It's less about what WE say, rather it's how WE say it.

Great leaders have a monumental impact on the people around them, so much so that they can change the trajectory of their careers. Among great managers, it’s incredibly easy to find people on their teams who have fundamentally been transformed. Thus, the prototypical leader of the future will shift from the steely-eyed command-and-control type to one who is more open to feedback….one who specializes in communication, collaboration and co-ordination. To become one of them, there's a few things we could do:

• Articulate a vision that enrolls and inspires the people around.
• Be a role model for those around you and invest in reaching your potential
• Frame your communications in the values of who you are communicating with.

Leadership is not a title, it is about having the attitude of taking responsibility backed up by the willingness to take action. Leaders are prepared to put in the effort and sacrifice short term results to reap dividends in the longer term. Great leaders make a commitment to achieve excellence in all areas of life and regularly invest time and money into becoming the best they can be, taking themselves and those around around them to the next level.

It's vital to understand there are many paths to success. We need to understand that managing by trying to be liked is the path to ruin. As a leader, we need to care deeply, deeply about our people while not worrying or really even caring about what they think about us. However this is easier said than done, but added it's important to avoid simply telling employees what they want to hear.

It's also very important to be transparent; people are always looking at you - Don't lose their trust by failing to provide transparency in your decisions and critiques. The way we build trust with our people is by being forthright and clear with them from day one.

As we can imagine in a startup environment where leadership roles may not be well defined. But if we don't deal with, dysfunction could become embedded in the company. That dysfunction becomes learned and part of the culture of the company and it's almost impossible to eradicate it. Knowing how to effectively project ourselves as a leader and to understand the impact we have on others will define the success as a leader. Employees look to leaders to give them confidence that their organisation is moving in the right direction and that, as employees, that they are part of an important cause. Because they understand the fundamental difference between “Intention” and “Impact” in communications and how to structure their behavior and communication style accordingly to create an engaged, inspired and effective team.

Successful leaders also understand that their team will always be a reflection of themselves. If as the leader, they are not highly organised, the team is unlikely to be either. If the leader does not focus on growing their knowledge and on-going personal development, then it is almost certain that their team will not either. So successful leaders need to be congruent and display the behaviors that they want to see exhibited by their team members.

One true test of a leader is whether their teams and achievements endure after they leave their post. If we aspire for leadership, we need to ensure that we've prepared our team to succeed without us. That means finding or grooming a successor, building processes that can persist long after we transition to a larger role, and creating a culture that embeds the right habits and norms into the fabric of our team.

Top 10 Quotes For Entrepreneurs

Starting a company is a riveting roller coaster of emotions with tremendous highs and at times, difficult lows, but one thing that always helps me through the ups and downs is to connect with some of the greatest minds. Below are just a few of my favorite quotes:

1) “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
- Peter Drucker

2) “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- Steve Jobs

3) “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- Thomas Edison

4) “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
- Albert Einstein

5) “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”
- Napoleon Hill

6) “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people cant.”
- Warren G. Tracy’s student

7) “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
- Mark Twain

8) “When you cease to dream you cease to live.”
- Malcolm Forbes

9) “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
- John C. Maxwell

10) “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
- Bill Gates

Feel free to leave your favorite quote below!

Disrupt Your Industry With Love, Not Contempt

“You ever notice how the first slide in any pitch deck these days is ‘[industry] IS BROKEN?’”


A friend pointed this out to me last week talking over coffee during a cold rainy New York afternoon. It was noted with a bit of smirk – both in terms of its consistency but also how it has a “to a hammer, everything is a nail” quality — the world is broken and entrepreneurs are here to make it better!

Now of course there’s a beautiful truth to this: entrepreneurs see problems everywhere. Problems they are compelled to fix. One of my emerging theories is the best products/startups are built on an emotional base of love and greed.

