Embracing luck, opportunity, and serendipity: A conversation with Tina Seelig
In this episode, Sydney Hunt (2023 cohort) and Anson Zhou (2024 cohort) sit down with Tina Seelig, Executive Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, who imagines a world where everyone feels empowered to bring their ideas to life. Tina reflects on her journey from a childhood spent on both coasts of the U.S., to earning a PhD in neuroscience and exploring careers in academia, entrepreneurship, multimedia, and writing. She shares insights from her new book, What I Wish I Knew About Luck, and discusses the difference between luck and fortune, the role of serendipity, and how intentionality and forgiveness open doors to opportunity.
Tina discusses her experiences with career pivots, the importance of reframing problems, and why Denning House is a crucible for luck and learning. She also celebrates becoming a grandmother, reveals her improbable dance marathon achievement, and tells stories about her beloved dog, Coco. Sydney and Anson end the interview with a lightning round of questions and reflections on Tina’s impact on Knight-Hennessy Scholars and the scholar community.
Guest
Tina Seelig has written 18 books, including her newest, What I Wish I Knew About Luck, which was released by HarperCollins on April 21, 2026. Prior titles include What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, and Creativity Rules. Her earlier books include The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible Edible Science, published by Scientific American; and a dozen games for children, titled “Games for Your Brain,” published by Chronicle Books.
Tina is executive director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars (KHS) at Stanford University, which cultivates and supports a multidisciplinary and multicultural community of graduate students from across the university, and prepares graduates to address complex challenges facing the world. She is also director emerita of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, where she served as executive director, faculty director, and professor of the practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E). She has taught courses on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship at KHS, MS&E and at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school) at Stanford.
Tina earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine where she studied neuroplasticity. She has also worked as a management consultant, multimedia producer, and launched two multimedia companies. She has been honored for her work with the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, the SVForum Visionary Award, the National Olympus Innovation Award, the Richard W. Lyman Award, and the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Legacy Award. Her work was also featured in a 10 part TV series in Japan, produced by NHK.
Imagine A World team
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss (2021 cohort). The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Tina Seelig:
And having worked in academics with young people for 26 years, I see what happens. I see those people who know how to see and seize opportunities, and I see other people who are leaving opportunities sitting on the table. My name is Tina Seelig and I'm executive director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. I imagine a world where everyone feels empowered to bring their ideas to life.
Anson Zhou:
Today, we'll be speaking with Tina Seelig, executive director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. Tina has had an incredible and diverse career ranging from her PhD in neuroscience to working in multimedia and impactful roles at Knight-Hennessy and Stanford broadly. She's published multiple books, including one that is out now called What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements. In our conversation, we discuss the key difference between fortune and luck and how to imbue intentionality, even in situations that seem serendipitous. We also dive into fun discussions about Tina's life, including her first grandchild, her dog's boyfriend, and her favorite song of all time.
Sydney Hunt:
Welcome to the Imagine A World Podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students, spanning all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of Imagine A World. My name is Sydney and I'm so excited for this special edition episode. Normally, as you know, we like to interview scholars, but today we have our shining star, our Denning mom of Knight-Hennessy, Tina, and I'm here with one of my good friends, regular co-host Anson. But as a heads-up, my name is Sydney. I'm a third year PhD candidate in electrical engineering at Stanford University, and I'm part of the 2023 Knight-Hennessy Scholars Cohort.
Anson Zhou:
I'm Anson. I'm a MD MBA student, second year in the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Business, and I'm in the 2024 cohort.
Sydney Hunt:
Yes. Okay. And so Anson and I are both from New York, and since East Coast, West Coast, maybe, I don't know. West Coast, Best Coast, who knows. We also have someone from the East Coast today, our very own Tina Seelig. So Tina, how are you feeling? Are you excited about this morning? How are you feeling about the episode so far?
Tina Seelig:
I couldn't be more delighted. Thank you so much for inviting me to join the podcast.
Sydney Hunt:
Of course. We can't wait. We absolutely can't wait. So I heard that you were actually in New York recently because maybe there's a new member in your family. Is that correct?
Tina Seelig:
You bet. My husband and I are new grandparents. Our son, Josh, and his wife, Katie, just had a little baby girl. She's eight weeks old. And honestly, I was saying this morning to my husband, we had to work really hard to become grandparents. You have to raise a person and they have to find a partner. So anyway, we are so over the moon. It's really interesting because being a parent, you're just so immersed in every single moment and it's really exhausting. Coming back in as a grandparent, where first of all, of course you can give the baby back when you're tired, but the other thing is you have already seen the whole trajectory and you know what's important and sort of what's not important and you can really focus on the things that are most meaningful. It really is such a special experience. So thank you for asking me about it.
Sydney Hunt:
Of course, of course.
Anson Zhou:
So there's a human baby, but there seems to be another baby that's coming out pretty soon. And I think it's awesome that it aligns with this episode where I think on one hand we want to hear about your experience with KH and directing a lot of our activities and the entire program. But also from your experience as part of the KHS community and throughout your career, you've gotten a lot of insight into luck. And I think that's going to be a big topic of today.
