What I wish I knew when I was 20, by Tina Seelig

Like a zombie taking its first steps, I have recently revived the habit of reading. The goal is to read 10 good books for 2022, and be able to talk about/practice some of the lessons from there. 

Today, we're doing this gem:

The objective of this read as described by the author itself was to challenge one to perceive themselves and the world around them in a new light. To directly quote, it was meant to "provide a new lens through which to view the obstacles you encounter everyday, while charting your course into the future."

Prologue:

I was surprised to find that reading has become such a tiresome act. It takes longer to sift through paragraphs, and sometimes, even when my eyes have read three whole pages, the challenge then becomes to summarise what each chapter has taught you. And if you're unable to do that, then can you really say you've read the book at all? So I thought I would do things different by reviewing the book.  

Chapter 1: Buy One Get One Free

What it's about: Entrepreneurship starting from nothing. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity!

What would you do to earn money if all you had was 5 dollars and 2 hours? This was a class assignment given by Tina Seelig, the author at Stanford University. The teams were encouraged to be entrepreneurial, by identifying opportunities, challenging assumptions, leveraging limited resources and being plain ol' creative !

Plot twist : The teams which made the most money did not use the 5 dollars at all. *GASP*

By focusing on 5 dollars, it frames the problem too tightly. Instead, it was reframed as how to make money with NOTHING at all? The winning teams, brought in a return of over 600 dollars. How? They tapped into PROBLEMS. Those which hid in plain sight. 

Example 1:

Problem: a frustratingly long line at popular restaurant on Saturday night.

Solution : They lined up and sold the reservations for up to 20 dollars to customers who were only too happy to avoid a long wait.

During the course of the project, they observed that female students were better at selling reservations than male students , probably because customers felt more comfort. They also learned that this operation works best in restaurants which utilised vibrating pagers. Physically swapping the pagers made customers feel like they were receiving something tangible. 

Example 2: 

Problem: Cyclists who run out of air pressure in their tyres in uni. 

Solution: Setting up a stand in front of the student union where they offered to measure bicycle tire pressures for free. If it needed filling, they add air for 1 dollar. 

 Even though cyclists of the uni could get their bicycle tires filled up for free nearby and it was easy to do, the cyclists were incredibly grateful . During the course of the project, the income of the students soared when they stopped asking for specific payments and moved to asking for donations. 

Lesson to be learned:

•  Experiment and make small changes in response to customer feedback. 
• The insight of the students were that the most precious resource they had, was their 3 minute presentation time on Monday.
• They decided to sell it to a company who wanted to recruit the team in that class. The students then created a 3 minute commercial for the company and showed it to the students.
• Teaches people about having an entrepreneurial mindset. However, value is not always measured in financial rewards. 
• In order to prove this, the assignment was switched up to being given 10 paper clips in an envelope. The inspiration for this was Kyle MacDonald who started with one red paper clip and traded up until he had a HOUSE !
  (There's a TED Talk on it and everything! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s3bdVxuFBs)
  
  So why is the chapter called, Buy One Get Two Free?
• The initial project which was modified into students trading paper clips resulted in a team trading the paper clips for a poster board and settting up a stand at a nearby shopping centre with a sing that read: "Stanford Students for Sale: Buy One, Get Two Free"
• Fun fact: This exercise from Tine  which was modified to include different items as the starting point evolved to become the "Innovation Tournament" with hundreds of teams from all over the world participating. 

Three major lesson from this assignment?

• Opportunities are abundant. At any place and any time, you can look around and identify problems which need solving. The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. Nobody will pay to solve a non-problem. 
• There are creative ways to use the resources available at your disposal to solve problems.
• We often frame problems too tightly . We don't step back to look at the bigger picture. Taking off the blinders opens up a world of possibilities.

Life nuggets of wisdom:

1. Life after college requires you to be your own teacher, charged with figuring out what you need to know, where to find the information and how to absorb it. Real life is the ultimate open-book exam. 

2. The key to success is the ability to extract the lessons out of each of these experiences and to move on with that new knowledge. 

3. Although people around us can provide us with a sense of direction , it is essentially our responsibility to pick our own direction. 

Chapter 2: The Upside Down Circus

What it's about: Instead of running away from problems, familiarise with it, introspect it to come up with better solutions!

Essentially, our first thought would not be to embrace problems. Instead we are thought to steer away from them or complain about them. We can challenge ourselves to see problems with new lenses, or in a new light. The more we take on problems, the more confident and proficient we become at solving them. Then we are better able to see opportunities. 

Situational Examples

Jeff Hawkins, who created 'Palm Pilot' (personal digital assistants created in late 90s) . When his initial project, the Zoomer, turned out to be a bust, he interviewed the customers to enquire what it wished it would so, and it revealed the Zoomer was competing with paper calenders instead of other computer products. This feedback which contradicted his original assumptions proved to be handy insight in developing Palm Pilot. 

Lessons: 

Problems can be solved if we gave ourselves permission to look at them differently. 

There is a tiny switch between doing nothing and doing something but that the two options have wildly different outcomes. 

Why is it called The Upside Down Circus?

In her course, the Cirque du Soleil was used as a case study to challenge assumptions. The backdrop is that it's 1980s and the circus industry was stale and predictable. Guy Laliberte took a risk and started it anyway to challenge every assumption of what a circus could be, and in doing so, challenged an assumption of what a circus could be, and transformed the dying industry into an opportunity. She asked her students to uncover all assumptions of a traditional circus, and turn things upside down (To imagine the exact opposite) . They could select which aspects they prefered to maintain and which they would drop. The end result is a brand new circus. Once you do this with a circus, import it to fast-food restaurants, hotels, airlines, etc. The key is to take the time to clearly identify every assumption. 

