When the newsletter idea came to me last September, I was excited but uncomfortable. As I wrote in my first letter, “Who am I to send stuff to people’s inboxes? Where am I going with this?”
Since I hadn’t worked on a creative project like this before, I had to learn new skills: how to collect ideas, distill stories down to their essence, and assemble them in a (hopefully) creative way.
But the most monumental challenge was mental: the doubt of hitting send. The first twenty newsletters were the most difficult. I would rework my draft a dozen times, often filled with doubts. Sometimes I rewrote the entire letter and realized the previous version was better.
After experimenting for 40 weeks, the creative process remains challenging (and fun!), but I have begun to develop a sense of what I like and what may resonate with you. Most importantly, shipping the newsletter feels progressively more natural.
My weekly goal is simple: give my best effort and hit send. If I manage to do that, I know I have made my following week a tad easier.
Sometimes when I was starting a new story and could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made.
I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think,
“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.
Takeaways:
Even Hemmingway has writer’s block!
If you aren’t sure how to begin, start with what you know for sure. As crossword puzzle creator Will Shortzonce put it, “Begin with the answers you’re surest of and build from there.”
In 1985, Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple over disagreements with the company’s board and management team. Being kicked out of the company he co-founded was a painful experience, but the setback fueled his future ventures–NeXT and Pixar–and ultimately his return to Apple in 1997.
At an internal Apple staff meeting shortly after the iPhone launched in 2007, an employee asked Steve Jobs how Apple would keep its culture and brand intact as it grew.
“One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there. And you never meet the people. You never shake their hands. You never hear their story or tell yours.
But somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something’s transmitted there.”
At a designer conference In 1983, Steve Jobs demonstrated a computer called Lisa (named after Job’s daughter) to a group of designers who had never used a computer before. A designer in the audience asked what motivated Apple.
“We feel that for some crazy reason, we are in the right place at the right time to put something back. Most of us don’t make the clothes we wear. We don’t cook or grow the food we eat. We speak a language developed by other people. We use mathematics developed by other people.
We are constantly taking. And the ability to put something back into that pool of human experience is extremely neat.”
Music producer Rick Rubin wrote in his book The Creative Act:
To create is to bring something into existence what wasn’t there before.
It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.
Whether we do this consciously or unconsciously, by merely being alive, we are active participants in the ongoing process of creation.
After the iPhone launched in 2007, one employee asked Steve Jobs at a staff meeting how Apple would keep its culture and brand intact as it grew. He answered:
One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.
You never meet the people. You never shake their hands. You never hear their story or tell yours.
But somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something is transmitted there.
For a while before the pandemic, I was into playing billiards. This hobby came to a halt when covid hit since all the pool halls were closed.
In early 2021, a pool hall called Samwon Billiard in Oakland Koreatown was reopening. I texted Kevin, my pool buddy, to see if he was interested. Kevin and I hadn’t met in person for over a year. Both of us hadn’t yet been vaccinated at that point. We deliberated but quickly decided that the risk was worth it as long as we wore a mask. It had been too long since we last played.
Once we decided to go, I grew excited. “I’m actually shaking. This is a dream lol.” Kevin texted back.
Thomas, the owner of the billiard business, is a mellow, soft-spoken Korean man in his sixties. The pool hall has been around since the mid-90s. I asked Thomas why he went into this business.
“The previous owner missed rent and left. The landlord was looking for someone to take over,” he said. “I was somewhat keen on billiards. A pool business didn’t seem hard to operate. But boy, that street was truly scary in the 90s… lots of crimes and gun violence back then.”
Thomas often checked in on his customers. He would clean the tables himself, offered snacks, and–if you were up for it–show you to how to play Korean pool on the table without pockets.
A year and a half ago, Kevin shared with Thomas that he would leave the Bay Area and move to New York, so it could be a while until he visited again. On Kevin’s last visit, Thomas bought us Korean dinners with galbi, japchae, and chicken. He offered his private soju for farewell.
Recently, I heard that Samwon is closing next month. The area will be rebuilt as apartments. I also heard Thomas is happy to take a break after working hard for 30 years.
Earlier this week, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant nearby. Like our last visit two years ago, Shita, an Ethiopian woman in her fifties, greeted us with a warm, soft smile and hurried back into the kitchen. She was the only person working. Taking phone orders, cooking, serving — it was all her.
The chickpea stew, lentils, and spicy mushrooms came out piping hot. As we enjoyed our meal, Shita confided she would likely close the business in the coming months. Rent had increased substantially. The kitchen would flood at times. The landlord was difficult to deal with: he refused to fix the plumbing issues and other damages on the property, and they were in multiple disputes. She fixed some issues on her own and paid for a contractor out of her pocket for other bigger problems, essentially making her work for nothing for days.
Even though the quality of her food was outstanding (4.5+ stars on Google Maps and Yelp with hundreds of reviews)—Shita clearly took pride in her food—business had declined due to covid and inflation. A month ago, a customer stole her iPhone along with a credit card processor when she was working in the kitchen. For the next two days, customers couldn’t reach her (some grew concerned and checked on her in person), and she lost more business.
“I have managed this business alone for eight years,” she said. “I’m tired. I think I’m ready to move on. It’s okay. The worst case is that I will live with less. I have my family. I have no problem being happy. I will figure something out. Maybe I will go back to the farmer’s market.”
It’s rare to get a glimpse of the people working behind a mom-and-pop business. Shita strikes me as someone who believes. She takes risks, works hard when no one else pays attention, and persists even when the outcome is uncertain.
Once I understand the real cost Shita bears to share her food with the world, the price I pay for my lunch is clearly too low.
When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm.
I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.
But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength.
In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.
Joel Embiid landed in Florida in 2010, fresh from Cameroon. At the age of 16, he spoke little English and didn’t know anyone in America.
Joel signed up for a summer basketball camp three months before his trip. That was his first time playing basketball. At seven feet, he dunked on another player on the first day.
Luc Mbah, a Cameroonian NBA player, saw Joel’s potential at the camp. He made calls and got Joel an offer to play high school basketball at Mbah’s alma mater in the US.
When he showed up for his first practice at his new high school, Joel was brutally bad. Beyond dunking, he had no fundamentals. The coach said he was terrible and asked him to leave the gym. His new teammates laughed at him. He tried to defend himself and ask them to trust the process.
They said, “LOL NAH YOU SUCK.”
Joel returned to the dorm, devastated. He looked up plane tickets back to Cameroon.
“This is crazy. What am I even doing here?”
2. Studying The Best Players
In his dorm room, he turned on some Lil Wayne rap music. The pain from the humiliation faded a little. Slowly a strong sense of motivation emerged.
He didn’t believe that was the end yet.
He said, “I’m just going to work and work in the gym until I’m good. KOBE.”
His coach in Cameroon sent him an hour-long tape of the best big men in the NBA. Joel put the video on repeat every day for three years.
YouTube became his second coach. After endless hours, he noticed the best shooters all share a few things in common: tucked elbows, bent knees, and smooth follow-through. He started to imitate what he saw while practicing daily with a friend.
He imagined himself to be a good basketball player.
3. Consistency of the Work
After Kobe Bryant retired, Joel had an opportunity to meet him.