Love in the sense that the founders are motivated by some deep warmth and appreciation towards the area they’re innovating within. And greed not solely in the notion they want to make lots of money – although they believe profits are a tool – but rather that they won’t stop until everyone is a customer because their product is just that good, and that’s the way the world should work. Looking at Homebrew’s 2013 investments I see clear examples of founders “fixing” their industries with love, not contempt. The two most striking for me are UpCounsel and The Skimm.

UpCounsel connects businesses with on-demand legal support by creating a marketplace, really a virtual law firm, of the best independent attorneys. Folks like theWall Street Journal are taking notice. Matthew Faustman, UpCounsel’s CEO/cofounder, is a lawyer himself, having left prestigious firm Latham & Watkins to create what he saw as the future of the legal profession. UpCounsel wasn’t founded because Matt hates lawyers. Quite the opposite – he believes both lawyers and clients are underserved by current options and he can build a way for both sides to have more meaningful interactions. 

The large law firm structure is crumbling and UpCounsel wants to make sure every great independent lawyer has everything they need to succeed. Look at Matt – he’s a handsome smart guy. Could have stayed the course, made partner, got the nice house, etc. But that wasn’t the impact he wanted to make on his profession. He stepped away from a surer thing to do the new thing. And I see that DNA in his business. In the way they interact with lawyers on the platforms – recognizing they’re talented, unique individuals, not just fungible resources.

For Carly and Danielle at The Skimm – close to the same story. Two twentysomething NBC News rising stars but felt to the core of their bones that traditional media was underserving their generation and any other busy professional who wanted to stay in the know. What do most people do? Nothing. Keep collecting the salary, the promotions, the false stability. Instead they left. Not shaking a first at the existing institutions and toasting how they’ll burn them to the ground, but with love. We can do this different and better. And we need to do it from outside of the current structure in order to bring it to life true to our vision.

Hunter Walk
Partner at Homebrew VC (fmr YouTube, Google, Second Life product lead)

There Is No Lone Genius; Hire a Team With these Four Types

There’s something romantic about the idea of the lone genius. The early success of GE is often attributed solely to the inspiration and perspiration of Thomas Edison. But experience and research both tell us that lasting success is built by teams that drive each other through collaboration, different skill sets and, yes, tension. 

It’s difficult to imagine the stratospheric successes of Steve Jobs without Stephen Wozniak or Mark Zuckerberg without Sheryl Sandberg. Edison had many collaborators and competitors who drove him, including the engineering genius Charles Steinmetz.

Diverse teams drive more innovation. Hiring people with different styles, backgrounds and experience increases the success of teams. My sense of what makes a successful team is constantly evolving, but these days I look for these four types when I hire.

• The fish out of water. People who are from, or have lived in, global markets expose the company to different mindsets and ways of approaching tasks. Different educational backgrounds also help foster critical thinking skills. Candidates who have studied anthropology and psychology, for example, bring keen observational skills to your team, which is especially good for early stage market and customer prototyping.
  
• Someone who can FIO (Figure It Out). Teammembers who can FIO are critical to navigating the ambiguity of the global economy, which no longer has a standard playbook. This quality isn’t necessarily detectable on a resume, so I like to give interviewees hypothetical but decidedly ambiguous scenarios and creative challenges laden with constraints to test their fortitude and creativity.
  Still, there are some signs that someone has the skills to FIO. Anyone who has served in Teach for America, the Peace Corps or a similar organization has most likely been thrown into a leadership position in a challenging situation. I remember a candidate whose background in disaster relief for non-profits in locations ranging from Haiti to Somalia made me confident he could have figured anything out in the corporate world. Likewise, my work with GE’s Veterans Network has shown me that people with military service can perform complex tasks with scarce resources.
  
• Candidates with design training. Businesses need design thinking, and not just for creative roles. Design training helps people get a feel for the essence of an issue quickly. It also trains them to visualize concepts in a way that bring people together around a common narrative. Think of all the great ideas that started as sketches on the back of a napkin – that’s design thinking.
  
