New Ground In This Chat

A training.  Last weekend I gave a commencement address at my university’s graduation.  Had to leverage rather different muscles then I do with my business all week long.  This weekend, once again, I’ve got to tap into something different and deliver a very different day in front of people. 

I’ve known about this company for a long time now.  My sales guys have tried to sell to them before.  But I don’t think we’ve ever gotten much of any business done with them.  The person who’s arranged things has sent me the address.  It’ in “Shunyi” which sounds close but by the time I enter it into the Di Di app I realize it’s a good forty-minute drive from here.

The driver is a nice chap.  He’s from a place near Baoding in Hebei. That’s the good thing about Di Di.  You get drivers from all over the country.  Beijing cab drivers are necessarily from Beijing.  He tells me that China is corrupt.  He mentions that America is a place that is fair.  I automatically suggest that my country, like his has good and bad, but that yes, on the balance, there is less corruption.  I’ve had a version of this conversation during cab rides in China for as long as I can recall.  It’s changed some over the years, but it is always a bit surprising to hear every day people’s bitterness.  But I need to read over the case I’m going to present.  And I’m skeptical that we’re going to cover much new ground in this chat and I beg his pardon and return to my reading.

It’s a great day with these young people.   They’re smart, and humble and confident.  Some of them have been overseas, and many of them have not.  I make a few changes to what I plan to do with them, on the fly, to accommodate the way, I think the class is moving, given the things we’ve covered.  I don’t even notice that I must wait till lunch before my first bite of the day. I know its old and predictable, but I can’t help but telling them how fortunate they all are.  How much more fortunate they are, then the generation that preceded them.   In the west it might be hackneyed, but I think its’ alright for me to teach them “carpe diem” and suggest they do so.  This, the same message I delivered somewhat differently, during the commencement speech earlier last month.

Saturday, 9/1/18