When Kobe walked into the room, Joel told him he started playing basketball seven years ago because of him and how he’d shoot the ball at the park and yell, “Kobe!”
Kobe laughed. He then said to Joel:
“O.K., young fella. Keep working, keep working.”
Joel went to the gym after.
Joel Embiid (1994–) is a professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers. In May 2023, he won his first NBA Most Valuable Player Award. He has averaged over 30 points per game in the last two seasons, including a career-high of 59 points against the Utah Jazz in November 2022.
Is it the decor, the service, or the variety in the menu?
Berkeley has a little takeout-only restaurant called Top Dog. It’s a hole-in-the-wall joint near the college campus. They sell hot dogs freshly made on a grill. You can choose a few varieties of sausages, like Frankfurter, Kielbasa. Service is not particularly friendly. You help yourself with sauerkraut and other condiments. There is no place to sit.
This place is nothing fancy, but people–students and old-time residents–love it. There are lines at midnight on weekends. People savor the hot dogs, standing on the street, spilling ketchup and mustard on their shirts. Then they order seconds.
Why do people go back? Consistency.
When people know what to expect, and you meet that expectation, you create what people want. The quality has to be solid, but it doesn’t need to be fancy.
Against all best practices, I used the same password for many websites.
I knew the risks. A few months ago, another major data breach was in the news. After ignoring my online security for years, I dedicated a Saturday afternoon to resetting passwords. I went through the most critical accounts—banking, email, and travel services—but grew tired and gave up after three hours.
There were too many accounts.
This week’s experience is a reminder: adopting a new service has a hidden cost. Signing up for a new account often seems fun and innocent—especially when the website offers a freebie—but my exposure increases every time I offer personal information. The risks accumulate.
Now I pay for my negligence over the years: daily spam calls, constant text alerts about my frozen bank accounts, and voicemails in Mandarin saying the FBI and the IRS are after me.
According to one estimate, Americans receive roughly 50 billion spam and robocalls every year. Emails are worse: over 100 billion spam emails are sent and received globally every day, though most are caught by spam filters. About 4 million records are exposed to hackers daily.
Sadly, this trend will continue, if not accelerate. Scamming costs little and can be done from a safe distance, while the payoff may be worthwhile for the perpetrator even if only 0.00001% of the recipients fall for the scam. Technologies will solve some of the problems, but a new type of fraud will emerge as soon as the old one stops working.
If you flip through these notebooks, you will notice an oddity: They all have a few used pages, but the remaining pages are blank.
I am most careful on the first page when starting a new notebook. Every letter is upright. Every sentence fits neatly on the lines. If I draw a diagram, the circles are round, and the squares have sharp edges.
Once I get to page five, my handwriting shows early signs of messiness. Perhaps I’m tired. Maybe I only have seconds to jot down what someone said. Or I need to correct what I wrote.
The trend quickly worsens from there. When I reach page ten, my writing becomes unwieldy and unbearable. I hate that I cannot maintain neatness as I had it on page one.
Destructive thoughts surface at this point. I do one of two things: I either rip the used pages out and start over (which often causes the notebook to disintegrate and fall apart) or I head to the store and buy more new notebooks.
—
I opened my notebook drawer when I picked up journaling again in 2020 after a six-year break. I was perplexed as I went through dozens of partially used journals.
Who cares if the writing is neat? I don’t even read this.
On that day, I vowed to use every journal to its last page. I would never tear pages off again. If I didn’t like what I wrote, I would draw a horizontal line and restart underneath.
In August 2021, I completed a journal cover-to-cover for the first time. It might sound silly, but I felt triumphant.
What I wrote in that journal didn’t matter. What mattered was that I let go of an undesired obsession that had governed my life for as long as I could remember. Something in me had shifted.
Generally, at this point, I would have a decent draft pending the finishing touches. This week, I don’t. I didn’t start as early as usual.
I feel uneasy. I dislike being unprepared. I want perfection.
“But what is perfection?” I ask.
“Flawless work done ahead of schedule. You are running out of time. Why aren’t you focused?”
I have more questions. I want to know what flawless means. I want to know what happens if the work isn’t perfect, but answers aren’t coming.
I keep my hands moving, writing pages and pages. But the harder I try, the further away perfection seems.
As I struggle, a quote from writer Anne Lamott comes to mind:
Perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won’t have to die.
I let that sink in for a second. Then I conclude:
Yes, I am behind schedule. No, I don’t know what I’m writing yet. What I write this week will not be perfect, but it doesn’t matter because perfection is impossible anyway.
When he took the reins and became the CEO of a major accounting and consulting firm two years ago, over 20,000 people reported to him. His travel took him all over the US and abroad, rubbing shoulders with the most powerful business and political leaders.
Given his busy schedule, his calendar was booked more than 12 months out. Every meeting was prepared ahead of time. Perfection was the norm.
This all changed in the spring of 2005.
Gene’s wife, Corinne, stared at him oddly at one dinner.
“There’s a droop,” she said as she touched his face.
Gene didn’t feel anything unusual. As the weekend went on, Corinne noticed tightness around his mouth and sagged cheek muscles. It could be stress-related, Corinne said, and he should get it checked.
Gene received a standard physical exam at the neurologist’s office but a surprising recommendation: he should come in for an MRI the next day.
When Gene saw his MRI result, he was shocked. Compared to the unblemished right side of his brain, the left side looked milky, with dots of varying sizes scattered everywhere. They looked like galaxies.
After further testing, the doctor concluded that he had glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain tumors. He would soon develop blurry vision, seizures, and other symptoms.
He would have to cancel his next family vacation. In fact, the doctor said, he had to cancel everything.
Because he only had about three months left.
“My days as a man at the top of his game, vigorous and productive, were done, just like that,” he later wrote.
Eugene O’Kelly (1952-2005) was the chairman and CEO of KPMG US (which happened to be my employer for six years). After his prognosis, he resigned as CEO to focus on his treatment, unwind personal affairs, and spend time with his family. He documented his experience in his memoir, Chasing Daylight.
When I reread his book this past weekend, I was most struck by his reflection on how you could lose all control in life just as you thought you had figured it out. He wrote:
You can’t control everything, I told myself, as hard as it was to hear myself, a Type A personality, say those words. I wouldn’t allow mishaps and bad luck and especially a defeating attitude to throw me off my goals, one of which was to try and make every day the best day of my life… The CEO, the micro-manager, needed finally to let go.
Eugene passed away on September 10, 2005, four months after his initial doctor’s visit, at the age of 53.
My dad’s words rang as I watched my parents enter airport security. It felt like I had just picked them up the day before, hugging them for the first time since the pandemic.
Where did the last two weeks go?
As I walked back to the parking garage alone, I surveyed the quiet San Francisco International Airport.
It’s a special place.
Here I go from having no one to having someone.
Here I go from having someone to having no one.
Here I teleport to another world—and back.
Here contain as many emotions as I can name: joy, excitement, anticipation; sorrow, dread, fear; and everything in between.
While in Honolulu, my family and I had a few hours before our flight back to San Francisco, so we went for a walk in a park nearby.