• The well-balanced player. Teams need specialized skillsets but they also need people who can work across disciplines and contribute in multiple ways. A few years ago at GE, we came up with a framework to define a well-rounded team called the 4 I’s: Instigator, Innovator, Integrator and Implementer. The 4 I’s are present, to some degree, in every candidate we interview but some people have them in just the right balance. Those people are often your team leaders.

Collected from LinkedIn.Com

Should Everyone Work In A Startup, At Least For A While?

The answer is: It's probably a good thing but it's not about the money.

Certain experiences shape a career. Some are in the "you-will-be-a-better-person-for-this" category. Getting fired and really bad bosses tend to top that list. Conversely, a special relationship with a mentor or time spent in an exceptional training program can propel a career in the positive direction. But mentors and cool training can be hit or miss. The alternative for pure career shaping moments: time at a startup.

Career shaping moments are built on day-to-day experiences where the requirement is to be able to drink from a fire hose. Many would say that time spent in an early stage company is that fire hose. Time spent there beats an MBA, beats any training program and can propel one's career into a leadership role and create wealth (if that's what one wants) more than any thing else. That's what many would say and most in Silicon Valley.

There is a certain cache to working at a startup. Friends are jealous and assume you might be the next Facebook zillionaire. Other friends are always and willing to lend advice - in exchange for equity. Hot new technology abounds and cool snacks might be in the kitchen. You can probably build an entire wardrobe around logo riddled clothes you receive.

But working at a startup can be risky. Pay and benefits can be less than market rate. The CEO might be twenty-five years old and learning on the job. Venture capitalists and bankers might be annoyingly in your way. More conservative friends may wonder, WTF?, You are wasting your talent. But if you are ready to deal with the risk / reward equation and build a career around the experience, it will pay off. Here is why it can be worth it:

You are always dealing with the biggest business lesson of all: Business is about making stuff and selling stuff. If you are not doing one of those two things, what are you doing?

You learn that cash is king and every nickel counts. Any one in a startup knows two of the most feared phrases are "We are running low on cash", or "Our runway is two months". Living with those phrases will definitely shape a career.

You learn that there are lots of details in any enterprise. You might have to name the company, design a logo, find office space, figure out the legal entity, find an insurance carrier and all the thousands of mundane activities that one takes for granted in a larger company.

You learn that meeting payroll is not an automatic God-given right.

You learn that results matter and shape the company. As in, results count, not effort.

You learn that every situation has an upside. You may not get paid a lot but maybe you can take your dog to work. You don't have to dress up and will save money on clothes. Really close quarters could mean really close friends. You see the results of your labors.

You learn that if you don't make coffee or get the dirty dishes out of the sink, no one else will. There is no maid. You learn that if you call in sick your team will suffer because no one has any extra capacity.

You learn that business is sometimes a series of forced choices. Should we have free snacks or revamp the website? Should we have free coffee or hire another engineer? Should we launch early when we are not quite done, or wait?

Maybe the thing about startup experience is that it almost always happens early in a career and the positive shaping can last a long time. You learn that leadership matters, even if you are twenty-four years old.

Working at a startup is a simple equation. The numerator is risky. The denominator is an experience that can shape a career. You make the decision. And there is that Facebook zillionaire thing.

Creating A Company Culture That Matters!

My company's leadership used to focus mostly on vision, position, product and service while assuming our culture was organic to our company and the employees. It wasn't. Whereas our company ran, communicated and created on point, our culture was random. Last year we decided to work with our team leaders, employees and interns and define a culture that would support the company and define both the experience of working as well as the aspects of the people we would hire and contract.

Together we created the four pillars of the Cinequest culture and the effects were startling. First, within a month of defining the culture, several people who had just signed longterm contracts unexpectedly left the organization. The culture as defined was not for them. Then energy shifted and we started to see both new talent as well as seasoned team members integrate with the cultural pillars. Leaders and employees consistently reinforced the culture both in regular meetings as well as in interviews with prospective employees and interns. The end result has been exceptional: our team has strongly improved as has the day to day vibe of working together. Now the company DNA includes culture along with vision, position, product and service.

