Not knowing where I'm going

In many ways, I was always hoping that during my time at the GSB I would magically find out the answer to the question of what I want to do with my life. Truth is that I didn’t. I tried many different things, but the answer never came. At least it never came in one piece – it never “hit” me. 

While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I did see some of my classmates being laser-focused on certain career paths, industries or professions, and then go all in – making the best use of the Stanford network and resources. Some were interested in education for example and optimized their classes and time accordingly. Others knew from the beginning they wanted to build a venture, so they worked tirelessly on start-up ideas and networked with VCs up and down Sand Hill Road. And in many ways I somewhat wish I had the chance to do the same. To be more intentional about my education there. 

While the answer never came in one piece, it did come in form of little pieces. Like puzzle pieces that would help me complete a picture that is still a piece "work in progress." In hindsight, the GSB wasn’t a time of finding out what I wanted to do, but more a time of trying out different things and realizing what I did not want to do.

I tried working on a travel start-up and realized it didn’t feel authentic. I took an in-depth class on Private Equity and disliked it. I worked with a professor on building an investment thesis for Iran and realized that my love for Iran isn’t strong enough for me to pursue a career there. I went to work in Venture Capital and while it felt intellectually stimulating, it just didn’t fulfill me. On the other hand, I found myself loving the language classes I was taking. I loved my summer in South East Asia and decided to spend more of my future career in Asia. 

So, yes, I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about the things I love and and the things I don’t love.

One thing that school showed me is that when you don’t know where you are headed, you need to test your ideas and then make quick go/no-go decisions. That way, I was able to fend off stupid ideas that in hindsight only seemed interesting in that moment, and I was able to identify passions of mine that shined through over and over again. 

With each of these go/no-go decisions, the picture gained more clarity. And with more clarity, the more meaningful and intentional became the decisions that I made as a result. Like I was gaining increased visibility over the path that I am on. 

After these two years of trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks and what doesn’t, I realized that I would rather want to be on a heck of journey and see where it takes me than follow the directions to a destiny that I already know. With that, yes, I am still figuring sh*t out, but instead of worrying about where each decision is taking me, I try to enjoy all the turns – and wrong turns – I am making. 

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Having a bias for action

The most flattering thing ever said to me is that I “not only talk the talk, but I also walk the talk.” I couldn’t make such sense of it at first, but over time I saw what people meant.

Whenever I come across something I like, or develop a new idea that get excited about, I just go and do it. If I really want it, I don’t let anyone or anything come in between. There are no excuses that hold me back or obstacles that deter me from pursuing what I set my mind on. In fact, I can’t think of anything in my life that I really wanted to do, but didn’t go out and do. Not saying I always succeeded, but I tried.

I live my life with a strong bias for action, and in the following I hope to encourage you to do the same. 

What do I mean with having a bias for action? 

It means that you – shocker – actually go and do what you feel you want to do. That if a crazy idea comes across your mind, you don’t fall into “let me come up with 193 reasons why this is not going to work” mode, but you go and make it work.

At the very least you give it a shot. And even if it doesn’t work out, you feel shitload of pride for having given it a shot, but above it all, you proved to yourself, and to the world, that the ideas that cross your mind, don’t just end up in a graveyard of ideas that never find fruition. 

So what’s keeping us from having a bias for action in our lives? Society does. 

The other day I came across the example of Huntington Hartford, who had inherited a fortune of $90M and spent $80 of that "chasing his dreams in the Bahamas.” He then passed away in 2008 at the age of 97. Yet instead of celebrating the fact that he spent his fortunate on pursuing his dreams, outlets like the NYTimes portrayed his life as a failure.

The way how his life was reported on is telling of how society expects us to behave. Our character is more often measured in our net worth than in our actions. Life is often deemed successful when we have more at the end than what we started with, not on basis of how much we explored, experienced, or put into action. As a recent HBR article pointed out: "We say “you can’t take it with you” but we be­have and judge as though you can."

This is the culture we live in, one that puts safety ahead of satisfaction. One that emphasizes the have to over the want to. One in which we are perpetually subjected to expectations. Expectations that suffocate our creative ideas and dreams, and that burry them underneath all the musts and have dos – societal expectations of what is the "right thing to do." 

