41 Lessons

As the list gets longer, so does the time it takes to write it. This year, I repeated the same process to uncover the lessons...digging through old journal entries, photos, notes, emails, and calendar events. The goal was to find the threads and shape them into something that could be read all together.

This past year was a challenging one. But there were bright spots too, most notably marrying my amazing wife, Katie. Most of the rest was, as they say, plot.

With that, here’s this year’s list. I hope something here finds you at the right time:

1. If you are an achievement-oriented person, try making “joy” one of the things to achieve.
2. Wake up and write by hand before the world gets to you. Even for five minutes. 
3. Fight hard to keep your ability to write and create and decide things for yourself. Once AI becomes your only pen, it begins to own you instead of the other way around. Also, the quality of your writing and thinking will decline. 
4. Do interesting things and then connect the dots in your own way. In grief and discomfort. In awkward conversations. In walking around a foreign city hungry and slightly lost. In noticing two things that don’t seem related and connecting them anyway. True creativity still stems from lived experience.
5. Your body and mind will change as your environment changes. Design your spaces carefully. Keep as many plants as you can handle. Place your favorite books nearby. Light candles. Open the blinds.
6. Host celebrations often. Bring people together, cook, play, laugh. These are the best parts of life.
7. Send gifts in the mail to friends regularly.
8. Build a community and/or team of people who inspire you and are truly interested in one another’s growth. Do this and life will be so rich. 
9. Spark intimacy, don’t force it.
10. There are no rules with weddings, just stories we’ve been told about how they’re supposed to be. Write your own.
11. The first year of marriage will have a few gears that grind, even if you’ve loved each other for years. That’s okay. It’s still a new machine.
12. Life ebbs and flows and explodes and settles and collapses and rebuilds. Our job is to be with it all and join in when we can make things better.
13. There are two sides to each of your characteristics — golden and shadow. Understand both and you won’t just know yourself better, you’ll have more empathy for others. 
14. Exercising empathy may make people think you’re weak, but it is a rare superpower. Hone it and use it often. 
15. If you spot a characteristic you don’t like in someone, chances are it’s something you don’t like in yourself. 
16. A vice is only a vice if you do it with shame. Do it proudly or ask for help to do it less.
17. You probably don’t need more. You need less. Letting go is much harder than acquiring.
18. When someone dislikes you, be bemused by their actions. It deflates the energy. 
19. If you’re doing anything creative, expect haters. Every great and lasting thing has had diehard fans and those who wished it would go away. You’re likely onto something. 
20. You can change quicker than you think. It can happen today. Right now.
21. Sustaining change is much harder than making change. Set up every possible condition to help you continue. 
22. You can work yourself to the bone for a while. But be careful. Eventually all that’s left is bone.
23. If you’re leading through uncertainty, you’re probably thinking about too many things at once, which is a risk not an asset. Find a sounding board.
24. Leadership rarely needs big, flashy moves on the field. Most of the time, it’s just good, sound decision-making from the sidelines.
25. If you think you need heroics, your system is probably broken.
26. Before making a team decision, be sure to have all the information. Otherwise, you’ll just please the loudest person in the room.
27. A good culture is a nice thing to talk about, but building and maintaining it takes far more effort than you think.
28. If you’re trying to change a team culture, give yourself 12–18 months of focused effort. Probably more.
29. Hiring and firing are emotional processes pretending to be rational ones. Build systems. Share them. Trust them. And then do the best you can. 
30. Loneliness in leadership is common, but it should not become an identity. Ask for help sooner. Maybe even today.
31. Once you find good teammates, coach, don’t manage. Give them plenty of resources, a general direction, consistent feedback loops, and then let them run.
32. Great leaders are great coaches.
33. Beware of empire builders.
34. Wherever you aim to work, find people who can clearly state their values and tell stories of difficult decisions they’ve made based on those values.
35. Don’t do anything for the money alone. It’s a fickle and shallow purpose. Yes, it is a helpful tool that can give people a second chance, build lasting things, support meaningful causes, and help care for those you love. But it’s only one way to do those things. There are others. 
36. Do hard physical things. Along the way, your body will teach you things that your brain is still catching up to.
37. Travel somewhere you don’t know the language and land there without much of a plan. That version of yourself is special. 
38. Selling an idea within your company is almost always harder than selling something externally.
39. When selling anything, work to connect the head (logic and data), the heart (connection and inspiration), and the hands (support and action).
40. Watch your posture. It’s helpful for healthy living, yes. But more importantly, it is how you physically engage the world. Shoulders back, strong core, chin up.
41. Life is unbelievably hard sometimes. But so much of finding joy is simply paying attention and appreciating what is here, what you’re feeling, and what you will do next. You are the sum of what and how you think. 
     

If you made it this far, thanks for being in my life.
- Victor