The four pillars of the Cinequest culture are, as defined by our team:

• World Class Excellence: creating work at the highest level of quality and impact.
• High Energy: drive, enthusiasm, passion.
• Love: love of the people we serve, each other and of Cinequest.
• Integrity.

What are some of your favorite cultural 'pillars' you have or would like to see in your organization?

From:
Halfdan Hussey
Co.-Founder & Director at Cinequest

The Business World Can Tear You Apart – If You Let It!

Often I've RECEIVED Calls and Emails from former business Students of mine who, despite being of PINNACLE CAREER or at a financial Success, have expressed profound Loneliness and Despair - The KINDS of feelings that lead to tragedies like saattaa The Recent  suicides of TWO CHF executives .

Many young leaders and CEOs say that power and influence come at a steep cost. The more success these people find, the more they feel like targets. It can seem like everyone wants something from them, and even acts of kindness and generosity from others seemed like veiled attempts at manipulation.

So, some leaders gradually lean away from people, creating a self-imposed detachment. In this isolation, they come to feel that they have no one to share their problems with - and at the same time, it makes them seem unapproachable to others. They drift deeper into themselves, and end up far away from the people in their lives.

It's not only leaders and executives who can come to feel this way. As we know, stress is epidemic in workplaces everywhere. The more of it we face, the greater danger there is of losing touch with the people and values ​​that are important to us. There are always moments of isolation, but by keeping the following ideas in mind, you'll be better equipped to address them, or avoid them:

1.  Get outside  -  of Your head, and Your office:  The more you Stay in one place, both Mentally and physically, more one-sided The world starts to The Look. That's when priorities get warped. But high-energy, focused people can often replace one kind of engaging activity with another. Read great novels. Learn to fly-fish (that takes a lot of concentration, I'm told). Try to develop an exercise plan, especially one that takes you out of doors. Richard Branson pilots hot air balloons, Larry Ellison sails. Sergey Brin even learned the trapeze. Think of recreation as "re-creation" of your energy in a different venue.

2.  Set Boundaries and Stick to them:  Too Often People who are willing to succeed in everything subordinate to Army to Army quest for The Top JOB lives. But once you get started on that path, it's hard to slow down. So you have to set boundaries. Early in my career, I got a Sunday morning phone call from my boss and mentor who wanted to meet with me at the office about a deal. I was flattered, but I'd already decided that Sundays would be reserved for family. He respected this limit, and I went on to become the Managing Partner of the firm, where I kept Sundays for family for 20 years.

3.  Stay close to Your friends and Family:  I tell that My business school Students The Lying aren't pop Songs: love if you cultivate IT CAN BE a Powerful Force in Your Family and among friends and colleagues. Love is rooted in security, in self-esteem and in self-confidence. Deeply needy people have a harder time loving - they're busy concentrating on themselves. But building a support network will help you with your needs, and will allow you in turn to give back to others. This "other-centered" mindset has a way of helping you put your own problems in perspective.

4.  Learn to trust, Even if IT Hurts:  Trust is a Fundamental part of building strong relationships, and Avoiding The Kind of makes mental vacuum that U.S. Feel suspicious and alone. To build trust with someone, you have to believe that he or she is able to put your interests ahead of their own, and that they'll do what they say they're going to do. When someone violates your trust, it can be difficult to bounce back and give someone else a chance. But, having been betrayed a few times myself, I've learned that it's worse to recoil in wariness than to keep trying, learning better who to trust and when to trust them. Imagine that it's your job to be trustworthy and to help others to be the same.

5.  Just give : A FEW months back I agreed to fly halfway across country to The BE with special OPERATIONS Returning servicemen Entering The Force work. When the day arrived, I had so many other pressures and deadlines that I was regretting my commitment. How could I give up an entire day? But by mid-morning, I'd lost myself in the company and good nature of these veterans, grateful to have had a chance to spend time with them, and inspired by their sacrifices. I was also more than a little humbled by the problems they'd taken on, which made ​​mine seem tiny in comparison. With that perspective, I breezed through a very long to-do list when I got home.