What else is keeping us from doing what we want? Ourselves. 

We are probably our biggest enemy when it comes to living out our dreams and living with a bias for action. So many things we want to do, and so many more excuses we find not to do it. 

I have never done this before, I don’t have time, I don’t know the right people, what if I screw up, English isn’t my first language, oh, I just do it later. If there is one thing we are all really good at, it’s finding reasons to say no. 

Yet turns out life doesn’t get easier as we get older. Things get more complicated, our responsibilities pile up, and as we build families, we will have less and less time for ourselves. The sooner we start taking action on what matters to us, the more satisfaction will we achieve in our lives. 

Don’t let your fears and excuses prevent you from taking actions on the things you want to do now. Don’t spend your life making decisions, take actions. There is no better time to do it than now. Some of us spend their lives making up their minds, and then we die with songs unsung. The music is in us, but we don’t let it out.

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Chasing the lives of others

Today was the last lecture of my all-time favorite class at the GSB, called MGE (Managing Growing Enterprises). While it’s taught by number of instructors here at the school, I ended up taking the section taught by David Dodson and Graham Weaver – two incredible human beings. 

In his closing speech, David made a comment which perfectly summed up thinking pattern that I had been observing in myself and others for the past few months. He urged us to "not chase the lives of the other 406 people in our class."

Now this something that everyone might easily agree with. Why would you chase another person’s life, right? But if you are anything like me, I am sure you have found yourself in a position in which you compared your life and your decisions with the life and decisions of others. This is particularly tempting in an environment in which everyone is ambitious and constantly pushing their limits to new heights. 

You might see a classmate get into a management trainee program at a hardware company, and you suddenly wonder if you should also be joining that trainee program or the hardware space is what you should actually be focusing on. You see your friend decide to start a business in the healthcare space, and you ask yourself whether you should also work in that industry. 

What bothers me about this mode of thinking is that instead of listening to yourself and trying to figure out what the real right path for you is, you are rather looking at what other people have decided is right for them, and then try to emulate it. Basically you are copy/pasting their path onto yours. I even come across the career advise to find people whose career you admire and then try to "make similar decisions."

Now I don’t have any problem with finding inspiration in the decisions of others. If your friend started a successful podcast, you might also want to do the same. If a classmate is moving to China because they think it’s a promising market to work in, then maybe this is something that could also be of interest to you. But the important differentiation is that you, too, need to want to do it. And not just because you saw your friend or classmate doing it.

The bigger point I am trying to make here is that I believe that each human being on this earth has their own unique universe-given path to follow. And that it is a thousand times more important to figure out what your plan is than trying to see if other people’s life plans could work for you. 

To tie this back into David's comment about the students in my class, the 407 of us got into the Class of 2017 for everything that made us unique. And I hope that each of us continues to pursue their own unique path going forward.

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Understanding (and Questioning) our Beliefs

I have always been quite fascinated with the beliefs we hold as humans and how they carry us through our lives. All the things we believe in – where do they originate from and how are they shaped over time? 

One of the most powerful stories I have heard that made me understand how detrimental or beneficial our beliefs can be, is a Chinese fable about a farmer. 

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

What I found so powerful about this story is how the farmer is able to separate his emotional responses from the incident as such. While everyone else held the belief that something was particularly good or bad, he didn’t allow himself to make such judgement because he decided to not hold that same belief.

Most of us go through life under the delusion that it is certain people, situations, or events that make us sad, anxious or angry. When you’re irritated by a colleague at the next desk who won’t stop talking, you naturally assume that the colleague is the source of the irritation. When your flight has a massive delay, you surely surmise that the airline is the source of your misfortune. 

If you look closer at your experiences though, you will eventually be forced to conclude that none of those experiences is negative in itself. Indeed, nothing outside your own mind can properly be described as negative or positive at all. What actually causes suffering are the beliefs you hold about those things.

The colleague is not irritating per se, but because of your belief that getting your work finished without interruption is an important goal. The airline is not source of your misfortune, but it’s your belief that you are entitled to be arriving somewhere at a certain time. 

