Recently, I stumbled upon a couple of very thought provocative questions on separate occasions which had me pause for a while and think. Today, I created a list on Google Keep of those questions aiming to update them and go through them every week or more frequently.
Here, I will share those with my insight on each, and I’ll update the post whenever I find another one that catches me off-guard.
What are your 10 year goals? How can you achieve them in 6 months?
Woah. Well, fuck. First of all, most people -myself included- probably don’t even have 10 year goals outlined. But forget that. Put your 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years goals. Why can’t you achieve them in less? I’m a huge supporter of challenging myself to achieve what’s unimaginable. I think that’s how the best things are created. A lot of great characters advise to constantly challenge yourself and prove that you can do WAY more than you think you can. This could be simply proved by doing 30 push-ups when you think you can only do 10.
Anyway, this is absolutely possible. If you aim for 6 months, you might do it in 9-12, but who the fuck cares if you would otherwise achieve the same in 10 years?
Some would argue “why the rush?”. Well why the fuck not? If you can achieve 10 years work in 6 months, that means you have an additional 9.5 years to achieve more great stuff.
This is by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and the author of one of my all time favorite books Zero to One.
If I gave you one hundred million dollars in funding for your company, how would you spend it?
This just takes any sight of bullshit and throws it out of the window. I noticed that I neglect so many things in my startup for the excuse of “prioritization”. I don’t have time for this, we don’t have budget for that, etc… Well, what if you had the financial resources to hire the smartest people and form teams to tackle each problem you wish to solve? What would be those issues that you’d solve?
You’d be surprised that once you actually jot down these gigantic tasks that must wait for your majestic time, you start to realize how simple they are and that you can probably do parts of most if not all of them before hiring people to take care of them. If you have the financial capability to actually hire great people to tackle them, amazing (but beware, money doesn’t make success). Otherwise, you’ll find ways to do these things with the exact same resources you have. Just less bullshit.
On a more practical level, this could also point you to fundraise.
Think about your 10-year-older self and ask, what advice would he give you right now?
Jesus. Listen, we all have visualization of what we could be 5-10 years from today. It could be a glimpse or a thought. Expand that visualization, and think what advice you’d actually give yourself now (your then-younger self). Would your 10-year-older self be proud of everything you’re doing right now? Is there something you’d like to rule out? A trait you should emphasize on? Etc… This is very different than any other person because this person actually has all the right to judge you. It’s you.
This approach helps a lot, and puts you in the position of your own mentor. Some argue that you could be your best mentor. I don’t think it’s an overstatement
Please let me know if you bump into such questions yourself below in the comments.