And you have a book that's coming out that's distilling a lot of the tips and experiences that you've been able to get over the range of your career. So could you give us a quick overview of the book and the details around it? And then after that, I think one of the central themes is what the difference between fortune and luck is. So if you could differentiate that for our listeners here today. And for those of you who can't see, we actually have some custom fortune cookies that Tina just brought us for this episode with quotes from the book. So we're definitely going to be snacking on these after the episode is done.
Tina Seelig:
Great. Super. Thank you so much for asking about it. I do have a new book that's coming out. It is called What I Wish I Knew About Luck. This has been a book that's been in the work for many, many years. I'm fascinated with what differentiates those people who know how to basically bring their ideas to life and those people who feel stuck. And having worked in academics with young people for 26 years, I see what happens. I see those people who know how to see and seize opportunities, and I see other people who are leaving opportunities sitting on the table. And so this book is essentially my attempt to show people all the levers that they have at their disposal to essentially realize their dreams.
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely. I read it this past weekend. It's incredible, by the way. I think when this episode comes out, it'll be out the same week. And so you all should definitely go and get yourselves a copy. I think as Anson had mentioned, one of the general themes is the difference between fortune and luck, which is very... It's a perfect analogy for these fortune cookies, right? Which have fortune in them. Can you tell us what is that difference and why does it matter?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah, it's really, really important. And I think people conflate the concepts of fortune and luck, and it results in not understanding what agency you actually have. Fortune is the things that happen to you. I might be fortunate to be born in a particular place and time, fortunate to have certain parents. I mean, we might be fortunate to have beautiful weather. These are things that are out of our control. You might be fortunate to be standing in line next to someone interesting, but you create your own luck. Now that doesn't mean that everything you do will automatically result in something good, but you are doing something. There's an act of changing your attitude and your actions that essentially allows you to become lucky.
So for example, I might have... I'll give a personal example. I'm so fortunate that my aunt and uncle worked at the National Institute of Health in Washington, DC. Super fortunate. But I was lucky that I asked them if I could do a summer internship and if they would help me find that opportunity when I was in college. So I ended up having that really wonderful opportunity. Yes, I was very fortunate that I had this access, but I then had to capitalize on it by doing something. And then once I got into the lab, you're again in this dance between fortune and luck, what happens to you and how you respond. And I think this is really, really important to keep in mind that we are in a constant dance between what the world serves us and how we respond. And therefore we have a tremendous amount of agency when we are leading in that dance.
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It reminds me a lot of actually one of those things you're talking about in the book, I think was this metaphor of hoisting your sail. And when the wind is blowing, you actually have to take action and steer that sail in the right direction. And this past weekend when we're recording the episode was Duke, my undergrad institution was competing in March Madness and Coach Kara Lawson, who's the woman's basketball coach, she has a quote that I think is very similar in what I was thinking about to what you were saying of it's not about getting easier, what happens is you handle hard better. And I think that was a central theme that I was thinking a lot about in what you were writing of, like you said, it's not just about things happening to you, but it's about how you handle them, how you're not afraid of wind blowing strongly left when you want to go right and stuff like that.
Tina Seelig:
Can I just dive into that wind metaphor?
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah.
Tina Seelig:
Because the framework that I present in the book, and it's one I've spent a long time thinking about and developing, is the idea is that opportunities are ubiquitous. Opportunities are like the wind, but you are not going to be able to catch them unless you build a sail to catch them. I can sit there and the wind is going to blow by. I might not even be paying attention or notice it, but if once I hoist that sale, it allows me to harness it and use it to steer me where I want to go. But the idea is much more nuanced because there are lots of ways to respond to the winds of luck. One is you can stay in your house, right? You can shut the shutters and not even pay attention. You can be a wind vane where you are observing the opportunity, but not doing anything with it.
You can be a hot air balloon where you let the opportunity just take you where it will without really controlling it in any way, but sort of letting the winds of luck take you. You can be a windmill where you are planted in one place and harnessing that luck in a very local environment. It might be in your lab. You're like, in my lab, I'm going to be a windmill, I'm going to harness all those opportunities, or you can be a sailboat. And the sailboat is where you have some destination you want to go, you put up your sail and then you move it in all different directions to allow you to effectively harness it to get you to your destination.
And at different points in your life, you are going to want to play different roles. It's not as though you always want to be a sailboat. Sometimes you might want to be a windmill. Sometimes you actually might want to be a hot air balloon. So you have to think about what role you want to be playing with regard to the opportunities in your environment at any period of time.
For example, when I first moved out to California, I was very clear that I wanted to be a windmill... I mean, I'm sorry, I wanted to be a hot air balloon. I wanted to be sort of a leaf in the wind and see what opportunities presented themselves. There are other times where I was a windmill and there are times when I clearly tried to be a sailboat, taking me to directions that were not immediately obvious in my local environment.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure, sure.