If you didn’t judge interruptions to be bad, would you be annoyed by it? Obviously not. If you didn’t put so much value on being on time, would you allow yourself to be so consumed by it? Surely not. As Shakespeare made Hamlet say: "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

This is the mechanism of how stress arises. Even losing your home and your job or a loved one, from this perspective, is not a negative event in itself. In itself, it’s merely an event. To which you might respond: but what if it really is bad? Lacking a home and an income, you might perish from starvation or exposure. Surely that would be bad? But the same relentless logic applies. What makes the prospect of starvation or exposure distressing in the first place? The beliefs that you hold about the disadvantages of death. 

I am not trying to argue that these things are not distressful events that can have far-reaching consequences in your life. My goal is merely dissecting the beliefs we hold and hopefully help you understand that judgements are in our power, and that our emotions are determined by our judgements.

We can always step back and ask: is it other people/situations/events that bother me? Or the judgment I make about other people/situations/events?

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Because guests should never overstay their welcome

(this piece was originally published on Non Disclose, the unofficial student magazine at the Stanford GSB)

In the eyes of many, I am considered an accomplished professional with a promising future. I worked at Google for six years where I negotiated multi-million dollar partnerships in three languages that I am not native in. I am engaged in both humanitarian work and the arts, and I am pursuing an MBA degree at Stanford. Yet President Trump and many Americans have reduced me to a single part of my identity — citizen of one of the predominantly Muslim countries that until recently were subject to travel restrictions.

I was born in Germany but hold Iranian citizenship through my parents. I came to the United States for the same reason my parents left the Middle East: a better life in a country in which I can fully apply my talents. Yet the election of Donald Trump and his immigration policies have made me wonder: why should I stay and contribute to a country where so many do not want me?

Indeed, what I have found remarkable is the similarity to the unstable political climates in the Middle East. Many governments there are known for erratic behavior that leads to paranoia and anxiety — never really knowing if you acted in a way that would make you a target for capricious penalization. The United States had become a refuge in which I always felt protected, but now I face the same uncertainty and agitation.

I was advised not to show up at the airport demonstrations because I am not a citizen and could get detained or even deported. Immigrant friends of mine want to speak publicly of their situations but shy away for fear it might hurt their resident status. Can I even speak up for myself without becoming a target for further discrimination? I don’t know.

Since the executive orders, my friends have shown me much love and support. While this is encouraging, I am regarded as a victim. I always considered myself a fully integrated and contributing member of American society since I moved here in 2011. Sure, I wasn’t a citizen with voting rights, but I paid my taxes and fully embraced American values. I never saw the immigrant label as part of my identity, but suddenly the new administration projects that on me — with a connotation that disregards my contributions.

I am very grateful for all the opportunities this country has provided since I moved here six years ago. I have been living the American Dream, pursuing a life and career beyond my wildest imagination. With my green card I always felt I belonged. But recent weeks have made me wonder. I also think of the 500,000 people from those seven countries who have received green cards in the past decade — how do they feel?

One of the first messages I received from a friend after the executive order was a plea for activism: “Omid, you have to fight against this injustice.” But I am now asking myself what it would mean to stay in a country in which a large number of people support anti-immigration policies. Is it a fight worth fighting, or is it time to raise the white flag? One thing they teach you in the Middle East: guests should never overstay their welcome.

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My speech at the NoWallNoBan rally in SF

Hello San Francisco!!! My name is Omid and it’s an honor for me to be standing here in front you today. 

Before I start, I want to thank each and every single one of you for being here. Your presence is valued, your presence matters, and your presence makes a difference. It makes a difference to the person on your left who will feel connected when she turns around and sees you shout. And it matters to the person on your right who will feel supported when he turns around and sees you holding up a sign. Showing up, standing up, and speaking up have never been more important than they are today.

But make no mistake. Demonstrations are just one of many tools in our arsenal of democracy. If we want things to change for the long-term, this will not be enough. Going home and posting a selfie of yourself from this rally sounds all good to me, but it won’t change the opinion of the people who you are here to win over in the first place. 

If we want to change the minds and hearts of the 49% of the country that supports a ban on immigration, we need to engage them. We need to have dialogues with them. In-person, face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Yet if you are like me, you will have difficulties. Engaging with people who are unlike us, is hard. But it’s exactly what we signed up for. 

Now many of you might be wondering how? How can you engage someone whose thinking is contrarian to yours? Maybe someone who doesn’t know anything about any of the countries affected by the ban? Let’s say the person thinks negatively of Iran because they only rely on the narrative that often misportrays the country? 

