That means I can’t
naturally connect with people. From the
time I was young, machines and books made sense to me, but I struggled to
understand people. As a result, I’ve always worked alone or one on one. Even
when teaching 30 to 350 person groups, sharing interactions always took place
one on one.
Some might consider
that an obstacle, but Asperger’s has a glorious upside: it can bring the kind
of brilliance that Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk
share(d), as do I. This can lead to
initiatives—and great success.
For example, when I
was an undergrad at MIT, I was so baffled by human unpredictability that I
developed a way to model, predict, and account for human behavior. This ultimately became the basis for my PhD
dissertation. While conducting the research, I invented a system that used
artificial intelligence pattern recognition techniques to model
decision-making, long before artificial intelligence was a household word.
After I graduated, I built a consulting business that applied my artificial
intelligence system to sophisticated market and economic research on behalf of
the US government and Fortune 500 companies all over the world. It was wildly
successful, and it kept me very busy, traveling around the world monthly.
The same brilliance
also comes with the ability to see straight through to the simple heart of any
matter. As Einstein said, “The
definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.”
This can be very
useful for entrepreneurs—and was for me.
In addition to my consulting business, I entered the field of real
estate development with neither a mentor nor knowledge of the field. I invented ways of building a small “empire”
of projects consisting of 4 subdivisions and a garden apartment complex. Unfortunately, although the idea took off, my
venture failed when the first cyclical downturn came. Seeing the heart of the matter is one thing;
being prepared for pitfalls is another.
Having learned my
lesson about preparedness, I ultimately launched numerous other entrepreneurial
ventures whose successes include raising $2.5 million (equivalent to $20
million today) in five days—from first contact to money in the bank—to start an
AI venture which I later sold to the investor.
I was able to raise the money thanks in part to two methods I developed,
which I describe in my new book, Make Your Life a 10.
Here are some of the
other ways Asperger’s has helped me as an entrepreneur:
Jump
to the core of an idea
Most entrepreneurs
waste almost all their time trying to do this by trying and failing. The lucky
one gets the point before their venture fails. I have been able to get straight
to the winning core of what I was creating because I knew exactly what that
was.
As the saying goes,
if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. And “any
road” is usually the path to failure. So, homing in on both the core essence so
you focus on what directly contributes and the pitfalls before you fall into them
is key.
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