Anson Zhou:
I think in the context of that, another word that pops up in your book a lot is serendipity. And I think you define it as sort of this fortunate event that can be leveraged to create a lucky outcome. I think it ties to a lot of the things we've been discussing already. And I think about serendipity a lot because being here at Stanford, being able to pursue medical school, being here in Denning right now, interviewing you, I think a lot of it is like random things that happened. You can't really tie it down to, oh, I did this particular action that induced it. So how does serendipity fit into luck?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah. So serendipity is such an interesting word. In the book, I talk about the derivation of the word, which is such a fun story. It was originally derived from a Persian fairytale from 1300. And it was a story of these three princes who were out wandering around on their horses and they came upon a camel. And by looking at the camel and all the things that happened, they were able to make all sorts of deductions. They realized, oh, this camel is missing a tooth because there's grass that's in clumps on one side of the road. Or gee, it had butter on one side and honey on the other because there were bees on one side and flies on the other. And there were a whole number of things that they deduced by looking at what was going on. And when they got back to town, the things that they deduced were proven to be correct and they were rewarded handsomely.
And so this is, the story is called The Three Princes of Serendip. And so the concept is all the information was there, but they took the time to extract it and figure out where the value was so that they could find this missing camel. And this happens all the time. I tell the story in the book about Post-it notes are a perfect example of serendipity, right? This glue that was developed that could have just been thrown away because it didn't work the way they expected. They were looking for a really great adhesive, but coming up with an adhesive that didn't work very well, they said like, "Hey, well, what could we do with this?" And so it was serendipity that they took the time to come up with a totally new product line based on this new adhesive that someone else would've walked right by.
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely. I think there's so many incredible stories that you talk about in this book, one of which, or actually many of which include scholars' stories from the Knight-Hennessy community and, shameless plug, Anson is one of those scholars, but I don't want to give the entire book away because everyone should definitely go ahead and read it. It was a really, really nice read that I quite enjoyed this past weekend. I'll end it on my personal favorite quote from the book. It says, "Treat everyone as if they had a broken heart because they probably do. Luck favors those who forgive." And so I think that was one that really, really stuck with me along with the many other life lessons. So great job, Tina. Can't wait for your next book.
Tina Seelig:
Well, yeah, let's dive into that for a second.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure. Absolutely.
Tina Seelig:
Because you might go like, how does that possibly have to do with luck, right? Forgiveness. I mean, why is there a chapter on conflict resolution in a book about luck? And I think it's really important to look at all the things that happen in our life that lock up or unlock lucky opportunities. If you are walking around carrying a lot of conflict with you, it takes up a lot of brain space, it's distracting, it blocks the road to opportunities. And if you can figure out ways to release that, you are much lighter, you're much more open to opportunities, and luck is much more likely to manifest in your life if you've really taken the time to remove all of these conflicts. And I have to tell you, it's not easy, but there are tools to do it. And if you understand that these conflicts are actually getting in the way of your realizing your dreams, it behooves you to figure out how to resolve them.
Sydney Hunt:
I totally agree. Like you were saying, sometimes that weight affects you more than the person that maybe you're feeling frustrated with, right? And stuff like that. And letting that weight off your shoulders frees you to have your eyes open for other opportunities that you might have not been able to see because you had these tunnel vision goggles on. So anyways, great job, Tina, with this book. I really enjoyed it, as well as What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. That was a book that we got to read in the beginning of Knight-Hennessy, all of us first started the program. So loved those two books. I can't wait to read many more. I'm sure you're going to continue on this journey.
But since we are on the Imagine A World Podcast, we do want to talk about you and your story, where you came from, how you got here, and just what you've learned and what KH has done for you, as well as what you have done for KH. So before we talk about the world you imagine, let's talk about the world you were born into and have experienced thus far. Where are you from and what was your journey here?
Tina Seelig:
Yes. Now, first of all, I'm definitely an old person compared to all the scholars. So my story is-
Sydney Hunt:
Wise, wise, wise.
Tina Seelig:
What's that?
Sydney Hunt:
Wise, wise.
Anson Zhou:
Wise.
Tina Seelig:
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't know. I'm perfectly happy to be old. The alternative is something you don't want. So the point is I've had a long journey and I'm going to give you the high points and you can dive into any of the details if you want. So I was born on the East Coast. I was born in Southern New Jersey. Actually, my passport says Philadelphia because the hospital was there, but I was born in Southern New Jersey. When I was just two years old, we moved to Southern California. And so I lived during a really formative time in Southern California from the time I was two until I was 12. And when I was 12, we moved back to Northern New Jersey. And that was so traumatic for me. I think I cried for a year because it was so different and I left all of my friends and that was such a hard time.
Sydney Hunt:
That's a hard age to move.
Tina Seelig:
Hard age to move. I eventually got really integrated into the community in New Jersey and I spent a lot of time actually going into New York and going to the theater. In fact, I was a theater kid.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh, I love it.
Tina Seelig:
Were you guys?
Sydney Hunt:
I was not. No.
Tina Seelig:
You were not.
Anson Zhou:
No, not really.