My mother perked up when she saw a line dance group. There were about 40 people, of mixed ethnicities, mostly in their 40s and 50s.
“I know this song!” My mother said as we walked past the group. She also picked up line dancing as a hobby during the pandemic.
“You all keep walking. I go back.”
My mother approached the group and started following the dance moves from afar. After the first song, two friendly dancers invited her to come closer.
“Follow the guy in the orange shirt—he’s terrific!” a woman advised. She had a kind face.
After another song, the leader directed the group to turn around and welcome us in the back. He asked for our names, and everyone cheered.
The man in the orange shirt guided my mother. She asked questions and received more coaching. Everyone laughed.
I had never seen my mother form an intimate bond with others in a foreign land in such a short time.
What made my mother—a reserved woman with limited English in an unfamiliar city—engage with strangers without hesitation? What prompted her to participate in an activity that could make her look stupid?
It was the power of a community with a common belief.
This community in Ala Moana Park believes that dancing is a free gift to be given and received. It is inexhaustible. Better yet, it multiplies when shared.
My mother believes in that, too.
The community isn’t concerned about who the best dancer is. Its people enjoy dancing. What matters is that more people get to share the joy of being in motion.
A community gives life when it seeks each other’s well-being. Its energy is palpable and contagious.
A community like this is remarkable because it transcends above language and speaks directly to the heart. People behave differently: they care for each other. They create a space where everyone can be themselves. People do not worry about judgement, success, or failure.
With psychological safety, everyone can explore, try new things, and take risks. Dancing alone in public can be intimidating, but it becomes fun when you do it with a community you trust.
The most impressive part of this story was how it unfolded like an impromptu dance. My mother accepted the invitation, participated, and fared well with the group within half an hour.
On the flight back to San Francisco, I watched MH370: The Plane That Disappeared. It wasa Netflix documentary series about the Malaysian Airlines flight that went missing on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
(Sidenote: Watching a documentary about a missing plane with real-life turbulence in the air was a unique experience. When Youali saw my choice of “in-flight entertainment,” she shook her head with disapproval.)
This was the most prominent aviation mystery in the twenty-first century. All 229 passengers and 12 crew members on board a Boeing 777 vanished.
While the technical aspects of the story were fascinating, what struck me the most was the interviews of the surviving family members.
A Malaysian woman had to explain to her two children why their father, a flight attendant on board, hadn’t come home from work. A French man lost his wife and two daughters. A Chinese man never saw his mother again.
Despite significant search efforts and expert analysis, the most basic questions remain unanswered today. What happened? How?
I can’t imagine not knowing the whereabouts of someone I care about for more than a few days. The next of kin of these 239 families have lived through the hell of unknowing for almost a decade.
A prisoner dug a tunnel under the prison wall and managed to escape. He came right out right in the middle of a school playground where a child was playing.
When the prisoner emerged from the tunnel, he was exhilarated. He couldn’t restrain himself and started jumping up and down.
In a podcast interview, actor Matt Damon was asked whether he was surprised by any of his movies that weren’t as well received as he expected. He said:
“They are all bets to a certain degree…
You don’t see the movie before you make it. You get the ingredients for whatever you’re cooking. You see what the ingredients are, and you go, ‘alright, with all these people around we should be able to do something pretty good.’
Hopefully you start with something you thought was great, and end up with something good.
Among the world’s top five most trafficked websites, one stands out.
This site has 60 million articles available across 332 languages. Two billion people visit the site every month, with thousands adding new content daily. The site has, on average, 5.7 edits per second.
This level of traffic typically means a gold mine for a technology company, but most of the contributors don’t receive a dime. There are no shareholders, and the executives do not have million-dollar compensation packages.
Most amazingly, this website has no ads except for occasional asks for donations to cover operating costs. It’s a rare place on the Internet where you can breathe and read in peace.
An interviewer asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in 2014, “If Wikipedia were capitalized in the same way as [regular] Silicon Valley companies, wouldn’t you have more money to do more things?”
No, no, because if we were in that situation, we wouldn’t care about languages, for example.
If we were supported by advertising, we would care about entries that get another million users in the US but not what might be of interest to another million readers in India.
A big part of my aesthetic vision for Wikipedia is that it is like a temple for the mind. I’m not anti-commerce, but I don’t think it belongs in every aspect of life.
Brad Bird is a film director, animator, and producer at Pixar. He led the production of two major computer-animated films: The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Both movies won the Oscars.
When asked whether Pixar tries to “find out what the customers want,” Bird explained his approach during an interview:
“My goal is to make a movie I want to see. If I do it sincerely enough and well enough—if I’m hard on myself and not completely off base, not completely different from the rest of humanity—other people will also get engaged and find the film entertaining.”
Marina’s feet were in the mud. She was trudging towards Russia’s border with her 11-year-old daughter.
Half a year earlier, Russia invaded Ukraine.
On March 14, 2022, Marina was, as usual, working in the newsroom for Russia’s most popular state-run news program. But this day was different. She was looking for an opportunity, an opening.
The guard on site was on her phone, distracted.
It was time.
When the broadcast went live, Marina burst into the set. She went behind the news anchor and held up a big sign. It said:
“No war. Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. They are lying to you here.”
The camera cut away within six seconds.
Marina Ovsyannikova was born to a Russian mother and a Ukrainian father who died when she was a baby. She grew up in Chechnya, a Russian-speaking region with a history of seeking autonomy. Russian soldiers crushed the area in the 90s, so her family fled.
The war left a scar on her.
After college, Marina joined the state-run Channel One TV channel as a journalist in Moscow in 2002. Her job: cherry-pick broadcasts to make the West look bad. She was in the propaganda role for twenty years. It paid well and allowed her to raise two children in a safe, gated community.
However, something changed when Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2022.
As part of her job, she saw clips of villages destroyed by strikes. She watched Ukrainian refugees struggle to escape. It reminded Marina of her childhood.
If she continued the work as she had in the last two decades, her hands would be “covered with Ukrainian blood,” she said. “The war simply became a point of no return. It was no longer possible to keep quiet.”
After the extraordinary anti-war protest on TV, Marina faced days of interrogations by the FSB, Russia’s security service. She resigned from her job and paid a fine.
Many Ukrainians were skeptical of her protest, given her prior history as the state’s mouthpiece. Her 18-year-old son said she had ruined her family. Her ex-husband, who works for another state-run TV channel, attempted to take over the custody of their two children.
In July 2022, she protested again outside the Kremlin against the killing of children in Ukraine. This time, she faced a criminal offense with up to 15 years of prison.
Her lawyer urged her to escape while she was on house arrest.
With the help of organizations that support reporters and dissidents, Marina left Moscow on a Friday night in October 2022. She cut off her electronic monitor, changed car six times, and finished her journey on foot.
Marina is now in exile in France with her daughter Arisha.
This week I emailed a colleague with a simple, straightforward request. My message included context. She responded:
I don’t understand. What do you need?
Her blunt reply surprised me. A few colorful ways of responding came to mind (“Did you read?” was one of them), but I was hungry and went to lunch. After I ate, I wrote:
Hi [colleague name], apologies for any confusion.
Then I followed with three bullet points stating the same things in the previous email. This time, she said:
On March 17, 1959, Tenzin Gyatso had to make a choice.
