And our favorite paths to avoid those crowds
This is the first time, since we started the GRINdex that I made the cut. We have been honored to receive our favorite feedback and watch grins multiply with this series of an amazing roster of characters’ true stories. Their adventures we’ve been lucky to launch together.
This one will be a lot different and I hope to not disappoint with my least popular advice in three decades. What began as a letter to my oldest daughter after college graduation, and for any of her brothers or sisters who might want to take a peek, I decided to share with others at any point in their careers. No matter how old you are, you might want to stick around until the end for two special guests’ opinions on this topic, who we have enjoyed investing with and laughing at.
1) Follow Your Passion
There can be lots of problems with this unintentionally intimidating advice for young people that I hear way too often. How are you sure you know what that is yet!?! Instead, give yourself the grace and space to find anything to work on that you might like even just a little bit, before you worry about a passion to love. Try as many likes as possible. Passions are not decisions, they are collisions.
Rather than a fist clinched, heels dug in allegiance to a supposed passion, be open to trying different might-likes which will include failures. “Don’t be a quitter” is a close cousin to this bad advice. I’d say try to become a world-class quitter, capable of walking away from any failed experiment. Use each as a steppingstone to confidently know you’re getting closer to your most meaningful work. Much later, after working at multiple might-likes, you will know what it feels like to find work you love.
Some of those experiments may turn out to be colossal mistakes. That’s okay, we are works in progress! By learning how to try and fail well, you will have increased your odds of getting really lucky and finding something that’s so much better than settling on an early comfort zone. The real magic is finding something you love so much that you’re willing to struggle for it, and desperately want to improve at it. When you are on fire to accomplish whatever THAT is, you will see that discomfort was a gift.
2) Find a Good Work-Life Balance
Guess what could be even better!? I cherish an obsessive imbalance. Too many of your peers (and mine) are in a hurry to slow down. When they are at work, they wish they could get away. When they are away, they worry about the half-ass job they did at work to leave early. Anybody who does not already have one of those two anxieties will be hazed by social media, podcasts, and blogs - that they really should find more balance.
When I was your age, I was lucky to never hear about PTO (paid time off) or flexible schedules or remote work. All of that stuff is great, but even better after it’s earned. Working your tail off at work will provide a dividend of time playing with family and friends so much more special and focused. Wherever you are, just be there with every ounce of your best energy. You’re all-in at work and at home, never straddling the middle worried about balancing a beam that does not exist. No wonder everybody is so anxious about finding it. You can politely ignore work-life balance gurus (who are still looking for it) and consider my most unpopular advice and a different kind of PTO – give yourself permission to obsess.
You know I’m an asymmetric odds investor, not a mental health psychologist – so there are risks in taking anybody’s advice, including mine. But the odds are staggeringly in your favor if you take what is now a shockingly uncrowded path of not being ashamed to love work. You will have so few peers, and the rewards can lead to a remarkable life, with more choices outside of work.
The most successful careers and most interesting lives that I have been lucky enough to cross those uncrowded paths with, have one thing in common – they are completely obsessed about what they are working on, and the people they love.
3) Time is Your Most Valuable Asset
Something becomes more valuable when it is a scarce resource in demand. So, there is no question how we use our limited time on the only ticket we get to this game of life is valuable. We are encouraged to have fun because we only live once and are hurried to have more fun from of a fear of missing out. So rushed for time, we need acronyms instead of saying all the words now. Our just-in-time inventory of YOLOs and FOMOs distract us from another path to consider. Play the long game, and trust in time that there is a joy in missing out on some short-term distractions from playing your ticket. I hope you will learn first-hand why we made JOMO, our mascot at work. (Background Grin Note: My three daughters came up with the original artwork for JOMO, which I had made into this huggable creature you see here in our building). He parachutes in to sit with me every day and remind me who gets to enjoy the best adventures, hot dogs, and ice cream of life.
You will find in the long-game there is an asset with a much more limited supply, so it is even more valuable (and fun). The scarcest resource on the planet is positive energy.
This will prove to be the most challenging path of all. There will be times when it is not just un-crowded but you’ll be completely alone, at work or in a group, where the overwhelming number of reasons for doubts, fears and problems will completely consume the crowd around you. Dare to be different. Attack each day with a relentless enthusiasm unknown to mankind. I still holler that every single morning before school with your brothers and sisters. Trust me, that was never cockeyed optimism. There is plenty of bad all over. And there is nothing easier for crowds to point out than what’s wrong. But when you are playing the long-game with confidence - just in case we stick around a while, the world does not end, and the crowds are wrong – play it with positive juice and pour it into others, whenever you can.
In a competitive world at work, if you own the scarcest resource of relentless positive energy, you will be holding a lightning rod for good luck. Outside of work, it will prove even more valuable when your most un-crowded path collides with others who you might be able to encourage that there is plenty of time to find what’s good. Making those deposits in the memory banks of others then grows exponentially more valuable.
Bonus Bad Advice:
Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness
At least try it, before you dismiss it. In fairness, anybody who tells you money can’t buy happiness is right. It’s worth a lot more than that. Money can unlock more choices and the freedom to pursue something bigger than any job – a purpose – with the leverage to scale relationships and multiply happiness in OTHERS.