I want to help you lead these dialogues, by telling you a story. 

Three months ago, I landed in SFO, coming from Tehran. I had spent a full week in Iran, and after a long and strenuous journey, I had finally made it back. But I was not alone. With me, were 10 of my closest friends, who had the courage to come with me, and the curiosity to want to learn how the reality differed from what the mainstream narrative was. And as we passed security and were waiting for our luggage at the arrival hall, one of my friends, Ben, walked up to me and said: 

“Omid, Iran is probably the country in the world with the biggest gap in perception before and after you engage with it. If I had not come onto this trip, if I had not engaged with people from there, I would have never known what the reality is like.”

And what my friend Ben said to me that day really touched me. It touched me, because it was exactly what I was hoping to achieve by taking him onto that trip. My idea was that if I can engage someone about a topic that they don’t know much about – that they might even fear – that I can change the way how the look, feel and talk about it. That I can bring them closer to the truth, and have them become a change agent who will go out there and convince others as well. 

Ben was told that he would see people burning American flags on the streets. But what Ben saw were young Iranians, proudly wearing t-shirts with Americans flags printed on them.

Ben had heard, that all women are forcefully covered in hijab and burqas. But what Ben saw were beautiful women, of all ages, with way too much make-up, showing their hair, and wearing a fashion that you could easily find in the streets of Paris or London.  

Ben thought people were ignorant and that they would hate the west. But what Ben saw were highly educated Iranians who – in a heartbeat – would leave everything behind to come to the US or any other country where they could pursue a life full of opportunities and hope.

What my friends from the US saw first hand, was that all the people they met in Iran, are no different than themselves. That these young Iranians were human beings with similar dreams and hopes just like them. 

They met my friend Saba, who is a talented photographer, and whose dream it is to come to the US and to study journalism. They met my friend Maryam, a city planner and architect, whose biggest hope it is for her family to stay safe and healthy. And they met my friend Amir, an electrical engineer, whose objective it is to help his father grow his company and be successful.

This is why I have dedicated the past years of my life to changing people’s perceptions of Iran. As a photographer, I can use my photography to refresh the image they have of Iran. As a speaker, I can plant seeds in their minds that will eventually blossom and overshadow the dark narrative that they have been fed with by the media. And as a caring friend, I can take their hands, walk them through the beautiful streets of Tehran, and have them come back as powerful change agents who have a trusted voice in their communities. 

Now what does this tell us about today? What can this teach us about our own fight for justice? 

We are all here today, because we want things to change. We are here today, because we want justice. And yes, showing up at demonstrations matters. It’s because of these demonstrations why we have been able to have such important wins over the past few days. 

But it’s just one of the many things we need to do. If we really want the change that we are asking for, we need to do more. We need to step out of our echo chambers. We need to engage the other side. We need to listen to them. We need to help them understand the emotions that we have, and help them empathize.

It’s important to talk to the person in the park who thinks differently than you. It’s important to engage that relative of yours who lives in the MidWest and whose views are opposed to yours. I know it’s not easy. It takes courage. It takes time, and patience. It takes preparation and emotional bandwidth. And it might be tough or awkward at times. But it is important. 

For us to be successful in the long-term, we need to change their hearts and minds. One person at a time. One conversation at a time.

So when you go home today and post that selfie from the rally, don't stop just there. Find 5 people who you know think differently than you, and then start engaging them in a conversation. Only this way, we will be able to grow the coalition. 

Thank you.

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An Open Letter to my Class

A lot of you have been checking in on me over the past few days to see how I am faring. In response, I wanted to share the letter that I read out to my classmates in yesterday's Community Solidarity Event.

Hi everyone. I want to thank each and every single one of you for being here today. Your presence is valued, your presence matters, and your presence makes a difference. Thank you for that. 

To say that the past few days have been extremely troubling, would be an understatement. There is a lot going on – in us, on this campus, in this country – that is hard to put into words. 

I therefore wanted to share three things with you. A little about me, a little about us, and a little about you. 

ME

Some of you have been following my social media over the past few days, and seen how I – as a dual citizen of Iran and Germany – have been affected by the executive order. These have been some turbulent days for me and my entire family, including my brother, who is working here in the US on a work visa. 