By then, the Chinese Liberation Army had surrounded Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. Nine years of negotiation between Tibet and Communist China resulted in little prospect for peace.
A Chinese military officer invited Tenzin, then 23 years old, to a “dance show.” The officer demanded his bodyguards stay home.
The signs were clear: If Tenzin stayed in Tibet, the Chinese would arrest him. He would likely disappear from the face of the earth.
The only other option—escaping—was equally unthinkable. He would have to depart immediately, sneak past the Chinese military, and summit 19,000 feet up the Himalayas with little planning. Snowstorms, sandstorms, anything could happen.
Above all, what would be the fate of his country if he left? How about the lives of the millions who viewed him as the spiritual leader?
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu asked The 14th Dalai Lama 56 years later, “You had to leave behind the country you love the most. Why are you not sad?”
The Dalai Lama, who had been in exile in India ever since, replied[1]:
We lost our own country and became refugees, but that same experience gave us new opportunities to see more things.
If you look from one angle, you feel, oh how bad, how sad. But if you look from another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me new opportunities. Personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad and morose. There’s a Tibetan saying: ‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’
[1] See this video (part of the Netflix documentary Mission: Joy). The interview between Desmond Tutu and The Dalai Lama was first transcribed in The Book of Joy, one of my favorite books.
One day, a young business executive made a long-distance call to a foreign colleague.
The executive said with intensity, “I am giving you instructions. I only have exactly three minutes. I will talk, and you will listen without interruptions.”
He went on to deliver his message. He spoke so rapidly that he finished a bit ahead of time.
“We have twenty seconds left. Any concerns?” the executive asked.
“Yes,” the man on the other line replied.
“What is it?”
“You spoke so fast. I didn’t understand a word!”
As a Chinese saying goes, “If you want speed, you don’t arrive.”
Born in the 1930s, Rosey Grier was a big guy at 6’5″ and 300 pounds. He was a professional football player for eleven years. After his NFL career, Rosey served as a bodyguard for his friend and former US Senator Robert Kennedy. When a gunman assassinated Kennedy in 1968, he was at the scene and helped subdue the attacker. He also sang and did radio talk shows.
While his career was fascinating, what intrigued me the most was his hobby.
Rosey loved needlepoint. It’s a form of embroidery where one stitches yarn through an open-weave canvas. This hobby calmed him and reduced his fear of flying.
However, his hobby was controversial. It didn’t conform to the muscular image of a big football player. His friends and other NFL players mocked him. He received harassing phone calls.
All this bothered Rosey, but he kept doing what he enjoyed. He managed to convert some of the football players who made fun of him to give needlepoint a try. He published a book called Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men in 1973.
“Getting a little more interested? Read on, brother! Next, I’m going to tell you how to make your way around the needlepoint store,” he wrote in a book chapter.
A reviewer insightfully commented on Rosey’s book on Amazon:
“He looked at a hobby usually taken up by female dead in the eye and said, ‘Why not me?’”
This past week, I organized a drawer and came across a stack of old notes. It appeared I journaled for about three months in 2014 (before picking it up again six years later).
You might have heard Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed this past week. I don’t usually write about news, but SVB’s collapse was quite a stunning story.
If I were to explain what happened in the simplest possible manner:
SVB banked mostly with startups and tech companies. The bank took in large amounts of deposits over the last few years because its customers could easily access money with low interest rates.
Demands for loans were low during the pandemic. Sitting on too much cash, SVB decided to buy longer-term investments (e.g. 10-year U.S. Treasury bond) with a higher return. The risk was that the bank wouldn’t be able to get their money back quickly, but the bank wasn’t concerned. For a while, the strategy worked well.
Inflation spiked last year, so the Federal Reserve increased interest rates to cool down the economy. Meanwhile, SVB’s customers had difficulty raising money and started to withdraw. The magnitude of withdrawals surprised SVB. Their cash reserve dwindled.
Under better circumstances, SVB could have sold its investments to cover the withdrawal. However, the bank had trouble this time because the value of their investments had plummeted due to the interest rates spike.
On March 8 (Wednesday), SVB made a surprise announcement to raise additional capital ($2.25 billion) with little context. That scared more people to withdraw money from the bank. Chatter started to spread on Twitter in the venture capital and tech community.
The confluence of events resulted in a “run” on the bank. By March 9 (Thursday), everyone wanted their money back. Withdrawal requests were over $40 billion in a single day. The bank ran out of cash by the end of the day.
By law, the government regulator (FDIC) stepped in and took over mid-day on March 10 (Friday).
This story is a reminder that the tide can turn quickly. An established organization that looks formidable can crumble anytime.
Nun: A Catholic nun at my elementary school got my friends and me in trouble for running (the school was tiny with too many students and didn’t allow anyone to run during recess). When the nun—who might have been Italian, I am not sure—stopped us, I uttered the only non-Chinese words I knew: “Oh my God!” The nun let my friends go, and I received standing punishment for the rest of recess.
Day 1 in America: When I arrived at San Francisco International Airport in 2007, my cell phone didn’t have service, so I went to a public phone booth to call my cousin, who would pick me up. En route to San Jose, I couldn’t find my phone and panicked. After searching through my backpack six times, I realized I had left my phone at the airport phone booth after I looked up my cousin’s phone number.
Loyalty program: As a college freshman, I frequented a small independent coffee shop on campus. One day I had an idea: the coffee shop could use a loyalty program—something like buy 5 drinks and get 1 for free—to boost its business. I pitched the idea to the owner, who said, “thank you, but no thank you.”
DMV: My driving instructor showed me the only route that the Los Gatos DMV (near San Jose) used for testing. During the driving test, I almost signaled too early during the test before the officer even asked me to make a left. I passed my driving exam with zero mistakes.
Black Friday: In my first year in America, my friends invited me to queue up overnight for Thanksgiving Black Friday sale at Fry’s Electronics. When the store opened at 5:30 am, the crowd went nuts after freezing in the cold for hours and was close to stepping on each other. I lost one of my shoes for 30 seconds but retrieved it amid the chaos. Despite having no car, I walked out of the store with a TomTom GPS.
Honest rating: During a phone interview for a summer internship, an interviewer at Morgan Stanley asked how I would rank my finance skills. I hadn’t taken a finance class then, so I gave myself 3 out of 10. I never heard back.
Skipping lunch: I once was at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters for an in-person job interview. Two associates said they would accompany me to lunch when the panel interview was over. I was dumb enough to not realize lunch was still part of the interview and said, “No, thank you. I need to go back to campus for class.” Again, I never heard back.
Partner: I once attended a 50-person summer party at an accounting firm partner’s house. When I bumped into the partner, I had a brain fart and said, “Thank you, Josh, for hosting the party. It’s fantastic.” The partner said, “You’re welcome. My name is Chad, though.” My career never advanced.
Target: I once had an assignment doing financial diligence (read: analyze numbers) on a company in Vancouver on behalf of a client. When the Canadian immigration officer asked for my reason for visiting, I said, “I’m here to investigate the target (the term we internally use to confidentially refer to a company potentially acquired).” The officer raised his eyebrow and took me to secondary screening.