Sydney Hunt:
But I did go to my high school plays. Yeah, a lot of my friends went.
Tina Seelig:
Well, it's kind of a funny story because that was where I found my people was in sort of the theater world, and my parents thought this was just such a waste of my time. They were like, "You're going to be a doctor, you're going to be a scientist." And so it's really funny because I wanted to be an actress and they wanted me to be a doctor. I figured I'd act like a doctor. I don't know. So I ended up, after I graduated from high school, I went to college, I went to the University of Rochester where I actually designed my own major in neuroscience. I became completely and totally fascinated with the brain. You have to imagine, this was a long time ago and there was no such... I mean, there wasn't a neuroscience major. And I took my first physiological psychology class and was blown away mostly because we got to the frontier so quickly.
The assignments we got in class were things like, how would you design an experiment to figure out what this part of the brain does? It was so eye-opening. I felt completely giddy studying neuroscience. And so I did my own major in neuroscience. I then decided to do a PhD in neuroscience. I started actually at the University of Virginia and I started there. I went for one semester and then I came out to California for vacation the first winter break. And I think I mentioned earlier, I worked at NIH during the summer.
Sydney Hunt:
Yes.
Tina Seelig:
Well, I went to go visit a friend who I met at NIH and who was at the University of California, Santa Cruz. And I came out and I fell in love, not with this guy, but I fell in love with California.
Sydney Hunt:
The state.
Tina Seelig:
I fell in love with California. I was like, "Oh my gosh, why am I there when I could be here?" And I basically went home. I think it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. My stomach was going in somersaults over and over and over again.
Anson Zhou:
Worse than moving back to North Jersey?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was just crazy. I was like, "What do I do?" But I knew I needed to be in California. And so I took a leave of absence. I came out to California and this is where I was a hot air balloon. I just wanted to see what was going to happen. And I did a whole bunch of small jobs and then I found myself really driven to go back to my neuroscience roots. And I started going to the UC Santa Cruz Science Library, first every month and then every week and then every day. And then I wrote letters to all of the neuroscience faculty at Stanford asking for a research assistant job. And my resume got passed around and I ultimately was given an opportunity. And I came up, started working as a research assistant at Stanford.
I was actually on the original team that was designing oximeters because they were invented at Stanford. I was on the original team. I was in the operating room with all the high risk cases and often I was the first person in the room as like this lowly research assistant who would know that the patient was in distress because I was in charge of the oximeter.
Anyway, to make a long story short, once that was over, I started knocking on doors and ended up taking another research assistant job. And at that point, I started designing my own experiments and my future advisor decided to accept me as a PhD student. And so I did my PhD in neuroscience. After that though, it was during a really deep recession and I was getting married and I didn't want to go do postdocs all over. I really wanted to settle down in the Bay Area. So I decided to get out of the lab and go and look at where I could use my skills in different ways. And I did a whole bunch of different things. I was on the original team for the San Jose Technology Museum. I was a management consultant for a couple of years. I wrote my first book when I was actually... started it in grad school, but I finished it when I was pregnant. It was a book called The Epicurean Laboratory about the chemistry of cooking.
Sydney Hunt:
Chemistry of cooking, yes.
Tina Seelig:
Yes, exactly. And then, I know, this is too much detail?
Sydney Hunt:
No, it's perfect.
Anson Zhou:
No, please. We love it.
Sydney Hunt:
It's just reminding us of all the things, pieces we've heard about.
Tina Seelig:
And then after that... Okay, great. Well, after that book came out, I said, "You got to be kidding. There's got to be a better way to market books." This was 1991. And so I started my first company called BookBrowser that was a multimedia system for bookstores to help match books with buyers. It was a kiosk-based system. There was no internet, there was no web. And it was a kiosk system. It was essentially a precursor to Amazon where you could look at books by title, by subject, by author.
And then I kind of hit a wall because how do I update it? It was really complicated to think about how is this going to get updated? There was no internet. Am I sending DVDs? And I got an offer from someone to buy the company. And so I sold the company and I worked for them for a while. And then I went off and did other things and I started working. I was a multimedia producer at Compaq. We were designing kids CD-ROM games, but the interface was toys from Fisher-Price. So we were designing toys as the interface. It was so ahead of its time. There was zero way it was going to work. The technology was so not caught up to our ideas and our dreams. It's something you could do today, but you just couldn't do it then.
So I ended up leaving and I went back to writing books. I wrote a whole series of kids' science books called Games for Your Brain. And then when my son Josh was 10, I decided to come back to Stanford and I took a job at helping to start and build the Entrepreneurship Center at the School of Engineering, which was just a dream. I started there as like the second person on the team and we grew it. I worked there for 20 years building and designing many, many fellowship programs and classes and teaching a lot of classes on creative problem solving.
And along the way, I wrote a number of other books called books like What I Wish I Knew When I was 20, Creativity Rules, InGenius. And at some point, about six years ago, John Hennessy reached out to me and said, "Would you consider joining Knight-Hennessy?" And I jumped at the chance. I mean, even when I first heard about Knight-Hennessy Scholars, that was my dream. And so when the opportunity materialized, I couldn't have been happier.