I came to this country 6 years ago. I came here because I was looking for a place I could call my home. And before I knew it, I did call this place my home. Over the course of the past 6 years, I have left this country 57 times. But I also came back 57 times. And every time I would cross the border, I would hear the words “Sir, welcome back home.” 

Following the events on Friday, however, I suddenly didn’t feel like I was home anymore. For many days in a row I woke up every morning, under the impression that I am imprisoned here – not able to return should I ever leave. That I am not welcome, that the past 6 years have been an illusion that I was forcefully being waken up from. And that I would not hear the words “Sir, welcome back home” for a 58th time.

Now thankfully, the situation surrounding the EO has changed drastically in my favor. My green card and my German citizenship are finally giving me the protection that I deserve and that was violated during the days following the EO. 

Nevertheless, I remain extremely worried about how the next few weeks, months and years are going to play out. Especially as a proud Iranian – as someone who has dedicated a large part of his life to portraying and promoting the real, human side of Iran – I remain particularly worried about recent developments. Over the past 48 hours, the US has repeatedly threatened Iran and put the country “on notice.” There is also a bill in the US House which specifically authorizes the president to launch a pre-emptive war on Iran at any time of his choosing and without any further Congressional oversight or input. I am afraid that before we know it, we are at war with Iran. You think it’s far-fetched? I tell you it’s not.

US

I would now like to say a few words about us as a community. Many of us came here from countries far away. In pursuit of education and a better future, we left behind all we have, we left behind our friends and families. For all those people here who did that, the GSB community is our replacement family. 

Personally, I have been extremely disappointed by the lack of public response by our Dean. I had the opportunity to talk to him 1:1 today, and I made it very clear that as the leader of this community, of this family, I find it unacceptable for him to take such impassioned stance. As a leading institution, we can’t just talk about our values – we have to act on those values. It’s despicably hypocritical if we pride ourselves with how international and diverse we are, but then don’t publicly defend all the diverse members of our community in the moment they are under attack. 

And while emotions are high among so many of us, let’s do not forget that we are all sitting in the same boat, we are all playing for the same team. GSB is family. And today, more than ever, we need to stick together and take care of each other. 

YOU

Lastly, I would like to say a few things about you. In conversations with many of you, I have learned that some of you feel helpless, confused and uncertain about what can be done. How you can make your voice heard. How you can effectuate change. Some of you are not even American citizens, so why care? 

To those among you that think that way, I want to remind you that much of the backpedaling that we saw happening after the EO went into effect, was a direct result of the demonstrations. 

We are living in times in which staying silent is not an option anymore. If we don’t speak up for ourselves, at least we have to speak up for our friends and those whose voices can't be heard – the refugees, the immigrants, the people in need. Because more often than not what matters more is the voice of the allies than the voice of those affected. 

And if you feel your presence in a demonstration doesn’t matter, you couldn’t be any more wrong. It matters to the person on your left who will feel connected when she turns around and sees you shout. And it matters to the person on your right who will feel supported when he turns around and sees you holding up a sign. Your presence is valued, your presence matters, and your presence makes a difference.

In many ways these times are a moment of truth. And I hope that years from now we will be able to look back and proudly say that we did not let this become the new norm. That we did not just talk the talk, but also walked the talk. And that we made sure, that we stepped up as the leaders that all of us, in this room, aspire to be. Thank you. 

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The story of the brick wall – and what it tells us about our brains

I have frequently written about how our brains are wired to focus on the negative or to see the negative among many good things. In fact, I recently wrote about a hypothetical situation which exemplifies this phenomenon: 

"Imagine standing in a room with 10 other people, 9 of whom are holding things you desire in life: health, wealth, friendships, etc. Now imagine the 10th person is pointing a gun at you. Who do you look at? One might say "of course, the guy is holding a gun", but that's exactly the point. As humans, we are unconsciously programmed for survival. That's why our brain is wired to identify threats, danger and negative things in our environment and that's why thinking positively requires an extra effort."

Yesterday then I got to sit down with one of my best friends from high school. We've known each other for about 15 years now, and it’s a tradition for us to come together each winter and chat for hours and hours. We not only review the year, but we also discuss it philosophically.

