Over the course of my athletic and early professional working careers, I’ve been extremely fortunate to have had the support and guidance from so many people I consider close friends and mentors.
Within tennis, my early supporters were my friends, who taught me what unwavering diligence, determination, and grittiness truly looked like at the highest echelon of sports. I then had the privilege to spend four incredible years with my college teammates and college coach at the University of the Pacific. They taught me how to compete, how to be coachable, how to be a lifelong learner, how to be selfless, and how more often than not — the team is greater than the sum of its parts. Above all else, I learned the value of discipline and the core principles and competencies of what it takes to be a professional and best in class in any career I chose to pursue.
Fast forward another four years to the present day, leaders and mentors from First Republic Bank, VU Venture Partners, and Office Hours took me in and showed me the ropes of Credit, Venture Capital & Private Equity, and Startups— teaching me professional skills and lessons along the way that continue to shape my career to this day. As I reflect on my professional and personal life, I’ve come to realize that it’s impossible to overstate the impact all my friends and mentors have had on me. Over the past 4 years I’ve been lucky to learn an incredible amount from those around me and by fortune — I’ve picked up on some new learnings and honed in on some old learnings that I still find valuable to this day:
- The Importance of Culture & People
In a company and team setting, culture is not the most important thing that matters, rather it is the only thing that matters. Businesses are simply just collections of people and leadership is extremely important because it defines who else gets recruited to the Firm and the culture that is created within the organization. Focusing on talented individuals and people of high character is the name of the game.
The best entrepreneurs and leaders are open-minded and ones that can motivate, inspire and instill trust and belief in those around them. There is truly no bigger asset than people. Company culture often times gets misinterpreted and viewed interchangeably with company perks & benefits (e.g free food, cool gifts & swag, luxurious off-sites, remote work flexibilities, etc). However; a strong company culture is truly about achieving excellence — building incredible products and features that people love, delivering best in class customer experiences, and unifying an overall commitment and drive to doing the best work of your life as an individual and as a team.
If you get the right people on the bus and put them in the right seats, you ultimately get the right results. Get the people right and then everything else falls into place.
2. Don’t get hung up on titles
I have never been a fan of job titles generally because it closes people’s minds and prescribes a certain way one should be acting or thinking based on a title or job description (e.g senior roles, managing roles, and exec roles etc). In reality, one should always focus on the work and how to push one’s self and those around them to be the best version of themselves — figuring out new ways and different levers to grow personally and or professionally.
The best people always do more than is expected and it’ll show outside of their job title or role description. At the end of the day, you have to be yourself during the job and orient your time and effort around the work and not the prescribed title. There will always be more work than people and work will come to you if you’re great. This is especially pertinent in the startup ecosystem. Do the work you’re hired for, but look for other passions and projects. Be creative and let your passions and strengths manifest.
3. Sometimes it’s about output, not input
Early years of college and in tennis, my coach schooled us in the belief to always stay process-oriented which will likely lead towards strong results — the traditional wisdom of focusing on a proven prescribed input that will ultimately yield towards a high probability of a strong output if done correctly. However, I have come to realize that sometimes letting people figure out their own input enables leaders to get out of people’s way by allowing people’s creativity to come to bear because you are not prescribing the exact methodology of how to accomplish a task or deliverable.
If you hire the right people or get the right people on your team and trust them, they’ll do the right thing and end up doing more than expected in their unique way. In the past handful of years I’ve noticed that when you give talented people tremendous responsibility and give them the chance to prove themselves, they usually exceed expectations with methodologies and processes their supervisors never would’ve imagined. Telling people things should be done a certain way stifles creativity. Leaning into output not input ultimately solves for a diversity of thought. If you assign someone a deliverable you want to be done by a certain time, don’t prescribe the work hours, rather prescribe the result and deadline. This will ultimately enable them to freely figure things out at times and methodologies that work best for them and allow them to fit in the other important things in their lives at times that work best for them.
As long as you are clear on what the expected result looks like and what a person is accountable for, you should sometimes get out of their way and let them do their own thing. It all boils down to trusting the people on your team.
4. Attitude is Everything
Don’t ever let your attitude be controlled by your circumstances or results. Never become a prisoner of the result, rather reflect on the process at how you went towards an objective or goal. Control what you can control. Often times the biggest character revelation is how one bounces back from failure and success. Success is not always achieving an end goal, rather I believe a healthier way of measuring success is by seeing the amount of honest effort you put towards the goal or objective. On a similar thread regarding regrets — Not getting a result you want warrants regret, rather being upset with the process and controllable towards the end goal should warrant true regret.
5. A career is not a sprint — it’s a marathon
Conventional wisdom I heard back in the day was to forecast your career in 5 to 10-year intervals. Truthfully, that isn’t for everyone or most people for that matter. It doesn’t quite make sense to plan long-term to that degree because it is about relying on what you thought in the past versus what you currently think in the present. Do what you currently think and not what you thought in the past. This is why I prefer to think of my career in 1 to 2-year sprints as opposed to 5-year intervals because it truly enables me to hone in and focus on what I currently love and what I think is presently my passion and or calling.
New passions and interests can manifest from time to time and change the trajectory of priorities, thoughts, values, and even life. Pivots are bound to happen so one does not need to have one’s career or life fully figured out in their 20’s because they are truly in the first couple innings of a long 9 inning baseball game. Every inning and especially the first couple of innings are really about figuring out what you love and what your calling is. Sometimes it’s better to measure your life in short-term sprints versus long 5 to 10-year intervals akin to a marathon.
6. Your current job is your day job. Your next job is your night job
Sometimes breaking into new job industries or verticals isn’t easy, especially when you have a traditional 9–5 job. But when you set out to achieve a goal you need to have the discipline and grit to relentlessly persist until you attain your goal. It takes sacrifice and a lot of extra effort to learn new skills and build additional acumen in your free time. What you do in your free time can truly dictate the shape and direction of your next role.
7. Run Your Own Race
Don’t compare yourself to others. In competitive working industries, it’s easy to get wrapped up in what your peers are doing. People see that a peer is doing X, Y, and Z and as a result, they compare themselves to their peers and use them as a measuring stick for conceived success.
Although I believe strongly in healthy competition, the more time you’re worried about what other people are doing, the less time you’re dedicated to working on and bettering yourself. Give kudos to those around you, work harder and smarter, and never beat yourself down while staying authentic to yourself and your passions.
8. Nurture Personal & Work Relationships
Personal & Work relationships are about reciprocity. If you take the time to cultivate better, deeper, and stronger relationships with colleagues and friends, they will as of result make your life easier and trust you easier. They will want to pick up the slack when you drop it and as a result, it will allow you to share burdens and triumphs. Relationships truly matter because they will push you to become a better version of yourself and open avenues that will ultimately enable you to go further in life. Success doesn’t come without a strong support system/network.
Extremely grateful for all the support and guidance my friends, family, and mentors in my life have given me. Looking forward to learning more from those around me in the coming years.