Nugget of wisdom:

There is great benefit in identifying problems in your midst and then relentlessly working to solve them by challenging traditional assumptions. 

Problems are abundant, just waiting for those willing to find inventive solutions. It takes acute observation, coordinated teamwork, the ability to execute a plan, a willingness to learn from failure, and creative problem solving. But the first requirement is having an attitude that the problem can be solved. 

 

Chapter 3: Bikini or Die

What it's about: There's no such thing as 'good' and 'bad' ideas. Break societal 'rules' sometimes.

When are societal rules merely a suggestion? and when do the suggestions morph into rules? We define ourselves by our professions, our income, where we live, the car we drive, our education, and even by our horoscope. Each definition locks us into specific assumptions about who we are and what we can do. With small goals, there are very specific ways to reach them and more ways they can go wrong. With big goals, you are usually allocated more resources and there are more ways to achieve them. 

Examples

1. Linda Rottenberg :She believes in going zig when the world goes zag-- started up a company called Endeavour. The organisation fosters entrepreneurship in a developing world.  It begun in Latin America, and today has expanded into Turkey & South Africa. The idea is that the (high potential) entrepreneurs with great ideas aren't handed money but are introduced to those in their environment who can guide them. They are also given intense educational programs. Once successful, they become positive role models. 

Nuggets of wisdom:

One of the biggest obstacles to tackling an 'impossible task' is that others often quickly tell you it cannot be accomplished. What more is that once you decide to take it on, it is equally difficult to break out of traditional problem solving patterns. This is where it is helpful to break a few rules. 

Example in practice (Exercise provided by Tina Seelig to her class on problem solving.) :

First a problem is given. A "best idea" is something the team thinks will solve a problem brilliantly. The worst idea will be ineffective, unprofitable or makes the problem worse. Once done, they write their ideas on a seperate paper labelled 'best' and 'worst' . She then shreds their best ideas. The worst ideas are redistributed. Each team must bring to life what the other thought was the worst idea, but make it fabulous. 

Why is it called 'Bikini or Die' ? 

One group suggested selling bikinis in Antartica. The slogan for this was "Bikini or Die". One group recommended starting a restaurant that sells cockroach sushi, called 'La Cucaracha' and one proposed starting a heart attack museum. This exercise is a great way to open your mind to solutions to problems because it shows that despite an idea looking silly or stupid on the surface, it often has a seed of potential. 

It helps to challenge the notion that ideas are either 'good' or 'bad' . With the right frame of mins, you can look at most ideas or situations and find something valuable. 

The concept that there are no bad ideas is a hallmark of brainstorming. During a brainstorming session, it is important to state that there are no bad ideas. Break the pattern of thought that ideas need to be feasible in order to be valuable. 

Patricia Ryan Madson who wrote Improv Wisdom designed an exercise, which enforces that there are no bad ideas, AND to build on others' ideas. In pairs, one person has to try to plan a party and makes suggestions to the other person. The other person must say no to every idea and give a reason why it won't work. 

"Let's plan a party for Saturday Night"

"No, I have to wash my hair"

This prolongs until frustration seeps in. Then the roles are switched. Now, the person must plan a party while the other has to say yes to everything and build on the idea. 

"Let's have a party on Saturday Night" 

"Yes, and I'll bring a cake"

This prolongs till the ideas get wilder. This is the type of energy which should be present during a great brainstorming session. At some point you do have to decide on feasibility but this should not happen during the idea generation phase. 

Nugget of wisdom:

All the cool stuff happens when you do things that are not the automatic next step. The well worn path is there for everyone to trample. But the interesting things often occur when you are open to taking an unexpected turn , to trying something different, and when you are willing to question the rules others have made for you. It is easy to stay on the prescribed path, but it is often much more interesting to discover the world of surprises lurking just around the corner. Knowing that you can question the rules is terrifically empowering. Don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone, to have a healthy disregard for the impossible, and to turn well-worn ideas on their heads. 

Chapter 4: Please take out your wallets

What it's about: Do not wait for someone else to promote you to a leadership role. Appoint yourself. And also, reframe your skills to pursue a new field. 

There's a prevailing mentality where when you create new projects you're asked ; " What makes you think you can write a book?" because they cant conceptualise taking on these projects without the blessing of someone in a position of greater authority. 

Nugget of Wisdom:

The world is divided into people who wait for others to give them permission to do the things they want to do and people who grant themselves permission. Some look inside themselves for motivation and others wait to be pushed forward by outside forces. 

Sometimes it means looking beyond your own desk, outside your building, across the street, or around the corner. But these are only available for those willing to pick it up. 

One of the best ways to move from one field to another is to figure out how your skills can be translated to different settings. Others might not see the parallels on the surface, so it's your job to expose them. Sometimes the vocabulary in two disparate fields is completely different, but the job functions are remarkably similar.  

Example:

Tina Seelig wanted to transfer her skills as a scientist and a management consultant shortly after earning a PhD in neuroscience by starting up a biotech company --this involves roles in marketing and strategy. Eventually, she got introduced to the managing director of San Francisco branch of Booz Allen Hamilton, an international consulting company. Then she outlines the similarities between brain research and management consulting. (Need to identify the burning questions, collect relevant data, analyse it, select most interesting results, craft a compelling presentation, and determine the next set of burning questions) Despite the fact that he had other interviews lined up, she walked out with a job offer. It turned out to be a great way to learn about business. 

Another way to anoint yourself is to look at what others discarded and find a way to turn them into something useful. Often people discard ideas which hold a lot of promise because they lack time to fully explore them. 

There is considerable research showing that those willing to stretch the boundaries of their current skills and willing to risk trying something new are much more likely to be successful than those who believe they have a fixed skill and innate abilities which lock them into specific roles. (Re: Carol Dweck's studies which show those with a fixed mind set are less likely to take risks which might shake that image, but those with a growth mindset are typically open to taking risks. Trying new things open up entirely new arenas along the way

Why is it called 'Please take out your wallet?'