And as we were talking about the importance of focusing on the good things in our lives, my friend came up with another hypothetical example that really resonated with me. It’s basically saying the same message as my example above, but for whom that example above was too abstract, the following one might take the point home. It seems to be some Chinese fable, so I apologize for butchering the actual story… 

There was a farmer who was building a wall with 100 brick stones that he had available. He worked tirelessly and orderly, and finished the wall the same day. He then took a few steps back and realized that one of the bricks in the wall wasn’t even. He became upset with himself and couldn’t stop looking at that one uneven brick in the wall. At the same time, another farmer came by and asked why the farmer was so upset about his wall. He then pointed out the uneven brick, to which the visiting farmer responded: why do you beat yourself up over one uneven brick if you could celebrate yourself for the 99 bricks that are straight?  

Honestly, I am no different than this farmer. I, too, would be obsessively upset with that one uneven brick and have it spoil the joy of having done everything else right. I joke that the German in me has an eagle eye for spotting mistakes, discrepancies and asymmetries.

Yet this is so wrong and it only demonstrates the inner works of our brains. Now I am not saying that this is how it is and that we should accept it. But I hope that both these examples expose the (mal-)functioning of our default thinking. Only if we understand its flaws, we can consciously work on resolving them.

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3 life lessons that I take away from 2016

This is it, 2016 is coming to an end. Another year in the books. Admittedly, it wasn't the best – partly because of all the shit that happened in the world (Trump, terrorism in Germany, Syria, brexit, etc.), and partly because of a long list of personal disappointments.

While 2014 was the year of “enlightenment", and 2015 was the year “unlocking myself" – both years of immense personal growth – 2016 will go down in the books as one in which I felt life was decelerating. A year of seeing the limitations to my #cantstopwontstop-lifestyle, that I can’t always get what I want (no matter how much I try and push for it), and of admitting to myself that at times I have been pursuing the wrong things in life. If this year had a theme, I would call it the year sobering up.

There were many highlights that I look back up: I visited China for the first time and was so impressed that I decided to learn Mandarin, I took 10 friends from school to Iran, I became part of an artist collective of photographers with which we have had two successful showings, visited 16 countries (5 of which I had never been to), bought a car, cut down alcohol and meat to a fraction of what I used to consume, and emceed a 1,500 person charity gala which was a very rewarding experience.

But along all those highs, there was a number of lows: my apartment building in San Francisco caught fire while I didn’t have any renter’s insurance, my car got broken into and I got valuable worth $2k stolen out of it (again without insurance), twice I was offered a publishing deal by Apple for my pictures to appear on the global #ShotoniPhone6s billboards, and both times I was removed from the final creative, I got my heart broken, I was rejected from a number of programs and courses at Stanford that I really wanted to take, and I had to cancel one of my summer internships 6 days prior because I was being offered an insultingly low salary of $10/h on a 25-hour work week. 

Despite its many “FML”-moments, 2016 was full of lessons learned, three of which I would like to share in the following.

Learning not to give a fuck

My story: For too long in my life, I cared about what others think of me. I cared about their opinions and judgement – to the extent to which I would sometimes change my behavior to please and to be liked. Not always, and not always consciously, but it happened. Probably more often than I am comfortable to admit to myself.

One turning point I had this year was a brand survey that I had participated in. A recurring piece of feedback I got was that people who do not know me, can perceive me as disingenuous. At the same time, those people also said that this perception gets disproven once people do actually get to know me.

Somewhat unsettled by that feedback, I went to get advise from one of my professors. And the key question he asked me was: why do you care about the opinion of people who don’t know you? And as simple of a question this was, it was one that kept me thinking for days – until I reached the point at which I concluded to not give a fuck. To become more confident in who I am and what I want, and to care less about what others will think of it.

The lesson: Not giving a fuck doesn’t mean that I don’t care about anything anymore, it means that I don’t care about the unimportant things in life. And that I am reserving my fucks for the things and people that truly matter and that make me happy. Extended, it means that I don’t care about the adversity in the face of my goals, and that I don’t care about pissing some people off along the journey as long as I feel what I am doing is right or important.  Ever since I reached that conclusion, I feel liberated. I have stopped trying to be friends with the wrong people, I have become more confident in who I am as a person, and I am more determined to pursue the things I actually want to pursue.

