26 of the Most Important Things I've Learned (About Life, Career, and Relationships)
Dear Friends,
A mentor once said, “A word of advice, don't give it.”
He meant there's no such thing as advice: it's only possible to share what you've learned and let others draw their own conclusions.
Here goes nothin'...
Nick's right about passion (see below). But most of us know what we're good at early. One of my brothers followed his passion and made it into a business; the other joined a business and cultivated a passion. Ultimately, their advantage is what they were best at as kids.
You'll either follow what you loved as a kid, or you'll cultivate a passion for something else. The challenge isn't finding your passion. It's cultivation itself: paying attention and staying so curious you never stop learning...
This is how @naval put it: “Success in anything is just a byproduct of learning, and learning is a byproduct of curiosity. Ultimately, if you are curious about something, you will be successful at it, and the more curious you are about it, the more successful you will be at it.”
Start by taking notes on the quality work of others. You'll learn, and it will associate you with quality work. Before they created their own masterpieces, some of the best writers of the past 150 years started by writing book reviews. Today the options to do the same are unlimited.
Starting now, dramatically cut your daily news consumption. But not too much. Consuming “what's new” across every discipline, from business to technology to politics to art, gives you a fingertip feel for the possible. The frontier!
If you're creatively stuck, find the best, highest-quality source (book, preferably) on the topic you're most interested in. Read and take notes in your own words, in essence rewriting what you're reading. Not to copy, but to own the material mentally. You won't be stuck long.
Pay close attention to the things you consume. I mean this literally: (1) Listen more intently than the average person; and (2) Be more selective about what you're listening to.
Learn from others (but not the normal way). If you want to know someone, it’s better to understand what’s going into their heads than what’s coming out. “If you like someone's work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.” -Bob Dylan
When life gets hard or complicated: Get started. It’s the hardest part of any task. Keep going. Success is inevitable through hard work (over time). Challenge yourself. Joy and duty are one and the same.
Know yourself and distill your worldview. Your personal philosophy will help you stay balanced, resist cynicism, and carry on with purpose. How to distill your worldview? Write and look backwards at the patterns.
A mentor once told me, “You want your career to be like a stalagmite. Stay on one path long enough the droppings start to build on themselves.” There's truth in that (and I've shifted around too much). But my biggest win so far came from one 4-year vertical learning curve.
I like what @eriktorenberg once said: “When you're young, don't sell your experience. Sell your slope: what have you done in the past year? The past month? The past week?”
Not everything has to be about startups. Tim Cook didn’t join Apple until 14 years after it was founded. You can (still) make an impact at your company
Shifting gears to relationships and family: Every time your spouse or partner says the word LOVE about anything Even small things...a song, a smell, something in nature, ANYTHING Capture it in writing (in your phone) That list will define who you love to their essence.
If you have a kid or kids... and they're talking (about anything), Open Voice Memo and press RECORD. LISTEN and let them talk. Do this especially if they're telling you about something they just learned or did. (Our parents didn't have computers in their pockets.)
Do hard things early in life so hard things seem easier later. Before our hardest workout every season, my college track coach said: “One day, when you rock your baby to sleep, you’re gonna miss me. But today, you’re gonna curse the day you were born.”
Another thing my college track coach said: “These are the best days of your life, and you don’t even know it!” Youth of the world: this is true.
Now on a serious note: Major ecological collapse is inevitable in our lifetimes. I’m an optimist and always will be. Humans solve problems and nature is resilient – until it isn’t. This isn’t the Y2K bug. We're gonna to have to innovate *out of* a collapse.
I used to think AI and automated tools would never write or create as well as humans. Now I think all professionals will use them or be left behind. These tools will also create “double enhanced social media,” making the next decade even more uniquely “stupid” than the last one.
I used to think writing well was the ultimate career advantage. Now I think it's not nearly enough. The most successful people now must be triple threats, communicating well in writing, on video, and with voice/audio.
While we're on important subjects! For decades I was a proponent of two spaces after a period. About three years ago I was convinced by the one-spacers/ They’ve been right for 10 years (at least).
Back to creativity... Read, watch, and listen to things you LOVE. Over and over. Eventually, you'll be taking notes and CREATING.
We tend to think we remember more than we do, but to a first approximation, we’ve forgotten everything we’ve learned. By the time you've read a book or listened to a podcast, you retain a fraction of its fidelity, and the rest decays at an alarming rate. Take notes!
Nothing sticks unless you're creating FROM it (Read: Masterclasses don't stick.) If you read about ideas you love, take notes in your own words, and point your notes to your reading, you can't help but create.
When you’re reading actively, you’re arbitraging the set of all people on the internet who aren’t taking notes from their own reading and watching and listening (also, people have been building tools for thousands of years to free you to do more creative work. Do it.)
It took me 15 months sharing ideas online to feel like I could be myself (this was a year or so ago). If you want to feel like yourself, start sharing now. The more you share your ideas, the more you’ll discover about yourself. Your tribe is waiting.
Thank you for reading!
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Sincerely,
Justin
