Timeless Advice I Wish I’d Followed Earlier in My Career
1. Learn to smile at trouble
“Knowing what you know now, if you could go back to when you were about to graduate from college and give yourself advice, what would you say?”
I was asked this question a few weeks ago while giving a Zoom talk to university students in the US. After I was done, one of the students suggested I expanded my short speech into a long-form article.
In addition to choosing hobbies that strengthened my brain cells instead of ones that killed them, below are the pieces of advice I touched upon along with a few extras I’ve been thinking about.
1. Learn to smile at trouble
One of my closest childhood friends has built and sold multiple 8-digit businesses. A few years ago when I asked him for his best piece of career advice he gave a hat tip to a woman he worked under when he started his career —
“I need 3 things from you while we‘re going through this troubling time. I need you to be punctual. I need you to be present. And I need you to be positive.”
Getting angry when things go wrong is the easy choice. However, the people who make an…