The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [84]
In ninth grade, Swift moved to Nashville, earned a record deal, and at fourteen, became the youngest person that Sony/ATV Publishing had ever signed as a professional staff songwriter. When, a year into her career, she returned to her hometown, the girls who had shunned her “showed up, wearing my T-shirts and asking me to sign their CDs. It was bittersweet, because it made me realize that they didn’t remember being mean to me and that I needed to forget about it too,” Swift said. “Really, if I hadn’t come home from school miserable every day, maybe I wouldn’t have been so motivated to write songs. I should probably thank them!”
In 2008 and 2009, Taylor Swift sold more albums than any other musician or band in the world. In 2010 she became the top-selling digital artist in music history. As she told an audience at a concert in Nebraska, “What does it matter if you didn’t have any friends in high school when you’ve got 15,000 of your closest friends coming to see you in Omaha?”
CURIOSITY, LOVE OF LEARNING, PASSION
When Yahoo! executives evaluate job candidates, they look for what the company calls the Y-Gene, described as a quality of people who “marvel at life and milk it for all it’s worth. They’re curious and energetic. They value openness and want to live unbridled and unrestricted. They appreciate that life is huge. They don’t settle for the status quo—they want to grow.”
Such qualities represent a zest for learning, for continually expanding the boundaries of one’s knowledge and abilities. This ardor can manifest as unbridled emotion (as Noah felt toward the band) or as quiet devotion (as Eli felt about geography), as a curiosity that borders on skepticism (Danielle), or as a youthful enthusiasm (Regan). In a book about bridging the old economy with the new, London Business School professor Gary Hamel, whom the Wall Street Journal ranked as the number one most influential business thinker in the world, wrote, “You must marry a thorough understanding of business concept innovation with the wide-eyed curiosity of a precocious five-year-old. Phrases such as ‘disciplined imagination,’ ‘routine creativity,’ and ‘informed intuition’ capture the challenge. . . . Imagination, creativity, and intuition [have] been bred out of you—first by school, then by work. Yet you can, and must, regain your lost curiosity. You must learn to see again with eyes undimmed by precedent.”
When you do, both work and life can be informed by an outlook born from mastering something you love. When Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, was in school, he was a loner and a “misfit” who subsequently looked to the outdoors for entertainment. To band eagles and falcons for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, he learned how to rappel down cliffs, which sparked a lifetime love of rock climbing; he has since climbed mountains on every continent and has been called “the godfather of ice climbing in this country.” A craftsman at heart, Chouinard developed his own climbing equipment and, eventually, the outdoor clothing and gear company Patagonia.
Patagonia’s most widely acclaimed policies stem directly from Chouinard’s passion for the environment. One of the first green companies, Patagonia annually gives 1 percent of its sales to environmental causes and makes all products from recycled or recyclable fibers. The company has worked with larger companies like Walmart, Nike, and Gap to help them become more eco-friendly. Every year, forty employees take paid two-month internships with environmental groups. Solar panels power one company building, and a recent extension was built using 95 percent recyclable materials. The employees with the most fuel-efficient cars are given the best parking spots. The company was one of the first to