What I wish I knew earlier
It’s officially 2025. I’m turning 32 this year, and my daughter is turning 1. I figured now would be a good time to jot down some of the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years, in the hope that it might be useful for others—and maybe even for my daughter one day when she learns to read.
1. Passivity is Costly
When we make a mistake on a key decision, it’s usually straightforward to reflect on that decision and learn from it. If we answer a multiple-choice test question incorrectly, we can analyze each choice in hindsight and adjust our mental model to improve in the future. The harder mistakes to learn from are those where no explicit decision was made at all. For instance, I went through my entire K-12 education without understanding the significance of olympiads in college admissions. There was never a moment when I explicitly decided whether to compete in one or not. However, my passivity—failing to do more research, talk to more people, and so on—led to my ignorance. In general, it’s better to err on the side of action and initiative. This proactive stance is positive-sum and will open doors you didn’t even know existed.
2. Get Good at Going Deep
It’s tempting to keep up with your peers and mimic everything they do. Just because Sally takes SAT classes after school and Bobby plays the piano before school doesn’t mean you should too. In fact, the most successful people I know are often quite idiosyncratic, resisting the urge to follow trends in favor of deepening their expertise and knowledge in niche topics they are uniquely passionate about.
A corollary to this idea is not to take statements at face value—especially in consequential areas. For example, in the context of investing, it’s common to hear the critique that the stock market is a casino. Don’t accept such ideas without scrutiny. Examine them deeply, do your research, and understand all sides. While the surface-level critique may sometimes be correct, in cases where it’s not, this approach could save you from making poor decisions, like avoiding investing altogether.
3. Success Isn’t Everything, but It’s Also Not Nothing
There seem to be two common failure scenarios among people my age: those who sacrifice almost everything for success and those who have given up on success entirely. The former group often hits a point of realization and regret after a significant event, such as falling ill, losing a family member, or simply burning out. The latter group tends to experience a slower, more insidious pain, often characterized by a sinking feeling as a lack of ambition or initiative leads to dead-end jobs (or no job at all), compounding financial and mental struggles over time.
It’s important to identify the key dimensions that matter most to you and ensure none of them suffer excessively at the expense of another. For me, these dimensions are career, health, and family. Find yours and strive to maintain a healthy balance between them.
4. Counteract Your Predispositions
The biggest blind spots in people are often related to their predispositions. Those who are overly accommodating to others may be taken advantage of, while those who are overly risk-seeking often face unexpected setbacks. For me, I have a natural risk aversion that causes me to resist change out of fear of the unknown. To counteract this predisposition, I look for less consequential decision points and purposely go against my intuition. For example, I might buy a risky stock that seems promising or push all-in at a poker table even when I’m unsure I have the best hand. These small actions, which defy my intuition, help calibrate my decision-making and improve it over the long term.
5. Seek Truth
People won’t always tell you the truth outright. For example, if you’re a manager asking an employee if they enjoy their work and they don’t, some may avoid being honest. Similarly, if you’re openly liberal and speak with a closeted Trump supporter, they might nod along and feign agreement while privately believing you’re misguided.
Becoming skilled at seeking the truth requires introspection. Do you actively seek out multiple viewpoints on a topic, even from people whose perspectives you may strongly disagree with? The more open-minded you are, the more likely others will feel comfortable sharing their perspectives.
A related practice is to steelman your own viewpoint—that is, seek out the strongest arguments against your position. While your closeted Trump supporter may not openly share their opinions, you can still find plenty of well-articulated conservative viewpoints if you make the effort to look for them.