Speeding: A cop once pulled me over for driving 45 miles per hour in a 25-mph zone. I apologized and explained I speeded because I had to go to the bathroom. He said, “Well, now you have to wait even longer,” and gave me a $480 ticket.
Delicacies: The three most exotic things I have eaten in my life are 1) snake soup at a wedding in Hong Kong, 2) cow eye tacos (tacos de ojos) in Mexico City, 3) a guinea pig (cuy) in Peru. I will eat none of the above again. Speaking of Mexico…
Corn: My wife was mortified that I bought corn in a cup on the streets of Mexico City. She said, “Did you not see the mayonnaise had been under the sun the whole day, and the container’s rim was black from the smog?” I survived—in fact, thrived—for the rest of the trip without diarrhea.
Wedding proposal: I proposed to my wife with a bracelet and a handwritten letter. I read the letter out loud in front of Inca ruins in Peru. No ring, but it worked.
Mezcal: My wife and I brought a hundred 50mL bottles of mezcal from Mexico back to the U.S. At the border, the customs officer said we exceeded the alcohol limit five times and would have to pay taxes. I said I was unaware of the rules and that the mezcal bottles were gifts for our wedding guests. The officer said, “Today is your lucky day—the United States government is giving you a break. Congratulations on your wedding!”
Credit card: While applying for a credit card, the website said I could add 3 users for bonus reward points, so I included my dad, my mom, and my dog. A card engraved with “Xing Chim” arrived two weeks later.
Yosemite: When I checked the weather before a trip to Yosemite National Park, the weather app said it would be 40F (5C), so I told my mom to only pack warm clothes as if it was snowing (she’s afraid of the cold). When we got there, it was 85F (30C). I realized I had checked the peak of Yosemite. We burned up and went home early.
Yellowstone: The day before flying to Yellowstone, I panicked when I realized no car rentals at the airport would allow underage renters (I was one month away from turning 21). My two other companions couldn’t rent a car, either, so we drove 1,000 miles from Berkeley and got there in a day to not lose out on the nonrefundable hotel rooms. It took us 18 hours to pass through Nevada and Idaho and enter Wyoming (I had never driven outside of California then.) The scariest part was the heavy fog at midnight—for half an hour the visibility on Interstate 80 was close to zero. We took a nap at a Walgreens parking lot in Reno for half an hour at 3 am along the way. I don’t recommend visiting a national park this way.
The other day I decided to write a list of 33 life lessons in one sitting. I ended up with 36. The exercise was fun! I highly recommend it.
I plan to do this every year and see how the list changes.
“Tell me more” is a complete sentence. Use it often.
Be 80% full. If you are hangry, you make bad decisions. If you are too full, you have no energy. The sweet spot is when you are satisfied enough not to think about food. Speaking of food…
Treasure friends from young adulthood. You will likely spend the most time with them for the rest of your life. Friends you make later in life are great, but they are different.
Money is a hygiene factor. You need enough to not worry. Beyond that, it’s a game. How you play is up to you.
Things are always changing. The more you cling to the past, the more you reject the present. That creates pain and suffering.
Every problem has multiple solutions. We get stuck when we assume there’s only one answer.
Know your options. Good decision-making starts with seeing the paths available. You always have more options than you think.
Choose. Make up your mind. Be deliberate with what you do. The ability to choose is an incredible gift. It’s also called freedom.
Three options if you are unhappy. 1) quit; 2) change it; 3) accept it.
Step away if you are stuck: Take a shower, do housework, or clean the garage. A bit of distance does wonders. Solutions come when you least expect them.
Walk. You can’t do worse after a walk. Motion shifts your perspective. Anywhere with trees or a body of water works well.
Sleep is an effective strategy. It solves problems that seemed intractable just eight hours ago.
Learn by starting. The only way to become fluent in a language is to speak it. The only way to write well is to write. When you start, you struggle. When you struggle, you learn.
Figure out the why. We often first jump into the what and the how, but why matters the most. What do you believe in? Why do this? Why do that? Why do anything at all?
Journaling keeps giving: Every day write down: 1) what made you happy; 2) what didn’t go well; 3) new ideas to try. Great use of five minutes of your time.
Get the right tool… If a (physical or digital) tool helps you do your work well and you will use it consistently, get it.
…but start with the basic model: Get the simplest option. You can always get a fancier one later. That way, you don’t waste money on something you realize you don’t need. Also, upgrades are fun.
Noticing is an underrated skill. Artists create beauty by noticing fascinating patterns. Entrepreneurs build a business by noticing an unsolved problem. Scientists discover breakthroughs by noticing irregularities in the lab data. Every interesting endeavor starts with an observation.
Care for yourself first. You can’t contribute when you are depleted. If you are sleep-deprived, grumpy, and uninspired, nothing you do is helpful.
Joy comes when you think of others. Lasting happiness is always shared. St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as “the choice to will the good of the other.” The Dalai Lama XIV calls it “wise selfish.” When you share with others, you feel happy yourself. If everyone is happy, being “selfish” or not doesn’t matter.
Start small. The best advice I have ever received. When in doubt, start with one. If you did one, you already won. 99% of the people didn’t do it.
It’s never too late. In a year, you will wish you started twelves months ago. Start now.
One thing at a time. Multitasking doesn’t work. You will do worse. It’s science.
Do itdaily. Ironically, it’s easier to do something every day than 2 times a week. You can forget about the day of the week.
Things compound. A small action or decision doesn’t seem like much on a given day, but if you keep at it, your path will look very different in 5 years.
Time doesn’t change things. People do. You do.
Write down what you plan to do. When you put ink on paper, it’s a soft commitment. You will be 10x more likely to do it.
Three most important things (MITs). Every day pick three MITs. Do them before everything else. Everything else afterward is a bonus.
Do the hardest things first. This relates to the previous point. Your cognitive energy depletes throughout the day. Save the easy stuff for later when you are tired.
Make lists. The simplest yet most useful tool. Shopping list. Project list. Movies list. Packing list. Meal idea list. What-to-do-when-your-in-laws-visit list. Make one. It’s fun, useful, and revealing.
Say no kindly. It’s okay to decline what you don’t want to do.
Say yes loudly. If you come across a great idea or an opportunity, jump on it. This is the reason why you say no to other things: to have space to dedicate to the things that matter.
Pick one battle. No need to be inundated by the many problems of the world. Many of them are out of your control. Instead, start with the problem in front of you. That’s what you’re called to do today.
Listen to your heart. If you don’t listen, eventually it will catch up to you. And you will have spent a lot of time on what doesn’t matter.
Call the people you care about. Partner, family, friend, whoever. Do it before it’s too late.
Technology has advanced at an unbelievable pace over the last few decades. Life expectancy is higher. Food arrives at our doorstep with the click of a button. No one ever gets lost again (as long as there is the Internet).
But when it comes to the things that matter, our ability to control them hasn’t changed much. Whether you get sick. Whether it is sunny this weekend. Whether something you care about happens or not.
Lamenting what holds you back is natural, but what if the constraints you face could be a source of strength?
Three remarkable individuals have transformed how I view challenges. Let me share their stories with you.
