3 Principles that Guide Me

There’s a line from Ray Dalio’s book inspired by the original quote by David Allen: “You can do anything you want but not everything you want.”

That lead me to a seemingly simple question: What do I want?

Now the question: What do I want? It isn’t a new question for me. It’s eaten away at me for a long, long, long time, ever since I can remember asking questions. It might’ve started as what computer games do I want to play?, and then evolved to what clubs I should join?, and now it’s evolved into the hardest question I’ve ever had to answer:

What do I want out of life?

In asking myself that question I decided to delve into the key principles that underpin my life. I promise by the end of this article you will have some type of insightful moment. If not send me a message or leave a comment, I’d love to know how to do better next time.

I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial vein, and I’ve also never really liked to listen to the system just because it is was what other people were doing. I like doing things because they make sense, not because it’s simply ‘what you do’.

My first act of entrepreneurial deviance that I can remember, was in Grade 4. I’m not sure if my parents remember but this story still sticks out in my mind, and I can still remember it pretty clearly.

At the beginning of the year, the teacher gave us each a long list of oddly specific specifications for our school supplies. To the point of specifying things like the brand of pencil crayons, exact lead type of pencil or individual colour of marker to buy. Now I almost always dislike shopping so I wasn’t looking forward to visiting Staples to buy these school supplies. However, it was something that had to be done. After all my parents wanted to make sure I had what I needed for success. We spent at least an hour and probably $120 CAD (Inflation adjusted). I have never like spending money on things I deem unnecessary, plus I lost an hour of my time, and I knew my mom didn’t enjoy the experience either, but we did it anyway.

The next day I packed all those supplies into my bag to take to school so I could put in my cubby and use them throughout the year. The first thing the teacher did that day was to ask everyone to hand in their supplies for “community”.

I was infuriated, my mom had spent a lot of money and we had both spent a lot of time, and I, even after a day, was already feeling off about the kids in my class (my first instincts panned out to be right but that is a very different story). Why didn’t she just ask for money if all the supplies were being used for “community” - I have no issues when the rules are fair and make sense, this did not. When it was my turn to hand in supplies, instead of opening up my bag I said that “My family hadn’t had the chance to go buy the supplies yet.” She moved on to the next person who handed over their supplies.

When I got home I put all of the supplies away and told my mom about the situation. She was not amused by the teacher's policy, and while I don’t remember the exact details she thought I was quite clever. Now, whenever I did need supplies for a class I would bring exactly what I needed for the day in a pencil case in my bag. Turns out the class ran out of community supplies in about 2 months because of rampant abuse and nobody in the class having any ownership over anything. That was the first time I learned one of the key principles I still apply in my life these days.

Whenever someone says you “Have to” do something, ask yourself if you really do.

One of the next key developments in my story happened in Grade 10. My high school is pretty well known in Toronto and well known for mostly good things, but one thing which internally it was well known for during my time there was its debate team - and it’s constant and toxic politicking. Yes - a high school debate society. Now when I started I knew I had somewhat of a knack for public speaking, presenting and debating, so in Grade 7 (my high school started in grade 7) I joined. For a while, there were no major issues, but as I got older the environment became increasingly competitive, and I also started to feel the pressure of other people and the feeling that unless I was successful in debate my life would be ruined and I’d never get into a decent university.

I was caught in this environment and mindset, and it started to put me in a really negative, vindictive and overall bad place. I went as far as baking cupcakes to try and get the debate coach to “like” me more so I could go to more tournaments. I kept thinking other people were getting unfair advantages (which they were, but as I have learned, even a rigged deck can still come up in your favour if you play enough hands), kept thinking others didn’t deserve their success, and I kept feeling like I was falling behind, the only way to win was for someone else to lose.

Eventually, in Grade 10 I decided I was not going to be returning (to debate), I wanted to cut my loses, and try and move on. I didn’t know if it was going to be a great choice but it was one that I decided to make (probably the best decision I made in high school). I was just going to see what happened next.

I was involved with our school’s mock trial team at the time, and I thought I would be more involved as it was now my second year (I was the youngest member of the team ever, and eventually became the youngest president). I didn’t realize I would become co-president until our the other co-president had told me. I will be ever grateful for her doing that, not only did she make me the co-president (which helped to alleviate fears about leaving debate), I also later realized that she was one of the driving forces behind letting me onto the team in the first place. I think hers is an example of what leadership can be, and an example of the importance of placing passion, dedication and a willingness to learn and adapt over age or "experience". Being old doesn’t make you competent and going to University doesn’t make you smart.