Anson Zhou:
I mean, I think the first reaction from both of us, I think hearing this more complete story of your life and career for the first time is just, wow, amount of different experiences you've had, I think explains why you have so much great insight that you've been able to distill, I think both as a leader in the KH community and in your books as well.
And I'm going to make sure I got this right. You've gone from doing neuroscience PhD, working as a founder in multimedia, working more in multimedia, author, management consultant. Is there a common thread that you can sort of identify in retrospect that tied them all together? Because I think from face value, it seems pretty disparate all over the place, but was there sort of this common interest or feeling that you were getting across these jobs that eventually put you to this position that you're in today?
Tina Seelig:
It's such a really good question. And I could tell my story as if it makes complete logical sense and I could tell it as if it's a random walk. It's this fortune and luck. It's sort of staying open to opportunities, paying very close attention to what's going on and then leveraging those opportunities to make something happen. I'm also very comfortable taking risks and putting myself in positions where I haven't done something before and saying I can figure it out, feeling confident that, you know what, I can leverage the skills and the knowledge I already have to do something brand new.
And I think that that's something that we all have to learn is that most of the skills that you develop can be applied in different environments. And also everything is interesting if you take the time to learn about it. One of the things I learned, and I talk about a lot in my book, Creativity Rules, is that before something's your passion, it's something you know nothing about. And people often spend their time thinking about, "What am I passionate about? What am I passionate?" What a waste of time. Go do stuff, try lots of things, keep what works.
There were many jobs I had along the way, some of them I didn't even list here, because I used to change careers every two years, whether I needed to or not. And I learned something, even when I had a boss or an environment that really was not healthy, you then learn, okay, what not to do. I've run a number of fellowship programs over the years and one is called the Mayfield Fellows Program where the students, it's a work study program during the summer, they work in startup companies.
And oftentimes it's the people who had the worst summer internships who learn the most because they learned, "Oh, I don't want to lead this way. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. When I lead a team, I'm going to do it a different way." And so it's very, very important to realize that everything you do is an opportunity to learn something and that those skills create this amazing tapestry that you can apply in lots of different places.
Anson Zhou:
No, I love that because I think as people early in their career, we're constantly thinking about what our passions are and how to keep driving forward. But there's an elegant simplicity of just saying, "Just do it." Because at least for me, I don't know if Sydney, you feel the same way. I'm scared to pursue totally new things outside of my wheelhouse because we have very limited time, this is detracting from my, quote unquote, "passion", but sitting around just thinking about it and trying to figure out what your passion is equivalently a waste of time. And even if it ends up, like you said, being something that was not successful in the canonical definition, negative data is still good data to learn from. You can still learn a lot from-
Tina Seelig:
Exactly. Well, nothing you learn is wasted. There is the fabulous connect the dots talk that Steve Jobs gave in 2005, and we use it in the application, use it to sort of stimulate the essay. It's really important. His story talks about all the things he learned, like calligraphy, that had a huge impact on the development of the first Macintosh. And he never, ever, ever would've anticipated the value of that, learning those skills until years later, he said, "Oh, this is relevant. You will never know all the things you learn. You will never know how they're going to be applied later, but I can promise you they will be."
I always think about our career is like a set of beads on a necklace and each person has a different necklace and each activity, each experience you have is a different bead and you just keep putting these beads on there. It's going to be beautiful and interesting and each person is going to have a really different set of experiences, but you don't know how the pattern is going to play out until much later.
Sydney Hunt:
Absolutely. I think Anson and I feel similarly and hearing you say that when you actually take the time to reflect on how things connect, you start to realize that maybe right now I feel a little bit stuck. Third year, sometimes known as the crisis year of the PhD where you're like, "What am I doing? Am I still passionate about this?" Well, how can I find these motivations to have that grit that you're talking about, Tina, especially when experiments are failing or you feel like your friends are graduating or getting married, buying a house and you're still stuck in lab doing the same thing over and over again.
But I think like you said, it's really important to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, think about what have I learned in the past and how is it relevant to what I'm doing today? And if I'm stuck, how can one of those experiences maybe help me figure out whatever I'm stuck on? And this leads me to my next question as something we've talked about in the past of reassessing. And I want to know how often do you reassess where you are and what does that process look like?
Tina Seelig:
It's such an interesting and personal situation for everybody. There's some people like my husband, sort of a fire and forget missile. He commits to something and 10, 15 years down the line, he's like, "Okay, am I where I want to go?" There are other people like me who tend to reassess very, very frequently. I think there's a sweet spot for each of us. I think it's really important to be having that sort of meta conversation with yourself pretty frequently about how is this going? How can I make it better? Do I feel well? Am I spending time with people who I feel good about myself when I'm with? When I get to the end of the day, do I feel nourished in so many different ways? And I think that having that meta conversation going on allows you to constantly tune your life.