Story 1: Gillian, the problem child
When Gillian was eight, she struggled with school. Her classmates found her noisy and disturbing. Homework was never on time. The teacher told her parents she had a learning disorder.
The school was concerned. They sent her to a specialist to assess whether she should attend a special school instead.
At the doctor’s office, Gillian grew restless and started to fidget. Twenty minutes into the session, the doctor told Gillian, “I need to speak to your mother privately. Wait here. We’ll be back.”
The doctor turned on the radio on his way out. He whispered to Gillian’s mother, “Just stand and watch her.”
Something unexpected happened the minute they left the room. Gillian was on her feet. She moved to the radio music with natural grace. Her face beamed with joy.
After watching for a few minutes, the doctor turned to her mother and said, “Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick. She’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”
Her mother hesitated at first but gave it a try.
The dance school in London became Gillian’s new home. She discovered a community: people like her who couldn’t sit still and used movement to think.
She started with classical ballet and then moved on to jazz, tap, and ballroom. The young lady learned it all, practiced every day, and flourished.
At sixteen, she joined one of the foremost ballet companies in Great Britain. Her talent quickly caught the city’s attention. Before she knew it, she was performing Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty all over the world.
After about a decade, her ballerina career slowly came to an end. Part of it was age, but mainly because she discovered a keen interest in choreography.
She started her own dancing company, even though the field was male-dominated. Female ballet choreographers were rare at the time. Despite her accomplishment as a dancer, many did not receive Gillian’s transition with a warm welcome.
It didn’t bother Gillian. She loved the art and was too busy breaking new ground. She innovated, took risks, and pushed boundaries.
The challenging sequences she created departed from traditional balletic movements. Her work delighted the audience and impressed respected composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber. Invitations to collaborate on large projects began to go her way.
Another decade later, she became responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history on Broadway and beyond.
Her name is Gillian Lynne. Heard of Phantom of the Opera and Cats? She was the musical stager and choreographer behind it. She came a long way from being the problem child.
“I believe that every child is born with unique talents and gifts, and it’s up to us to help them find those talents and develop them.”
Gillian Lynne
Story 2: Steve, the unlikely athlete
Steve was devastated as he walked out of the doctor’s office.
Basketball was Steve’s calling. His talent was evident. He dribbled like a magician. He was an excellent shooter. He was even better at finding creative ways to pass.
He asked what the heck spondylolisthesis was.
The doctor explained that one of his vertebrae in the spine slipped out of place and onto the vertebra below it. This condition led to weakened muscles, which explained the tremendous pressure and pain in his back.
The doctor’s conclusion: he should not play professional basketball after college. One wrong twist could put him out of the game for weeks — possibly forever. The risk was too high.
The most brutal fact Steve didn’t want to hear: the condition was degenerative. It would worsen over time.
This threat, however, did not stop him. He didn’t believe that was the end of his career — it hadn’t even started.
One thing became clear to Steve: he must approach the sport differently.
He started to ask new questions: What should he do differently? How could he become stronger? What would it take to thrive in a game that favors physical strength — something he had less than everyone else?
The doctor and physical therapist prescribed a tailored regimen at his request. Steve religiously followed the plan: He trained his core with discipline. He stretched daily. He re-learned how to run, jump, and pass to avoid injury. Little by little, Steve worked out a system.
He knew he had to create space and minimize direct contact with others, so he mastered ball handling.
He surveyed the entire court at all times during a game. His priority was to create opportunities for his teammates. Only when uncontested did he finish a play with a graceful finger roll or a long three-pointer.
While on the bench, he rarely sat in a chair. Instead, he laid on his back on the floor. That helped reduce muscle stiffness and kept him in the game longer.
Steve had a long and successful basketball career despite getting injured quite often. Throughout his 18 seasons as an NBA player, he made over 9 out of every ten free throws across 1,300-plus games. His three-point percentage was 42.8% (about the same as Stephen Curry today). Most impressively, he contributed more than 10,000 assists. Only a few players have ever done that.
His name is Steve Nash. He is one of the best point guards in NBA history. That is not bad for someone who almost gave up basketball.
“I’m not the biggest, fastest, or most athletic guy, so I have to do all the little things to help me succeed.”
Steve Nash
Story 3: Temple, the social misfit
Temple’s parents were alarmed.
They were expecting the two-year-old to be like her siblings. Something was off, however. There was no eye contact when they talked to her. Instead, Temple was busy flapping her hands. She repeated the exact phrases over and over. She sometimes spaned around in circles for hours until she got dizzy and could barely stand up.
The doctor’s diagnosis: brain damage. In the 1950s, that diagnosis meant they didn’t know what it was (she would have been diagnosed today with autism).
Temple’s parents went for another assessment when she was four. The doctor’s recommendation was dire: send her to a state mental institution. Eustacia, Temple’s mother, refused. It would be unbearable to lose her daughter forever, she said.
After hustling for options, Eustacia found a school meeting Temple’s needs. She also started Temple on speech therapy, which helped, but the success was mixed. Her classmates at school still ridiculed her for constantly repeating herself. They gave her a nickname: “tape recorder.”
Once at 14, Temple got angry and threw a book at a schoolmate. The school expelled her. Shortly after, her parents divorced.
Everything was falling apart.
After she got expelled, Temple spent the summer with her aunt. She discovered a deep sense of connection with the animals on the farm, who seemed to understand her better than the humans.
It was then that Temple spotted a funny-looking machine. It is known as a squeeze chute, which holds cattle tightly while they are examined, marked, or treated. Temple became fascinated. She wanted a similar machine to hug herself to feel safe and secure.
She started spending all her time reading books on machine design. As she did, her challenge in understanding text began to fade away. With the encouragement of a science teacher, she built a makeshift squeeze machine. It calmed her anxiety through her teenage years and young adulthood.
From that point on, Temple became engaged. Even though she was a slow reader, she graduated from college with a degree in psychology. She went on and pursued a master’s and doctorate in animal science.
Temple became a professor 30 years after she discovered her love for animals. In addition to advocating for animal rights, she pioneered humane and effective livestock-handling systems. Her designs helped reduce animal stress and injury. She spoke worldwide and raised awareness for autism and neurodiversity.
Her name is Temple Grandin. She is currently a faculty member at Colorado State University. In 2010, Time listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Her category: “Heroes.”
“I am different, not less.”
Temple Grandin
Takeaway
A British dancer and choreographer. A Canadian basketball player and coach. An American professor and animal advocate. Born in different parts of the 20th century.
These three inspiring individuals shared nothing in common on the surface, but an underlying thread connected them all: each was told there wasn’t a future. Their limitations were too overwhelming. Their control was too little.
None of them took the judgment as the final verdict.
What can we learn from them? I see five lessons.
Lesson 1: Go around the limitation
We face constraints at any given point: money, time, health, skills, or opportunities. The limitations are real, but they are not the problem.
The real issue is that we get stuck. We assume there is only one way to overcome the obstacle in front of us. That’s false.
Steve Nash had limited physical strength. He couldn’t compete on power or height with the big guys in the league. He would be a fool to do so.
However, building bigger muscles wasn’t the only way to play the game. Once he realized that, he uncovered other possibilities. He used his instinct to move the ball around. When he needed rest, he rested. He made layups when no one paid attention and took shots from a safe distance.
