2-3-4 Friday 22 Mar 

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

I’ve a friend who is 28, like me, and often serves as an inspiration.

Like me, he also struggled to fit in from a young age. Often, he would be found kicking a soccer ball between lessons.

During lessons, he would be playing chess with his friends under the table.

When he was 15, his favourite activity was pouring baby powder on the classroom floor so that we could ‘ice-skate’ on the slippery floor.

Most teachers wrote him off.

You might be thinking,

What, him?! An inspiration? You must be kidding me.

When he moved into the mandatory army for two years (every Singaporean male has to serve two years of National Service), he decided to do something different. Rather than chasing the prestige of active combat, and getting a high rank, he chose to be a ‘professional book reader’.

He was assigned to be the Personal Assistant of a Commanding Officer, and spent most of his days reading in the office.

That was when he started his first business, selling gym rings, and learning how to market them.

At the ripe age of 18.

He stopped listening to what people wanted for him to do, and did what he wanted for himself.

I think the lesson here is recognising when something is not for you, and learning to choose yourself first.

Choose yourself first.

This is often difficult because in whatever choices we make, we often have to weigh different stakeholders. That tends to cloud our judgment because we end up thinking on their behalves, rather than our own.

Whenever I go to my friend for advice, lay out the pros and cons, the considerations, his first question to me is some version of,

what do you want?

If you think about that question, it’s a question that cuts to the core.

Answer that, and do that, and you might find yourself further along than most.

1 talk

Ask yourself,

What do you really want,

and what stops you from getting it?

1 tip

What stops you from doing what you want?

Sure, there are many legit reasons.

But if we dig deep down, it’s not because we are scared. Many gurus have said,

Feel the fear, and do it anyway!

No I don’t think it’s just that.

It’s not fear. Rather, it’s greed.

When we think about what we want, we think about the top end of outcomes.

Say you want to start a business. You think,

Oh, I want to earn $100k before the end of the year.

Not impossible, but not practical if you’re starting cold.

So that greed stops us from fully pursuing our desires, because we are greedy for the outcomes.

That greed leaves us stuck doing things that we don’t like, that we are not good at, wishing that we could do something else.

The advice isn’t to stop being greedy.

Rather, it’s to start being greedy for the small, tiny milestones.

I didn’t start writing wanting to earn a thousand dollars. In fact, the mere sign of someone paying me $100 per article was more than enough to get me moving.

Start hungry, not greedy.

You’ll be surprised at where you find yourself.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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