Also, one of the things that I find surprising and difficult is when a student comes in and they have their entire life mapped out, "Here's the next 40 years." And you realize they are going to miss the opportunity to be open to all those wonderful serendipitous things that are going to happen to them if you have blinders on. So it's very, very important to both be focused.
Think about it from the design process of flaring and focusing. There are times in which you want to flare and have your aperture really open to all different opportunities, and then there are times you're going to focus. And it might happen even during the same day. When you're in your lab, you are focused on getting this paper out, getting your PhD. But then you come over to Denning House and you flare and you participate in all sorts of keystone projects or sit at lunch with people with very different ideas. They might actually end up shaping your research.
Sydney Hunt:
It's very true. It has happened.
Tina Seelig:
Exactly. They're like, "Oh, I never thought about that, or that's a metaphor I can use, or that's a tool I never thought of, or that's an application that would be really relevant." So understanding when are you flaring and when are you focusing and going back and forth during different parts of your day, different parts of your week, different parts of your life.
Anson Zhou:
For me personally, being at Denning House maybe a year and a half ago at this point, a very serendipitous conversation with one of the scholars in my cohort literally completely changed my research direction. So huge pivot. And I think part of it is being open to that being a possibility really helped me take advantage of it and I guess hoist myself metaphorically and then take advantage of that. And I'm really grateful that that's happened.
Tina Seelig:
That is. What was it?
Anson Zhou:
Well, traditionally I've worked sort of in the biomaterials drug delivery space, but I made a pivot into more like computer vision and healthcare, which is a huge change, but it's been, I think, really exciting so far, the things I've learned and the new opportunities that have opened up because of it.
Tina Seelig:
Fabulous. Great. And you would not have done that if you hadn't been open, had your aperture open to saying, "Oh, this is actually really interesting."
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I knew nothing about it. And now I think it's such a big part of my life, so I couldn't have imagined what would've happened if I didn't pursue that. So talking about Denning House, we had a previous conversation leading up to this episode, and I think you just described KH and Denning as a crucible for luck. And having been part of the KH community for the last several years in your capacity as executive director, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how being part of this community has helped with your process in the book and even helped you identify some of these key aspects of the framework that you put together in your book about how to really grasp luck and make it work.
Tina Seelig:
Great. So one thing that's kind of funny is that when I'm working on a book, I am very, very tuned to things that are relevant for the book. I am like a magnet for stories that would be relevant. And one of the things that's so special at Denning House and it's for all first year scholars that they participate in storytelling. And so over the course of the year, every single first year scholar gets up and tells a story. I therefore am a magnet for those stories or for the conversations that are taking place at the table after those stories are told.
I mean, so Anson, this is exactly what happened with us. When we were sitting at storytelling, I don't even remember what the topic was. After the speakers got up and they got their feedback, we were talking at the table. You told this story about how you manifest your dreams. And I thought it was such a great example. I asked if I could put it in the book. I wanted to share what it was because it's such a great example of how you set intentions that allow you to then activate behaviors to get you to those goals.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. I remember that conversation vividly. It's a pretty simple exercise that I started doing a couple years ago. I think particularly in times of hesitation, uncertainty, seems like a lot of things are hanging in the balance, but in those situations, I basically write myself a letter from the perspective of, I don't know, six months to a year down the line when those decisions or those things in the balance would've happened already and they're definitive.
And I write them as if it has happened and it is true, sort of in a way to manifest it. But what I do is there's other parts of the letter that are more normal, like Dear Anson or just little bits of background, but the actual parts that are still in the balance, I put them in blue color, light blue. And I think one by one over the course of time, as each of them come true, I turn it into black and it sort of just blends into the rest of the letter, which is already, quote unquote, "true".
And it's given me a lot of comfort because I remember I would go to the gym after work and I'd feel a lot of anxiety. I'd just read over my letter and it helps me manifest. Also helps me think about what do I need to do to make this a reality. All these other things in black are already true. There's these little blue lines that are still out there, what actions I have to take to convert those.
Tina Seelig:
Yeah, I think it's a great, great exercise. One of the things that I do, which is a little bit different, there's a website that's called futureme.org, and you can write letters to your future self. So you write letters and they get delivered to you on whatever day you pick. So I might write a letter every year on my birthday. And then so on my birthday, I get a letter from a year ago and it's a list of like, "Okay, here are the things I'm thinking about. Here are the things I'm concerned about. Here are the things I'm hoping to accomplish."
And then you read it like, "Oh my gosh, look at everything that happened this year." It's really amazing. It's a really great exercise to take the time to project yourself into the future as you do and think about what you want to accomplish. And I think one of the examples you gave that I wrote about was you wanted to go to medical school and you basically, okay, well, that is a very big goal, but having it there, you then broke it down into all the steps you needed to do. How do I study for the MCAT? How do I prepare my essays? How do I get ready for the interviews? And all of that fell out of this letter setting this intention.
Anson Zhou:
Yep. And I think reading it over and over again made it, to your point, like more bite-sized pieces. There's still this overarching goal, "I want to go to medical school," as a core part of the letter, but each time I looked it over and saw the blue, I was like, okay, what's the next step I need to take? It's a good reminder for sure.