A limitation tells you one thing: you can’t go forward this way. It also means another: you can explore all other viable possibilities.
You are liberated when you see and accept your limitations as they are. You don’t have to run away anymore. You can experiment with other ideas that will help you get unstuck.
Life is a paradox. When one door closes, another opens — but only you choose to see it.
Step back and ask: What are the other available paths?
It’s time to get creative.
Lesson 2: Ask, “What Now?”
“Why” is an irresistible question when something goes wrong.
Temple Grandin could have dwelled on why she was autistic and anti-social her entire life, but she didn’t (at least not all the time). Steve Nash could have done the same with his spine condition.
Asking why something happens can generate insights, but spending a lot of time on it rarely yields a better answer.
The truth is we all inherit a set of circumstances. Most things in life are out of our control. Some people don’t try very hard and have it easy. Others work incessantly and still struggle.
Comparison with others, however, is a dead end. What you will get is anger, frustration, and despair.
The point is not about other people. It’s about you. Of the things you can control, what do you choose to do? How will you exercise your freedom?
When you ask, “what now,” you become curious. You shift your focus from what you lack to what you have.
Given your set of constraints, what are your options? What assets do you have? How do your past challenges offer a unique perspective? How can you turn your pain into valuable lessons? What does your gut say?
These questions move you forward.
If the road ahead is unclear, you can approach it like a puzzle. Start with the answers you’re surest of and build from there. Don’t be afraid to guess. Don’t be afraid to move on from a solution that isn’t working out. If you are stuck, put it aside and return later. It’s your puzzle. Solve it any way you want.
Focus on what you can do now.
Lesson 3: Develop what brings you joy
Gillian couldn’t have possibly planned her career. To her, dancing was captivating. The work itself was the reward. Opportunities emerged as she kept moving.
Even when others in the industry didn’t recognize her initially, she was too immersed in her work to worry.
When you do what you love, you become alive. Joy transforms your perspective. The energy is palpable and attractive. It’s life-giving.
You may say, “I don’t know what I like.” Then it’s time to discover. Take a class on something you don’t know. Explore art. Solve a new problem. Build, fix, or break something (you can do it gently). Make something useful or fun or both for someone you love.
You won’t like everything you try. Most will initially feel hard and unnatural, but some will leave an impression. Pay attention to those. If you worked through a difficult challenge but still want more of it, that’s a sign you are onto something.
You are off to a start if you are lucky enough to know what you love. Play with it. Dedicate time to the craft. Find inspiring work done by others.
Don’t build a grand plan. Just start. Get moving. Take small risks. Use your gifts. Follow what moves your heart.
Opportunities will emerge if you work on what makes you tick. I don’t know what they are. No one does. That’s for you to find out. Welcome to life!
Lesson 4: Accept help
Steve Nash couldn’t have played a competitive sport without medical advice. Temple Grandin couldn’t have become a professor, a speaker, and an activist without speech therapy from a professional.
We all want help, but we hate asking for it, even though intellectually, we know no one can survive on a lonely island. Nor do we have to.
As you embark on your journey, you will face roadblocks. If you look closely, though, help is usually close by, but only if you ask for it.
The universe works in a mysterious way. Help may come from a neighbor, a friend, or a colleague. It may be a conversation, a link to an article, or a passage from a book.
People are more eager to help than you think. They are waiting for you to take the first step. So ask, listen, and test the advice you get. If it doesn’t work, try another one.
For a long time, I refused to ask for help when I couldn’t find something in a store or something at home broke. It was such a simple thing, but asking for help seemed weak.
Now I do it: little to lose and much to gain. I highly recommend it!
(Conversely, share what you know if someone asks for help. It’s a small world. Things go around. You will receive more when you give.)
Lesson 5: Do the work
Gillian honed her Pointe work. Steve improved his physical conditioning. Temple practiced social skills. They did it every day, even if it was uncomfortable.
You can ask for advice, read books, and buy fancy tools. What matters most, however, is to do the work. This means to create, to act on the knowledge, and to keep trying despite the resistance.
If you are a scientist, head to the lab. If you are a designer, sketch. If you are a lawyer, prepare the best case for your client.
If you read a book, take notes. If you learn a language, speak it. If you sign up for a class, apply the learning in real life.
It can be scary to do the work. You enter into unknown territory. You don’t know what to expect. You also fear being exposed. What if people make fun of you? Will it fail? Will you look stupid?
Surely a few things may go wrong, but the better question is: Does walking your path matter more than staying put? Does the benefit outweigh the risk? Is the growth worth the price?
Every precious thing requires a leap of faith. It doesn’t mean we don’t fear. Instead, we go forward with the fear and be open to what’s to come. Every time we act, the path slowly reveals itself.
It starts with doing the work.
Conclusion
Next time you hear yourself saying, “If only I didn’t have this holding me back…”
Remember the lessons from Gillian, Steve, and Temple:
A couple of years ago, I learned a strategy: inversion. It has helped me discover simpler solutions to tricky issues and avoid unnecessary work.
To invert is to turn a question upside down. Instead of attacking a problem with brute force, we work backward: what if we do the opposite? What if we avoid the obstacle altogether?
Some examples:
• You spend a lot of time on some report that no one cares about. Instead of doing it every month, is it possible to kill the busywork?
• A client is hard to work with and adds little value. Instead of stressing about their unreasonable demands, can we let the client go?
• A coupon is expiring, but I can’t think of anything I need. Instead of looking for something to buy, what if I throw the coupon away and move on?
Life is a paradox. For every amazing thing in the world, there is another just as disturbing.
The world is filled with unbelievable landscapes and deadly disasters; breathtaking sunsets and depressing winter nights; tree-lined shopping streets and heart-breaking encampments two blocks away (look no further than Berkeley or San Francisco).
It’s also home to anonymous donors and sleazy scammers; bold artists and Internet trolls; the Dalai Lama and Vladimir Putin.
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder: is this all the same world?
One strategy I use to offset the negativity that comes my way is to expose myself to the same amount of beauty.
Overwhelmed by catastrophes? I put the news away, go out for a walk, and look up to the sky.
A reckless driver cuts me off on the highway like he’s playing Mario Kart? I look for another driver who gestures to me to go ahead with a smile.
The guy at the pizza shop gives me an attitude for no apparent reason (and the pizza isn’t even that good)? I patron the noodle shop across the street where the owner beams with pride when he serves homemade broth and extra cilantro.
The point is not to ignore the negative, but to remind myself to see both sides of the paradox as it is.
In order to figure out what I need to do next, I must first stay sane. A balanced view of the world helps.
I recently reconnected with two friends. At the end of both conversations, I found ourselves saying, “We should connect more!”
Then I wonder: how much is optimal?
Interestingly, the conversations are enjoyable precisely because we don’t connect often. Every topic is fresh. All stories are intriguing. Questions flow.
If we meet up every day, it won’t be as enriching.
A relationship wilts if there is no contact. But too much time together risks staleness or even conflicts. Presence is essential, and so is absence.
Balancing closeness and distance is an art. It requires ongoing experimentation. What applies to me may not apply to you. What works today may not work tomorrow.
