How I found out what I want from life in 2000 words
We all have varying levels of motivation to discover ourselves. When everything is stellar, we rarely question if there is a better reality…
We all have varying levels of motivation to discover ourselves. When everything is stellar, we rarely question if there is a better reality or whether we’ve lost ourselves playing someone else’s game.
It either takes hitting rock bottom or the prolonged nagging hum of “there must be something more” that finally gets us sick and tired of being sick and tired to the point we finally do something. Often, these things trigger quarter-life/mid-life crisis’s.
These crisis’s usually lead to intense questioning and general dissatisfaction about nearly everything. What is finally forced to the surface of our consciousness is the reality that 1.) I’ve borrowed from somebody else’s list and 2.) I have no clue what my list says.
For me, this started when I was 14. My best friend passed away on December 16, 2004. He was a star student, star athlete, natural leader, and everybody loved him. I had to google “eulogy” after being told I was supposed to give one at the funeral. Until that point, there was that prolonged hum of “maybe there is/isn’t more to life.” When Kevin passed, it shocked me out of complacency.
It forced me into existential mode. “Why” everywhere. I questioned every “list” I subscribed to whether it came from parents, friends, or media. Why go to school? Why get good grades? Why do I need a job? Why should I start a family? Why do I need to go to church when it bores the hell out of me?
I wanted answers, but no one had answers. I had to figure it out myself, but I was too limited by my surroundings as a teen. I didn’t know who I could talk to or whether I was even allowed to ask the questions I wanted to ask. I became super depressed during high school because I felt powerless to find out the most pressing questions in my life.
Friends, sports, and gaming were my escape. I figured, “if I can’t figure these things out, then at least I should have some fun and enjoy myself.” I numbed my desire to define myself and answer my big “whys” until I had more mental space to do so.
When college applications came around senior year, I re-opened the big book of questions I had. I opted to go to community college so that I could take general coursework, live at home, but more so that I didn’t have to get bogged down by too much busywork. I craved the freedom to wander my mind and to discover myself without the constant worry of dropping balls.
I remember taking countless personality tests, hoping one of them would be a magic 8-ball into my life’s purpose. I remember pulling all-nighters gaming and then hating myself the next morning when I had class.
I remember one distinct day I was wandering my college campus, I sat down on a bench, frustrated with myself, life, God, parents, school, everything, and I thought, “I wish someone could just come along and give me the DL on life. I know it’s literally just a couple pieces of knowledge I’m missing… but it’s just beyond my grasp right now. ARGH this sucks.”
And then I imagined how awesome it’d be to answer all my most pressing questions, the clarity I’d have, and satisfaction I’d feel in finally securing these elusive pieces of knowledge… and I imagined a cross-roads:
1.) When I discover these answers, I can either say “fuck the world,” and let everyone else fend for themselves the way I was left to
OR
2.) I could go out of my way to help people around me answer the same questions I had so that they don’t have to struggle through the frustrations I had to go through.
This translated in my mind as “contribute to the same problem I wished someone would have helped me with, aka be a hypocrite” or “be the answer you wish you had.” The answer was obvious.
This became the first bullet point on *my* list. Not someone else’s list. My list. My decision.
“Be the answer/resource/help/hope you wish you had.”
No one told me that. I heard it before in church “love others, serve others, lay your life down, go the extra mile” but it was never compelling to me. Now it made sense to me. But I needed to arrive there for myself.
Alas, that was all I had at that point. I was clear about one thing, but I still had no idea what my career was about. Progress, but not enough.
I decided to transfer to Simpson University mainly because my closest friend from high school was there as well. I’d rather “figure it out” with a guy I considered my brother than try to do it on my own like I had just spent my first year doing.
As you may have picked up, church is something that had already been a part of my journey. I was always aware of giving back and the idea of service (I was also part of Boy Scouts), so when I ended up at Simpson University, I joined a local church and got involved. Mind you, this was just something I was used to doing as a result of growing up and going to church every Sunday of my life.
As I got more involved with the local church, I noticed that I thoroughly enjoyed working in their homeless ministry serving the poor and the sick. And by thoroughly enjoy, I mean I felt high on life being able to brighten someone else’s day each time I went. It felt meaningful, it felt fulfilling.
