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I often talk about suggesting kids in their 20s to go about exploring different career options.

But what should you do when you have really found what you love, you’re good at it and the world is ready to pay you for it?

Double down on what you’ve found. Think of what all could be possible and what kindles the fire in you. Ask yourself what is the next level in the field you’ve picked.

And then, work super hard on being the best at it.

Exploration never stops. Vertical one just follows horizontal. Rinse and repeat.

As humans, leaders and wise humans, we love to solve problems for others. It makes us feel better, and we believe that it would make them feel better as well.

Except, that it doesn’t.

Smart people suffer from a problem called The Curse of Intelligence. They want to solve things fast. Make everything aligned. Remove the chaos.

It hardly helps anyone. The one whose problem needs to be solved – the company, the family or friend have a certain way of operating that is different from who we are as an individual.

A really smart way is to ask questions. Questions help them understand the problem better. So do they help us.

The best part? The one seeking for help gets it in the manner best for them.

When we talk about secrets to productivity, mostly we think they would be Pomodoro technique, having a schedule, working out, etc.

While all of that is true, there is something way bigger than it: Our rest schedule.

Rest and rejuvenation is not sitting idle, wasting time, and something to be done when we will have more time. It is rather a way of getting more productive. Because even when we are not doing “work” on the outside, amidst the games that we play, the music that we work on or maybe while folding clothes, the mind is working on its own patterns to bring us our solutions.

And that, in turn, accelerates our productivity.

We feel lonely without others because we have not built a friendship with our own selves.

Who else can be your best friend, but you?

You know your strengths. You know your weaknesses. You know your secrets. You know your desires. You know your mind.

The truth is – the less we know ourselves, the more we seek to know ourselves through others.

But they do not know us.

They know a small part of us.

But we will form an entire image of ourselves, through the limited view that they have of our life.

Does this mean we do not need friends?

Of course not. We need friends.

If one is friends with their own self, then one will still benefit from friends.

But we seem to need them because we think we are alone and need to share our thoughts, sorrows, and experiences.

That is an excuse to not be able to do so with your own self.

Become your best friend.

In our parents’ generation, it was a privilege to be a specialist.
To be the best and fastest in the world at one thing was the only way to survive.

With unlimited opportunities in the information age, things have reversed.

As someone who wants to climb the corporate ladder, your role is managing people instead of core work.

This needs breadth, experience and understanding of work, in addition to core skills.

Thus, becoming a generalist comes with possibilities of broader spectrum and a stronger profile.

If we are a generalist, we have a speciality of taking different paths.

We’re confused about what to do in life.

And college education certainly hasn’t helped.

Why not explore our way through life, instead of being in a hurry to settle down?

Try out stand up comedy and share videos, and look at the reactions of people.
Create music if we love it, and see if others resonate with it
Get internships in design or coding, if that is what intrigues you.

It is better to be lost and busy in the chase of finding yourself, instead of being lost and busy in the rat race of never knowing yourself.

You have two ideas for your startup, but not sure which one.
Or perhaps two job offers.
Or two career options, and you cannot decide.

You are looking for a solution, but to no avail.

What if we looked for questions instead, whenever we were faced with a dilemma?

Why do I want to make that decision in the first place?
What would change for me because of that decision?
What do we want from that decision?

Looking for questions instead of solutions is asking questions about the problem.

There are some days when Instagram is down.

Sometimes Facebook is, WhatsApp is, Twitter/X as well.

I remember when that happened with Google, we all lost it.
“Dependency” was the word of the day.

We suddenly didn’t know what to do.
How to spend our time.

All we kept doing was check the platform incessantly, showing how much we depend on it.

The next time a platform goes down, try a crazy thing: Go for a walk.
Your world is what your eyes see, not what the screen shows!

We own the screens we own. Not the other way round.

I will spend time with my family later.
That email is important.

I will say “I love you” to my loved ones later.
That love for work is more important.

I will call my parents over the weekend.
Grind on the weekdays is more important.

I don’t have the time!

We don’t find time; we make time.
Because we will never know when we will run out of it.

One of the mistakes we make early in our lives is feeling morally obligated to help others.

If we have something that they don’t, maybe we could help.
And when we do offer our help and that still doesn’t help, we feel we must have done something wrong.
Thus starts a vicious cycle of self-blame and self-criticism.

Except that it helps no one.
And certainly makes no one happy.

When we really want to help others, we could start with listening.
Not trying to help, instead just listening.
And being positive.
While we may still not be able to give them “things”, we will still give them the right vibe.

A rather unusual way to help others is to be happy yourself.