Isolation is never the answer - instead, you want to surround yourself with, and reach out to, the people around you. If you start to feel you're getting tunnel vision from incessant pressure at work, interrupt it. Consider starting with the guidelines above to help you find meaning and connection. We often feel locked into wearisome routines in life. The trick is to find ways to break out of them as soon as you realize you're in one.

Joel Peterson
Chairman, JetBlue Airways. Stanford Business School

The Top Ten Most Influential Nerds!

Nerds!

I could be unbelievably corny and opine that we’ve “Come A Long Way, Baby…”  And regardless of how hackneyed a comment that would be, it’s the simple truth: Nerds and Geeks (use whatever term you like–the differences between them are a subject for another article) are at the vanguard of modern pop culture and entertainment: Scientists are celebrities, comic book heroes are movie stars, supermodels talk of their love for video games….This is the world Nerds built….

And this list celebrates some of it’s greatest architects.

Honored here are actors, comedians, filmmakers, physicists, TV personalities, and writers. All are card-carrying geeks, and all have contributed something unique to this wonderful Nerdiverse of ours. In the interest of communicating exactly what makes each of these personalities worthy of inclusion here, I have included a quotation from each of them (and links to their respective Facebook Pages in their names).

Anyhoo, let’s proceed with the list proper–starting at number ten with:

10. Chris Hardwick

I’d wager a number of you only know what the word “Podcast” means because of this stand-up comedian and former Singled Out co- host. His show The Nerdist is one of the most famous programs in the short history of online broadcasting, and was adapted into a televised talk show by the BBC.

Along with his awesome nerdity and ability to rock a Tenth Doctor costume, Hardwick is also known for hosting AMC’s The Talking Dead: A panel show for fans of The Walking Dead. Comedy Central has also built a late night talk show around him that should air this Fall, as well.

After finishing Singled Out, Hardwick fell into a quagmire of inactivity and alcoholism. In a sense, it was returning to his roots, and embracing the nerdiness that he sought to hide while on MTV that saved his life and his career:

Back when I was working at MTV (which oddly, at one time, aired short films set to popular music), people used to talk about an MTV curse-that you might not “hit it any bigger” after your time there. I always recoiled at the thought of this curse, and here I was taking active steps every fucking day to make it happen… I knew that I had two choices: I could continue living the way I was living and die pickled and unemployed, or make sweeping changes with the hope of salvaging my life.

9. George Takei

Decades of co-starring in Star Trek: TOS, and six Trek films as Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulushould be sufficient nerd cred for anyone. But just when most actors would be sitting on their laurels and enjoying their retirement, Takei (that’s “ta-KAY”, not “ta-KYE”) re-invented himself as a celebrity starting by coming out as a homosexual, and guest starring repeatedly on The Howard Stern Show. He stole the show at the Comedy Central Roast of former co-star William Shatner, and has become known for his pro-gay AND pro-nerd YouTube monologues, and his work promoting awareness of Asian-American history (Takei was raised in the WWII Japanese internment camps).

Takei is also king of social media, posting some of the geekiest, funniest, and smartest material  available on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

John D.F. Black who wrote “Star Trek: The Naked Time (#1.4)” (1966) came to me and said he was thinking of having Sulu use a Samurai sword. I told him, “It certainly is ethnically appropriate because I am of Japanese ancestry but what about a rapier? I was born in this country and when I was a kid I didn’t play Samurai. I played Robin Hood.” He asked me if I know how to fence to which I replied, “of course.” That night I grabbed the phonebook and was furiously trying to find fencing schools so I could learn at least the basics.

8. Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith’s heyday as a filmmaker may have been back in the 1990s, when he was directing groundbreaking comedies like Clerks, Dogma, and Chasing Amy, but he deserves to be recognized as one of the pioneers of the “Nerd Boom”:

I mean really–before Clerks, could any of us even imagined a mainstream film where the characters take ten minutes of screen time to talk about Star Wars?

