I had a chat with one of my earlier mentors. It had been two years since I had seen him. I was having a bit of an existential crisis in navigating that just graduated to full time job transition period of getting the profession I dreamed about, thus subsequently, the lifestyle, and I was wondering "what next?"
I decided to take some time off from the grind I was so used to just to appreciate everything I was working so hard for. I still feel restless. But sometimes, you need more clarity on what you actually want before you start moving in no direction.
I guess the general theme of this is, young adulthood is a strange and awkward time as you learn how to create your own rules and structure.
Anyway, these are my notes:
There's a lot of noise. And sometimes that makes things confusing.
- "Well remember, breakthroughs always come after confusion."
Understand the fundamentals of human needs — Robert Greene
- Belonging, connection, community. It's all part of it.
- Find your people. The people who will energize you.
- You need to put yourself out there and talk about the things that you care about. That are true to your values. Because that's how you will attract the people who also care, who can come into conversations with you and bring their own perspectives, who can show up as themselves and find connection in you.
- We have to look within to see how we can be of service to others, that's humanity.
- Ask yourself. What are my strengths? What are my values? Then double down on those.
Well with our generation shifting to care more about moral ethics, how important is policy? Can we just create a code of conduct. The design industry is super impressionable as it is right now.
"That's a big question."
And how do you go about exploring big questions?
- Put it into practice.
- Influence isn't about trying to convince others to believe your beliefs. Influence is getting them to see that you believe it. It's believing in something. Standing for something. And you'll find that when you put yourself out there, people will say "wow, I believed that too!"
- Influence is making them believe I believe in this.
- Collective consciousness.
- And that's all confidence really is too. True confidence.
- Study the experts. It could be being within close proximity of them. It could mean working for them. It could mean studying under them.
- Remember, the experts are all online now. Read their work. Find their talks. Build on their work. Put it into practice.
- And the next person will find your ideas, build on your ideas, and you'll watch the evolution happen. Back to — how can we service others?
- Put it into practice.
- It could be creating frameworks for organizations or in leadership.
- It could be a blog, a YouTube, anything.
- It's putting it out there so others can carry it forward.
- Community. Purpose. Back to the idea of the basic human needs.
"You see the world through a very realistic lens. You don't see it for better than it is or worse than it is. Just as it is, and you find opportunities in that to improve it."
"Money as an outcome. Not an objective."
"Your values are your torch."
Reading List that came out of that call:
- Dare to Lead, Brené Brown
- Robert Greene on Generational Lifecycles
- Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (I think I'm finally ready to actually hear what it has to teach me).
- 21 Lessons of the 21st Century
- Hustledarling.com Blogs
- Clifton Strength Assessment
