Ben Huh – Convening Community and Company Direction Through Life Goals
If you’ve laughed at something funny on the Internet recently, chances are Ben Huh and his Cheeseburger Network are behind it. From LOL Cats to the Fail blog to the subjects of his new book, I has a Hotdog, Ben Huh understands how to tap into the power of community to create something compelling– and hilarious. But there’s business behind it too.
Only Ben’s not going to talk about business in his 18 minutes. And he’s not at TEDxSeattle just to make us laugh; he’s here to share the personal side of this success.
Ben’s 19 Debts are his life’s goals: an arbitrary number of things Ben owes himself to accomplish. The list used to be longer, but he’s edited down it to what’s really necessary. Perhaps it’s something no one’s done before or perhaps it’s something he wants to learn. Maybe it’s something he needs to do to live up to his ideals, or maybe it’s just (in his words): “whose a$$ can I kick?” Some goals he can cross off, and some he is still working on.
Have Fun
- 1999: graduated with a bachelor’s degree– the first in his family to do so
- 2000: started a start-up (it folded)
- 2001: find the perfect woman
- 2008: learn how to sail
- learn how to fly
- learn how to ride a motorcycle
- own a home outright
- sell a company for profit
Help Yourself
- 2004: payoff all debts (excluding mortgage)
- 2008: turn around an annual profit– in the middle of the biggest recession of our lifetime
- have a net worth of $1 million
- beat the S&P 500 as a stock investor
- set aside enough money to never have to work for the rest of his life: “if I can take care of myself, I can afford to take care of others”
Help the World
- 2008: Invest in other start-ups
- Give away $ 1 million to charity– a million dollars invested socially can change hundreds, thousands, even millions of people’s lives.
- help someone go to college– the social effort of our dollars can go even further with the help of technology, entrepreneurs, and the way we’re all connected.
- work on a political campaign
Here is some of what Ben has learned from his experiences:
- failure is important.
- there is nothing harder than waking up in the morning and realizing that you’ve let people down
- when the world tells you that you’re wrong, and you know that you’re right, persevere
- “‘write a book’ is shorthand for ‘live a life worth writing about’”
- our experiences help us now what it feels like to be other people; understanding the spectrum of human emotion gives us perspective into other people’s lives.
–Helen Pitlick
