While catching up on my RSS feeds, I ran across a challenge from Shane of Shane & Peter. The challenge is pretty simple: interview yourself with some questions from Shane, and add an original question of your own.

Shane, I accept your challenge.

What’s your personal mission statement?

To bring more beauty into the world, especially the part of the world inhabited by my family and friends.

This is part of why I got into web design in the first place. My degree in Business Information Technology is only tenuously related to what I do now, but I did have one course in web design. Though that course did make use of (shudder) MS Frontpage, it helped me to realize that I would much rather work on something where I could see, not just the conceptual beauty of code, but visual beauty as well.

What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?

Oddly enough, I haven’t had to deal with any big messes this year. (At least not professionally.)

What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?

Marketing myself, though I still need to do a better job of that.

Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?

I think I partly answered this already, but Beauty inspires me. Looking back at the work of Michelangelo or Bougereau or any other great artist makes me want to go and do likewise, though sometimes it leaves me so awestruck that I feel paralyzed.

I get most excited when I am able to share something wonderfully beautiful with people I know can appreciate it.

Boxers or Briefs?

Briefs.

What do you do when you’re not [designing | programming | managing | writing | toiling for the wo/man]?

• Read a lot of theology/philosophy and fantasy literature.
• Watch science fiction television on DVD. I have now watched 22.5 seasons of Star Trek, leaving only 5.5 to go.
• Write (unpublished) novels. I recently finished the first draft of my second work and began my third.
• Spend time with my loved ones.

What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?

Knowing what I know and knowing what I don’t know. Understanding the difference between thinking I know something and actually knowing it saves a lot of headaches, and lets me focus on learning how to do what I need to do efficiently.

What’s your exit strategy?

Exit strategy? What’s that?

What is the last thing that made you belly laugh?

I don’t really remember. Probably a theology joke or something my fiance said.

Have you ever been in business before?

I ran a pretty successful lawn care business during my teen/college years.

At what point do you consider yourself successful?

When I have enough to (a) support myself reasonably comfortably, (b) have the flexibility to spend time with family and friends, (c) am able to consistently bring beauty to my work and personal life.

What was your first experience with a computer?

Ye olde Commodore 64, with which I had many hours of fun, sometimes playing around with Printshop on the dot-matrix printer, and sometimes playing Mathblaster or some other educational game.

Not exactly answering the question, but related, is the fact that I first played around with HTML before I’d even seen a live internet connection. When I was 12 or 13 years old I heard about this “web” thing and installed a copy of NCSA Mosaic, borrowed a book on HTML from the library and proceeded to code my first web page, which was essentially a list of Star Trek related websites for me to visit once I convinced my parents to spring for a dial-up connection.

Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates in a jello wrestling match, where’s your money?

Gates. He’s pretty slippery.

Where do you do your best thinking?

I do my best thinking while lying on my couch when I have nothing whatsoever to do.

What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?

Tilted toward non-work at the moment, though I think that won’t last too much longer.

If I could introduce you to anyone, who would it be?

The pope. What can I say? I’m a theology geek.

But I’d probably end up complaining to him that the Vatican website doesn’t support web standards.

What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?

Thinking of my fiance. My faith.

If Chuck Norris and Steven Hawking had a baby (hey it’s my damn interview), would you vote for her for president?

I’d be too scared that she was the female version of Adrian from The Omen.

Now for my original question. What habit/virtue do you think you need to develop further in order to succeed (both professionally and personally)?

I think I need to make a habit of actually interacting with people. Being something of an introvert, I tend to be quite happy (at least temporarily) doing my own thing for a while. But over the long term, that tends to leave me feeling isolated, not to mention that it probably makes some of my friends and family feel like fifth wheels.

Don’t forget to check out Shane’s interview. I’d also be interested in seeing Eric interview himself.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 20th, 2007 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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