There was an exercise developed at d.school where each person is required to pull out their wallet at the beginning. They must descrive what they love and hate about their wallets. Some wallets are trim and neat, where some are exploding with papers. Some are fashion statements, some carry a library of photos and receipts, and some consist of a little more than a paper clip. Clearly, a wallet plays a different role to each of us. 

The interview process exposes how each person uses his or her wallet, what it represents and the strange behaviours each has developed to get around the wallet's limitations. There is always something which can be fixed. After that, each person is tasked to design and build a new wallet for the other person. It includes nothing more than paper, tape, markers, scissors, paper clips and the like. They can also use whatever else they find in the room. After completing, they "sell" it to the customer. Almost universally, the new wallet solves the biggest problems with which the customers were struggling. Some of the features are fictional like a wallet which prints money. 

Lesson: The wallet is symbolic of the fact that the problems are everywhere, even in your back pocket. Secondly, it does not take much to uncover it. Thirdly, by experimenting, you get quick and dirty feedback on proposed solutions. It does not require abundant resource or time. If one is not on the right track with a solution, the sunk cost is really low. All one has to do is start-over.

Real life example in practice:

David Rothkopf , author of 'Superclass', focuses on people who have more power and influence than us. His findings revealed a trait they have in common.

People who get to the top work harder than those around them. They have more energy which propels them forward, and they are markedly more driven to get there. "The biggest ally of superachievers is the inertia of others". Majority of people who claim great success made it happen on their own. 

The fact that you don't already have the connections and have no funds for your idea should not get in the way. When you creatively leverage what you do have , like energy, willingness to work hard, and a drive to make it happen, you can succeed.

If you want a leadership role, take on a leadership role. Give your ownself permission to do so. Hardwork, energy and drive are assets which set leaders apart from those who wait for others to anoint them. 

Chapter 5: The Secret Sauce of Silicon Valley

What it's about?

The writer goes on to encourage us to write about our failures , in the form of a 'failure resume' , for personal, professional and academic. For each failure, each student must describe what he or she learned from that experience. Failures are a sign that you have taken on challenges which expand your skills.

Cultures associate shame with any type of failure, and from a young age people are taught to follow a prescribed path with a well-defined chance of success

Example:

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) which publish a detailed annual report on startup activity around the world looks at cultural differences in risk taking and comfort with failure. A few important factors were uncovered pertaining risk profile. In Sweden, bankruptcy laws are designed that once your company goes out of business, you cannot get out of debt. Knowing that failure has drastic long-term effects, it's a hindrance. 

In other countries, humiliating tactics are used by debt collectors including Spain where they show up at a person's house in bizzare costumes with the goal of drawing attention from neighbours and shaming debtors. 

Why is it called 'The Secret Sauce of Silicon Valley'?

This is in sharp contrast to Silicon Valley, where failure is acknowledged as a natural part of the process of innovation. Steve Jurveston, partner at a venture firm Draper Fisher Jurveston describes failure as the secret sauce of the Silicon Valley. 

We don't expect children doing tasks for the first time to get it right and neither should we expect adults doing complex tasks for the first time to do that either. The most powerful learning comes from experimenting failures as well as successes. It is also nearly impossible to learn anything without doing it by yourself. 

Nugget of Wisdom especially on Quitting

• Quitting is actually incredibly empowering. It's a reminder that you can control the situation and can leave whenever you like. You don't have to be your own prison guard, keeping yourself locked up in a place that isn't working . But that doesn't mean quitting is easy. 
  
  
• Sometimes, quitting is the bravest alternative, because it requires you to face your failures and announce them publicly. The great news is that quitting allows you to start over with a clean slate. And, if you take the time to evaluate what happened, quitting can be an invaluable learning experience. 
  
  
• When you eventually decide to quit, it is important to do it with grace. This is because doing it rash, abruptly and at a huge inconvenience to everyone involved would mean that despite doing a terrific job while she was with them, the damage done to her reputation during the last week of her employment dwarfed all the positive things done in the prior years. In contrast when you leave with grace, it made a good impression enough that the reputation during the last weeks of employment dwarfed all positive things done prior. 
  
  
• The key to success is not dodging every bullet but being able to recover quickly. 
  
  
• If you get out there and try lots of things, you're much more likely to find success than someone who waits for the phone ring.
   
• If you continue to push the limits, and are willing to fail along the way, you will very likely find success. 
  
  
• When you're in a down cycle, it's sometimes hard to see that the temporary dip is actually a setup for the next rise. In fact, the slope of the upward line is often steeper after a down cycle, meaning you're really achieving more than if you had stayed on a steady, predictable path. 
  
  
• "The heaviness of being successful was replaced with the lightness of being a beginner."
  
  
• Most times, we have to make a decision with incomplete information. That is, you have to make a choice and take action in the face of considerable uncertainty surrounding each option. So how do we fill in the gaps of our knowledge? (Gather all date from our environment, tap into the wisdom of those who went before. Look around for 100s or 100s of role models for every choice planned to be made.) 
  
  *If you do take a risk and happen to fail, remember that you personally are not a failure. The failure is external. This perspective will allow you to get up and try again and again. 

Chapter 6: No way...Engineering is for Girls

What it's about:

Giving the advice, 'Follow your passion' to someone struggling to figure out what to do is easy. However, that advice is simplistic AND MISLEADING. Passions are just a starting point. You also need to know your talents and how the world values them. If you're passionate about something but not particularly good at it, then it is going to be frustrating. 

The sweet spot is where your passion overlaps with your skills and the market. Only then your job will actually enrich your life instead of just providing financial resource which allows you to enjoy your life after the workday is over. 

