics of ‘the game’.

It’s safe. 

Small talk reduces our chances of getting rejected, simultaneously sabotaging our chances to grow, learn, and connect.

Like most things we do, fear is secretly motivates us down own path.  Don’t dive deep with someone!  We might find that they don’t believe the same things we do.  We might disagree!  Even worse, they might not like us.  Real questions make us vulnerable.

Neh, I say!  Down with the small talk.  It served its purpose in the first few minutes of an interaction.  Any urge we have to keep up the small talk is a lost opportunity.  That time could have been spent on a fun inquiry into values, learning someone’s story.  We could have discovered our hidden mutual love for needlepoint!

People not named “I” hold the key to a treasure chest of new perspectives, opposing views challenging how we see the world.  Everyone carries a few years of life experience with them.  If we’re open to searching for it, an interesting treasure chest of connection awaits behind the first few layers of conversation.

Which leads us to the question of the hour:

What do we do about it?

With a few interesting life experiences and an obsession with psychology under my belt, I don’t pretend to have all the answers.  However, the following three strategies have opened up the doors of connection for many.

I believe there are 3 prerequisites to forming real connections with anyone, whether they are a potential collaborator, friend, or boss:

1. An even playing field

2. Vulnerability

3. Gradually peeling the onion

First:  An even playing field

I believe it is impossible to connect with someone if we don’t come from a position of equality.  When we’re below someone, we put on the face of our accomplishments to measure up, strutting around like a rooster, spouting our pedigree to anyone who will listen.  Some people suck up, lightly pecking their acquaintance’s booties with kisses.  Both of these create a problem: the person ‘below’ seems inauthentic.

Think back to a time you flaunted your accomplishments to try and connect with someone, desperate to be seen ‘on their level’.  Did it work?   Maybe I’m special, but I don’t ever remember this scenario leading to anything but the empty feeling of inauthenticity.

The opposite is just as dangerous.  When we strut around a room at the top run of the social hierarchy, it’s easy to fall into a paternalistic attitude towards others.  “We’re better than them and they need our help,” we tell ourselves.  Even more dangerous, it’s an easy story for us to rationalize.  We’ve tripped into a hole cutting us off from any chances to genuinely connect with people, and the concussion we sustained during the fall prevents us from even realizing the predicament we’re in.

Everyone eats sleeps and poops just like we do.  Connection depends on an even playing field.

Second:  Vulnerability

From this even playing field, the depth of a connection is based on the disclosure of personal vulnerabilities.  Think about the people you’ve really connected with.  You know them and they know you. You’ve both let down the defensive shell that often follows us around and talked about real sh*t!

But we don’t do that with just anyone.  We’re scared they might not like us, so conversations strays away from core beliefs.  Our culture has a tendency to promote the image of superhumans as those who are so strong that they don’t show vulnerabilities.  Hulk SMASH!

Sorry to break it to you, but vulnerability is where the magic happens.  Don’t take my word for it.  Social psychological research has proven that personal disclosures are the fuel powering the engine of connection.

But don’t take my word for it, do what you want Mr. Hulk!  Who listens to scientists anyway?  The world is flat – that’s why that big yellow thing rises on one side and sets on the other.  If the world was round, that definitely wouldn’t come up on one side each day.

Sharing vulnerabilities on an even playing field is the glue of good connection.

Third:  Gradually peel the onion

This is the fun part.

Social psychologists have also done an absurd amount of research into how we connect with people.  Time and time again, we’ve discovered that gradual disclosures of vulnerability produce the secret sauce that makes everything taste nice.  So how exactly do we translate scientific mumbo jumbo into something actionable we can test for ourselves?

Simple.  Ask the right questions.

Turning Theory into Action

An experiment that started at the State University of New York has touched people around the world.  In one hour, complete strangers become good friend.  It’s been so effective, in fact, that the first iteration of this experiment unintentionally produced a marriage.  You’ve been warned.

I fell in love with this experiment with a fantastic group called StartingBloc during which I discovered the hidden, crazy ways that a quiet Indian girl from Pennsylvania named Ipsa was the same as me.  We’ve remained friends to this day.

Over the course of an hour, two strangers proceed through a list of intentionally designed questions, gradually peeling the onion of vulnerability from the very innocent “if you could have dinner with anyone in the world alive or dead, who would it be?” to “what is the most embarrassing moment of your life?”

And it works magic for most everyone.  I facilitated a workshop with (read: experimented on) high school students from across North Carolina at a youth leadership conference called TYLC two weeks ago.

I’ll be honest, before we started I was sufficiently worried they wouldn’t quite get it.  The 13-17 year olds proved all my preconceived notions wrong.  Students were asked to pair up with a peer who they didn’t know and who they though was the most different from them out of everyone in the room.  We ended up with a fantastic mix of interracial and intersex pairs along with a few who seemed to have found each other based on a difference in scale (tallies with shorties).

As we progressed through our 10 questions, a crazy phenomenon physically illustrated the power of the above three principles.  Two by two, pairs gradually moved from standing 6 feet apart in “stranger danger” poses to sitting down facing each other.  Most were practically touching knees.

At the end of our hour together, our high school social scientists erupted in laughter as pairs of strangers-turned-friends shared the most embarrassing moment of their lives – something many hadn’t even shared with their best friends.

An even playing field combined with a healthy teaspoon of vulnerability, gradually sprinkled on an interaction can create friends out of complete strangers.

Act:  A Challenge

Call it relationship science or relationship magic, what happens next is up to you.

Introverts and extroverts alike can create relationship magic if they choose to take control over the quality of their conversations.  Let small talk serve it’s purpose.

The 36 questions below are a smorgasbord of ideas referenced from the study that started this madness.  Think of it as a starting block for you begin experimenting until more creative inquiries come to mind.

As a personal case study, every few weeks a good friend from StartingBloc and I will dive into one of these questions.  We’re not even halfway through and I feel like I know her better than most of the hoodlums I grew up with.  I’m continually blown away by the hour long conversations that can result from a good question.

I challenge you to go out and experiment yourself with strangers and best friends.

How will you create relationship magic?

Written with love,

Kevin

###

36 Questions Exercise

Important note: In the following questions, it often refers to “your partner.” This doesn’t mean your partner in a romantic relationship, nor your partner in your social venture. It means your partner in conversation – i.e., the “stranger” with whom you are exchanging answers to these questions!**

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a perfect day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamt of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “we are both in this room feeling…”

26. Complete this sentence “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them: be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen. 

Original research cited from:

Aron, A., Melinat, E., Aron, E. N., Vallone, R., & Bator, R.  (1997). The experimental generation of interpersonal closeness:  A procedure and some preliminary findings.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 363-377.

* This material was adapted from a workshop I gave at TYLC, a youth leadership conference here in Raleigh.  I wrote this for the kids who bravely put up with me.

** A big big thank you to Scott Sherman for introducing me to this experiment