De-rusting - Week 3

Over the last 3 weeks I've been on endless calls and visits with people far smarter and more experienced than me, yet kind enough to spare their time and share invaluable advice. For this, I feel blessed.
The hard part is in knowing what to ask. There are so many questions in my head. Where to even begin. The harder part is finding the right moment to pop the first question. So here's the learnings:

1. Warm the seat Be early. It's ok to wait a short while. This helps in giving me the time to collect my thoughts, go thru the possible questions to ask, especially the all-important first question.
2. Warm the conversation You don't really want to start the conversation peppering the person with questions, yet you don't want to waste too much of your audience's time with frivolous conversation. I find the best way to warm the dialogue is to genuinely greet the person, and if he/she has something to say, allow the person the space and time to reply.
3. Warm the session Keep the momentum of your ask. Best not to ask haphazardly. Keep the flow with relational questions, and if you're being asked a counter, give short but succinct answer.
4. Time awareness Since your meet up is scheduled, be mindful of your audience's time. You want to ask as many questions but time is always limited. Ask the most relevant questions, and always check on time of your audience.
5. Cool it on defense No need to be defensive of your idea's hypotheses, after all, you're on a fact-finding mission, a research. Best to absorb the salient points given, and if that go against the grain, clarify the pov given.
6. Buffering Always allow minimum of 15 minutes from one ending meet to the start of another. If the session ends early, you'll have time to collect your thoughts, if it doesn't, then you have extra 15 mins to wrap it up. Pro tip: the person you're meeting next should at least be on cordial term with your present meet.
7. Order humble pie Be attentive, be inquisitive, be positive, when you're getting comments. There's no right or wrong, just understanding. Never be shy to ask, even if you feel it may sound foolish.

At one of the meet ups, one of the feedbacks I got was that I might not have fully comprehend what it takes for the idea to work. The natural instinct was to reply and defend, but I didn't. I thought about why this was the comment. It came down to either I didn't articulate concisely enough to the person or I really didn't ready myself. Either way, it got me thinking, and that's all I could hope for; to be able to ponder new thoughts.
I'm grateful to have friends who were willing to help a no-longer young 'founder'. The journey in de-rusting continues on.