Part-Time Dreamer

Every Monday, this blonde-haired kid from New Jersey walks into some company building, sits down at his desk, and does boring accounting stuff for eight hours. Then, he does it again on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

But when he goes home to his parents’ house, where he has lived well into his 20s, CoolTrainerRyan can walk down the stairs into his mom’s basement, turn on the lights, and look at a Pokémon card collection worth millions of dollars.

During daylight hours, he is Ryan from accounting. But every night, he opens a few hundred dollars worth of Pokémon boosters for his almost 100,000 subscribers. He curses a lot. He only cares about chase cards. And he never artificially hypes up bad pulls. Ryan is 100% himself, and whether it’s on his channel, in interviews, or as a guest in another, much more famous Youtuber’s video, he never apologizes for it.

Ryan has earned that freedom day by day, income statement by income statement, spreadsheet by spreadsheet. He worked, earned money, and reinvested it into something he understood and believed in. He did it without fanfare. Without the hype of, “Look at me, I’m quitting my job to be an entrepreneur!” Just a young kid, working a regular job, with a hobby he pursued relentlessly until, eventually, it kinda worked out.

I chose a different path, but I still remember the magic of leaving the office without a care in the world. “What gives? All our problems will still be here tomorrow. Now, let me do whatever the hell I want.” Often, this little bit of freedom on the side is all the magic you need, and sometimes, it can even be a faster way to the career balance you seek than grinding your teeth into the same problem 24/7.

Don’t underestimate the power of being a part-time dreamer. We can’t all have million-dollar collections, but we can all be as authentically cool as trainer Ryan — and perhaps, regardless of what schedule we do it on, that is enough.

You Are Not a Candle

When you put a snuffer over a candle, the flame loses access to oxygen and dies. Sometimes, life can feel the same. A metal dome seems to descend all around you, and suddenly, you’re in the dark.

The dome could be your company trying to bully you out. It could be a coworker continuously making snide remarks. Maybe it’s a failed pregnancy, a lackluster product launch, or a patron pulling out of your vernissage at the last minute.

Whatever its exact shape or material, the dome’s arrival will shake your confidence. It will make you feel isolated. You will doubt your skills, character traits, perhaps even your values. “What if I actually don’t belong here? Do I deserve this setback?”

No, you don’t. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be — you just need to remember that you’re not a candle. You can do something even the most powerful fire can’t do: supply your own oxygen.

Everything you need, you already carry within yourself. Love. Hope. Confidence. Courage. Honesty. Belief. It’s all there, ready for you to fetch. You need only remember to go and collect.

Even the biggest candle snuffer in the world could not resist that light. Once you find your way back to it, it’ll crack any exterior shell right open. Shoot towards the sky where it belongs, and break any dome of limitation straight in half.

No matter how hard it might try, the world can never snuff you out. You are not a candle. Only you can dim your light — and only you can release it. Choose to dial it up, and shine as bright as you can.

Focus vs. Productivity

A misconception about focus is that it means endless productivity. Yes, focusing for one, two, three hours at a time on a single task is great and essential, but ultimately, operational focus is only a small piece of the puzzle.

What makes a much larger, more strategic contribution is high-level focus — the refusal to engage in long-term distractions — and that means saying no to average opportunities even when the end result is not working at all in the moment.

If your goal is to write a book but you can’t get a single good sentence on the page, you’re better off taking a break than brainstorming how to monetize your Instagram followers. If you want to launch a membership portal but can’t decide which software to use, sleep on it. Going back to working on your online course might be easier, but it’s the wrong activity to spend time on.

This sounds obvious but is extremely challenging to practice on an everyday basis. It is much harder to say no to a mediocre task that’ll still feel productive when you’re exhausted than it is to say yes to an important task when you’re full of energy and excited to get started. But bad high-level focus is better than no high-level focus, and so when in doubt, you should worry about the big picture, not your daily output.

A focused person is not always productive, and a productive person is not always focused. Do your share while sitting at your desk, but more importantly, refuse to do anything that does not contribute to your mission at all. If push comes to shove, choose focus over productivity, because one might seemingly take care of everything, but only the other ensures what truly matters is taken care of when all is said and done.

Be a Broken Scale

This week, I finished reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. The book has many flaws.

Its pacing is awkward, sometimes too slow, at other times too fast. The complexity of the story is impressive, but it also lacks clarity in a few critical places. The hero doesn’t struggle enough to earn his title, and he spits out a perfect, Sherlock-Holmes-esque explanation of the plot at the end despite not seeming all that clued in throughout the story. The romance elements feel forced, and by its last page, there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up.