Ain't got no more time for excuses

My story: For very long in my life, I found excuses. I found excuses for everything. For why I shouldn’t do something. For why it’s not the right time. For why I am not the right person. For why I am not ready. Or why it’s too hard. As opposed to just going out there and fucking making it happen. Especially int the areas of dating and entrepreneurship, I would excel at finding 571 reasons why something would not work as opposed to just making it work.

The key point for me this year was turning 30. Even though I approached the new decade with vigor and positivity, it did have an eye-opening effect on me. I suddenly realized that time is running out – that I didn’t do many of the things that I wanted to do because of lazy excuses. Sure, I got so many more years ahead of me, but the 20s that I so loved, are gone. And the same thing is going to happen with this decade or any future decade of my life. So what’s the point of finding excuses if time is running out?

The lesson: A big lesson for me this year was to acknowledge that excuses are just coping mechanisms to protect myself from things that I actually feared, like failure or rejection. That excuses are just creating the illusion of protection like a pain killer, but that they are not actually solving the underlying fears That excuses are just limiting me from reaching my full potential, and that they limit my learning. And that confronting those failures and rejections head on is exactly the type of learning that I need for that underlying fear to be defeated.

The why behind the what

My story: This year I took a lot of courses at the GSB that had a strong introspective character. One of the things I sort of knew but never really practiced or investigated was understanding the why behind my whats.

I think it all started with my application essay for Stanford in which I had to talk about what matters most to me and the why behind it. For the first time I really dug deep and unearthed the reasons and motivations behind some of the decisions I had taken in life.

And especially this year I have learned to do this more often and to "feel my pulse." I don't want to do something? I ask myself why, why, why until I find the real reason for what bothers me. I enjoy someone's company? I ask myself why, why, why until I fully understand why that is.

The lesson: In today's world we are so stimulated – from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep. And in between it all, there is very little time for introspection or the opportunity to pause and understand our motivations. I feel we are acting on impulses without fully understanding what drives us to act a certain way. Asking "why" multiple times really helps uncovering the real drivers. And asking why of others also really helps understanding them better. Someone might say they love skiing, but ask them why multiple times and you might learn it's less the activity they enjoy but more the opportunity to be in touch with nature.

2016, thanks! 2017, bring it on.

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Rethinking dating: when good is good enough

The last time I wrote about love and relationships is about two years ago. Only twice* I had the courage to do so on my blog. Which is funny because I tend to think about it almost, well, daily? But then again I’d like to believe that I am not the only single out there for whom these topics take up quotidian mindshare. 

I was binge-reading Aziz Ansari's book “Modern Romance” on my flight from San Francisco to Lagos, and it helped me structure and crystalize some of my own thoughts that I had not been able to articulate previously. 

What struck me is how marriage and partnership have evolved over the past 100 years. Looking back, three characteristics stood out to me: i) you would get married very young (often as a mean to leave your parents' home and start your own life), you would get married to someone in your vicinity (because that was your dating horizon), and the process was often more pragmatic/rational than emotional (very much what arranged marriages try to achieve). 

Compare that with an exemplary case from today’s world of dating: you are in San Francisco, waiting for your Uber to get to the airport for a work trip to London. And en route to the airport, you casually swipe 20+ mobile dating profiles because you got the pro version of whatever app you are using – just to make sure you got some game once you hit town? This is insane. 

Sounds exaggerated to you? Nope, I even toned it down a little. It wasn’t 20+, but more like 100+ profiles that I went through.

Joking aside (i.e. I am not the protagonist of this sample case), these stories are real. You can read this superb Vanity Fair piece on today’s dating culture if you don’t believe it. I still fall into the Millennial bracket (call me “Senior Millennial”), but that piece made my jaw drop a few times. And while I am comparing today’s dating with yesterday’s marriage, the point is still the same: times have changed BIGLY (I just had to…). 

As a result of new priorities that many of us have in our 20s – college, finding a job, moving cities, traveling the world, finding oneself – we have a new type of an "early adulthood” period. A time dedicated to exploring romantic options, developing one’s sexuality, and eventually finding our soul mate. A period that previous generations didn’t really have when they got married to their next-block neighbor at 22. Back then, you weren’t looking for your soul mate, “good enough” was all you got. 