Chinese Taoist , Lao Tzu once said :

"The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both."

Why is it called "No way...Engineering is for Girls"?:

The author had a friend, who hosts dinners for her friends, and they are engineers in different disciplines. They often come over to her house for dinner to socialise, where one of them brings their young son. The son was usually around, taking in the conversation. As he got older and proved to be good at math and science, someone said to him: "Gee, you should consider studying Engineering". He twisted his face and said ; "Absolutely not, engineering is for girls."

Lesson from this: Impact of specific individuals in shaping our perspective of what we are "meant" to do. We are all powerfully influenced by the messages around us. Some are direct, such as a teacher saying 'You should be a nurse' , or 'You think like a scientist'. Others are embedded into our environment, such as seeing only female engineers or male surgeons.

When the author was in her early 20s, it was difficult to seperate what she wanted for herself and what others wanted for her. It is possible to get "too much guidance" to the point that it becomes tough to figure out what to do. 

• There are so many unexpected experiences ahead that it's best to keep your eyes open instead of blinding yourself to the serendipitous options that might present themselves. 
• The best scientists latch on to anomalies. 
• Ideas can be so attractive that they actually impede progress. People latch onto them and don't see the other viable alternatives; they unconsciously "adjust" conflicting observations to fit prevailing theories. 
• It's important to reassess your life and career relatively frequently. This self-assessment forces one to come to terms with the fact that it's time to move on to a new environment to excel. The more frequently you assess your situation, looking for ways to solve the problem, the more likely you will find things going well.  Some people do it too late that the problems get so big they seem intractable. 
• Don't be in a rush to get to your final destination. The side trips and unexpected detours quite often lead to the most interesting people, places and opportunities. 

Chapter 7: Turn Lemonade into Helicopters 

What it's about:

'There's no such thing as luck, it's all hard work' -- is that true?

Even when we think we are lucky, we have usually worked remarkably hard to put ourselves in that position. 

All the cards could align for a person well, but success would never have surfaced unless a person puts tremendous effort behind their goals. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Basically you need to put yourself in a position to be lucky, even if there is a low chance of success and tremendous competition, you can maximise chances by being well prepared physically, intellectually and emotionally. 

Lucky people tend to share traits which make them luckier than others:

1. Lucky people take advantage of chance occurrences which come their way. (Pay attention to what is going around to extract greater value from each situation)
   
   
2. Open to novel opportunities and willing to try things out of their experiences. They are more inclined to pick up a book on an unfamiliar subject, to travel to less familiar destinations, and to interact with people who are different than themselves.
   
   
3. Lucky people tend to be extraverted. They make more eye contact and smile more frequently, leading to more positive and extended encounters. 

Why is it called 'Turn Lemonade into Helicopters' :

A man and his young daughter approached the author in a frozen food isle and politely asked how to prepare frozen, canned lemonade. The man had an accent which could not be identified. She found out that he was from Santiago, Chile. She asked what brought him there with no ulterior motive than to feed curiousity. He mentioned he was there to learn about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley to improve his family business. This is when she mentioned the entrepreneurship program she ran at Stanford's school of Engineering and offered to help. She introduced him to various people in the entrepreneurship community and he expressed gratitude. 

Fast forward 2 years, she was headed for a conference in Santiago and sent him a text asking if he would want to get together for coffee. At the last minute he was unable to make it but asked her to go to a downtown Santiago with colleagues. They were led to a roof, where they were Eduardo's family's private helicopter for a spectacular ride above the city.

Of course, she did not help him because she wanted a helicopter ride, but by putting herself out there, being open to helping someone, and following up years later, she became quite "lucky".

Tom Kelly, author of 'The Art of Innovation' says that every day you should act like a foreign traveller by being acutely aware of your environment.  When you view the world with fresh eyes, you dramatically increase the density of your experiences.

Lucky people don't just pay attention to the world around them and meet interesting individuals-they also find unusual ways to use and recombine their knowledge and experiences. 

In the authors course on creativity there is an emphasis on the value of recombining ideas in unusual ways. The more you practise this skill, the more natural it becomes:

Ideas are like ___________

Because ____________

Therefore ____________

*This exercise encourages you to stretch your imagination by tapping into the world around you for inspiration. 

Chapter 8: Paint the Target around the Arrow

What is it about? : 

The importance of positive relationships and experiences with others (such as Friends, family, co-workers, service providers)

• The importance of writing 'Thank you notes' was something which the author's mother instilled within her. Showing appreciation for the things others do for you has a profound effect on how you're perceived. 
• When someone is busy, there are no small requests. They have to stop what they are doing, focus on your request, and take the time to respond. With that in mind, there is never a time when you should not thank someone for doing something for you. 
• The roles we play continue to change in surprising ways over time, and one would be amazed by people who keep showing up in their lives. 
• Because we live in such a small world, it really is important not to burn bridges, no matter how tempted you might be. You aren't going to like everyone and everyone isn't going to like you, but there is no need to make enemies. When you look for your next job, it's quite likely that the person interviewing you will know someone you know. In this way, your reputation precedes you everywhere you go.
• Your reputation is your most valuable asset, so guard it well. But don't be terribly demoralised if you make some mistakes along their way. With time, it is possible to repair a stained reputation. 
• Useful metaphor for this --Every experience you have with someone else is like a drop of water falling into a pool. As your experience with that person grows, the drops accumulates and the pool deepens. Positive interactions are like clear drops of water and negative interactions are red drops of water. But they are not equal. A number of clear drops can dilute one red drop, and that number differs for different people. 
• Even though you cannot please everyone, the way to navigate is to see how you would describe what happened later, when the dust clears. Craft the story now so you will be proud to tell it later.
• Everyone makes mistakes and floundering is part of life, especially when you're doing things for the first time. Learning how to recover from them is key. 
• The author was relating a story about how she wanted a job badly, "I just want to tell you that you're not a good match for this organisation. You're too pushy". She felt tears well up and had to think fast. She apologised, told her she appreciate the feedback and said that most people would call her 'high energy' and 'enthusiastic' : *To note: Take criticism better. Acknowledge failings and apologise but don't let it believe you* 
• It's important to take responsibility for your actions and be willing to learn from experiences. Once that happens, you can quickly move on.

