Proactive Life Manifesto
2016 started on an interesting note. My friend Nick and I reflected recently on the meaning of coming of age and he suggested that now is the time for us to begin this chapter in our respective books of life. We came up with a list of to do items for life going forward and planned to check-in to ensure that we continue on this path. The key to this new approach is realizing the importance of time and being strategic about the way one allocates time every day. We are lucky to have incredible privilege (food on a table, health, education, good salary, easy & real-time access to know-how etc.) even though we often forget. This means that there is nothing that you “need” to do, so it’s better to jump straight into doing things that you want. That means that everything you allocate time to, you should consciously want and have a reason for it. There is a time and place for spontaneity and going with the flow, but even this time is somewhat architected for nourishing and giving you energy on your life path. Remember: the credit belongs to a man who is actually in the arena. In order to be that person, you need to spend your time wisely.
Throughout history, many terrible things have happened. People have always acted to further certain goals (often resource constraints meant goals were achieved violently) and now it is our duty to intentionally set our personal agendas to undo the mistakes of the previous generations who set agendas based on fear. Developing the self-awareness to understand that your life’s course has been largely out of your control is how I define coming of age. When one is young, most habits, behaviours, and opinions are the result of circumstances. Developing self-awareness grants the ability to see this and realize one can invent one’s own agenda. Instead of consuming information on auto-pilot, you can choose to become strategic about the information you consume.
For a moment, think of all of the perspectives that exist and the small subset you encounter on a daily basis. Societies propagate beliefs that benefit their own stability, not innovation. In the case of advertising, money can be used to make certain ideas much more memorable or attractive than they otherwise would be. It’s not only advertising that is clearly there to affect you in one way or the other: the best sales are hidden. Thus: coming of age means less following and being influenced, and more doing and influencing. In the Bay Area, we are surrounded by rapidly evolving information networks and abundant resources (human and financial capital, product and process IP, etc.). Comparatively, many people here are privileged to live here and have had amazing education. This means we have the freedom and opportunity to act and use our human potential to its fullest without needing to worry about many of the struggles that have historically constrained human potential.
We should use this unique situation to undo many of the tragedies that happened over the centuries and luckily we are empowered to do so. Silicon Valley is a center of excellence for entrepreneurship. I am really passionate about creative and positive force of entrepreneurship, and believe that you can do things out of love and live life fully by practicing the creative and nourishing nature of entrepreneurship. In the Bay Area, there are people who are designing systems of tomorrow, the systems which will focus on undoing a lot of injustice in this world and allowing more people to reach their potential. In the beginning of our careers, it’s good to align yourself with the people who design new systems, and over time, through confidence and skill building, design your own systems to eradicate poverty, lack of focus on education, injustice, and create more equal opportunities for everyone.
Our Proactive Approach to Life has four pieces to it. a) Being intentional every minute of every day b) Deliver anything you do with excellence c) Separate relationships from problem solving and work on both while understanding the difference d) Understanding that vulnerability is the key to communication, and opening ourselves up to the world. You can also put each of these pieces in sequence, and correlate them to personal, professional, relationship and system design phases of your life respectively. You can start working on first three phases (intention, excellence & relationships) today! If this sounds a bit confusing, let me break it down here:
Intention (Personal Design Phase: start with yourself)
Intention is the cornerstone of the proactive approach to life. People spend their lives putting out fires instead of building things of value. Instead of re-building the foundation of their house, they spend time fixing the plumbing. Most of the people around us live in a reactive way, focusing on the priorities of other people, instead of figuring out what their impact on the world could be. They are often succumbing to the needs of the organizations they work for and belong to, relationships they are in, or the real and illusive duties and obligations they have. Instead, we should bring our own agenda to the table every day, both at work and outside of it. Ideally one could wake up every morning and have an hour to meditate, drink tea, and set up agenda for the day. It’s good to separate the planning from execution.
In order to allow yourself living on your own agenda while doing what other people want from you at work and otherwise, look for agenda items you both share to ensure that when you’re asked to do things you’re also keeping yourself as one of the important stakeholders. Keep time in mind, and invest it wisely.
Acquire mastery of the small stuff before you’re ready to do big stuff. You need to be reliable and consistent before you can take more responsibility. You need to spend time to build basic skills so then you will be a valuable contributor on the decision making table (i.e. you need to have literacy in the topic you’re evaluating and the wisdom to make a good decision).
