Jimmy Chim

Tag: Listicles

  • Is It Possible to Tell a Story with 3 Sentences: My 17 Attempts

    These are mostly silly personal stories.

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.”
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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…
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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!”
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.

  • What I Have Learned From 33 Years of Life

    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.

    1. “Tell me more” is a complete sentence. Use it often.
    2. 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…
    3. When you eat, eat. The food will taste better.
    4. 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.
    5. Money is a hygiene factor. You need enough to not worry. Beyond that, it’s a game. How you play is up to you.
    6. Things are always changing. The more you cling to the past, the more you reject the present. That creates pain and suffering.
    7. Every problem has multiple solutions. We get stuck when we assume there’s only one answer.
    8. Know your options. Good decision-making starts with seeing the paths available. You always have more options than you think.
    9. Choose. Make up your mind. Be deliberate with what you do. The ability to choose is an incredible gift. It’s also called freedom.
    10. Three options if you are unhappy. 1) quit; 2) change it; 3) accept it.
    11. 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.
    12. Walk. You can’t do worse after a walk. Motion shifts your perspective. Anywhere with trees or a body of water works well.
    13. Sleep is an effective strategy. It solves problems that seemed intractable just eight hours ago.
    14. 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.
    15. 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?
    16. 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.
    17. Get the right tool… If a (physical or digital) tool helps you do your work well and you will use it consistently, get it.
    18. …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.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. 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.
    23. It’s never too late. In a year, you will wish you started twelves months ago. Start now.
    24. One thing at a time. Multitasking doesn’t work. You will do worse. It’s science.
    25. Do it daily. Ironically, it’s easier to do something every day than 2 times a week. You can forget about the day of the week.
    26. 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.
    27. Time doesn’t change things. People do. You do.
    28. 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.
    29. Three most important things (MITs). Every day pick three MITs. Do them before everything else. Everything else afterward is a bonus.
    30. 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.
    31. 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.
    32. Say no kindly. It’s okay to decline what you don’t want to do.
    33. 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.
    34. 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.
    35. 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.
    36. Call the people you care about. Partner, family, friend, whoever. Do it before it’s too late.

    What does your list look like?