“Shit”.

I jammed the the key into the door of the “sharehouse from hell”. It had been broken since we moved in.

“What’s wrong?”, Matt asked.

“No one should ever have to go through what we just did, Someone needs to change this”.

“So why don’t you?”

“I don’t have the time or motivation, maybe somebody else will.”

I closed the door on what was a nightmare of a sharehosue we’d lived in for just about four months and into a very understanding friend’s car. We left, and I thought it was the end, but it was only the beginning.

We ended up being sued for an exorbitant sum of money for all of the problems that had been unleashed on the sharehouse over seven years without an repairs. People moving in and out, people coming and going without any obligation to maintain the property. We’d lived there for four months and gotten kicked out by the agent. I was exhausted and frustrated, but I kept going. I went to an extreme and even wore a tie to court to give a good impression – which being a child of Silicon Valley, is something that I secretly loathe.

A few weeks later, we were at the the tenancy tribunal after having our first court appearance.

“So, what do we do?”

“What most people normally do is just settle. But I think you guys might have a chance. Fight it.”

And I kept fighting – for several weeks. I got the case thrown out of court because they didn’t file the right paperwork. They filed a dodgy appeal, which I had to re-appeal. I would have to miss work to go fight. My personal life was in shambles. But I never let go. And I ended up winning every cent of our bond back. I had this idea to build an application that let people communicate with thier real estate agent better. I decided that if one more thing happened, I’d do it and never give up. I cared nothing about the several hundred dollars that I now had in my bank account anymore, it had become something personal.

Around this time I was also reading The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. One of my favorite quotes from that book was:

“They say sometimes time changes things, but sometimes you have to change them yourself”.

A few weeks after everything had settled, and three months after we’d moved out, I received a phone call from a blocked number.

“Hello, did you need any help fixing your front door?”

One of my favourite songs of all times is by a band called Trinity Roots, called “The Little Things”. And the more I walk on this journey that we call life, the more I realise that, as the tagline of the song goes, it really is “the little things that really matter”.

There’s so much beauty in what we don’t see – and those small little bits of attention to detail are what make me love something – it’s not just a brand, it’s what people notice. And that’s why life is so beautiful.

Just food for thought.

I’ll post a transcript of my talk, my slides, and some useful information after the presentation, and if anyone has any questions you can contact me :)

Update: My slides are now available on Speaker Deck. More information here soon.

This is a Penguin playing the bagpipes.

Taken at the corner of Swanston and Bourke Street via Instagram

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been putting off making a few business-related phone calls that I know I had to make. I feared rejection. Then I finally realised that I had to make a call. I didn’t want to make this call – it was business-related. I feared rejection.

But a while before that I’d read two separate posts by two people I have a deep respect for – Adii Pienaar and Ned Dwyer. Both touched on “knocking on doors” and “seeking rejection”.

So, cue me picked up my phone. Grabbed the business card next to me. Forced myself to dial the number, and then pressed “Send”.

And then I made the call. Forcing myself to make it taught me something very important. As hard as it felt to do it (I’m a terrible introvert at heart), it needed to be done. Nothing was going to come to by itself. If I didn’t make this call, nothing would happen. That person would probably just brush me off and I would lose business; they weren’t in a hurry.

And in a similar way, making this call was no harder than simply talking to somebody. You know that girl on the train? That one that you totally want to talk to? Same concept. It’s not that hard. You’re talking to another person. We’re not all that different.

So, pick up your phone, and make that call.

It was just a passing comment. I shouldn’t have remembered it. But I do. I remember how he was walking around, the turtleneck, and the car. I told myself “I want to be like that guy one day”.

Cue my obsession with Apple products. I walked through a store and said “I want that computer”. It was a G4 Cube with OS9. Everything about that was pretty awesome. I then remember joining the MacAddict forums (now MacLife). Then I wanted to build a website about Apple Products because I loved them so much and then started playing with HTML, which drew me into Web Development.

I think if there’s one thing that Steve Jobs has taught me among the many others being noted today, it’s to have heart and have conviction in what you believe in. Because that’s pretty important.

Having never been to Portland, I can’t speak for it’s authenticity, but it makes me want to visit even more. I’m definitely looking forward to this season.