Yet, despite all these problems, Snow Crash is still a great book. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in sci-fi, technology, or language. Why? Because its one great idea makes up for every deficiency — and that idea is the metaverse. In fact, Neal Stephenson invented the term, and 30 years after the novel’s publication, its still a groundbreaking vision.

What will it be like to move through a virtual world that feels just as real as our physical one? When will our 3D-avatars look exactly like we do? Apparently, these questions are so important, one of the world’s biggest company’s made the development of the metaverse its singular goal — a goal it committed to so seriously, it even changed its name, from Facebook to Meta.

Regardless of what you think of the concept, it is magnificent enough to outweigh a million flaws. When the book comes up in a chat, you might mention some of its shortcomings, but the metaverse is what will keep the conversation going. That’s worth more than any literary criticism, and that’s why you should be a broken scale. Allow one positive to balance out ten negatives so you can focus on the big picture and live life with a spring in your step.

It’s not always a mistake to not weigh everything equally. Sometimes, one plus should be enough to cancel out a thousand minuses. The trick is knowing when that’s the case, and then to not get hung up on small perceived slights when there are bigger things at stake.

The Wall Is Low

After he sneaks into the Shaolin temple to escape the local oppressors, the young Liu Yude becomes a monk in hopes of learning kung fu to better defend himself. Hotheaded and ambitious as he is, however, he keeps trying to skip the basics.

For the first year, Liu never voices his desire to learn kung fu. He just expects the masters to start teaching him. When he finally begins, they give him a choice: Which of the 35 training chambers does he want to start in? Of course, Liu picks the highest one — and is promptly thrown out for not even comprehending the assignment. When he concedes and starts over in the first chamber, it seems Liu has finally returned to planet Earth, and yet…

The challenge in the first chamber is simple enough: Jump on a bundle of wooden logs floating in water to cross a small chasm before entering the dining hall. Fall in, however, and your clothes won’t be dry in time for dinner. Naturally, Liu fails his first attempt — but instead of adapting, his gaze once again turns to shortcuts.

As it turns out, behind the small wall of the alleyway with the water ditch, there’s another alley, fully paved, for the masters to walk into the dining hall. So one night, Liu waits until everyone else has passed the chasm, then jumps on the wall. But before he can make it across, a master appears out of nowhere, slapping him right back to where he came from.

Graciously enough, he even hands Liu a valuable lesson — the piece of wisdom that will finally turn the tables on his attitude: “The wall is low, but Buddha’s might is infinite.” When he tries to cheat, Liu can fail in a million ways. Someone might catch him, and even if they don’t, they might see it and know him to be a cheater. And if he gets away scot-free? Then Liu himself will still always know that he cheated. It’s Buddha’s self-examining eye that he can never escape. Failure is, in a way, guaranteed, even when he succeeds.

But what if Liu tries in earnest? Then, too, he can fail. But though the how of his failing might be one of many, the true reason is always the same: He did his best, and it wasn’t quite enough just yet. So adapt, try, and adapt again. That’s an approach no one can find fault in. Not the masters, not Liu, and not even the Buddha himself. Only once he adopts this stance can Liu actually succeed — not just in passing the 35 chambers, but in finding his own, true path in life.

Whether it’s a wall you can jump, a corner you can cut, or an opportunity to stay silent where talking is necessary, remember: The bar for deception may be low, but the only one you end up fooling is yourself — and though it is ultimately as inescapable as Liu’s enemies, the truth is not an oppressor but meant to set you free.

Why Not?

Sangah Noona is a professional pianist and singer. In the pandemic, she lost most of her jobs playing in hotels and at events. With nothing else to do, she doubled down on her Youtube channel, and it has grown by a factor of ten since then.

In the background of Sangah’s videos, you’ll always see a transparent, backlit sign. “Why not?” it reads. Perhaps thanks to that very same question, Sangah moved to the United States from Korea, became licensed as a professional pilot, and chose to play Master of Puppets by Metallica as her entry audition for one of Korea’s best universities.

Sometimes, you’re staring down what feels like a big crossroads in your life, but actually, there’s already an answer right in front of you. It might not be the best answer, or even the right one, but if your gut is tingling and you’ve got no other obvious choices, perhaps it’s no longer necessary to look for reasons to walk that particular path. Maybe, it’s time to reverse the question, shrug, and give it a go.

Some doors in life say, “Why?” Others say, “Why not?” — and sometimes, that’s more than enough to open them and start a new adventure.