I pray that down the road just a bit, after any of your own uncrowded paths are explored, you will find the ability to share your gifts, obsession and energy can make countless lives richer. Winning or losing, just trying to fund the most memory bank accounts in others can build an immeasurable fortune.
Don’t Take My Word for It
I decided to share this entry into my diary as a dad in case it might make even the slightest dent of good on anybody else at any age. Anybody who has known me for any period of time, without exception, knows they can trust me. A distant second after my family, that unflinching trust is what I’m most proud of looking back on so far. Our friends and partners know they can trust me to share anything that I’m still learning as a big kid!
Looking forward, I will stick to the first page of my own career’s playbook that I stare at every day: stay curious and never convinced. I love learning something I did not know from others. Let me step aside and share two very different voices on this topic below, all in their own words. Whether you might be more of a left-brained engineer or a right-brained creative type, I hope you enjoy considering two of the most extraordinary examples from the polar opposite ends of the hard work spectrum.
High Expectations
Jensen Huang is the founder of Nvidia. After his company was valued at trillions of dollars by others, he was asked questions by Stanford graduates. His answers provide a glimpse into his own values that made his career path possible, which led to also creating careers and relationships for many others, in many industries, along the way.
Question: What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs to improve their chances of success?
One of my great advantages is I have very low expectations. And I mean that.
Most of you have very high expectations. You’ve been very successful. You’re graduating from one of the finest institutions on the planet. You’re surrounded by other kids that are incredible. You naturally have high expectations.
People with very high expectations have very low resilience.
Unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you, except I hope suffering happens to you. (There was awkward laughter here, until everyone realized he’s not joking. He’s very sincere)
No task is beneath me. My first job was at Denny’s. I was a dish washer. I cleaned toilets. I cleaned a lot of toilets. I’ve cleaned more toilets than all of you combined.
I was fortunate to grow up with parents who provided us with the conditions to be successful. There were plenty of opportunities for setbacks and suffering. To this day I use the words pain and suffering inside our company with great glee. When I tell them, ‘Boy this is going to cause some pain and suffering!’ I mean it in a happy way. Because you want to refine the character of your company, you want greatness out of them. And greatness is not intelligence. Greatness comes from character. Character is formed from people who suffered.
If I had one wish for you Stanford students, it would be ample doses of pain and suffering.
Consistency is Rarer than Brilliance
Finally, to add a very different career path perspective, including candid advice on massive setbacks, let’s hear about a work routine that might surprise folks who just like to joke around. Unable to keep the same job for long, now at 70 years old he still cannot retire any time soon. He has to put a suit, often working the late shift, including many weekends. I was excited to learn more about him, so I devoured every interview I could find in the days leading up to a birthday daddy-daughter date to see this old guy work. I told her we’d go see anybody in the world she wished for, I almost fell out of my chair when she answered – Jerry Seinfeld. I may have done something right as a dad, after all!
What I enjoyed researching while GRINdexing this trip with her:
Question: What’s the worst advice you could give your younger self?
The worst advice for any new comedian or young professional is that you have to do more to promote yourself. Instead, do your work and don’t worry about anything else. Keep your head up in failure and head down in success.
Too many creatives get hung up on the non-art stuff. They want success, want to share their art with the world, but don’t close the door to make the stuff.
And would I want to be young again? NO. You should enjoy getting older. You’re going to see more.
Question: Were there any big breaks or low points that stand out?
In the early 80s I got a part on a sitcom called "Benson." And I was on the show for three episodes, and then I got fired. And I thought that would be the only break I was ever going to get. It was just a youthful lack of perspective. But at the time, I thought that was it. But it really ended up making me really get into being a much better standup comedian so that I wouldn't be dependent on other people.
Question: Have failures and depression been part of your success?
Of all the things I would trade if you could take out experiences, the last ones I’d trade in would be the failures. When I moved to L.A. I had built a good reputation from doing comedy in New York, but that was the minor leagues compared to L.A. The Comedy Store was the club you had to break into when I moved. The comics that worked there were killers, they’d make the room shake with laughter. It was very intimidating for me. I did good but I couldn’t get many spots to come back. So, I asked to meet with the owner. She told me, ‘You needed someone to step on you, and I’m going to be that person….if you called in and I had four spots available I’d give them all to some other guy.’
I nodded okay…and walked out of there and never worked at the Comedy Store again. So, I went from being at the absolute top of the heap in New York to playing in discos in the basement in LA, in front of eight people. My resentment and hostility to her made me go from a 3-day a week writing discipline, to all 7, right there. I was frustrated but I used it as fuel.
One of my favorite lines I’ve learned to be true is that pain is knowledge rushing in to fill a void with great speed. I still get depressed. The best thing I ever heard about depression is that it’s part of a kit that comes with a creative brain. That made me really happy.
Question: What’s the best advice you could give anybody?
Everybody has ideas, that’s the easy part. Executing them is where most people stop. They cross their fingers, hope it works and love lots of excuses when it doesn’t. Instead, obsess over every little detail of getting the work done.
I had a friend who was teaching a comedy course at the Improv in Los Angeles. He asked me if I would come in and talk to the class. I said sure. I went up on their stage and said the fact that you even signed up for this class is a very bad sign for what you’re trying to do. If you want to do it, what I really should do is have a giant flag behind me where I would pull a string, and it would roll down. On the flag would just be two words…
Just Work.
Your partner in the memory making business,
Ryan