Earlier this month, I woke up to a ping from my cofounder: “wholy sh** you made the list.” The elusive Forbes list had been on my radar since its inception in 2011. Over the years I would infrequently meet members that toted the label through global travelers, the Stanford network, and other realms. The people I met were cool. They were ambitious. They were doing something with their lives and appeared to have a sense of direction – I wanted to be a part of it. Last year (when I turned 24) I felt a real sense of urgency; a ‘time is ticking’ pressure. It’s when I took a hard look at where I was, and decided how I was going to get to where I wanted to be.
There are three main points that have been core throughout my experiences so far.
1 – You Gain a Lot of Skills in the Circus, You’d Be Surprised.
This point is more about the general transferability of skills in a lifetime. People who specialize in one area are often brushed aside and compartmentalized in their abilities (however respected they may be). This implicit bias causes the world to lose access to potentially incredible talent and stifles that individual’s opportunity for growth and ability to contribute to society.
For example, take my time at Cirque Du Soleil. There’s no class in college or work assignment that can replicate an acrobat training for a trick over and over to achieve perfection (or rather, as close as you can get to it). It just required a borderline obsessive commitment to focused training, supplemental exercise, daily repetition, and mental and emotional conditioning to reach a show-ready status. I realized that these are skills that are helpful to achieve all kinds of things – not just physical sport.
High performing athletes from all disciplines have habits and skills that are often undervalued and overlooked by traditional career paths. Things like: the ability to take direction and follow instruction. The discipline necessary to achieve mastery. Comfort with repetition, often with a heavy edge of perfectionism. Competitiveness (with themselves, or with others) – a desire to ‘win,’ or at the very least succeed. If I’m picking a team, I want people with these habits. Personally, they’ve been essential in facing the challenges I have every day building a company.
2 – It Pays to be Flexible (Intended) and Actively Trying New Things.
There’s no crystal ball that tells you what you’re going to be good (or bad) at. You just have to try it. So there’s a huge advantage in trying many, many different things. In my personal list of algorithms to live by, the explore vs exploit algorithm is one of the top. TLDR; you should try a lot of things, but at some point you should spend more time on things that yield high returns.
Both before and after Cirque du Soleil I tried all kinds of things. Getting used to the pattern of failure, adjustment, and growth gave me new strategies for adapting to, and learning from, all kinds of situations. Nowadays, I don’t feel much intimidation or fear when tackling new challenges, and that’s served me well in reaching my goals… but it sure was a long road to get here.
3 – Institutions are Still Valuable, and so is Seeing Things Through.
In my college days (and sometimes still today), the “college dropout” was romanticized as the epitome of badassery and entrepreneurial bravery that we should all aspire to be. The billionaire CEO that dropped out of x or y college – screw the man and his rules and regulations. This may be a hot take, but I think finishing school, or finishing your rotation, or whatever program or process you’ve committed to speaks wonders to qualities of discipline, focus, and commitment that’s hard to replicate.
Entering an institution is more of a privilege than most realize. In the United States only around 37% of citizens over 25 had a degree from higher education. You can correctly assume that those rates vary by things like race and socioeconomic background. This isn’t to say that you should stay with a program because of guilt or obligation – if it’s not for you, it’s not for you. However, when I think of my time at Stanford, at Microsoft, or the other “institutions” I’ve been a part of, there are a lot of takeaways. For one, it’s proof that you can see something through (even if it’s hard!).
My mind also goes to my fellow acrobats at Cirque Du Soleil. You can’t achieve that level of mastery by jumping around from thing to thing. It’s the same for any skill. Long rant short, the things we get from institutions are still valuable.
I know I said 3 main points, but there’s actually 4. 4’s an unlucky number in some asian cultures (For example, ‘shi’ means ‘death’ in Japanese – so a deathtech company, fittingly, won’t shy away from that today) so it’s preferred that things are served in 3’s or 5’s.
4 – Be Patient.
Good things take time. As someone who wants things the way I want them, now, this is a harsh reality. The way a dripping ceiling will soon fill up a bucket, or how a seed can grow into a big tree, the same is true with us. After leaving Cirque, I worried about my physique or my path to ‘success’ (which, I don’t even know how to define clearly). Soon, I realized that consistency was more important than anything else. Chipping away at something everyday compounded into new achievements that I had only dreamed of. There’s still a long road ahead, and I know I’ve only taken the first few steps. I couldn’t be more excited.
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Wherever my path ends up going, these 4 points will remain central to my personal growth and philosophy. I’d love to hear what kind of pillars you keep in your life, and how they’ve brought you to where you are today.
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