Brain-Roaming

Brains are like dogs: They need to roam. When I feel hyperactive, I can try to meditate, light a candle, or do a breathing exercise, and sometimes those work just fine. Often, however, it is easier to give my brain something to bite into. To truly exercise its excess energy until the waterfall of thoughts peters out and reverts back into a calm stream.

This morning, I woke up, and instantly, the inner chatterbox went off. Instead of forcing my usual routine, after working out, I went back to bed and read a novel. My brain gobbled up page after page, and after about 20 of them, it slowed down. The mood reverted back to a more morning-friendly, “Okay, what’s important today? Let’s take it one step at a time,” and I went from there.

A friend of mine has a husky. He can run for miles. If he doesn’t do it at least on occasion, he becomes insufferable. My friend must let him roam. Whether you also do it via physical exercise, voracious reading, or by unapologetically filling page after page in your journal, afford your brain the same space.

Give your mind room to roam. There’s a right pace for every situation, but there’s also the right situation for any pace you might find yourself at. Put yourself in that situation, and let your brain do the rest.

An Invitation to Dance

In 1914, Thomas Edison’s lab complex burned down in spectacular fashion. Thousands of patent ideas, gadgets, and inventions, destroyed in a few hours. Contrary to what one might expect, Edison did not fall to his knees and cry.

“Go get your mother and all her friends,” Edison told his son. “They’ll never see a fire like this again.” He even claimed that “it’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.” It wasn’t part of his plan, but at 67 years old, Edison decided to “start all over again tomorrow,” as he told The New York Times the next day.

Within 3 weeks, buildings were partially restored, and his employees were at work in temporary facilities. The following year, his company posted $10 million in revenue, about 10x what he had lost in the fire.

Even if you aren’t as good at coping in real-time as Thomas Edison, whether it’s with some temporal distance or a lot, you, too, can turn a calamity into a can-can. With the right perspective, a big loss is not a bereavement but merely a prompt to begin anew, with a clean slate, and reinvent yourself.

Perhaps there’s no such thing as a disaster. Only an invitation to dance — and even if the ticket arrives in fire and flames, what is life but the chance to say yes and start twirling?

Don’t Trade Years for Seconds

When he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars because his wife was annoyed at one of the comedian’s jokes, Will Smith traded several years of his life for a 30-second reaction.

Imagine standing there a few minutes later, finally, after decades, holding the Academy Award for Best Actor, and having to give an acceptance speech to a room full of people who now hates your guts — and, worst of all, rightfully so. The adrenaline! If a situation like that doesn’t cause your body to produce a stress reaction worth the equivalent of seven years of grunt work, I don’t know what will.

If you’re not a Hollywood star, your chances of ruining both your career and your inner peace in a single moment are lower — but not nonexistent. Plenty of CEOs have been fired for hitting the wine too hard at the company Christmas party, and many an athlete has lost their biggest sponsor over an offhand comment at a press conference. Often, it is only after the mistake that the loss of life force truly begins.

But even in our everyday lives, we commonly trade more time later for silly indulgences today. Every cigarette puff now might be a few hours you won’t have in your 80s, and every meaningless spat with your spouse today could turn into days of silence after retirement.

Don’t trade years for seconds. We all make mistakes we can’t take back, but let’s at least try to not make them on purpose.

Gut First, Information Second

If you have ten years of experience in your field, you don’t need daily industry updates to make sound decisions. Your gut should inform your thinking, not the other way around. But nowadays we all have an endless, constant stream of information pouring into our brains day in and day out. That makes it hard to use our gut at all, no matter how well-developed it might be.

Let’s say you’re a designer tasked with rebranding an orange juice company. If you go online and start researching, you’ll find mountains of evidence that round, flat shapes are the way to go. You’ll also find data that supports 3D images making a comeback. You’ll find success stories from brands with one-syllable names without vowels and brands with names that sound like they’ve been around for 200 years.

In other words, you can buy into any narrative and subsequent set of decisions that you want. It all worked for somebody. Overwhelmed with options, which route you ultimately choose ends up being somewhat random, influenced by which information you find when, or whoever’s story sounds most compelling. But if you go about your work that way, you neglect years of training. You use your gut only to latch on to other people’s advice instead of using it outright.

A great designer doesn’t open their browser at all when starting a project. They consult their gut first, and perhaps later, they might supplement what their experience tells them with information. “What makes this brand special? What kind of design would reflect this specialness well?” All you need is a bunch of questions, some boredom, and perhaps a sketch board or iPad to doodle on.

It’s hard to put technology aside in a world where technology is ubiquitous. But it’s neither impossible nor a recipe for disaster. Remember what your strengths are, but even more importantly, remember to use them.