Sydney Hunt:
I think this theme is very similar to your class that we took this quarter that was talking about Leading Matters and the idea of framing things, right? Because I think sometimes for me, especially as an engineer, we're so used to quick iteration and prototyping, whatever. And the planning process, yes, is definitely involved, but I find myself sometimes skipping that a little bit more and feeling like I just want to get to the thing. I just want to, for example, apply to med school or something. And I was wondering what your advice is for people who sometimes have this urge to just start instead of taking the time to map things out, reflect and whatever. How do you find that balance of not feeling like, "Oh, I just spent a whole day just outlining and just planning or just thinking and reflecting." How do you encourage someone to take that time to do that?
Tina Seelig:
I love this question. I am pretty sure that this is the most important thing I've taught at Stanford in 25 years, is that you need to live in the problem space so much longer than you think you need to to make sure you're asking the right question. As we know, the right answer to the wrong question is not a good solution.
Sydney Hunt:
No, it's not.
Tina Seelig:
And we are so trained to rush to problem solving, but problem framing is incredibly important. And there's a fun little example let me give just to make it come to life. Let's imagine that... Do either of you have a birthday coming up?
Sydney Hunt:
Mine's in May.
Tina Seelig:
In May? Okay. Okay. So Sydney, we could brainstorm the best birthday party for you.
Sydney Hunt:
Okay.
Tina Seelig:
Okay. Does that sound like a good idea?
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah.
Tina Seelig:
Let's just brainstorm. But if we change one word in that prompt, let's go from a birthday party to a birthday celebration. What happens to the set of solutions?
Sydney Hunt:
I think in my head, the difference between party and celebration is party, I think of the events of what makes a good party, whereas a celebration is more a thought process of like, who do I want to celebrate with?
Tina Seelig:
Right. It's a much larger set, but you could say, what about the best way to mark your birthday? What about the best birthday present? What about the best birthday tradition? What about the best birthday card? Each one of these is a totally different set of solutions. And so if you don't take the time to think about what problem you're actually trying to solve, maybe a party is not the right thing. And yet if we're brainstorming the best birthday party, we're missing the opportunity to think, wow, maybe we want a birthday tradition. Maybe we want a way to mark your birthday. Maybe we want to put a statue of you in the quad. Maybe we're going to make a mural of you to put up.
Sydney Hunt:
Sure.
Tina Seelig:
So there are, if we don't brainstorm or frame storm, and this is a very, very important concept of frame storm, you want to frame storm before you brainstorm. That is to brainstorm the questions before you start brainstorming about the answers.
Sydney Hunt:
It's a great point.
Tina Seelig:
And here, obviously that's a lighthearted prompt about a birthday party. It is just as relevant in your research to take the time to really brainstorm about the question you want to ask because you know what? There are the same number of hours a day for all of us. And you could be doing something little in those 24 hours or you could be doing something big and thinking about what is where you're going to have the biggest impact as opposed to what's just the most incremental idea. Another important aspect of this is that if you are always trying to come up with good solutions, you're going to probably come up with things that are pretty incremental and expected. But if you're willing to come up with crazy ideas, really strange and crazy ideas, you're much more likely to come up with something that is groundbreaking. There are so many creative problem solving skills that can be taught and learned and mastered that allows you to become a much better problem solver no matter what you're doing.
Anson Zhou:
Well, thank you for all the incredible tips and insight from your life and from your book so far. We are wrapping up on time and we want to jump into a tradition we have here on the podcast, which is a lightning round, a fire round of questions. We have some canonical questions that we like to ask all/most of our guests, but we actually fielded a couple of fun questions from the Knight-Hennessy staff as well. So we'll have a couple surprise ones in there, which will be very fun.
But I think the first one we're going to start with is improbable facts. For the listeners who are not aware, improbable facts is a core part of the Knight-Hennessy application where, as the name suggests, we have applicants list, I believe, eight improbable facts about themselves. And I think those are one of the funnest things that scholars share with each other. And we like to ask our guests, if comfortable, to share some of their favorite ones about themselves. So Tina, do you have any to hit us with today?
Tina Seelig:
Sure. Well, why don't I, I'll give you one, you can see if you need anymore.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, please.
Tina Seelig:
When I was in college, I danced in a 48-hour dance marathon.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh. Is that 48 hours straight?
Tina Seelig:
48 hours straight. We got to take a break, a 10-minute break every two hours.
Sydney Hunt:
Wow.
Anson Zhou:
But you were awake the whole time basically?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah, I think we might have gotten an hour or two each night to like... And we would lie down and literally put our feet up. When it was over, I had nightmares that I would never walk again.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh. That's hilarious.
Anson Zhou:
I went to a music festival over this past weekend for spring break. I think I was standing for maybe six hours and I couldn't handle it anymore. I just found the cleanest part of the ground. I was like, let me sit down because my feet were hurting so bad. So I can't imagine 48 hours.
Tina Seelig:
48 hour dance marathon, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
That's impressive.
