Reflecting on some of my thoughts on life and business as I hit 30.
Life
- Always keep your ego in check, there’s a reason that pride is called “the greatest sin.” It gives birth to all other sins. Read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, even if you’re not religious.
- Try not to argue semantics. Focus more on the person’s intention. Especially when it comes to family.
- There’s probably a sensitive topic that you will disagree on with anyone in your life, including your SO and best friends. To the point of anger. Unless it’s something grossly unethical, always prioritize the relationship.
- Assume that if you’re not the person reaching out to keep the relationship alive, it’ll die.
- Write often. Try to maintain your own personal writing space. Even if I don’t feel like blogging, I’ll make sure to update my personal Obsidian.
- Reach out to people over the internet. It actually works! I’ve made friends with people over the internet and gotten responses from “important” people I never thought would respond.
- Recognize that there’s a space between what you instincitvely feel and what your ultimate reaction is. Separating instinct from reaction is where self awareness begins.
- You can just… do things. The world is quite “figure outable.”
- No one likes a person who just pokes holes in things. Be constructive and empower others.
- Life becomes a lot less stressful if you practice extreme empathy. It also makes logical sense - if you were in their exact shoes, with their upbringing, genes, experiences, you’d definitely act the way they do in any given situation.
Business
- The bar for service businesses is pretty fucking low. It’s quite incredible how low it is. If you respond quickly, professionally, and with zero formatting errors, you’re in the top 20 percentile. Even in the USA.
- In fact, most businesses are run like shit. This includes (almost) all of the businesses you admire. So don’t put them on a pedestal and think that there’s nothing for you to contribute.
- Big business decisions almost always boil down to someone’s opinion. Smart executives will always have a rational reason to backup their position, so its really about going with someone’s opinion (judgment). Which is why setting clear directives from the get-go on who gets to make which decisions is very important.
- Related to that, deciding by committee seems to be fraught with non obvious land mines. In the beginning it seems like a good idea, but what happens is that factions form, decision making becomes uninspired, and that waterfalls down into every aspect of the business. One of my cousin’s billionaire investor friends has a single condition for any business that he funds - there must be a clear decision maker.
- I recommend anyone starting off their career to work in a small business. You’ll learn ten times more than your counterparts that started in large enterprises. In large companies, work is so abstracted that many don’t even know how their employers make money.
- Career advancement can be seen as: (1) executing work, (2) managing the work, (3) figuring out the “how to execute / create work”, and (4) figuring out “what work we should do.”
- If you’re selling into the enterprise, you need to socialize the risk. For most of the people you’ll talk to, the risk of change heavily outstrips the reward (getting fired / ostracized / blamed vs. maybe getting a raise, but probably not). Socialize the risk and make as many friends as possible.
- Learn sales. There’s a difference between becoming a career sales person and learning how to influence people with your words. A “cheat code” is to obtain as much knowledge as possible.
- A common thread I’ve found in the journey of successful entrepreneurs is that what made them rich often wasn’t from something they intended. It was through the mere act of surviving long enough that they “stumbled” upon a great opportunity. A function of the Lindy Effect. The longer you survive, the larger your surface area for luck becomes.
- Naval’s How to Get Rich is a mandatory read every year.