TEDx: 12 Lessons About Life Before 30 (Part 4, Success & Failure)
This is the fourth part of the series: 12 Lessons About Life Before 30, if you would like to read from the previous episodes, click here for the first episode, here for the second and the third.
About Success
#5 — No Body Cares
Success is like fart, only yours smell good.
There is a good reason why other people do not care about your success, they are not part of it, they have not been through the challenges with you, hence will never understand the joy of overcoming them.
It is not their fault, the true meaning to success is always only relevant to yourself, instead of telling people who have no reasons to care, sharing with your close friends with context what you have learnt from your breakthroughs, and asking them for feedback, you might learn even more from these conversations.
#6 —Everything is Luck
There are just too many people who are more talented, and tried even harder than you, but yet never get to where they deserve.
Learn to appreciate how fortunate you are, the opportunities that are available to you, and acknowledge the fact that a big part of it is luck.
Try to support others in achieving their goals, so as to increase their chances of success, and surround yourself with people with the same motives. Because often times, luck doesn’t come in the form of money falling from above, it could be as simple as someone pointing you to the right direction and opening the right doors. Be the person that receives and offers opportunities.
#7 —Be Humble, Be Respectful
Be respectful to anyone you meet in life. You will never be too important to respect others.
Period.
About Failures & The Unfavorables
#8 — Appreciate people
Throughout the past 4 years in our startup journey, we have had over 170 members joined the company. Today in mid-2020, we have around 80 (Now 300 in 2022 as I am revising this article) in the team, meaning there are over half of them who have left, and it gets me thinking.
Of course people left for various reasons, personal ones, change of industry, a better role or offer with another company. Regardless of the reason, they all converge to one conclusion being, our company is no longer the best option, and leaving is the only out. There must be something wrong with us.
There is a saying in Snapask about this, in the long run, it’s Tim’s fault.
I agree, I take people leaving Snapask as a personal failure and I take each member leaving the company very seriously. Although I cannot conclude all the reasons why people are leaving the company and figure what it is that we can do better to avoid this from happening again, I try to understand the root cause of it and often times, it is indeed something we have not done right.
The sense of failure hits me hard, especially in the early years, and not knowing how to deal with people leaving creates even bigger problems and aftereffects. This feeling of self-failure in seeing people leaving does not only apply in a company, it happens in various forms of relationships, between lovers, friends and even in families.
Throughout the years, I have progressed a lot in dealing with this feeling of loss and disappointment by constantly reminding myself to appreciate people, for what they have done for you, the influence that have made you into who you are today. Evaluate based on the time you are with that person, not when they are leaving. If you only focus on the impact of that person leaving, what they are taking away from you, you would end up with a clouded mind, not being able to consolidate your learnings with each experience.
People come and go, each of them is a lesson.
#9 —Understand, Reason & Change
Accept the fact that there would be 80 things out of 100 that you might not like, or even more. Not liking something does not mean you have to be against it.
Spend effort in understanding why you do not like it, and why people are doing it. Try to open yourself up to those you could reason with, and if there are things you have a strong belief that it is not right, be the first person to change it, disagreeing without action will not make you right.
The next chapter (and the last chapter) will be about Self & Life — Go to Part 5
