In my research of Stefan Sagmeister, I was absolutely blown away by his accomplishments and/or milestones throughout his career. They seemed to be like the ones you would read about in fiction, just from the pure luck alone. My favorite milestones of Stefan’s life was the first one he made after graduating college in 1986: He went to Hong Kong to visit one of his friends and did plenty of sightseeing. When he felt he had seen everything the public has access to, however, he became innovative. He wanted to look at design firms, and would call of secretaries of these design firms to be able to tour. In a happenstance of misunderstanding, one of the secretaries thought that Stefan was looking for a job. He was immediately directed to the boss. Stefan used this misunderstanding to create a faux job search so that he could merely tour these design firms, despite having no interesting in taking up any of these jobs he was being considered for. However, one firm wanted to give him a job. Stefan, having no interest in working in Hong Kong, gave the firm a ludicrous salary request in order to sign on and work with them. Much to his surprise, they agreed.

This milestone of his kickstarted his career. Saving all the money he got from his ridiculous requested salary, he worked for two years and eventually bought his own design firm!