January 2024 to February 2024.
When Wise People Guide. In my life, I've been blessed with the chance to have met wise people who help you learn because they want you to grow, and do so without you even realizing. These are people who inspire you and encourage you to reach a goal, and by the time you reach that initial goal, you then look back and realize that the actual objective you achieved was learning and gaining so much more in the process. Thank these people properly and sincerely, for their happiness is for you to succeed with no cost or payment required. These people are precious, many of them are watchful guardians.
Social Accountability Is Underrated. In hindsight, a very significant proportion of all my best work was done in respect to an external deadline. Science fair. Conference. Mentor/supervisor update. Sports event. While internal deadlines (set by yourself) should be as effective as external deadlines in theory, in practice external deadlines have been a multiplier in my work produced. Find external deadlines, a mentor who can vouch for you, and return the favor by doing great work.
Give Thanks when Given Opportunity. Whether it's an offer, opportunity or award, thank them with kindness and sincerity. Simply never replying, and not keeping them posted (after an important engagement), is not an option. Thank people with kindness, within an appropriate timeframe, and do so with heart. It's the people around you and the relationships you build where value exists.
People Play in Different Leagues. Often, I would hear stories about someone roughly my age or a few years older who did incredible things that I look up to. At first, the differences may seem marginal and trivial - i.e. they happened to have reached out to X person working at a company, or applied to a role just as the job market was growing fast. These acts feel so trivial that almost anyone can do them, and you may first assume that embracing a few, minor choices would be sufficient to elevate you to their level. However, in my case, I realized that there is a lot separating my current work and the work that people that I look up to achieve: (1) a magnitude more amount of hours of practice, (2) a collection of habits that they adopt (i.e. regular posting on social media, closing every interaction with a call to action, and just these habits that you notice), and (3) a willingness to embrace the difficult things and still empower the people around you. Running an 100m sprint from 30 seconds down to 15 seconds is relatively feasible, but running from 15 seconds to 10 seconds is world class. The extra second saved or extra meter played comes at a high cost, and may only be readily accessible when you play in a higher league.
Fight Ignorance. I think that we all face insecurities in life, with fear at the root cause. One insecurity I had was trying to learn from leaders and opportunities outside of my hometown. I felt sufficiently familiar in my surroundings and found comfort in my day to day activities. But I had a fear that I wasn't doing my best work, and that there exist people my age (and often times younger) who do much better work than I do, and often have much stronger profiles. The sooner you meet and learn from these people, the faster you fight ignorance, and the quicker you step towards your best self. This also applies to day-to-day fears (i.e. checking my credit card statements and hours logged on social media) as much as it applies to shared existential fear. Fighting ignorance is what brought humanity knowledge over the centuries, and allowed us to better understand our place in the universe, and the things that we can build. Fight ignorance at all costs.
When you Feel Stretched, You Are Just Scratching the Surface of your Potential. Before starting university, I naively believed that I could easily learn any field with my working knowledge at the time. This was false. Any endeavor - intellectual, entrepreneurial, physical or other - in which you encounter feeling stretched due to difficulty is a good indicator that you are growing, and that you are only scraping the surface of your potential. Embrace stretching, as it leads to significant growth.
Frequent Action Is a Good Heuristic. Value trying things very periodically, it is a good heuristic. If you optimize for quality, you may develop a fear of mistakes, which leads to less deliberate learning. Do things often and embrace every lesson learned fully.
Fear of Things yet to Happen and Speculation without Action Are Dangerous. If you hesitate to do something because you fear a conditional event that may or may not occur (i.e. what if this role involves me stretching my comfort zone for professional meetings), that hesitation may cost you the opportunity. Speculation without action (i.e. talking yourself out of an opportunity) can also cost you opportunities. Live by a rule where you act periodically and where you embrace the courage to take a leap of faith when a calling comes.
Writing Is Underappreciated. Yet, writing plays a foundational role in professional interactions: emails, grant applications, essays, just to name a few. There is a cost that we can associate to writing; one way of measuring the cost of writing is the number of seconds spent per word. We can also measure approximate indicators of the quality of you work: acceptance rate for grants and papers, success rate for applications, response rates for outreach emails, just to name a few. Minimize the cost of writing, and maximize the quality of writing.
Go Make a Name for Yourself. Time is limited, and be your best self with what is given to you.
Echo Chambers Are Dangerous. Whether it's constant praise or criticism, measure what matters, and build on from there.
Know What you Have. In the past, I've been optimistic about things because of their projected value, rather than what I actually had. Know the value of what you have, whether it's funds raised or a metric of any sort, and look at these metrics objectively. Averages can be misleading: early successes do not excuse recent challenges.
Spend Time on the Things that Matter. This doesn't mean time-blocking large blocks of time (i.e. 12-hours) where you spend 95% of it shuffling between tabs and time-blocking for the sake of time-blocking. Develop a consistent rate of efficient work during your time-blocked hours, and consistently apply this focused work ethic to spend time on things that matter to you.
Marathon rather than Sprint. This is advice that, if I remember correctly, I've received from people around me. Play the long-term game where you measure the value of your work over time, by putting in a consistent and solid rate of work every day over a prolonged stretch of time. Good things take time. A marathon mindset does not exclude the idea of a sprint, where you should value speed and intensity. On the contrary, speed and intensity are important elements to embrace in your work; just don't use speed and intensity as an excuse or a justification to avoid putting in consistent work over a long period of time.
Learn about Career Progression from other Disciplines. A famous athlete once said that he studied how successful figures from other fields develop in order to better understand how to be successful in his own field. In many sport leagues, a player's career spans many years, often starting with being selected (drafted) by a professional team, undergoing training camp and playing in affiliated teams, and then progressing towards a role on the team. This is the expected journey, though there are so many inspiring success stories where players who were undrafted had highly productive and league-leading careers, and other similar stories where players who have a slow point production rate at the start of their careers end up becoming key, highly productive players during important, contending years. There is also a lot we can learn from the business side of professional sports, such as knowing how to evaluate and strengthen short-term and long-term team development. The film industry is another field that we can learn a lot from: many screenwriters, directors, actors, and film professionals went through challenging career starts, and through hard work and a strong sense of conviction, went on to create some of the most influential films ever made. In essence, some of the most inspiring people from other fields also encountered difficult moments early in their careers, and knowing that they were able to overcome hard times inspires us and teaches us that we can also overcome the difficulties that we face.
Embrace the Hard Things. All things worthwhile require hard, persistent work. This includes doing uncomfortable things in respect to your social environment. Do the things that allow you to grow.
Embrace your Identity. Your life is your life. Your physical body and your intellectual mind are gifts given to you, they are your assets. Use them properly to become the person who you want to be, no matter how difficult or far-fetched it may sound. Go out there, and be your best self.