Smith is still every bit as active in the nerd community–Executive Producing AMC reality series Comic Book Men, filmed in a comic store owned by Smith himself. Like Chris Hardwick, he also runs a successful, and very nerdy podcast with partner Scott Mosier: SModcast–which runs off both its own site, AND Sirius XM satellite radio. Smith has also become known for his live Q&A sessions with fans, the first of which was released on DVD as An Evening With Kevin Smith in 2002.

It wasn’t the first comic I ever actually READ, but the first comic I remember slapping down hard-earned money for was a ‘Superman Family’ Annual in which the first story featured a married Lois and Superman waking up on a cloud. I remember being oddly aroused by the whole thing. I mean, the implication was that these two were fucking.

7. Aisha Tyler

These days, actress/stand-up comedienne Aisha Tyler can most often be found on the CW network as the new and infinitely more charming host of improv series Whose Line Is It Anyway?

But long before that, she was one of the early founders of the unofficial “gamer girls” movement. Tyler could model for MAXIM magazine, and give n00bs pointers on Halo with equally superlative skill.

Besides gaming and TV hosting, Tyler is best known for her voice-acting work as Lana Kane in the animated series Archer (she also got a voice role in her beloved Halo game franchise).

People challenge my nerd cred all the time. I just show them the photo of me winning my middle-school science fair, wearing my Casio calculator watch and eyeglasses so big they look like they can see the future.

6  Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Even if you know nothing and care even less about astrophysics and astrophysicists, there’s a good chance you’ve at least heard of Dr. Tyson.

Why?

He’s the dude primarily responsible for making Pluto no longer a planet (It’s now the first of a new category of celestial objects known as “plutoids”)

Other than that, you might know him as the host of PBS science series NOVA. Dr. Tyson is professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University, and the first African American director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

He’s also (I swear I’m not making this up) the prophet of a secular religion built around him onFacebook.

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind “through the universe”? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.

5. Stephen Colbert

Writer/Comedian/TV Personality Stephen Colbert is best known for his satirical performance as an over-the-top conservative pundit in the vein of Bill O’reilly or Glenn Beck on The Colbert Report…but fans of the show know him just as well for his unabashed nerdiness. His love for Star Wars andLord Of The Rings is particularly pronounced, and he can best the geekiest among us in esoteric knowledge of such subjects…

For the love of Crom! The man was called the “biggest Tolkien fan I’ve ever met” by Peter Jackson himself!

But here’s a little recollection of pre-fame geekiness:

I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn’t like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different way.

4. Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt has been able to parlay his experiences as a hard-core nerd into a successful stand-up comedy career, the way other comics have worked off being Jewish, Catholic, or Southern (for example). Oswalt has also appeared in movies like Blade: Trinity, tv shows like Parks and Recreation, done voice acting for the animated feature Ratatouille and the new Axe Cop series, and starred in the Adult Swim live action series The Heart, She Holler.

Like fellow honoree George Takei, Oswalt also participated in the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner. He got one of the biggest laughs of the night when he handed Shatner a paper bag and asked him to act his way out of it.

Based on my own experience, when you’re going through adolescence you don’t know how the world works. You can’t set a story in the world you live in because you don’t know what a utility bill is, or how to budget your paycheck. So you either set it in a zombie apocalypse, a wasteland or a spaceship. I think which one you choose decides the adult you become.

3. Felicia Day

It might be tired or cliched at this point to refer to Felicia Day as the “Queen of Geek Girls”–but it was not for nothing that she’s been referred to thusly. Few actors have more nerdy titles on their resumes: From Supernatural to Eureka to Dollhouse, to online projects like The Legend of Neil, Joss Whedon’s magnificent Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, and her own creation–The Guild. Day has kept herself at the forefront of Nerd Culture since her big break as Vi on Buffy The Vampire Slayerten years ago–and she shows no sign of slowing down or “selling out”.

Mainstream is nothing anymore. What is mainstream? Mainstream is whatever you’re interested in. Everybody can name five things they’re interested in. Being able to open doors for other creators to create projects that aren’t considered mainstream is really important to me.

