Category: Advice

  • Regrets

    Regrets

    “Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”

    You can use your regrets as fuel. If you didn’t do your best with something, or you regret the way you handled the situation, you can fix it and turn it all around.

    When graduating from high school, we were seated by GPA. Highest GPAs were sitting in the front, and all of my friends were in the front row. I was sitting about 1/3 back in the audience. I was so disappointed with myself that I resolved to do my very best academically in college. I used this regret from high school to fuel my performance in college.

    When you find yourself regretting something, turn your attention to the future. Don’t get mad about what happened in the past, which you can’t change. Instead, figure out what you can do to turn that regret into pride as you fix your mistakes and do it right the next time around.

    Also: “Don’t cheat yourself by not giving it your all.” -Rich Leonard

     

  • Confidence

    Confidence

    Confidence in yourself and your abilities is probably one of the most important virtues for you to pursue. So many good things come from confidence. Your relationships, happiness, and success will much improved from a high degree of confidence. With a big enough confidence, you will end up believing in yourself and it doesn’t much matter what other people think. The good thing is confidence is something that can be nurtured and developed.

    Where does confidence come from?

    Part of the answer is competence. How do you become competent? Hard work over long periods of time. You don’t get really good at anything overnight. And you don’t get really good at anything without hard work. If you want to be an amazing chess player, it’s really hard work. You have to read books, study your games, work with a coach, and put in the time. Do this with anything, and you will undoubtedly develop a lot of competence over time.

    Another part of the answer of how you become confident is through winning. Even small wins will start to develop your confidence. Enter a chess tournament and beat a higher ranking player and you’ll start to feel more confident. Practice a speech and nail it in front of your class and you’ll feel the momentum building. The critical point is you can intentionally design a roadmap along any skill to build your confidence. Don’t bite off too much too soon. Even if there’s no course or certificate out there for you, you should design a bunch of smaller challenges that you can overcome to start building your confidence.

    Note this post is about confidence, not cockiness. As much as people like and want to be around a confident person, they run away from a cocky person. Be confident but not cocky. Usually this means don’t talk about how good you are. Even if you’re the best in the world at something, don’t brag or boast. Let your actions do the talking. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

  • Si vis pacem, para bellum

    Si vis pacem, para bellum

    If you want peace, prepare for war.

  • Be kind but not weak

    Be kind but not weak

    Learn to be strong but not rude
    Be kind but not weak
    Be bold but not a bully
    Be thoughtful but not lazy
    Dream but don’t be a dreamer
    Be proud but not arrogant
    Be humble but not timid
    Be humor without folly
    Be witty but not silly
    -Jim Rohn
    I studied Jim Rohn for a couple of years. His seminars changed my thinking.
  • The Importance of Communicating Well

    The Importance of Communicating Well

    Your success will depend entirely on your ability to communicate well. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. If you can write well and speak clearly — able to effectively communicate the thoughts in your head so the other person understands exactly what you are trying to say — you are on your way to effective leadership, compelling thoughts, and convincing people to see your perspective. Conversely, if you can’t communicate well, your success will be limited. As a first step, invest the time in learning to write effectively, even 2-3 sentence-long emails. If you write effectively, your speech will also become more coherent and compelling.

    A bonus of learning to communicate effectively is you also learn to THINK better. If you can’t explain it well enough, you don’t understand it well enough. So learning to communicate it also helps you learn to think through it.

  • Play the Long Game

    Play the Long Game

    This applies in business but also in your personal life.

    You are going to live a long life. This is hard to comprehend when you are younger. But everything you put your body through is going to add up over time and multiply when you are older. I have seen a lot of people not treat their body well in the early years (e.g., alcohol, or performance enhancing supplements ) and regret it in their later years. Realize you will live a long life and treat your body and brain accordingly.

    When it comes to business, you want to play the long game. Keep the end in mind. Forget about the short-term slights or revenge that you really want to take, and play a few moves out in your head. How is this going to play out? What will happen next? And after that? And is that what you want/intend. Make rational, long-term moves. Don’t do the easy, convenient, or feel-good thing today if it’s going to hurt you in the long term.

  • Knowledge is Attainable

    Knowledge is Attainable

    Knowledge is attainable. If you are willing to put in the time to learn, you can become an expert in just about anything. Books is your best way to start. Elon Musk has a famous quote on this… whenever anyone asks him how, with no engineering background, he learned to build space rockets, this is his three-word answer: “I read books.”

    I learned this lesson early. My dad, a MIT physicist, used to have no mercy on me as a kid when we played chess. He would destroy me every game. I got so mad once that I decided I was going to spend the entire summer between my freshman and sophomore year studying the game. I read every book I could get my hands on. I remember my dad would come home from work with countless pages made by his copier at work scanned from chess books. Well, by the end of the summer the tables had turned and it was me who was mercilessly beating him at chess. After that summer, he didn’t want to play chess much any more. And I learned a lesson that has been serving me ever since: You can get really good at stuff just by reading books.

    (change this image to playing chess with Dad)

  • While Taking Risk, Protect the Downside

    Always take measures to protect the downside. This applies to all areas of your life, and has been most relevant to me with my startups.
    Entrepreneurs are typically portrayed as reckless risk takers… the fact is entrepreneurs are some of the best people at taking calculated risk while protecting their downside. The best entrepreneurs don’t dive headfirst without looking… they prepare for multiple scenarios and get creative in ways to protect the downside of what they are doing. You can do this with financial investments,

    Said another way: Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

  • Deciding What You Want to Do

    Deciding What You Want to Do

    Sam Altman: “If you can’t figure out what kind of work you like, pay attention to what’s easy to concentrate on and gives you energy vs. what makes you tune out and feel tired. Sounds obvious but remains some of the best advice I ever got.”

  • Be a Finisher

    Be a Finisher

    When you choose to start something, you have to train yourself to also finishing it. It is one choice, not two. You chose to start this, so you also chose to finish it.

    This was a hard lesson for me to learn and profoundly important in pretty much every aspect of my life. My friends used to joke that I was a “parallel” entrepreneur because I started two or three companies at the same time. I would take on any project without giving much thought to how I would finish it, or how I might be overwhelmed in the pursuit of too many goals. I ended up scattered and unfocused, just trying to keep up with the demands that I signed up for. It was an unsatisfactory life and taught me a crucial lesson. If I didn’t escape this trap, it would have doomed me to a mediocre life.