In the last five years I've grown faster than at any point in my career.
I've increased my income by 5X as a result.
If I had a time machine, here's what I would tell my 21 year old self:
- Master the basics
The most important skills are the ones you learned when you were five.
- Storytelling
- Writing
- Speaking
- Persuasion
- Making friends
Bonus points:
- Problem-solving
- Decision-making
Invest time to improve these skills and they'll fuel everything else.
2. Optimise for growth over salary.
Your accumulated knowledge and experience will take you further than the extra bit of income you might make along the way.
You'll make fractionally less in the short term and multiples more in the long term.
3. Go deep or go broad.
Path A: Focus on becoming an expert in one specific area and you'll open doors that would otherwise be closed to you.
Path B: Find one thing you can be top quartile at, and one or two more things you can do well. The combination will make you dangerous.
4. Get comfortable with discomfort.
Impostor syndrome is a sign that you're doing the right thing. You're walking on the edge of your perceived competence. You're pushing boundaries and learning.
If you're not feeling impostor syndrome, that's great... but how long do you plan to stay in your comfort zone?
Too many people prefer the comfort of predictable misery to the discomfort of unpredictable change.
— David Elikwu FRSA 🚀 (@Delikwu) December 17, 2021
Change isn't easy. Growth is painful. Newness is scary. Developing new ideas, relationships and skills is really hard work. But it's usually worth it if you can stay the course.
5. Be persistent.
The biggest barrier to success is often simply giving up too soon.
When you encounter setbacks, don't let them discourage you.
Get back up and try again.
People vastly underestimate the impact of the law of large numbers.
— David Elikwu FRSA 🚀 (@Delikwu) May 15, 2022
I've got an easy example.
Say you're looking for a date but you're not massively attractive...
6. Be patient.
As long as you're taking the right actions, don't rush the process. The people who keep checking the oven end up ruining the cake. Be proactive, but give things time to cook. Never crystallise losses before you're forced to. Be persistently optimistic.
Have you read Alyosha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy?
— David Elikwu FRSA 🚀 (@Delikwu) August 31, 2021
Alyosha is a simple boy, and probably the most hard-working, earnest and unquestioningly faithful young boy in all literature.
I read an interpretation recently that got me thinking about how our mindset affects our actions > 🧵
7. Learn to sell.
Learning to persuade, and to communicate value are skills with compounding benefits. If you learn to sell your background, your skills and your ideas, you'll be able to sell any product.
Learn what motivates people, and how to negotiate beneficial outcomes.
8. Find a mentor.
Mentors can accelerate your growth by years, if not decades.
Find someone who's two steps ahead. It's like loading up a 'save game' from someone who's already beaten the boss on your level.
(cont.)
Collect as many data points as possible. Avoid common mistakes.
Bonus: help someone who's two steps behind. The process of teaching helps cement your own learning.
8. Be coachable.
Most people don't know how to take on advice. They're not open to being challenged, and don't see correction as an opportunity to grow.
Have a growth mindset.
Bonus: not all advice is good advice. Be wary of experts from worlds that no longer exist.
The best athletes in the world are the ones who are coachable.
They listen to their coaches and take their advice to heart.
They're also not afraid to make changes based on that advice.
9. Seek asymmetry.
Many actions have binary outcomes. You get out what you put in. But there are many ways to invest your time, energy, and resources that can yield benefits far greater than your initial effort.
Sometimes asymmetric work will look below your pay grade. Stay humble.
Most of the time, asymmetric work will seem above your pay grade. Be eager.
10. Optimise for serendipity
The best thing you can do for your career AT ANY POINT is gravitate towards a digital or physical locus of serendipity.
Find the place where you're most likely to intersect with the greatest volume of high quality ideas, people, and opportunities.
It is rare that your outcomes will ever meaningfully exceed your level of effort without:
— David Elikwu FRSA 🚀 (@Delikwu) May 22, 2022
A) dumb luck, or
B) thoughtfully engineered asymmetry
So if you want to win big you have only a few options;
1. Work hard
2. Find leverage
3. Seek out serendipity
If you can master these nine things, you'll be well on your way to a successful career. Just remember,
