32 Things at 32
Personal life experiences + insights from smart and famous and cool people
I turned thirty-two last week.
As part of the adulting rite, I have, in the last three years, cultivated an insatiable habit to observe small details around me and then writing them down.
To commemorate another year of existence, I’ve crystallised some of my readings and observations into thirty-two things at thirty-two: a compilation of opinions and beliefs derived from personal life experiences and insights from smart and famous and cool people.
The greatest story always win. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 1963 didn’t go according to plan. “Go back to Georgia,” MLK said to a crowd of 250,000, “go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed,” Around halfway through the speech, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson—who was standing to King’s left—shouts out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin! Tell ‘em about the dream!” King looked over at Jackson, lets out a small breath, slides his script aside and looks out. Six seconds later, he continued, “I have a dream.” The rest was history. I read once that people don’t remember books. They remember sentences. They remember how they felt. A good story is one that is filled with facts and formulas, communicated outrightly with authority and clarity. The greatest stories are those that evoke emotions within you, have you clap your hands and throw your fist in the air. Your audience, your customers, your children—they don’t want a lecture. They want a memorable story. Give them what they want, and you’ll win them over.
If I could do school all over, I’ll double down on learning three skills: writing, marketing, sales.
Hang around “dream big” people to realise how small your dreams are.
If you want to invest your time into something, consider investing in one that has been around for a long time. This is based on Nassim Taleb’s “Lindy Effect”, which suggest the life expectancy of things like ideas, technologies, or cultural practices, is proportional to their current age—in other words, the longer something has been around, the longer it is likely to continue to be around, and therefore the impact on humanity will continue to be around. If something has proven to last for ages, one cannot deny its effectiveness. Aim for stuff that have a long lindy-ish effect. Personal example: I base my life and decision-making on principles from the Bible (3,000+ years old).
You’ll never know who you’ll meet. You’ll never know what they can do for you. Always have your story, business plan, vision at the tip of your tongue, ready to share at any given place or time.
Don’t underestimate the power of fluke events. Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story The Garden of Forking Paths where he compares life to wandering in a garden with ever-changing paths. We can see many possible futures, but with each step, the paths shift, creating new routes and closing off others. Never underestimate what you have done in the past, and what you are doing right now. It shapes you in ways you would never imagine, and present you opportunities you would never dream of. If you’re religious like me, you could look up at heaven and owe it all the Creator. But whatever your beliefs are, it’s wise to acknowledge every step you take and every decision you make matters more than you think.
You are an extension of the people that have influenced you over the course of your life. When I look around at the ten closest people, I see a similar version of myself. If I think I’ll not like who I become, I’ll be extra sensitive to who I hang out with.
Always welcome fear, but never allow it to live in your head rent-free. One of my favourite quotes come from Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Courage is not the absence of fear,” he said, “but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” I used to think that those who have succeeded are the ones who have a zero fear factor, yet nothing can be further from the truth: individuals who have achieved the highest levels of return are no less jittery than the average folk. The difference—a critical one—is they never allowed it to corner them into impulse. Instead, it compels them to make bigger, bolder decisions, knowing that at the end of the day, whatever they’re chasing after is worth more than fear itself. I respect—in all genuinity—people who can sleep outside their comfort zone and still make it through with a smile on their face. There’s something else more important than fear. For me, it’s regret. What’s yours?
You cannot predict the future, but you can have a plan for the next three months. The most crucial thing, however, is to plan for things to not go according to plan.
Do not attempt to explain the relationship between you and your spouse. It’s a highly complex, deeply sophisticated fusion that cannot be watered down into a string of words. Do something even better: demonstrate what you both can achieve as a duo.
Every milestone you reach is yet another reminder that there is another milestone up ahead. You can’t stop and say I’m done. You go again, and you keep going until you’re dead.
Author Ursula Le Guin once said, and it’s forever embedded in my memory, “What you need is the conviction that what you are doing is of real importance, and really worth doing, and you have to do it.” This is number one—having a conviction for a cause means you do it, not for glory or personal gain or popularity, but because you want to do it, and you have to do it.