Sydney Hunt:
That's a great question. That actually was one of the rapid fire questions you received from the team was, is it true that you were in a dance marathon?
Tina Seelig:
Yes, I was. I was. I was.
Sydney Hunt:
And [inaudible 00:43:04]. Yeah. Okay. So I can ask some of the rapid fire questions. So the first one is a very, very, I guess, Denning House themed one. So the team says that you were known for your high energy, right? And what theme song plays in your head that exemplifies that? Imagine you're walking into Denning House. What song is blasting on the stereo?
Tina Seelig:
Oh my gosh. You know what? I think Happy, Pharrell.
Sydney Hunt:
Happy?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah. I mean, I love that song. When it first came out, I was like, "Oh my gosh, that is my song." And there is online the 24 hours of Happy. Have you seen this?
Sydney Hunt:
No, I haven't seen this.
Tina Seelig:
You can watch and they play it 24 hours and it's filmed around the world with people dancing to it 24 hours. I think I listened to all 24 hours and watched people dance to it. So yes, yes.
Sydney Hunt:
I love that.
Anson Zhou:
That's awesome. This one is a little bit of a strange question, but clearly it was significant enough to share with us. There's a rumor that you don't like kale. Is that true? And is there more to that?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah, I don't like kale. It just doesn't set well in my stomach. I eat lots and lots and lots of vegetables.
Anson Zhou:
Okay. We were wondering if there's more to that story.
Tina Seelig:
No, I just don't like kale.
Sydney Hunt:
That's fair. That's fair.
Anson Zhou:
Fair enough.
Sydney Hunt:
Okay. Our last question for you is someone that I met who's very fluffy, very cute. Where is one of your favorite places to walk your dog Coco?
Tina Seelig:
Yes. So Coco is a big white fluffy Samoyed. She's actually a surprise gift from our son for my husband's 60th birthday. He arrived with this little fluff ball at midnight, flew across the country with her. And we had never had a dog, we were totally unprepared, but she is the love of our life, especially my husband. And she's a service dog. She goes to the hospital and takes care of people.
Sydney Hunt:
That's so sweet.
Tina Seelig:
People love her. Samoyeds have this natural smile. She has an incredibly wonderful temperament. Where do we walk her? She loves to walk around campus. That is because of all the squirrels, is her favorite thing. She also has a boyfriend, by the way.
Sydney Hunt:
She does, ooh.
Tina Seelig:
She has a boyfriend, and it's really fascinating. It is a black cat in our neighborhood, and they love each other. When we take a walk and she sees Jerry the cat, she won't move and they just sit there staring at each other and smelling each other. It is really quite remarkable how much they love each other.
Anson Zhou:
Does Jerry have an owner or does Jerry just lounge around?
Tina Seelig:
Yeah. Jerry has an owner, but Jerry comes indoor, outdoor, and whenever Jerry sees Coco, he comes on out and they have a nice date.
Sydney Hunt:
Aww.
Anson Zhou:
That's hilarious.
Sydney Hunt:
The boy next door.
Tina Seelig:
The boy next door. Exactly. I thought we should have a play date, invite Jerry over sometime.
Sydney Hunt:
He's so cute.
Anson Zhou:
If we get any of those photos, we can put them with this episode.
Sydney Hunt:
Yeah, we'd love some photos.
Anson Zhou:
That's awesome. The reason we asked that question is one of the staff members said, "Ask any questions related to her dog Coco. She is literally treated like a person in that household."
Tina Seelig:
Exactly. Oh, no, no, my husband makes beautiful meals for her. Our life, it is actually kind of funny because she goes with us everywhere. She is. Yes.
Sydney Hunt:
You brought her to campus one time. I remember the scholars came. Yeah. And also you invited the scholars to dinner at your house. And I remember I pet her for a very long time. I love dogs so much. Yeah, she's incredible.
Okay. Well, as much as you would love to talk to you forever and ever, we do have to go to class. And so unfortunately we're going to have to wrap up this episode, but we just want to open the floor one last time for anything else you want to share with our listeners. It's been incredible to hear about your book, hear about your life story, all this wonderful advice that I know I will be using, not only in my PhD, but as many years come. But thank you so much, Tina, for your time. It's been a wonderful start to our morning and we can't wait to see you around Denning in the future.
Tina Seelig:
Thank you so much. Working here with all of you is a huge honor. I know you come to school to learn a lot, but I learn so much from each of you. This is my dream job. Every single day I walk into Denning House, I pinch myself and I know that each day is going to be filled with a new adventure. So thank you very much.
Anson Zhou:
Thank you, Tina.
Sydney Hunt:
Thank you so much. And thank you listeners. We'll have our next episode coming out soon, only one more left of the season, but stay tuned for season four.
Anson Zhou:
Four. Wow.
Sydney Hunt:
Oh my gosh. Can't believe it. Of Imagine A World. It's been great to talk with Tina and of course Anson as well.
Anson Zhou:
Thanks, Tina. Bye guys.
Sydney Hunt:
Bye.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine A World, where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson:
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program, providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media @knighthennessy and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.