Real life experiment: 

Jennifer Kahwajy an expert on interpersonal interactions researched and found that those who demonstrated a willingness to learn can turn negative situations around very effectively. Experiments were run where mock interviews were set up. The recruiter was primed beforehand to have negative biases towards the candidate. One was instructed to prove they ought to get the job, whereas one was told to learn from the interaction. One group was a 'control group'. The candidates who set out to learn from the interaction reversed the recruiter's negative bias.

• In the context of a job candidate and employer, there is a negotiation which takes place.The most common mistake in negotiations are making accurate assumptions and the most common assumption is that the recruiter and the candidate have opposing goals. Instead both have a common objective. This tells us parties often share interests even when they believe they are divided on an issue.
• The key to a successful negotiation is to sift everyone's interest so you can maximise the outcome for everyone. In cases which offer no 'win-win' solution, it's better to walk away. The best way to know when is to understand other choices.
• To negotiate effectively, one must understand their own goals as well as the goals of the other party, attempt to come up with a win-win outcome, and know when to walk away. These take skills to ensure both parties are satisfied. 
• Another valuable skill is the art of helping others. Ask "What can I do to be helpful to you?" and maybe only a small percentage will take you up on your offer, with what they ask for being usually modest. A competitive mindset, where you win at someone else's expense is completely counterproductive. 
• One of the biggest things that people do to get in their own way is to take on too many responsibilities. Life is like a huge buffet of enticing platters of possibilities, but putting too much on your plate just leads to indigestion. Just like a buffet, you can do it all, just not at the same time. 

Why is it called ' Paint the Target around the Arrow' :

Just as the title suggests, you should pick the most talented person you can--the arrow-- and then craft the job--the target around what he/she does best. If you allow really talented people to do what they do best, then the results are astonishing. They're fulfilled and therefore much more productive than if they were doing something that didn't fit their talents or interests.

Summary:

- Show appreciation to those who help you

- The world is very small and you would likely bump into the same people time and time again

-Protect and enhance your reputation- it's your most valuable asset and should be guarded well. 

Chapter 9: Will this be on the exam?

What it is about: "Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous" 

When the author placed this message at the end of her class, and that she has no problem giving everyone an "A",  it inspired the students to deliver more and better and raise their bar. 

• Students, They're hungry for permission  to do their very best, to hit the ball out of the park and shine their brightest. Unfortunately, in most situations, this does not happen because we are encouraged to satisfice: do the least amount we can to satisfy the requirements.
• It's easy to meet expectations, knowing exactly what you will get in return. But amazing things happen when you remove the cap. 
• Being fabulous implies making the decision to go beyond what's expected at all times. On the flip side, if you the least you can to meet a baseline expectation, then you're cheating yourself of that opportunity. You get out of life what you put in, and the results are compounded daily. 
• There is a big difference between between trying to do something --losing weight, getting more exercise, finding a job. But the truth is, we're either doing it or not doing it. Trying to do it is a cop out. You have to focus your intention to make something happen by giving at least 100 percent commitment. Anything less and you're the only one to blame for failing to reach your goals. 
• There's a significant difference between being competitive and being driven towards an objective. Being competitive implies a zero-sum game in which you succeed at someone else's expense. Being driven involves tapping into your own passion to make things happen.
• Being fabulous comes in many flavours, but it all starts with removing the cap and being willing to reach for your true potential. Life isn't a dress rehearsal and you won't get a second chance to do your best. 

Chapter 10: Experimental Artifacts

What it is about?: Staying with the pack is the norm, and those who get ahead risk being dragged backward by their community.

• Others assume you've done something illegal if you've successfully broken the mold
• The real life example: A few years ago the author took a creative writing class in which she had to describe the same scene twice, the first time from the perspective of someone who has just fallen in love, the second from the point of view of someone who has just lost a child at war. You were not allowed to mention falling in love nor the war. This assignment revealed how completely different the world looks depending on your emotional state.
• You should not take yourself too seriously, nor judge others too harshly. He wishes he had been more tolerant of mistakes he made and those made by others, and that he could have seen that failure is normal parts of the learning process. 
• You should not define yourself by your current position nor believe all your own press
• Uncertainty is the essence of life and it fuels opportunity.
• The author's hopes for the readers are that boundless possibilities result from extracting yourself from your comfort zone, being willing to fail, having a healthy disregard for the impossible and seizing every opportunity to be fabulous. Yes, these actions inject chaos into your life, and keep you off balance, but they also take you places you couldn't even have imagined and provide a lens through which to see problems as opportunities. Above all, they give you growing confidence that problems can be solved.  

-.-

All in all, this book has done what it said it would. It reframed my line of thought and made me look at problems in a different way. It was impressionable enough that I spent a couple of days trying to summarise the gist of this book so that I won't forget it some years down the line. What started off as advice intended for the author's son who was headed to college has indeed become one of the pillars of how I could live the remaining years of my 20s. 

What could journals teach you?

I am trying to approach this topic in a way which does not lean too much towards narcissism but that's a little difficult to do because well, this is... my blog. Where my amorphous emotions are unveiled, given a form, a name, a definition. Just so that its power as a suffocating tangled mass of colour and cloud (which would inevitably lead to an anxiety attack) is hopefully defeated.  

