I’d Rather Stick Needles in My Eyes

Eric Thorsen
Jul 10, 2024
2 min read

When I think about the most impactful changes that have happened in my life…the biggest changes in my business…they have all come from key relationships.

I met a person in a music store in my early twenties who changed my life. He was doing things with software, by himself, that I thought only big companies could do. That inspired me to get to know him, ask him about everything he was reading and ask if he would show me how he learns.

This sent me on to build a career in software engineering and he’s still a dear friend 30 years later and continues to inspire me.

A colleague at a startup who respected me, introduced me to the person who invented exit polling (Warren Mitofsky) some 24 years ago.

I had no idea what this meeting would mean…but...I went anyway.

That small meeting got me involved in election coverage software and was the beginning of me starting my software engineering firm ThorTech Solutions.

These two people had a significant impact on my life, because I was willing to let them in and build relationships with them.

I have dozens of stories in my life like this that, when I look back, I’m

amazed…and grateful.

There are a myriad of reasons why people resist building new relationships from basic social anxiety, discomfort with self promotion, imposter syndrome, time constraints, fear of rejection….

These emotional blocks are real, and they are powerful.

They create barriers that feel almost impossible to overcome.

They are all different flavors of FEAR

(BTW, I used to be one of these people!)

I remember thinking, “If networking is the answer for making significant transformative changes in my life…than maybe I’ll figure out how to live without that”