True happiness is when you chase after a cause bigger than yourself. True happiness is when you look at what you have and say I have enough. True happiness is when the people you love, love you back.
Let the good prevail in your life no matter how bad—sorry, I mean shitty—your circumstances are.
Smart people do stupid things. Stupid people do smart things. Everyone is figuring it out. No one is perfect. Cut each other some slack.
Charlie Munger, the right-hand man of Warren Buffett, passed away a week ago, one month shy of his 100th birthday. He said things smart people would tend to say, like three tips for career success: One, don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy for yourself. Two, don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire. Three, work only with people you enjoy.
Paul Graham also gave good career advise which I think about every now and then. “One sign that you’re suited for some kind of work,” he says, “is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious.” Find the crazy thing you love doing, then double down on it.
Own your opinions, but master the art of changing them regularly, not because you’re inconsistent or weak, but because the world is always changing. That is wisdom.
If everyone says something is good, it usually isn’t. If everyone says something is bad, it usually is.
Good artists copy. Great artists steal.
Having an interest in something will take your further than a talent for it. In his 2008 best-seller, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell highlights the 10,000-hour rule: you have to put in 10,000 hours to get great at something. If we bite-size it, that’s five thousand days of two hours practice each day. Fourteen years. It isn’t just investing 10,000 hours, it’s actually investing 10,000 hours. That’s a ginormous amount of time, and most people are unlikely to see it through from beginning to end. If you want to reach the pinnacle of your craft—to be super good at something—you’ll need to repeat it over and over and over again. The magic number of greatness will demand you to possess a highly-stacked passion, or an interest on steroids.
Children’s author Amy Krouse Rosenthal once gave damn good advise: pay attention to what you pay attention to. The more you pay attention to something, the more likely it will form a (big) part of your life. The more likely it forms a (big) part of your life, the more likely it will stick, which means it will be harder to cut it off. Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
If I had not become a parent, I’d still be stuck in the past.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell likened reading to a "divining rod," a tool for discovering what uniquely captivates and defines your purpose. You must engage in reading, Campbell says, explore what excites you, and if it fails to arouse your interest, it simply isn't meant for you. If a subject doesn't seize your attention or imprint itself on your memory, it doesn't belong to you.
We all want to make the best decisions. There is, however, a small problem: there’s no such thing as a “best” approach when it comes to making decisions on critical matters like education and finances and career and family. Worse still, we seek “expert” opinions from “experts”. What may seem best to others may not seem best to you, and what seems best to you may not seem best to others. Instead of looking for advise based on someone else’s reality, do the easiest thing: stick with the decision that gives you a peace of mind.
Every child and every grown up should spend more time on sports and the creative arts.
I used to think speaking two languages was enough to communicate with everyone in the world, till I lived in a place that could not speak either.
No one will rationalise why you had to do certain things. Why you had to take this business opportunity. Why you had to quit your job. Why you had to cut off a relationship. You did it because you searched yourself and concluded that it’s the only way to progress. You did it because you have to, but don’t expect anyone else to understand.
“The purpose of life is to experience things that we will later look back on with nostalgia, rather than regret”—anonymous.
True wealth is doing whatever you want with whomever you want and whenever you want.
Something I’ve learned in the last two years: be comfortable as an outsider. You may not be part of the tribe, speak the language or understand the culture. That’s okay. You are different. That’s what makes you unique. But that’s no excuse to be a jerk or to be “who you are”. Be respectful, especially in an environment where most people don’t look like you.
Be yourself, they say, and don’t let anyone tell you who you are. The fairy tale version of “be yourself” is that all the pain stops as soon as you allow your distinctiveness to shine. That version, according to Jeff Bezos, is misleading. “Being yourself is worth it,” he says, “but don’t expect it to be easy or free. You’ll have to put energy into it continuously.” It takes time, effort and more importantly, a mindset that will not settle for less and stick apart from the crowd. Yet, for all it’s hasselness, pay the price for your distinctiveness. It is worth it.