Lessons

Adulting: The Fundamentals

“Get it together, dude.”

“Ugh, I hate my job.”

“I have no idea what to do next.”

“I feel like such a loser.”

We’ve all been there.

Life can be hard, unfair, challenging. But no matter what life brings my way, I want to be always learning, growing, and getting better. I want to get the most out of my life and assume you do, too.

Whenever I’ve thought something like the above, it’s always come from a place of deep frustration. I’ve wanted and needed an answer. I knew something was off, but was stuck as to how to move forward.

In my experience, the real problem is usually that I’ve stopped taking care of the fundamentals. Part of the foundation of my life is out of whack.

So I start in the wrong place, putting the cart before the horse. I address the symptoms but not the causes.

Oh, you too? Glad I’m not the only one.

altMBA recap: 84 hours, 105 kindred spirits, and countless lessons

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I recently completed a month-long, intense online workshop called the altMBA. It was created by Seth Godin, one of the thinkers and leaders I most respect.

My intention here is to debrief myself on my experience and share some of the lessons learned from the experience. I’m writing this as much for myself and a reminder to future me as anything else.

I hope that this contributes something to your own journey. Let’s get into it.

Why’d you do it?

I’m the kind of person that is always looking to learn and grow. I love my life now, and I’m obsessed with getting to the next version of myself. I love who I am today, and this version of me better be obsolete compared to who I am and what I’m capable of in a year.

I took the altMBA for three reasons:

to level up as a leader and creative
to learn to ship work regularly and overcome my perfectionism / to beat “the resistance“
to push myself (and be pushed) to get clear about the change I seek to make

In this context, “shipping” means putting work out there for others to engage with.

What does it cover? Is it a “real MBA”?

First off, no, it’s not a “real MBA,” not in the way you mean it if you’re asking the question. There are no degrees and few “right answers” in the altMBA. And, you learn a tremendous amount about business, yourself, and being an effective changemaker and leader.

Does it work?

Unequivocally, yes.

I got everything I wanted out of it, and much more.

Curiosity, and a Walk Through the Desert

I’ve been feeling damn frustrated since I got back from South America. Since I returned, I’ve been exploring different technological landscapes, looking to see which area draws me in.

From May through July, I spent a lot of my time building crappy prototypes. And trying to come up with new ideas. And I didn’t like any of them.

Organic interest

Either the ideas were just plain bad, or weren’t sustainably interesting to me. There were quite a few that would work and make somebody a lot of money, but not me—I was just the wrong person to deliver on that idea. I mean, if I couldn’t get myself interested in working on something for more than two weeks, how could I possibly build it into something real and interesting for other people? Nonstarter.

There has to be a basis of organic interest.

The (wrong) question?

By July, I felt very frustrated by the lack of progress and the desire to have a direction to run in. So I started asking other entrepreneurs, “what do you do in this situation? what do you do when you’re trying to come up with something interesting and hating everything you’re coming up with?”

This was a mental walk through the desert. This became The Question.

The Question generated a lot of answers. Mostly useless answers.

Permission to Fall

In life, I regret the things I didn’t do more than the missteps I made along the way.
– David Stanley

For the last three months, I traveled throughout South America. Despite what my Instagram photos may suggest, for the first month I was on the road, I was not enjoying it. Everything was new and stressful. There were no familiar places or friends to fall back on. The lack of regular schedules shot all my routines to hell. I felt lonely without my friends, and had no idea what I was doing. I drank too much, and exercised too little.

Searching, far from home

I had gone away to get out of the tech scene for a while, for a change of pace and scenery. I had recently left Chill, where I’d driven myself at a maniacal pace for almost three years. I needed time and space to think, refresh, and get some perspective.

But I was 6,121 miles away, and it wasn’t working.

On the night of December 21st, I remember calling Matt from my apartment in Buenos Aires. I’d talked myself in circles, about whether this crazy trip was still a good idea.

Should I just go back to California and take another job? Should I scrap the idea of trying to build something of my own? I was minutes away from booking a trip back to the USA so I could spend the holidays with friends and family.

13 Lessons for My Niece

After a long day in transit, I wanted to share a note of lessons I wrote in hopes that my future niece learns them earlier than I did:

The world is both big and small and travel is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Embrace it. Get out into it.
Learn to pack light. You need much less than you think.
Keep asking “why?” and consider it as a major warning sign if someone in authority doesn’t want to answer, gets frustrated when you ask, or can’t answer the question without a tautology.
“Because that’s just how it’s done” is the worst answer to this question.
Learn to listen for and recognize the quiet voice inside of you that you know is your soul.
Do whatever you have to in order to protect and cherish this voice. Some people will try to crush it.
Avoid those people. They aren’t worth your time and are toxic for you.
Basic personal finance and statistics will save your ass.
Avoid debt like the plague. It is one of the oldest forms of slavery in the world, but is made to appear as “normal.”
On that note, don’t watch TV, or whatever its equivalent is by the time you’re old enough to. It will try to lie to you about almost everything that is important and make you feel bad about yourself so you buy crap you don’t need or believe in ideas that don’t serve you.
Curiosity and “dangerous questions” are what we need more of. All progress depends on these.
Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. If you don’t know something, find out. Ask, learn, repeat.
Avoid anyone who tries to make you feel bad for being curious, learning something, or trying to improve yourself and the world. This person is an energy-sucking vampire.

Love,
Uncle Andrew

Eat Me If You Wish

“One day, the Buddhist saint Milarepa left his cave to gather firewood, and when he returned he found that his cave had been taken over by demons. There were demons everywhere! His first thought upon seeing them was, ‘I have got to get rid of them!’ He lunges toward them, chasing after them, trying forcefully to get them out of his cave. But the demons are completely unfazed. In fact, the more he chases them, the more comfortable and settled-in they seem to be. Realizing that his efforts to run them out have failed miserably, Milarepa opts for a new approach and decides to teach them the dharma.

“If chasing them out won’t work, then maybe hearing the teachings will change their minds and get them to go. So he takes his seat and begins… After a while he looks around and realizes all the demons are still there…At this point Milarepa lets out a deep breath of surrender, knowing now that these demons will not be manipulated into leaving and that maybe he has something to learn from them. He looks deeply into the eyes of each demon and bows, saying, ‘It looks like we’re going to be here together. I open myself to whatever you have to teach me.’

“In that moment all the demons but one disappear. One huge and especially fierce demon, with flaring nostrils and dripping fangs, is still there. So Milarepa lets go even further. Stepping over to the largest demon, he offers himself completely, holding nothing back. ‘Eat me if you wish.’ He places his head in the demon’s mouth, and at that moment the largest demon bows low and dissolves into space.”

Lessons

Adulting: The Fundamentals