Title: The Best Fertilizer Is The Dirt On Your Shoes

Hosting Ashmeet on Loving Life Conversation Series @Zoom
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Narrated by the author, Fei Bo, Founder of Loving Life （听我读这篇文章）
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I had the pleasure of hosting Ashmeet Sidana, Founder and Chief Engineer of Engineering Capital, on Loving Life Conversation Series Live. Ashmeet specializes in leading seed rounds in software companies with technical insights.
We talked about his life growing up in India and coming to Silicon Valley. His passion for computer science, his fascination with the power of computing and the limitation of it. How his “gift of education” was able to transform his life, “a life with tremendous change, luck and growth.”
Ashmeet shared a quote from his father, “The best fertilizer is the dirt on your shoes.” It is both true as a matter of fact and metaphorically. “You have to go out and experience things for yourself. The best way to learn how to ride a bicycle is to get on a bike and fall at least once.”
At the end of our conversation, I asked Ashmeet, “How do you measure the success of your life?”
Here is his answer:
“What’s not a good measure of success is money. My mother told me ‘There will always be people who have more money than you. There will always be people who have less money than you. When you feel demotivated, look at the people who have more money, which will help you feel ambitious again. On the other side, if you feel you have succeeded, and you are being rude, or you have an ego, or you are unhappy with life, look at the people who have less money than you, and you will feel content. You will feel satisfied. You will feel grateful that you have more in life than they have.’
“So there’s always somebody who’s ahead of you, and somebody who’s behind you. She used the words with money because money is an easy thing to talk about. I actually think this applies to everything. There’s someone who will be taller than you. Shorter than you. More beautiful than you. Less handsome than you.
“Happiness comes from alignment. It comes when your thoughts, words and deeds are aligned with each other. They are consistent with each other. Then you can be happy. I believe you will have succeeded in life in doing that. That’s how I try to live my life.”
Ashmeet has a dog. He says she is a good listener and loves talking to her during their walk together.
Ashmeet had the biggest smile on his face when he was talking about his dog, computer science, and those technical details which most people do not even take notice of.
Watch our conversation on Loving Life Youtube Channel.
If you have 5 minutes, watch the 5 minutes version with a condensed version of Ashmeet’s wisdom and passion (a word of warning: director cut below by Fei. Ashmeet might have picked a completely different 5 minutes if he were doing the editing):
https://youtu.be/OB6B_oA5ooo
If you would like to see the 10 minutes version, check out here (again, director’s cut):
https://youtu.be/5aw74p-bDjc
For the full interview, watch below (I intentionally edited out Q&A from audience as those were off the record and only for LIVE participants):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvRv7-DLiFY
Ashmeet believes in investing in founder-CEO type of entrepreneurs. If you are building something in software and the only risk you face is whether “you can build a product for a market that you know is big”. If you are passionate, curious, resilient, persistent but not obstinate, internally aligned, have domain knowledge in something technical, and you are better than most people at what you are building, contact me here.
I only offer to be contact because on Engineering Capital website, it says “the best way to reach us is through a mutual introduction.”
If we do this right, I will have known one more entrepreneur who is changing the world who I can feature on my show Loving Life Conversation Series, People Who Change The World, and Ashmeet will have one more company to potentially invest in.
Afterwords
I woke up in the middle of the night around 2:30am awakened by crying from my son, and I realized that my job for this interview was not complete.
A central question I am most curious about seeking the truth is: What makes people who they are? What experiences shape the arc of their life? Just as Isaac Newton was curious about why apples fall from the trees, I am curious why Ashmeet is Ashmeet. Immensely curious.
Ashmeet mentions “health” and “education” as two of the greatest gifts you can give a person. True. Besides DNA, what influence after a person is born shapes who they become? That, is the secret to a good education. Because after all, this will be the closest thing we could give to impact people’s lives besides health-related endeavors.
And what are the key elements of a good education? I wrote before that the way to teach my son to recite a Chinese poem is not by teaching him word by word, but by actually doing it — a beautiful scenery draws out a poem from my husband and my son follows.
The conversation with Ashmeet made me realize that this is a person who was born with intelligence, whose life has been transformed, in his own words, “through the gift of education and luck.” The power of computer science and his knowledge of it and passion for it. But that was not all.
Lots of smart kids are born into the world every day. Lots of curious kids, in fact, I believe most kids are born with immense curiosity. It’s our job to learn how to “protect that curiosity.” Yes, through encouragement, as Ashmeet mentioned. And also through the lack of many deeds, such as trying to teach too much more often than not.
As parents (educators, leaders), how can we leave the most minor stains on our children, as if holding a delicate glass? To prepare the soil that cultivates seeds (children, ideas, wishes, early companies) into the trees they are destined and want to become, so that children will take great pride in the adults they have become. This is the question I’m hoping to find the answer for regarding the journey of Ashmeet, and I feel I still don’t have it.
What was the journey of this childlike, intelligent, extremely aware, both to the need of himself and others, and very kind person with internal alignment, Ashmeet on the other side of my Zoom screen? How did his parents protect his curiosity when he was a child, which fostered the alignment between his thoughts, words, and deeds? “Maybe the answer is to speak to his parents, if that’s available,” I thought to myself.
Written with lots of love and curiosity,
Fei Bo
Founder, Loving Life
Loving Life is an education and media platform, empowering everyone to be the best version of ourselves. Loving Life Conversation Series, People Who Change The World features the best entrepreneurs and VC ecosystem to the world. Learn more HERE. Sample show HERE. Get in touch HERE.
I believe in the power of media, and also recognize the limitation of media. The moment you put a camera into a conversation, it changes the dynamics of human interactions in some way. To this day, the best conversations I had are almost all off-camera. The interesting thing is, the more aligned a person is, the less difference there is between their state being on-camera and off-camera. Of course, it has to do with personality, practice, their field, etc.
I believe you should always try to seek the truth, whatever that means for you. When I tell a story, I strive to do it with an intent of shedding the best light. It is a creator’s duty to bring more light to the world. The power and beauty that comes with authenticity.
I also believe the success of a company is determined by building a product people want. A growing belief I have is that the only job I need to do extremely well at this moment, is to create content that inspire and empower people, through telling and creating stories with others. Marketing, I need to be decently good at it, but not the most important. Money, will come.
My best value is content creation, not anything else. My audience are people who want to live better. With more grace, ease, and wisdom in life.
The success of my company Loving Life will be the success of Fei Bo. Whether I can answer those questions that I asked Ashmeet well myself. Whether I can find extreme internal alignment — a constant balancing act. How I define success of my life. All the great answers Ashmeet has provided are reshaping who Fei Bo is and what Loving Life is.
I will be in California from October 25 to November 12. I am coming to the Middle East from November 27 to December 12. If you are pursuing your passion, reach out to me HERE. I would love to hear about your story. Together, we can make the world a better place.
原文发布于Medium：

https://medium.com/@lovinglife7/the-best-fertilizer-is-the-dirt-on-your-shoes-d9c8facae6f7
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