Take a Step Back

About a third of the way through my summer in San Francisco, I just spent a weekend back in Colorado with my family. The chance to get out of the city and be around people I love was remarkably refreshing.

On our way up to the mountains I was reading a book called Principles by Ray Dalio the founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the most successful investment firms ever. Dalio is a legend (read up on him if you’re interested), and a large reason for his success has been the way that he has lived his life, which he dives into in this book. Lots of things stuck out to me (will probably write a book summary/review at some point when I finish), but the one that I want to talk about here that ties into my vacation is this idea of planning and being thoughtful about how we spend our time. I’ll take Dalio’s analogy since I love it.

“Think of it as though there are two yous — you as the designer and overseer of the plan to achieve your goals (let’s call that one you (1)) and you as one of the participants in pursuing that mission (which we will call you (2)). You (2) is a resource that you (1) have to get what you (1) want, but by no means your only resource. To be successful you (1) have to be objective about you (2)…

If you (1) see that you (2) are not capable of doing something, it is only sensible for you (1) to have someone else do it. In other words, you (1) should look down at you (2) and all the other resources at your (1) disposal and create a “machine” to achieve your (1) goals, remembering that you (1) don’t necessarily need to do anything other than to design and manage the machine to get what you (1) want. If you (1) find that you (2) can’t do something well, fire yourself (2) and get a good replacement! You shouldn’t be upset that you found out that you (2) are bad at that — you (1) should be happy because you (1) have improved your (1) chances of getting what you (1) want. If you (1) are disappointed because you (2) can’t be the best person to do everything, you (1) are terribly naïve because nobody can do everything well.”

The you (2) that he refers to is where we spend the majority of our time. These are the actions that we take to work towards our goals. For example, if I wanted to be a basketball player, I would spend a lot of time practicing my shooting, dribblings, defense, fitness, strength, etc. But what if I don’t want to be a basketball player?

We often don’t give (1) the necessary amount of time to set goals and align ourselves, which is crazy, given how little time it needs to be and how much time we put towards version 2 of ourselves.

Think about all of the people that are working on projects, pursuing goals, or spending lots of time in their lives on things that they don’t actually enjoy or want to be doing. In a lot of ways, though, it makes sense because it’s so easy,

Example: “I want to go to a good college.”

(A reasonable goal for many high schoolers because of what society asks of us and praises)

It’s cognitively easy to make that declaration and then commit a lot of time to school to get good grades, spend a lot of time in extracurriculars that look good on a college application and spend a lot of money on ACT/SAT prep.

I say it’s cognitively easy, because according to society’s standards going to a ‘good’ college is very reasonable. For some people that goal is very real, but if someone actually wants to do so, there must be some deeper reasons why that’s the case.

• I want to spend four years surrounded by people that think similar to me and can push and challenge me
• I want to enter an industry where credibility is very important, so going to a good school will help me get into that industry
• My parents have been great to me over my life and they want me to attend a good school so that they can brag to their friends (not a good reason, but a reason, nonetheless)

Some people that want to go to a good school may very well fall under one of those rationales. Others, though, might not have a good reason. It’s a large task to ask a high schooler to consider this, but, I’ll paint the picture a little more clearly with a personal anecdote.

I always had the overarching goal of going to a good college and it guided a lot of the things that I did in high school, for better or worse. In the process, I spent a significant amount of time between preparing for the ACT, applying to 14 schools, and participating in the school newspaper. Now that I go to what, when I was accepted, I considered a ‘good school,’ I am in some sort of bubble on campus and my parents are busting their butt to pay a large tuition price. This isn’t to trash WashU, which in a lot of ways is a great school, and I’ve loved my time and experience there thus far, but when I was orienting myself towards my goals in high school I wasn’t thoughtful of all of these things.

From an objective standpoint I could say that I likely could have spent less time in high school on things I didn’t care about, more time pursuing my interests, and went to a college that was less expensive while challenging myself intellectually and socially in other ways.

This is totally hindsight bias and in high school I didn’t have the capacity to think about it like this, so I am by no means regretting my choices up until this point, but I say them to emphasize how easy it is to wrongly align ourselves.

So, to tie it together, in San Francisco for the summer up until this point, I haven’t align my goals to what I actually want to be doing. Going home, with a chance to take a step back and reflect was tremendously helpful. My goal before, was what I thought would be widely expected of a college intern in a new, big city: say yes to everything, go to tons of events, meet a lot of people, work super hard, get more involved with other tech companies. If I were to tell 99% of people that the above was my goal for the summer, they would say to me “you are doing exactly what you should be doing.”

The issue is that I don’t want to be doing that. In the events I have been to I have learned very little, I’ve spent a fair amount of time doing things that I actually have no interest in, and a lot of the tech bubble out here bothers me for a few reasons including the way in which people talk about it and the lack of impact that some companies have.

This is where it goes back to the realignment. I have a tremendous opportunity to be in San Francisco for the summer. That being said, going home with some time to think and relax helped me realize that I need to realign towards what I want to be doing and towards what I care about, not what I am ‘supposed to be doing.’ I’ve realized that my initial goals were too broad and didn’t cater to how I want to spend my summer.

Just a little time

Spending this fractional amount of time thinking about our goals and what we want can be extremely difficult because it forces us to think about what we truly want to be and do. It also forces us to look back on the past X amount of time where we have been doing something different, and being able to bear that (even though it’s a sunk cost!) can be extremely difficult. Ex: ‘Well I’m already halfway through my junior year and I have good grades up until this point, what’s the use in changing my approach now?’

Hopefully we don’t get two-three years down the road (or, in many cases, longer) before we realize our incorrect alignment, but it definitely happens. So, even though the transition towards new goals can be extremely difficult, that is what we have to do. The sooner we come to terms with that, the sooner we can get to the place that we want.

Once we orient ourselves on our goal, we have to find the means in which to get there (how to train, what books to read, etc), but that could warrant (and already has) entire books/articles on its own.

Regardless, the first step of setting the goal is critical and being able to rethink how I want to spend my summer makes me excited for the next 2/3 of it.

Thank for reading.

Year 1, Article 9.

Cheers :)
N.B.A

If you ever want to discuss this more or get in touch, don’t hesitate to reach out. My email is noadelstein@gmail.com