There’s no one-size-fits-all.
But if we get the balance right, the relationship thrives.
Every precious thing in life requires a leap of faith: to be vulnerable and to move forward without knowing what will happen.
If you have an enriching friendship or relationship: some time ago, you mustered courage and reached out at the risk of being ignored or rejected.
If you have a personal or professional opportunity to make an impact: at one point, you said yes when it was unclear what you had signed up for.
If you have created something you are proud of: you presented the work at the risk of ridicule.
If you have a skill or a hobby: you probably went through periods of frustration and felt unsure whether you would ever improve.
If you have gone on a memorable journey: the parts you likely remember the most are the people and the experiences that were never part of the plan.
If the above is true, we can conclude: embracing the unknown brings life. It’s in walking into the unknown that our path begins to reveal itself.
What stops us from proceeding is often the fear of getting hurt. What if people make fun of us? Will it fail?
Surely things can go wrong, but the better question is: does walking our path matter more than staying put? Does the benefit outweigh the risk? Is the growth worth the price?
All this is not to say that we must take undue risks or expose ourselves indiscriminately. That would be unwise and unnecessary.
Instead, take small risks first, listen to your heart, and course-correct as you go. Once you start moving, signs—words, people, opportunities—will emerge and guide you.
The path ahead will look nothing like what you have imagined, but it is uniquely yours.
I want to share with you a practice that has transformed my life. I have been doing it for more than two years. It makes me happier. It helps me make sense of a bad day. It gives me a sense of clarity.
This practice is a five-minute daily review. The method is inspired by an exercise called the examen, developed many centuries ago by St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. I further simplified the practice and made it my own. Every morning, I answer three questions and note my answers in a journal.
1. Gratitude
The first step is to look back at the last 24 hours. Then ask: What are you grateful for right now? Doesn’t matter what it is. Note it. Some examples:
A delicious meal with family
A fun get-together with friends
A comfortable bed
A sense of peace when seeing the clouds in the sky
An inspirational line from a book
Kindness from a friend, a co-worker, or a stranger
Produced work you are proud of
Did vigorous exercise that made you feel alive
Tried something new for the first time
Gratitude is one of the most underrated superpowers. It shifts our focus from what we lack to what we have. Gratitude affirms that good things exist. We are free to enjoy them as they are given to us.
“If you’re grateful, you’re not fearful.” Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast once said. Gratitude casts out fear. That makes it easier to experience joy with what we already have. It’s simple. It’s free. And it’s powerful.
2. Reflection
The second step is to review the challenges in last 24 hours. What do you see in your day? Sometimes we go through a hectic crazy day without being aware of what happened. This step gives you space to observe.
Pay attention to what you did, how you felt, and what left an impression. What was difficult? What made you sad or angry? Did you feel tense, empty, or discouraged? If something didn’t go well, what could you have done differently?
3. Resolution
The last step is a natural extension of your reflection. What are one or two things you will commit to doing (differently) today?
Did you feel grumpy working in front of the computer all day yesterday? Perhaps a short walk after lunch today will improve your mood. Did a comment yesterday hurt someone? Maybe you should say sorry. Did you waste too much on your phone? You can try leaving your phone in another room for a couple hours so you can focus the most important work.
You don’t need to come up a laundry list of complex, overhauling changes. One or two simple things are enough. The point is not to be hard on yourself, but to see the possibilities within your control. Think of this as making small tweaks in the system. You can get creative, experiment with a tiny change, and see if it works. Then resolve to doing it.
Putting It Together
This three-step program—gratitude, reflection, and resolution—is not complicated. Yet it could be the best five minutes you spend on a given day. It allows you to make sense of what’s going in your life. It gives you a holistic perspective. At the end, you arrive at small actionable steps you can take.
There’s no success or failure in this exercise. You simply learn to see things as they are. You experiment and see what works. Every day you learn something new. Not from other people, but from yourself. You can’t find better, more relevant lessons from anywhere else.
Once you do this for a few weeks, the benefits will become even more obvious. Things that seemed like a big deal on a particular day will look trivial after a while. You will start to see patterns over a timeline. You will gain a better perspective of your life that no one else can offer you.
You will be surprised by how much you can learn from yourself.
As Lunar New Year approaches this weekend, it dawns on me: I have lived almost half of my life in America.
In the early days, I lived as if I had never left home: spoke Cantonese all day, read Chinese books, and hung out with Chinese friends. When I started working, I hid my Chinese-ness in all possible ways because the identity seemed like a disadvantage.
Neither felt right.
I have since discovered a third option: embrace where I come from and where I am. This middle way frees me to be creative. Mix filial piety with open communication. Combine humility and fearlessness. Put my head down and speak up when it counts.
Why choose between A or B when A and B is possible?
One interesting contrast between English and Cantonese speakers is the way they describe what they do.
English speakers tend to assert an identity: I’m a teacher. He’s a photographer. She is a great basketball player. Cantonese speakers prefer to state the verb: I teach (我教書). He likes to take photos (佢鍾意影相). She plays basketball really well (佢打籃球好勁).
The English way of thinking is powerful. An identity shapes your beliefs. If you believe you are a marathon runner, going on a long run is natural. The behavior is expected.
There is, however, one limitation: you can establish an empty identity and fail to follow through with any action. Painters that don’t paint. Artists that don’t create. Entrepreneurs that don’t start businesses.
The best strategy is to combine the two: state the identity and act.
One time Confucius (孔子) was with his students. A student named Zi Lu (子路) asked if it was a good idea to immediately put a teaching into practice. Confucius urged him to wait and be patient.
Later Zan You (冉有), another student, went to Confucius with the same question. Confucius said, “You should practice it immediately.”
An observant third student noticed the contradiction. He asked Confucius to clarify. Confucius replied, “Zi Lu is impulsive, so I slowed him down. Zan You is cautious and tends to give up, so I pushed him.”
Every one is unique. Every situation is different. There’s no one-size-fits-all.
Before starting a creative project, the voice says: you need more prep! More research, more planning, more studying.
That voice is loud and obnoxious. Writer Steven Pressfield calls this voice the Resistance. It takes you on detours like getting a somewhat related certificate, envy other people’s achievement on LinkedIn, or worrying about where the money comes from.
No, no, no. These are the Devil’s plans: to wear you out, to overwhelm you, to lead you down frustrating dead ends. You don’t need that certificate (yet). You don’t need to spin your wheels on how others get to where they are. You don’t need to quit your full time job (yet).
What you need is to start. Do the actual thing. What are they? Poets write. Chefs cook. Comedians tell jokes. Designers design. Painters paint. Artists create. Make stuff. Share your work. That’s what you need to do.
Brad Bird is a film director, animator, and producer at Pixar. He led the production of two major computer-animated films: The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Both movies won the Oscars.
When asked whether Pixar tries to “find out what the customers want,” Bird explained his approach during an interview:
“My goal is to make a movie I want to see. If I do it sincerely enough and well enough—if I’m hard on myself and not completely off base, not completely different from the rest of humanity—other people will also get engaged and find the film entertaining.”
Jesuit priest Anthony De Mello on cultivating work you love:
“You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself.
How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and love.”