Lastly, listen to yourself so you always have path in mind before you do anything. Meditate. Be patient. Eat good food and avoid poisons. Sleep well. Cultivate your hobbies, learn from and collaborate with your mentors, and have passions that you engage with: intentionally.
Excellence (Body of Work Design Phase: everything you do, do it legendary)
90% of success is showing up; consistency matters. I used to think that the harder you work the luckier you get, but the important piece of consistency is not the amount of sheer effort you put (although I am still being perceived this way), but the impact you are able to make with your time. Here is a good guide on this. It’s really critical to focus on getting yourself in a state of flow at work and avoid distractions at any cost. I try to check emails only twice a day, and work according to my plan throughout most of the day (more on this here).
Additionally, you can hack some work-related responsibilities by learning a lot in one organization and carrying it over to the new place. This what makes Silicon Valley so powerful: information travels fast. Best practices constantly get incremental improvement. Take advantage of this and bring value to the organizations you work for by being effective. Even in smaller things and outside of your work (non-profits, hobbies, relationships): bring excellence as a standard of your conduct. Take more responsibilities and wear more hats. Be an active member of your community. Don’t settle for less while keeping in mind the importance of investing the time wisely and not wasting it. Time is precious. Spend it mindfully, so people remember things you did as legendary. Reputation persists, and thus your body of work is really important. Likewise, healing relationships are important too.
Relationships (Belonging Design Phase: find your support system)
If you ever want to embark on the path of entrepreneurship or give back at scale in some other way, you can’t do much by yourself. Thus, you need to design people systems to accomplish the missions. In order to become effective at dealing with people, learn to separate relationships from problem solving. Relationships are really important but sometimes they can get in the way of solving problems at work and life. Remember the importance of allocating time wisely and treat every relationship as a time investment. Invest only where you want to see results, and if you do, invest a lot. Create your own personal Board of Directors, that is to say, the diverse set of people that you will hold yourself accountable to on your life path. Invest time in proactively seeking mentors, building your Board of Directors and setting the agenda for all of the relationships that you have (not to be confused with manipulation: staying authentic to yourself and being proactive with the relationships at the same time is possible). With some of these relationships, you will be designing systems of the future. This would be possible once you have the right skill set and confidence, and can become an effective people leader. Which comes from vulnerability.
Vulnerability (Leadership Design Phase: become effective leader and design your own systems)
Lars Dalgaard mentions the concept of vulnerability and its importance in leadership. There is one important caveat: only be vulnerable with mature people. Vulnerability is an important aspect of leadership and communication because often times, in order to illustrate your line of reasoning to other people you need to first put their guard down. In order to do this, you want to talk about both personal and ideally shared experiences. For example, going to a dog park might be a pleasant experience for you, while at the same time being terrifying experience for your best friend. How would you know this? This is why interpersonal communication is so hard: people don’t see our intentions, but only see the impact of our actions by the way it affected them. Similarly, we don’t see their intentions and only judge the by the impact of their actions on us. Open communication builds trust. By allowing yourself to be vulnerable and having a clear line of communication with all of the stakeholders in you life, you will open yourself to the world and achieve fearlessness. Here is a great book on the topic of values, vulnerability and communication. Unconditionally accepting responsibility for the things that are in our control (response-ability), having integrity as a result of having no control over the outcomes and thus focusing on the journey and not destination, and yet preserving the humility and believing in personal magic allows us to stay proactive, curious, vulnerable, and effective as leaders of the future.
Conclusion
If you put this concept of proactive life on a time frame, it very much resonates with what I wrote recently: vague long term, but concrete short term. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by re-architecting your lifestyle, so start with something that feels good, and commit to it. If you put the proactive life plan on the time frame, it will be the following sequence: a) start with building proactive life plan around yourself by creating healthy routines, nourishing your body and mind, and spending time with the people that comprise your personal Board of Directors b) once you feel like you’re efficient at allocating time in your daily life, ensure that you excel at all of the activities you allocate time to c) proactively seek mentors and spend time on healthy relationships and around people who design systems that undo the injustice in the world d) design your own systems.
If you read this post and liked what you read, please take time and think about the way you want to affect the world. Start journaling and reflecting on your journey. If you have any willingness to affect the world at large, you have to become proactive. You have to come of age.
