Radical Open-Mindedness
Summary: Open-mindedness leads to opportunity. The more you try new things out, the more you learn. None of us actually know what we enjoy, until we try a wide range of things and identify what we enjoy. Throw shit at the wall, see what sticks.
Stumbling across his blog after scouring the internet for advice on choosing a career (which might be an interesting blog idea for later!), I sent one of my first cold messages to Max Marchione over LinkedIn.
We had a pretty incredible conversation over Zoom (as he was in San Francisco and I in Sydney) for the next hour and a half, taking a deep dive into each others’ lives; why Max dropped law, why he took a gap year, plans for university studies, the potential that startups have and what we were each working on in the near future.
At the end of the call, he dropped me his number and said that after I graduate high school (in around a year at the time), I should reach out and work as an intern for one of his companies, Next Chapter. Following up on Whatsapp, I decided to shoot my shot and ask for an internship at the start of Year 12, supposedly the most stressful and challenging year of secondary education.
Max’s similar radical open-mindedness came through, and I’ve been working at Next Chapter as a Strategy and Growth Intern for the past 2 months now. I can’t begin to quantify how much I’ve learnt through not only working for Max, but also introductions to insane community members in the fields of Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, Angel Investing, Big Tech, Management Consulting, Investment Banking, Private Equity, and so much more.
Talking to people through cold messages is an incredible way to discover and learn more about the experiences you can have in life. I met the some truly incredible people all through cold messages and the introductions to others that followed.
My mum used to always say that you can only live the life of one person - and that’s true for the most part. But what she also said is that through talking to people, reading books and listening to podcasts, you can take away key insights revolving around what they’ve learnt throughout their lives.
One of the most amazing parts about virtual coffees, books and podcasts is that once you receive advice, it’s up to you to make judgement calls and decide whether or not you should implement it into your life. No obligation, increasing the amount of critical thinking you do and proves that you truly want to improve yourself.
