Life is relatively simple if you distill it down to just three basic questions.
- What do you expect of yourself? Do you want to be a billionaire, happy hippie, Olympian, world-renowned artist, movie star, family person, corporate tycoon, or what? By the time you reach 30 years old, you should already know yourself enough.
- What are you willing to sacrifice to reach that goal? Look at anyone that has been there. All of them sacrificed beyond normal: complete devotion to work for decades, zero social life, years of tremendous stress, risking all personal fortune in a gambit, moved to far away places, etc.
- What do you have that is unique, or differentiating enough from your competitors? Yes, that’s everyone in the same race you are trying to win. If you are not trying to win, or deny that you are in any race, read no more. Since your answer to first question was the end of the this quest.
All competitions are now on a global scale. It is no longer interesting to be more productive among your peers. You must be more productive than all those who will take your job in the world. I learned that after the Civil War of the US, the southern states were poor and suffered low wages for decades. Then the northern states moved their factories south to take advantage of the low labor costs. Today, workers in Beijing, ShangHai, and Bangalore see their jobs moved to ChengDu and Hyderabad; maybe tomorrow to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It feels daunting to face such fierce competition. We all expect things to get cheaper and better every year. Would that come without competition?
You have 6 to 10 years after college to exit from “basic training” in which you first learn how things are done normally, then the politics of the organization. Who has power, how many parties are competing, how are wars waged, how to choose sides or mentors, how not to be a casualty of those wars? Don’t do politics first. That will kill you. Now you have acquired the basics. Answer those three questions.
Find a mentor or coach. Keep in mind that your competitors have also emerged from the same “basic training.” The game only begins now.