If I could give you one piece of advice for the next decade...

Imagine that you're in a meeting at work and there's a shy person on your team named Jill. Jill never contributes to the conversations because she is scared of sounding stupid. When she suggested new ideas in the past, she felt unheard, as if her ideas didn't matter, as if she didn't matter. She actually had really good ideas that could have totally transformed your team's trajectory! What a missed opportunity!

In this age of too much information and too many options, many people ask some version of "How do I know what I really want in life?" Our inner voice is just like Jill and most of us have made it feel unheard and stupid all our life. So Jill is afraid to tell us what she thinks. And that's a massive problem because Jill is the only one who can tell us what we really want. 

The good news is that we can fix this and it's actually super easy!

In your next team meeting, ask Jill how her weekend was and when she tells you, say something nice to let her know that you actually care about her. She will feel included for the first time and this will give her a little boost of confidence to speak up. In the following team meeting, ask Jill what she thinks of the idea being discussed, and when she shares her thoughts, acknowledge her and tell her that you appreciate her insight. She will get another little boost of confidence. By the fourth or fifth meeting, you might see Jill voluntarily expressing her opinions. 

You can use the exact same technique with your inner voice! Believe me, it's so simple. 

Ask your inner voice what's one simple thing you can do today that's good for you. Just go do whatever comes to mind quickly. (I, for example, just went for a long walk across the Golden Gate bridge and picked up groceries on my way back.) DO NOT second guess it. You're going to feel really good about yourself, and your inner voice will feel heard and positively reinforced.

Tomorrow, ask your inner voice once again what's one simple thing you can do that's good for you. Go do it! DO NOT second guess it. After a few times, I promise you that your inner voice will start to speak up loud and clear and the more you listen to it, the more proactively it will talk to you. 

The first time I remember listening to my inner voice was in 2010 when I came to the US on a college scholarship. It wasn't easy to go against my parents who wanted me to stay in India with them. But the second time around, listening to that voice became slightly easier when I ditched an engineering major and pursued liberal arts instead.

Every time I trusted my voice, it spoke louder and we got more and more in sync. The most important relationship in my life is with my inner voice, and over the last decade, my inner voice has helped me build award-winning companies, write books, produce movies, invest in startups, be on boards and travel across all seven continents. Being able to think clearly and quickly turn the seed of any idea into a real thing with momentum tremendously accelerated my career and enriched my life with purpose and depth.

I wish you all the very best for the 2020's and I hope that you practice listening to your inner voice so that it can help you experience and achieve so much more in your life than you can possibly imagine!