*Other than that, I journal because I genuinely find the act of writing on pages gratifying.* 

Hello, visitor. Almost didn't see you there. 

Recently, I was doing the annual clean-up of my space and I found my journals dating back from 2016 -2021 and I noticed that there was a similar theme of what upsetted me, what made me happy, what terrorised me, and what caused me anxiety. However, I also noticed a jarring problem. I did not write much about my life when things were going good. ...And man, were there good times. 

Somewhere between reading the contents of these entries, sneezing from the amount of dust particles invading my nostrils and cringing (BIG TIME), I realised the following :-

1. There are some people whom, despite the fact that you want to cling on to because they have been there through a very important part of your life, you must recognise that you have outgrown. It does more harm to hold on than to let go. So, LET GO. 
    
2. Conversely, there are some friends who are so low maintenance but genuinely want to see you happy and succeed without expectations. These are people who might keep you in their prayers, they are not calculative about who started more conversations first, it's like time hasn't lapsed when you eventually meet up and you actually feel recharged when you leave them. Thank your lucky stars you crossed paths with them, and make an effort to keep them in your life.
   
   
3. There are endless cliche motivational quotes, all of which you've probably seen, liked, saved but nothing hits quite like watching your ownself fall apart over the same thing over and over again. It made me want to go back in time and give myself a hug and promise that this time, things will be different.
   
   
4. I learned that I lacked something absolutely necessary in my interactions with people I got attached to :- BOUNDARIES. To truly learn what this is and then actually exercise it is a fierce act of self love. 
   
   
5. When you are aware of what you are, as in all your strengths and weaknesses, and when you watch your mental growth (which of course journaling helps with) it can be very empowering and it creates a confidence to interact with others + go about life too!
   
   
6. Journaling is like reading letters from a pen pal you feel so soulfully connected to , except it's YOU. Your journal can have entries where it's penning your expectations for your year, or the next five to come (and then seeing how much came true), maybe even what you hope would never repeat. Who better to keep you accountable than your own self?
   
   
7. A skill is only going to grow if you exercise/practice it, so in order to not cremate whatever semblance of (non-professional) writing flair left, I will try to make more consistent entries whether in my written journal or in this blog. You can't starve your creative self then sit down and wonder if you still 'got it'. 

Moving forward, I want to do some things different about this year onwards, which is to write about the good stuff more. To write about what I am grateful for. To write about moments which, though fleeting, you know would flash before your eyes when you're about to die. I want to live, really live. Meet as many people  who provide perspective in this kaleidoscopic world as I can. 

So all in all, it was a healing (?) and clarifying experience. 10/10 would recommend.

Having said that, we've encroached into mid January and I don't already have one for the year. Time to fix that soon. 

What does being in love feel like ?

To be in love, I believe, is one of life's peak experiences. It's the stuff books and songs are written about since the dawn of time. It's the kind of emotion that drives one to the brink of insanity. Sure,  the ancient greeks have coined eight (8) different types of 'love'  (TLDR: Agape, Eros, Phillia, Philautia, Storge, Pragma, Ludus, Mania) but none has been so widely promulgated in literature such as the romantic love you feel for someone whom makes you feel like you've accidentally stumbled upon something you didn't think you'd need but now you cannot live without. Actually, there's a word for that. Serendipity. The real pity (hehe) unfortunately, is that some live their whole lives without ever knowing what love is. 

I discovered early on that when it comes to love, *logic will leave the chatroom*. For two people to fall in love simultaneously is an alignment of the right time, being at the right place, radiating the right pheromones, being the right person for both yourself and the other person-- and other times it's just something that feels right for two people and happens by chance. The statistical probability of something like that working out for you in your early 20s in a planet of approximately 7 billion people (once you've filtered for the right age, gender, religion, personality, physical preferences or other compatibility that is) ?

Does this mean you'll never find a match? Just as you pass the mid-20s mark, suddenly , you're forced to stare this prospect in it's glaring eyeball. First, the idea seeps in from wedding postings of friends' friends. Then it's your friends. Then it's your family. And before you know it you're 30 , thinking about whether the universe and that perfectly-timed statistical <s>im</s>plausibility will work with  you before the biological clock works against you. 

So, it begs the question. 

What does being in love feel like? There is sure as hell no universal answer to a question like this. But today, I will try to postulate. Here's a little fictional narrative. 

---

She had the kind of unparalleled , almost paralyzing beauty, that even if you tried to stop yourself, you couldn't help but take a peak and blush (however slight) when your eyes eventually met hers. Even in default, resting-mode, if she enjoyed your company, her eyes glistened with interest, her body leaned in towards you as she listened ardently, and man, was she expressive. When she flirted, she did it with limited words. It was heavy on body language and her voice would transform, as if to ask you, "Is this really the best you can do?"  (which was enough to draw the attention of any narcissist whom immediately felt both smitten and challenged. It made them feel like they were dealing with a woman whom knew exactly what she wanted, which thrilled them.) It was the subtle hair flips, the right perfume, the outfit she picked out days in advance. The manner she crossed her legs. The way she handled her drink. The way she held a cigarette. It was like watching a skilled artist at work. Her eyes always appeared as if it was laced with eyeliner, much like a stereotypical Egyptian goddess, but it was only the thickness of her lashes. She always wore rings, and preferred her nails manicured and painted (often emerald or red)-- this was when she most felt in her element. On her left cheek, there was a dimple which looked as if God himself took a teaspoon and made a slight indentation there. I remember reading somewhere that cheek dimples are a genetically transmitted abnormality of a muscle in the cheek. Pfft. One man's 'genetic abnormality' might be another man's cause for 'rapid heart flutters' . Her skin was tanned, Polynesian. A combination of these made her ethnically ambiguous, a trait she valued deeply.  Unfortunately, it also attracted trouble. Lots of it. 

