If I Knew Then What I Know Now...

Last month we did a GCH purge with a required topic: what would you like to discuss at an in-person GCH conference? The responses were fairly pessimistic, but illuminating.

This month we went in a more positive and constructive direction, the question was: "The advice you would give your younger self to make your life/learning/progress better/faster/less painful/more successful"

Here are some of the answers:

• It's all sales, and people like to buy from people they like, so get to know people long before trying to sell them anything.
• Start a company earlier to learn and fail more. Read more. Find people who productively challenge your ideas. Find more mentors and sponsors. Start meditating earlier.
• Failure is okay in the right circumstances, learn from it and move on.
• Read more, don't give up on piano, life will suck at times but then you'll do amazing things. Don't give up.
• Listen to instructions and advice from experienced people. Also, don't open the door for cops that one night in the dorms.
• Stop waiting for permission. Take the risk. Learn when it's time to go faster.
• Focus is leverage. Focus connects everything.
• Take advantage of free time to invest in yourself smartly and buy Amazon stock.
• Learn the FAR, find a good mentor, go back to your room before midnight, frenemies are necessary, if you don't ask the answer is always no.
• Act early and often; don't leave opportunity to chance.
• Document everything as you go, both good and bad things.
• Don't be afraid to take career chances. On the finance end, don't time the market.
• Don't be afraid to fake it until you make it. No job is perfect, if you have 2/3 of job satisfaction stick with it until you stop learning/growing.
• Build more things with your kids.
• Understand the incentive structure of an organization. It drives behavior and trying to change incentivized broken things wastes time.
• Key to work-life balance is balance. Take the vacation day.
• Create and defend time to learn, practice, fail and grow at things other than your primary job. You'll learn faster, meet new people, gain perspectives, and have more opportunities.
• Pick something to specialize in - being too much of a generalist hurts for jobs/career and branding/positioning.
• Build the biggest network you can - the more people you know and that know you, the more career possibilities you'll have.
• The more confidence someone displays about a complex solution, the more that solution deserves scrutiny.
• Align incentives at the beginning and good things happen, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with, choose career steps that leave the most future options open.
• You are the architect of your life. Pursue what you want to do 110%.
• Ownership, clearly defined outcomes, and accountability are critical to an organization's success. Don't assume co-workers and leadership understand and want the same things.
• Don't let things stew - address issues directly even if it causes conflict, it may end in a great place.
• Ignore the bullshit, focus on a plan.
• GovCon is a relationship business first. You rarely win on good ideas alone.
• Surround yourself with people smarter than you and implement fearlessly.
• Learn forestry, be aware of your breath, read economics, ethics and history.
• "Perfect is the enemy of good" for entrepreneurship. Test and iterate vs trying to be perfect on the first try.
• Enlist in Texas for the education benefits. Find mentors early. Vet "coaches" carefully.
• Life and work are more fun when you can laugh at yourself.
• Burn the DefCon ship immediately at retirement and take a lower paying job in another industry while figuring out what's next.
• Exit previous startups earlier, grow tech network earlier.
• Take the risk and speak with everyone, no matter who. This is a people business, the more you build the more successful you'll be.
• Being a perfectionist is great for proposals, not for entrepreneurship. Test and iterate vs being perfect on the first try.
• Life is full of twists and turns. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
• Network, network, network. The world is too big to get things done alone. Build and use your network to have impact.
• Enjoy it, you'll be fine. Most people don't know what they're doing either.
• Your imposter syndrome is valid but not real. It's okay to not know, but you are competent and can pick things up quickly. Never sell yourself short.
• Stay curious, reject complacency.
• Don't worry about what others might think. Trust your instincts and passion and keep going.
• Rules: 1) Look before you leap, 2) If it's not in a contract it won't happen, 3) If it's not a process it won't happen, 4) If it's not documented it didn't happen, 5) Forget rule 1, go with your gut.
• Fear is the mind-killer.
• Trust your gut. Be harsher, faster. But more patient from the start. Everything great is compounding.
• Empiricism has its place, but utility is king. Check your moral compass points north, but focus on what accomplishes objectives. Being impotently correct does not serve the cause. If you care, win - whatever that takes.
• Learn as much as you can from each experience in life! Enjoy the people you are around, it goes by fast. Save a little more, retirement will be sweeter.
• Listen more, talk less. Pay attention to WHO you listen to! Dig into technical details from SMEs willing to teach, especially Contracting/Acquisition ones - then buy them whisky!
• Relationships with your peers are more important than with superiors.
• Buy BTC and HODL for a decade!
• Become MORE brilliant in the basics. You may think you're there, but you're not.
• Always ask for what you want, you're worth 5X more than you think. Don't be your own worst enemy.
• It's nothing personal, just business. So go slay!
• Go balls to the wall. Don't be scared of falling on your face. Build impressive things, don't worry what people think.
• Less pure learning and more interactions with others, a dynamic environment goes a long way to help master new fields of study or competences.
• A lot of people have told you what to do, but you're the only one who can figure it out.
• I would have exited previous startups earlier, and grown my tech network earlier.
• Buy Google opening!! Don't stress yourself out, and don't do dumb things.
• Take more risks, increase your opportunity surface area sooner, maintain optionality as long as you can. Well placed loyalty often provides much better outcomes than full mercenary mode.
• Don't be afraid of faking it until you make it, everyone else is doing it too.
• Find a mentor early in life that was doing what I wanted to do and work with them, even if I would have made nothing doing it.
• You have desirable skills that you don't even recognize as skills. Some are technical, some are managerial, and some are just human. Recognize them and use them.
• Don't take rejection or being told "no" personally. Let it go, learn and grow faster. Like in video games, if you're encountering more enemies and/or challenges, you're moving in the right direction - keep going.
• "Lighten up Francis" life and work are a lot more fun when you can laugh at yourself.
• Start a business before joining one.
• Don't sell yourself seriously, find as many smart and kind people to learn from as possible, seek to gain some kind of insight from every interaction regardless if good or bad.
• Do your homework on time to get more scholarship money.
• Ignore the noise. Stay focused. Keep going.
• I wish I would have gotten into DoD Capability Development and R&D much sooner.
• Follow your passion: Do what you love and what makes you happy.
• Build something people want - the best way to evaluate if they want it is if they are willing to pay for it. Also, having kids is the greatest joy one can have.
• Don't stress that you're the only girl/minority in the room. Get fluent in basic finance. Build relationships that are authentic and mutually value-creating.
• "The system is what it does".
• If someone else can do it you probably can as well.
• Lean forward and take more risks.