That team in high school became my way of channelling my energy in a productive manner. Instead of feeling like the only way for me to win was for someone else to lose (like it was in debate), I felt like I could build a team where if someone won, we could all win in a way. In Mock Trial, I got to help create success and achievement for many people, not just myself. I helped give students opportunities who didn’t otherwise have them, I helped to provide relief from constant toxic politicking, but most importantly helping others didn’t hurt myself, it only helped me more. This experience is what lead me to my second major tenants.

It is always better to be able to grow the pie rather than steal someone else’s. Never believe that the only way to win is to make someone else lose.

The last major event for me was a combination of many things. It started when I joined a program called The Knowledge Society. While plenty of the cool technical insights still resonate with me. The opportunity to meet incredible people is something I will always be thankful for, what resonates with me even more, are the values of the program.

It reinforced my belief in my first principle and the value of questioning the things you “have to do”. It made me question why young people devote so much of their time and energy towards the same types of activities and the same clubs repeatedly. Instead of pushing them towards growth we keep them static where the highest they can aspire to be is a Club President. TKS helped me see that the number of possibilities out there was endless, and capped by one thing, my ability to know what I want, and to actually do what needs to be done to go and get it. TKS also reinforced the second principle. Just because someone else did well didn’t mean you lost. It meant you now had someone who could help make introductions for you, someone who became an expert in their topic area, you won together, and individual success was not at the expense of someone else.

This experience also happened to coincide with the end of my high school career. I had made the decision about roughly where I wanted to go for university the summer before grade 12, and I am incredibly thankful I took that time to plan. When I got to school, well over half of my graduating class was focusing their energy on stressing about US university applications. The constant grind of making sure your test scores were perfect, running around getting reference letters, writing essays. Countless hours, countless stress, and at the same time I had plenty of free time. I knew what had to be done for decent marks in my courses, and I did what had to be done. I finished my essays for Canadian schools well in advance of deadlines since I didn’t have US apps to worry about. At the same time I was being told that by not going to a US university I was going to be writing my future off and that I was selling myself short of what I was capable of.

I took that extra time and started a business, enjoyed my clubs, and focused on doing things that I was interested in, and things that I enjoyed. Sure the startup I was a part of failed in an absolute disaster, but I still learned a ton from that experience (like most failures it is the best teacher). All the while the rest of the grade scrambled and panicked.

Then the University decisions started to come in from the US schools. Most of my classmates did not get in. Even the ones who did, only then seemed to realize how expensive it was going to be. Then they resigned themselves to the fact that they were going to have to go to Canadian Universities. Quickly the story changed from “You have to go to the US” to “The US was just a stretch goal”. Then the Canadian schools came out with their decisions. I got into every program I applied for, and I applied for most of the competitive business programs in Canada.

I hadn’t tried to complete the types of laundry list extracurricular resumes my classmates had tried. I didn’t stress myself out over US universities, I was content with my average and didn’t think an extra 1% average outweighed the time spent doing something impactful in the world. At the same time, lots of my classmates didn’t get into some of Canada’s top programs. It was then that my last key principle occurred to me. I hadn’t taken the path that everyone said you had to take. I didn’t try to constantly game the system, I focused on adding value where I knew I could add value. I did things my own way but I still ended up at the same destination as they had, in many ways I ended up at an even better destination.

There are an infinite number of paths to the same destination.

All of these principles have helped guide me to where I am today. Where I get to run an organization helping young people get involved in entrepreneurship (innovationexchanges.org). Where I get to challenge norms and expectations, where I get to help grow the pie, and where I am building out my ideal life. I know these principles will continue to guide me. As IEE grows and clarifies its long-term ambitions, as I grow as a person and as the world grows around me, these 3 principles will remain timeless to me no matter what happens in our world - and a lot is bound to happen.

My Three Key Principles:

1. Whenever someone says you “Have to” do something, ask yourself if you really do.
2. It is always better to be able to grow the pie rather than steal someone else’s. Never believe that the only way to win is to make someone else lose.
3. There are an infinite number of paths to the same destination.