At first glance, you would expect that she was familiar with 'pretty-privilege'--ironically, she spent her early years living a life of anything but. When you sit down and take the time to get to know her, you open yourself to a kind of story you wouldn't normally pair with someone who outwardly looked like that. When she spoke, it revealed of a kind of intelligence, the kind she didn't have to work hard for. You knew that she read good books, watched good shows, discussed good documentaries to fill up her free time. The kind of chick who really did not care about clout. She listened exclusively to music which does not air on the radio and lost interest in them as soon as it went mainstream. 

There are two kinds of people. You're either a body with a soul, or a soul with a body. She was the person who truly revealed to me what this meant. She made me realise that the both of us formed the latter. She made me see that we were made up of the similar strain of stardust particles, in a multiverse with a billion planets.  Do you know what the odds of something like that are? And to think, if only one decision went differently. 

But above all, as far as I could remember, she was sad. She was troubled. Like most young women, she was unsure of her place in this world and lacked a sense of belonging to any person, any place, and any religion. The drugs, they elevated her experience to life, so much so that she wanted that experience to be the default, so much so that real life became the bits of digression from the default. She was easily overwhelmed with the responsibilities and demands of real life, but that mattered little especially because the world somehow wielded to her favour.

---

Key takeaways:

I learned some years later, that to love someone, and I mean REALLY love someone, is to sometimes leave them to allow them space to grow into who they are meant to be without your constant projections of what their life ought to be. To stay by their side in the name of "love" but be frustrated that they are not matching expectations you've set for them in your head is a form of suffocation which is NOT love. This is more like being in love with an IDEA of a person. And THAT'S what the cliche "If you love something set it free" means. In retrospect, I always hated this quote. Now, I stand corrected. If something is destined for you,  the universe will send it to you when you're ready for it. But sometimes, people are just there to reveal to us lessons, (and this can very closely resemble love but it may not be). 

Love must be two people willing to put in the work and consciously choose each other despite the odds, every day. It cannot be love if it's always 90:10, 80:20, 70:30. It cannot be love if it makes you equally miserable to stay and leave. It cannot be love if you are unable to set boundaries with the other. It cannot be love if  your identity is so merged with theirs (Re: Enmeshment) It cannot be love if you have lost who you are, in order to fit into their world. It cannot be love if their family does not see you as their equal. It cannot be love if you're scared to disagree with them. It cannot be love if your 'love' is a secret which can never see the light of day. 

The most important thing I learned about love is that it can sometimes escape the standard definitions available for it, even by ancient Greek standards, and it is something really personal and unique to each lover. 

Conclusion 

All said and done, what an all-consuming feeling it is to be in love-- and what a blissful experience that is, despite the bitter aftertaste of hurt when it doesn't work out and you witness a whole dimension of your identity  crumbling like a house of cards in slow motion. 

It's only words.

 

My first love, if I remember correctly, had always been, to write. As a child, I would use any spare exercise books I owned to pen out my candid thoughts (because God-forbid I said them out loud) or some made-up stories, (which, in retrospect, must have been largely influenced by the content I watched growing up.) Being young, the themes centered on love, friends, mystery, forbidden love, and murder (!). You know, the usual.  The first panel of critiques were my immediate family. They did not really encourage or like my stories to begin with, but it did provide them with comedic relief, whether it was through the less-than-perfect spelling or the outrageous plots. They didn’t tell me I should stop though. I learned early on in life, that that was as close to ‘approval’ that I would be getting.

From an early age of eight, I was labelled as “overly ambitious”, whether in my writing, or what I wanted out of life. It reflected in my fictional stories. The stories would contain too many elements or characters, or maybe the reader would have no idea where the story is headed until the very end. The stories took the form of every genre. I didn’t know very much about writing technique, how to gage a reader, how to construct sentences properly. All I knew was, it brought me great joy to pen what was in my head, onto the sheets of paper. It wasn’t even for someone to read. The satisfaction lied in knowing I had the ability to pursue that route if I wanted.

Self-esteem:

Another thing which brought me great joy was to learn a new word. The more pompous it sounded, the better. It made me feel like I had an upper hand (over what, I don’t know). It made me feel ‘uppity’. Somehow my mind drew this simplified link: Big words= Intelligence =Successful future. I’ll admit that it made me feel good to not only know the big words but also in what context they should be used. When I was fourteen, my English teacher made the class write down a new word on the class notice board daily and two sentences which exemplify its usage. It goes without saying that my favourite type of homework were the English essays I wrote. To this date, I am grateful about it. I’d even have a book in which I would write down some sentences which really impressed/stood out to me.

Music:

So, what does a love for writing, words, outrageous plots develop into? A love for music of course! Just not the ones which regularly played on local radio. I enjoyed seeking out (because this added to the value of it) music which had uncommon lyrics/words. These fine picks would be on repeat. I remember, vividly, how prepubescent me adored the band Eisley. I remember idolizing the music of Lily Allen, circa 2009. At the time, nothing topped her. She cracked the code of blending unique sounds with even more unique lyrics. I also liked the fact that she was not mainstream, from where I grew up at least. Constant listening to “Best of British” after school made me…a bit of a music snob.

 

Love interests:

If I sat down and thought about it, and I mean, really thought about it, a large number of crushes I developed were on people who had a gift with words. To me, expression with words were the direct window to someone’s heart. Granted, there were people who used paintbrushes, a guitar, a spray can, a camera, a skateboard, a sport, (and the list goes on…) but my personal kryptonite were those whom used a keyboard. However, it must be remembered that at seventeen,  Instagram was not so much a thing yet (?) and it was not like you could go up to people and ask to look into their journals to see what their mind was really about, so blogging was the closest source to obtain that understanding. What irked them. What fascinated them. How they described the most mundane happenings in their day. And man, when I came across that, I dissolved into it like fine salt.  

