2018 in review

One of the most fascinating things I read recently was a Tweet about how CEOs compound their learnings. I decided to post some of my learnings this year so readers could benefit. Keep in mind these lessons took much more time, effort, money and emotional turbulence to get to the conclusion, and some are still always evolving. Overall, living away from family, and switching between 2 different jobs and trying to build a startup - it was a crazy time. Some of these lessons will apply to love, some to business and leadership, and others to just life in general.

We should foster each of our unique identities, and not get consumed by just one

I started 2018 with a breakup that was incredibly painful. I had put in a lot of effort and time into this person and in the end it didn’t work out for various reasons, the main one being religion. Over this period, I had started to slow down or stop doing the things I liked, in order to satisfy this idea that I thought she had built up of me. That was wrong. We all have a number of identities that keep us grounded. We are different people to our colleagues, friends, family members, lovers and other social groups. We are different in our religious communities, as we are in our sports. When one part of identity bothers us (suppose we have trouble at work), we rely on other identities to make us feel better. However if we are consumed by a singular identity, if there is one thing that is always on our mind and its a reflection of who we are, then its impact on us will be great. While you get caught up in love, work, life, religion. Its always good to remember that this is only one facet of your being. Make sure you foster all your identities. 

Great post by Mark Manson on this. 

Everyone needs validation, especially the millennials

I learned this after managing multiple teams of people this year. We are always being pulled in different directions and its hard to know if any of them are the right ones. One to ones with those you work with help, but the real key is to make sure they are aware that what they are doing is relevant and useful. Validating someone, especially if they are unsure, gives a big confidence boost, but more importantly lets them know they are appreciated. For some reason (social media probably), my generation is most frequently unsure, thats why we need the most validation. Quick life hack, throw up more high fives to your team and watch how excited they get. Also, it doesn’t matter how senior you are. Everyone needs validation. 

The process has to be fun, much more fun than the destination perhaps

If you want to hit the gym or eat healthy because you want to lose x number of pounds, the goal itself will not create lasting motivation. You need a way to make sure every work out, every meal, is fun. If you want to do anything great, achieving that greatness only has a fleeting feeling upon success. The process of getting there is the tough part, unless you find pleasure in it. One of the key problems with decision making has been only choosing the benefits of one path, and cons of the other. We should know that the crappy parts of our decisions are definite, and find ways to make them more enjoyable. Yes the gym is repetitive tends to feel like you’re plateauing, but put some music on, change the exercises, find a work out buddy, but just make sure you stay in tune with the process and its fun.

Headspace is very costly, and the thing you have least control over

Your headspace is what you think about when you have nothing to think about. We are an emotionally charged species, and our biological make up usually forces us to think in certain ways. Sometimes this could be about our next meal or work task, but other times it could be something deeper and more impactful. We could be thinking about someone we lost, a complex work problem, or some sort of calling we have found. We can put on music or watch tv, but if something is stuck in our headspace, it is hard to get out. We can’t control our environment necessarily, but we can control our headspace. The best way is through meditation and time. Meditation helps us reflect on our actions and if done correctly, drive the purpose of those actions. It helps us frame our reference of control and once our minds know we are in control, we can cope with anything. Time is an obvious one. A healthy mind over time will get exhausted of a heavy headspace burden, and eventually will need to let it go. Like a physical wound, the pain may resurface, but over time it will numb, heal, and be ready for the next wound.

No this is not an advert for the company Headspace. I have never used the product but I have friends who swear by it. 

After headspace, the most costliest and least controllable aspects of life are time, money, actions and words - in that order

You may not be able to control whats in your head, but you have better control of your time, You can manage your time and set aside limits. However in some cases, its not up to you. Delays in transportation, the call from an old friend, an emergency at work etc, all end up taking up more of your time than you originally thought. Obviously, this time can be used for anything more valuable, thus being hugely costly. Money comes next on this list, for similar reasons to time. You can control money, but in some ways there will never be a free lunch. For most of the working population, there is also no way of even guaranteeing an income, let alone how to spend whats earned. Actions come next, as we have control over most of our actions but not all. Sometimes we feel we need to punch a wall, or shake someones hand. Sometimes our body language acts faster than our brain can control. Finally, our words we have the most control over, and are usually the least costly. Words are cheap, texts are cheaper. You can commit to multiple things and never show up. You can compliment, lie, persuade, and even beg using inexpensive dialogue. 

If you’re going to eat shit, finish it

This lesson is the hardest to learn, but the most useful in recent memory. The idea here is if you sign yourself up to something, a job, a person of interest, etc, and you know there is a high likelihood of a good outcome, just stick through the grind. Its a stoic like way of facing the problem, but its a good reminder that you have to get dirty sometimes to appreciate and attain what you want. A stoic equivalent to this would be ‘the obstacle is the way’. The uncontrollable factors of the task are just part of the ride. Corporations, employees, and people generally tend to value those who start something and finish it, even if part way through, they realise this is not for them. I think its important to make sure we don’t jump ship or task unless its absolutely toxic or if there is something incredibly better on the other side.

Wake up everyday with a mission 

I learned this lesson from facilitating a camp for young kids. We slept 4 hours a night, and spent the entire day with these children. Some of the other facilitators would wake up at 6am with so much energy and I began to wonder how they stay so motivated. It was clear, they embodied the reason they were here. They knew everything they did was for the kids, and that sleep was just a sacrifice that had to be made. They woke up excited and ready to take on the day, and I think that rule should apply to everything we do. 

Lessons from Podcasting

2018 was the year my friend Upile and I began podcasting by interviewing serial entrepreneurs. Over the last four months we managed to get a few hundred people to listen in to each of our episodes on entrepreneurship. I am constantly amazed at how many people have appreciated what they have learned from our conversations, and I am really glad we have been able to expand our network in this way. 

The process of getting into podcasting is easy, but getting the right questions and standing out is hard. Some of the key takeways I learned from almost a dozen episodes are:

• Build a social network around you that supports your mental wellbeing when running a business. Founding a company can get very lonely sometimes and we tend to neglect our mental health in the process
• Most professional service practices will show you your career progression by just looking down the hall. You can see the senior analyst, manager, partner etc as you look down. Its good to ask yourself if this is what you want to do.
• Most blockchain developers are working on more than 2–3 projects at once. Its foolish to ignore this space in the long run.
• The argument against spending time on obtaining market feedback is the presentation of real innovation. If you are just giving the market what it wants, are you really innovating?
• You really don’t need to be an expert in the industry. You just need to ask the right questions and have the right team in place. Many of the people we interviewed were outsiders and they just understood how to play the market dynamics better than their competitors.

We have a number of episodes coming out in Q1 so stay tuned. You can have a listen here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1AKxyR02Gkn2XeyxE280ce or https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/serial-entrepreneurship-with-ali-upile/id1435001334?mt=2&uo=4 

Close

In the end, I only had 6 articles on Medium. I think this blog gets maybe 1–2% of all the things I write. I hope to blog more in the next year and share my learnings, throwaway ideas and more. 

I wish you the best in 2019!

Original story: https://medium.com/@alijiwani1/2018-in-review-5b7ee9d70995