Don't Build a Career, Build a Character
A Journey from Tech to Entrepreneurship, Building Character in the Unknown
In the past week, I've had a couple of conversations with friends who've read my newsletter (yay!). They're aware of the new venture I'm working on and have shared some thoughts. The common question people ask is, "How did you decide that this is the right thing to do?"
Let's start with clarifying what it is that I'm working on. It's only been a month since I started developing specialized sportswear for women climbers (more on this in the next post). In this newsletter, I invite you to be in the front seat of my journey from the idealization phase and my principle of career choice decision making.
From A Gap Year to An Idea
When I tried to figure out the next chapter after tech, I began listing what I consider an "ideal job" for me. I like flexible hours, autonomy, impact, and potential for high reward. I care less about stability, and I don't mind hard work as long as the job is interesting. It seems that I should look into entrepreneurship.
Have you ever learned about a new car model, and suddenly you start seeing it everywhere? It's the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, otherwise known as the frequency illusion. I used this technique to manipulate my subconscious to notice something that I’ve never noticed before.
I started immersing myself in the topic of entrepreneurship. I read many books on solo-entrepreneurship and startups, and talked to people who have done it. Then, I began noticing the pattern of how people earn a living by solving someone else's problems everywhere in the world. A couple of months later, the mental shift happened. Whenever I encountered a problem, I started thinking about how to build a solution instead of paying someone else to do so.
I asked myself a question: What are some problems I have? As a women? As a climber? Listing out all the ideas, one stands out as a forever problem for me
I have been struggling to find a sports bra that is comfy and has a cute back for someone with a small chest and a large back.
Don't get me wrong; there are about a million sports bras out there, and I haven't tried them all. However, of all twelve bras that I bought, none of them supports my disproportionate body as a serious climber.
I started talking to my women climbers' friends about this, and many shared the same concerns. We are proud of our unique body and don't think it's a root of the problem. I strongly believe that women climbers need a bra that designed specifically for us!
On Nov 1st, I typed in to Google "how to sew a sports bra," and that's how the journey began.
Taking a leap
The moment I committed to building a solution for women climbers, the voice in my head tried to shut it down. Imposter syndrome was knocking on my door every night. The little voice told me that I wouldn’t be successful because I have no expertise in the domain nor enough funding to get there.
When my emotional brain started getting loud, I searched for principles to hone in on. Life is a whole series of opportunity costs. I need to analyze the potential gain from all alternative choices and pick the best one. The key is how to define 'gain.’
In the book, Hidden Potential, Adam Grant put it best
“Many people dream of achieving goals. They measure their progress by the status they acquire and the accolade they collect. But the gain that counts the most are the hardest to count. The most meaningful growth is not building our career, it’s building our character.
I love this because I have been struggling with ‘measuring unmeasurable growth’ for a while. Adam suggested that we can measure it through the strength of our character such as wisdom, courage, humanity, etc.
The paradox here is that the worst case scenario for the career choice could be the best case scenario for character building.
It’s the failures that teach us about ourselves. How we respond to difficult situations reveals a great deal about our characters. Learning to correct mistakes builds stronger characters and contributes to self-growth.
Looking back, all significant changes in my life always started off with failure. When I moved to the US as a teenager, I failed many classes at school. It took two painful years to start thinking and speaking more fluent English. However, my brain came out on the other side not only learning the language but learning a completely different way to think. The experience significantly broadened my perspective of the world and enhanced my character to be more open-minded and curious.
When I started as a junior developer in a tech company, I was ranked as the bottom performer. It took another two years of working day and night to build my confidence to speak up in the meeting and solve real issues for my team. It built my character around teamwork and leadership that I got to leverage later in my career as a manager.
The hardest breakup taught me forgiveness and kindness. Parenting taught me patience and persistence. In retrospect, the hard part of life truly strengthen my character.
Embark on this entrepreneurial path, I am hoping that uncertainties will teach me courageous and creativity. This decision is not just about building a new career, but it’s about the opportunity to build a better character, living by values that extend beyond the old success metrics. It’s my hope to unleash some hidden potentials, and to practice a commitment to being better tomorrow than today.
One thing to think about this week
What are some past failure that build your characters? What are some characteristics that you want to improve and why?