2. Simon Pegg

The third installment of what’s been unofficially termed the “Cornetto Trilogy”  (due to the presence in all 3 films of a British ice cream novelty similar to what we’d call a “Drumstick” in the States) was just released last night: The World’s End. Like its predecessors, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, this film was directed by Edgar Wright and stars Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.

Few actors have worn their nerdiness on their sleeves the way Pegg has. Shaun of the Dead–the film he co-wrote with Wright that put him on the radar in the U.S. is a cult hit primarily because of the attention to detail and unabashed love for the genre it displayed.

Pegg also got the chance to live out a childhood dream when he got to cameo as a villain in the first season of Doctor Who.…and his later casting as a young Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot was nothing short of inspired (whatever you may think of the films).

Every person should have their escape route planned. I think everyone has an apocalypse fantasy, what would I do in the event of the end of the world, and we just basically – me and Nick (Frost)- said what would we do, where would we head?

1. Wil Wheaton

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Star Trek: The Next Generation fans like me just absolutely LOVED to hate Wil Wheaton in the role of miserably precocious 24th century wunderkind Wesley Crusher. Sure, it wasn’t Wheaton’s fault Wesley was written as such a smarmy little knowitall prick, but we blamed him regardless.

Then something interesting happened. ST:TNG ended, and Wheaton–who’d been acting in film and television since he was about six–left the entertainment industry entirely. He went to school, got a day job, and for several years lived quietly and unobtrusively as a normal civilian (Fun fact: During this period, he was fellow honoree Chris Hardwick’s roommate for a time)

He’s resurfaced in the past few years–older, more seasoned, and sporting a wicked-awesome beard (not quite a beard of “Rikerian” proportions, but close!)–and he’s re-invented himself as a budding filmmaker, occasional actor, and expert on all things Geek

I picked a doozy of a quote for my pick for #1 most influential nerd–and despite its length I SERIOUSLY advise you to read it. Wheaton was recorded saying this at this year’s CalgaryCon to a mother who asked him to explain what it means to be a nerd to her newborn daughter:

My name is Wil Wheaton. It’s 2013. And you’ve just recently joined us on planet Earth. So welcome. I’m an actor. I’m a writer. And I’m a Dad. Your mother asked me to tell you why it’s awesome to be a nerd. That’s an easy thing for me to do because I am a nerd.

I don’t know what the world is going to be like by the time you understand this. I don’t what it’s going to mean to be a nerd when you are a young women. For me, when I was growing up, being a nerd meant that I liked things that were a little weird. That took a lot of effort to appreciate and understand. It meant that I loved science, and that I loved playing board games, and reading books, and really understanding what went on in the world instead of just riding the planet through space.

When I was a little boy, people really teased us about that, and made us feel like there was something wrong with us for loving those things. Now that I’m an adult, I’m kind of a professional nerd, and the world has changed a lot. I think a lot of us have realized that being a nerd … it’s not about what you love. It’s about how you love it.

So, there’s going to be a thing in your life that you love. I don’t know what that’s going to be … and it doesn’t matter what it is. The way you love that, and the way that you find other people who love it the way you do is what makes you a nerd. The defining characteristic of [being a nerd] is that we love things. Some of us love Firefly and some of us love Game of Thrones, or Star Trek, or Star Wars, or anime, or games, or fantasy, or science fiction. Some of us love completely different things. But we all love those things SO much that we travel for thousands of miles … we come from all over the world, so that we can be around people who love the things the way that we love them.

That’s why being a nerd is awesome. And don’t let anyone tell you that that thing that you love is a thing that you can’t love. Don’t anyone ever tell you that you can’t love that, that’s for boys … you find the things that you love, and you love them the most that you can.

And listen: This is really important. I want you to be honest, honorable, kind. I want you to work hard. Because everything worth doing is hard. And I want you to be awesome, and I will do my very best to leave you a planet that you can still live on.

By James Daniels,  nerdbastards