“Make someone’s day” was now part of my list. It was only later I realized this was very related to the first bullet point.
But the more peoples’ days I made, the more I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I dreaded waking up to reality on weekdays being in school, but got high on helping people over the weekend. I still remember the night I was walking back to my dorm in November 2009 and thought, “I should drop out of school” without even flinching.
That is a significant place to be as an Asian American who grew up in the heart of Silicon Valley. Why? Because I knew what I was about to do was pretty much committing cultural suicide.
But in my mind, I was sold. I already unsubscribed to the “go to college in order to be successful” list and had just enrolled with “do things that are meaningful.” And in the same breath, I disassociated with “money is of utmost importance” and bought into “fulfillment over money.”
I spent the next 3 years living by donation, hand to mouth, scraping by, but went on a whirlwind of a ride with my homies who were just as crazy and committed to the cause as I was. We traveled the world, spoke, taught, trained, ran a 3 month school, started a house church, and impacted millions (if you count YouTube views and blog posts) out of the desire to “be the answer/insight/help we wish we had.”
I picked up “like-minded community/people are essential” and “learn from mentors” along the way, building on the foundation of values that were already on the list.
After 3 years of nonprofit work, I had to take a step back and evaluate the impact I had. When I first began, I remember thinking “Omg, I could do this for the rest of my life!” But with 3 years under my belt, I realized that if I spent the next 70–80 years of my life working with the homeless/sick in the way that I had, the same problems would still be there. I was working a band-aid solution the whole time. This didn’t sit well with me and added a whole new meaning to “work smart, not hard” and made me want to think much, much bigger.
I decided I needed to learn about business, finance, investing, systems, and organization if I wanted to build companies or lead teams that tackled things systemically. I read somewhere that 70–80% of millionaires owned real estate so I made a blanket assumption that real estate was my next step.
Following the “like-minded people” principle combined with “learn from mentors” I ventured off with one friend to joined a real estate investing program to learn the ropes and later found a local mentor.
After 1.5 years, my original business partner quit and I felt like I wasn’t learning as much from my mentor so sought off to look for more “likeminded people” and trustworthy references for mentor figures. When the Ramit’a Brain Trust community popped up on my radar, it was a no-brainer.
Through RBT I also heard about Dan Pink and Cal Newport. Watching the The surprising truth about what motivates us and Cal Newport’s reference to Self-determination theory, I gained language for what I experientially found to be true. Autonomy, challenge, and community are fundamental components I need in order to perform the best, feel most engaged, and be excited about getting up in the morning.
There are two sets of criteria through which I make career choices.
The first defines the kind of work I do:
The more chances I have to make someone’s day, the better (impact/meaning)
The second set defines the way I want to work:
Have control over when/where/how I do things (autonomy)
Be in an environment where I am constantly learning and stretching, having mentors is ideal (challenge)
Be working with a team that’s competent and/or as committed to the cause as I am (community)
When it comes to something I’m dedicating my main focus towards, it needs to hit all these criteria in order for it to be a “fuck yes” (Fuck Yes or No).
I launched my coaching program for teens 6 weeks ago because I had met awesome co-founders who were all-in on something I deeply cared about.
Real estate made sense because I had a good friend on board, a coaching program, eventually a mentor who showed me the ropes, and it was all for the purpose of learning high leverage skills. It wasn’t directly impactful/meaningful, but I went in for a highly specific purpose and was aware of the trade-off.
I dropped out of school to work in nonprofit because I had two guys running with me, our hustle attracted the guidance of thought leaders in our space, and I was excited to wake up every morning.
My career choices have far less to do with explicit industries I’m in and far more to do with who I’m with, what impact it has, and how much I learn. Given this, I’ve never cared to try to define myself as a programmer/investor/coach/lawyer/doctor/data-scientist etc etc. I can be any of those things, all of those things, or none of those things.
A comic I mention in this answer helped shape my perspective on that:
But to answer the question, “What do I want to do in life?” I want to impact as many people as I can for the better. I’d like to have good friends around me who would take my call at 3am in the morning, I’d like to be constantly learning about myself, people, the world around me, and if I make money along the way, that would be the cherry on top.