Never have we had as many romantic options as we have today. Great, right? Well, not really. Amidst today’s search for Mrs. Perfect and Mr. Charming, we are inundated with the options at hand. More choices and happiness are not correlated. It makes decision-making, and thus life, more difficult (think of indecision and paralysis). We want to find the best, but in order to find the best – by definition – we would need to go through all our options. Good luck (you should consider insuring your fingers because that swiping is gonna hurrrrt). 

Like we go on dates, but then the smallest annoyance is enough to dismiss the other person. Since you know so little about the person, you end up overweighing the few things you do know or see. Oh, you have never traveled to Europe? Yikes, sorry, not cultural enough for me, arrivederci! Knowing the next option is just around the corner (aka a swipe away), we suddenly find these instant disqualifiers – small annoyances that we blow out of proportion because we are looking for the best option, remember?

Honestly, I don’t think we give each other a sufficient-enough chance. Sure, if your date turns out to be terrible, book your loss and move on. But before you dismiss someone for their haircut, their interests or lack of cultural exposure, give them a proper chance. Too often we fall for the mindset of “I think I can find someone who is better.” If you were to get to know each other more, you would be more forgiving to these small things and start appreciating elements of their character that don’t always shine through on the first date.

Yet even when we find liking in someone, make it past the dating stage, officially come together in form of a relationship, we often end up riddled with doubt. Congrats, you found someone great, but how can you be sure that that person is the greatest? 

What we often suffer from is a bias called aggregation bias. Let’s say there are three things that equally matter to us in our partner (just as an example): looks, wealth and smarts. And let’s say our partner is a solid 8/10 on all of the dimensions (which is a pretty amazing deal if you ask me). Now let’s assume there are three other people we come across next to our partner.

• Person A is a 10/10 on looks, but a 6/10 on wealth and smarts.  
• Person B is a 10/10 on wealth, but a 6/10 on looks and smarts. 
• Person C is a 10/10 on smarts, but a 6/10 on looks and wealth.

What do we see? If we took the average of each of these individuals, we would be at 7.33/10 compared to the 8/10 average of our partner. But that’s not what we are seeing. The aggregation bias kicks in and we suddenly think that our "outside option” is a person that is 10/10 on all three dimensions. And now we are comparing our existing 8/10 with a hypothetical, nonexistent 10/10 that we have aggregated in our mind (i.e., the nonexistent combination of these three people). 

But maybe we are just doing it all wrong. What if “looking for the best” is just the wrong approach given how the rules of the game have changed and the new reality that we have at hands? What if there was different way to approach this search?

Well, this takes us back to where I began this article, namely 100 years ago. Back then, it wasn’t about making the right decision (i.e., searching for the best option), it was about making the decision right (making the best out of the option that you ended up with). What if the key was to move away from being maximizers to becoming satisficers (a combination of satisfy and suffice – like once it’s sufficient, you are satisfied and you don’t aim for maximization).

If “finding the best option” is just an endless chase with no end in sight (see the aggregation bias as a fitting example), shouldn’t we go back and try to be sufficiently satisfied by looking for the “good enough?” This might sound like “ending up less happy” to your ears, but science shows that satisficers are happier in the long term. 

So far in my life, I have been a maximizer. In almost everything that I do. From dating to my job search. In fact, this idea of being a maximizer versus a satisficer can be applied to all different parts of our lives: where to travel next and what gasoline to choose for our car. 

But as I think of my life's journey this past decade, and as I think of the next decade ahead of me, I have started to wonder whether this is always the best approach. Just because I have grown to be a maximizer organically (i.e., mostly as a result of my surroundings), it doesn't mean this is the best way of doing it. And I don't also think it's an either/or type of approach to life. In some areas of life it's ok to be a maximizer, and in other parts it's better to be a satisficer. And sometimes it's a mix of them.  

I am not trying to make a case for being a satisficer in our search for ever-lasting happiness in our relationships. I mean, none of what I said is meant to substitute or compromise the affection, attraction, romance or the security that a healthy relationship with someone would provide, but maybe – just maybe – we need to rethink our approach to finding the person that will give us all of that. 

*The Generation That Wants it All and  On the Meaning of Love and Partnership. 

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