 

I was thirteen when I came across an individual whom was so unabashedly themselves (and I will refrain from using pronouns here because I don’t know what they identify as) and wrote like it was their life’s calling. It didn’t matter to me what that person was like in real life, how they treated those around me, or what their principles were. I was so charmed by the way this person had a distinctive, self-made style, or flair, and it was unlike anything I had seen before. This brief (but big) chapter in my life would end with fourteen-year-old me writing/typing some twenty something paged narrative about how much this person meant to me, followed by utter regret about that for some many years to come. It was only much belatedly after that when I realized, it was not “love” ( to be fair, what would I have known about love?) but rather, this person had traits I wished I could have embodied, but was too scared to actually do so. It was admiration.  In hindsight, I truly envy the courage it must have taken teenage me to even conjure up their heart and soul in written form, pass it to that person, and leave the rest to the universe. That’s blind faith. (Most of that courage has faded away).

 

I was also around thirteen / fourteen when I came across another individual who resembled the typical teenage heartthrob, who knew how to work a side smile, preferred to wear their hair gelled (and at the same time with a fringe long enough to pull off a hair flip), and recorded Youtube covers of whatever acoustic hits teen boys listen to. This was the kind of person whom was generally surrounded by a large group of friends, oozing in sheer confidence and popularity.  However, all of that was pale in comparison to the way this person wrote. That was the defining trait for me which roped my interest in. It was very candid, straight to the point, sprinkled with a hint of appropriately-timed humor. Unfortunately, for both these examples of love interest that teen me would have pined for, I would not have been the most glamorous choice of person to get to know or be with. I don’t even say this in a bitter way, I mean, I had to put in so much work into myself mentally, physically and emotionally before I could perceive myself as someone to date.

 

Career:

It turned out that years of my consistent love for words and writing would have led to no better conclusion than to study to become a lawyer (!) Or, as actual lawyers would say, read law. I could not see myself as a writer, because, I wasn’t born with a financial safety net. (Let’s be real, I had to find a compromise between what I was good at, and what could make me a decent income).

What I love about this profession is that you’re consuming so much of important information about (1) How the legal structures and systems we have today came about (2) Why they are needed, (3) What are the laws or systems in place, and (4) What are the best ways to narrate your client’s grievances or how to present the best defences in place to defeat a claim against someone. If only all it took to be a lawyer was eloquence and writing skills. But it isn’t enough. It’s an ultimate test of mental strength, it can be very humbling, and maybe every few years or so, there is a different analogy you’d use to simplify what you’d do for a living. So I will go with what’s most recent.

When I started out, during chambering, I would have simplified litigation as a form of ‘story-telling’ to the Judge with persuasive arguments to swing him in your favour.

Then, not too long ago, I looked at lawyering as a profession of regimented rules. Structure. A game of organisation. A game, where what is at stake are liberties, monies, payment of debts, declaration of a status, perhaps. Manage your knowledge. Manage your time. Present the best case within the confines of the rules. However, that lens/angle seems a little too…one-dimensional. Truth be told, the law is a little too wide and vague to be summarised. There’s private law (Between individuals) and then there is public law (interests of the state, constitutional matters, etc) . I learned, in the course of my studies that I have a soft spot for the latter. However, I decided that I needed to get experience in the former first, to increase my employability.

In recent times, (and I mean at the point of writing this entry) I found a new lens to litigation. In a lot of ways, being a litigation lawyer is like playing a calculated and strategised game of chess.  The knowledge which a person acquires in the span of their education and their early years in practice are like pawns. Expending time, effort and study into bettering your pawns earn you the bigger powerful pieces, like a Castle, maybe a Knight, or a Bishop. The interlocutory applications you file are the moves you’re making.

Where the problem lies

At some point, because you want to perfect the game, it can start to feel like your entire life is defined by your ability to play this game of chess well. It gets difficult to remember that this game of chess is not your entire identity. You actually have the ability to say “I don’t think I want to play this game for a while, I would like to take a break, and I would like to try other games, perhaps one which does not require as much from me perpetually” . It can get to a point that you feel like if you left that game, you’d die. You had already spent too much time perfecting your winning chances. The sad reality is that it’s a game which takes your whole life to perfect. In fact, that’s why it’s called “practicing law”. And even then, at the point when you know all the rules to the game, a new manual to play it is released. (I am talking about a change of law!) So I guess, It is not as simple as winning and losing. In fact, it is far more complex that that.

There comes a point when the very base of what you started out with becomes lost in all the layers which get added on top . You lose sight of the base, how happy it made you, to just, I don't know, ...write (?) . Now it's morphed into this multilayered structure that is suddenly bigger than being just about you and it's now beyond your control and you have no choice but to carry on the game you started playing.

Resolution

So I guess the question becomes, what is even the point of writing any of these down? And the simple answer is this. When we lose sight of what is the core of us, life does not become worth living. There may be countless 'factory-manufactured-settings-people' , of which many are forced into conformance in order to earn a living. My take is this. At our dying days, we might come to find that our whole life and all its big decisions are structured around the gift we have been blessed with, spent our entire life developing and perfecting, only because it brought joy. So, when you find that joy is no longer in the equation, it is time to take an aerial view of things and see if this is what we want to continue pursuing. 

What I want to say irl, .and really wish were real:

Nothing is worth letting your core die. The essence of who you are is one of its kind, it is priceless, and should in no circumstance be sacrificed for temporary conformance with a pre-determined and rigged system of bureaucracy and capitalism which pre-dates our existence. 

What I actually have to say:

If only it were that easy though. Bills need to get paid.