My post-graduation plans
“What are your plans after your graduation?” This is most certainly the question I have heard the most over the last few months. Some of my friends at my business school had firm plans as early as last year when they got their offers during their summer internships; some others will do a gap year and look where it takes them. When people heard my usual answer, “I don’t know” they blinked for a second. Usually, I have always had a plan, this time I did not. Neither an internship was secured, nor was anything planned for the time after handing in my thesis.
What I had was a vague notion of wanting to do my own thing, not necessarily in the entrepreneurial context of starting my own company immediately but more on an abstract theoretical level. This thought led me to the conclusion that it would be best if I designed my own curriculum focusing on the topics I would be eager to learn and could use later in life. What I came up with was a list of skills I would like to acquire during the next months. Additionally, I wanted to reflect about what I would like to achieve in my life and find out where I would like to start this journey. Since reflecting tends to be difficult, if you stay in your bubble, I will travel around the world, staying in cities where I do not know too many people. My current plan is that I will switch cities every four weeks for roughly five months, working on completing my curriculum during my self-designed “semester”. However, I thought that too much structure would be boring. To add some fun to the daily habits I want to develop, I willl implement a weekly challenge for myself which I post on Medium every Sunday. The following Sunday I’ll update you on my progress and announce the next challenge. Additionally, I will add some articles about my daily habits, locations, and my learning progress in irregular intervals.
I see my Medium posts as means of working towards four separate goals:
1. Reflection and idea generation
Most of the writers I talk to mention the commonality that they write in order to get ideas. This idea is also promoted by Kevin Kelly (founding executive editor of Wired) and Paul Graham (YC co-founder + startup guru). Writing about what I want to achieve, how my habits help or hinder me, and what I am improving in will additionally help me to internalize all of this.
2. Documenting my progress
After I complete this journey, I want to have something to look at for reflecting on the progress I have made and the things I have learned. Writing about it publicly forces me to do it in a structured manner and also increases the incentives of sticking to it.
3. Getting feedback and ideas
One of the best things about publishing ideas is that other people can give you feedback on them. After publishing articles in the past or tweeting about specific ideas of mine, I often got advice that was valuable to me in ways I had never imagined before.
4. It is part of my curriculum
I apsire to become a better writer. In order to improve my writing I need to write a lot. The posts ensure that I get a minimum of experience in writing from which I can learn every week.
Without further ado, I want to introduce my first weekly challenge which will start tomorrow:
Weekly challenge #1: Read 10 books in 7 days
There is a special reason why I chose this particular challenge as my first one. In the first article I published after a long time in early 2016, I wrote about the problem that I was not able to read propely anymore. I simply did not have enough focus to concentrate on reading. Since then I made enormous progress, I currently read every day before I sleep. However, I would like to increase the pace a little. The 10 books I have chosen (in a very exciting night session until 5:30am) are the following:
1. Charles Darwin: On the Origin of species
Frequently mentioned as the most influential book of modern history, I needed to include it. Also it only costed me 99 cents.
2. Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
Written by the most powerful man in the world at his time and intended for his own reflections, this book is commonly mentioned as a treasure of wisdom. I am eager to see, if can keep up with all the ancient words.
3. Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens
This book basically inhabited my twitter feed for months. I am excited to see what all the hype is about.
4. Seneca: Letters from a stoic
I have heard a lot about stoic philosophy, publicly endorsed by guys like Tim Ferris and Ryan Holiday and want to dive into it. Fun fact: Ryan Holiday’s newest book is next on my post-challenge reading list.
5. Carlo Rovelli: Seven brief lessons on physics
Championed by Naval Ravikant (who you can learn more about at the end of this post), I wanted to mix my reading up a little. I have honestly no clue about physics and am excited to see, if I understand anything at all. It is described as being written in a beginner-friendly manner though.
6. Epictetus: Discourses and Selected Writings
Another stoic that I saw a lot of quotes of. It is said to be a rather dry read with a lot of good content.
7. Warren Buffet: The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
I am a business major after all. Why not learn some tricks from the investment guru himself?
8. Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography
I was not sure whether I should read the Autobiography or the famous biography written by Walter Isacson. I decided to go with the own accounts first for no apparent reason other than that it was 4:57am and I wanted to hurry up a little.
9. Steve McConnell: Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
After all this philosophy a very technical book about how to become a better programmer. I was looking for a “programmer bible” that everyone who codes should have read and this book popped up over and over again.
10. John Brooks: Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street
A favorite book of both Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, it apparently examines the human side of business transactions. At first, I had Plato’s “The republic” at this spot but I could not handle too much heavy philosophy in one week.
11. Joe Abercrombie: Best served cold (bonus book)
I wanted to have something to cool down and relax my mind in between the reading sessions. This is why I added a fiction book to be my safe haven in the midst of all the challenging reads. I have already started this one and it is not my intention to finish it next week.
When choosing the books, I tried to get a good combination of books that were on my reading list forever (Essays of Warren Buffet), classics everyone should have read (Darwin), a specific topic I want to know more about (Stoic philosophy) and some books that come from a totally different direction. I am excited to start reading tomorrow and cannot wait to absorb all the great things written in those books. I will update you on my progress next Sunday and will tell you what I took away from the books. In the future not all of my challenges will be intellectual, I will also mix in some physical and people-related challenges so that it does not get boring. Since I will probably have more time to read, listen and find new interesting content than most other people this summer, I will regularly add the best items to my posts.
If you have any book suggestions for my future readings, any feedback on my plans or any good ideas on fun weekly challenges I could try, do not hesitate to write me a message on Medium, Twitter(@mikemahlkow) or wherever you reach me best.
One other thing: I listened to one of the best podcast episodes I have ever heard this week: Naval Ravikant on Reading, happiness, Systems for Decision Making, Habits, Honesty and More
In my opinion, Naval (Angellist co-founder) is one of the most interesting and thoughtful guys on the planet right now. If you are interested in reading books or just want to hear some intriguing thoughts on values and emotions you should listen to this wherever you get your podcasts.
Apparently, I may still not have what most people would consider a plan but I am convinced these challenges and the plan, of not having a plan will help me in gaining valuable experiences.
