My name is KJ, and if you've been following my channel, you know that I graduated from MIT,
have held prominent roles at multiple startups,
and am currently on a leave of absence from my graduate studies at Stanford University.
From the outside looking in, it may seem like I've just always had my life
put together, and have always just succeeded in life. But internally,
I know the countless I have put in to better myself, and I know the
intentional ways that I have positioned myself to achieve even my loftier goals.
If you're watching this video, I know that you're already on the right track
to achieving your goals, and I'm going to use this video to share some of the ways
I have positioned myself for success. Hopefully some of my advice sticks,
and you're able to achieve everything you've set out to.
Make sure to stick around until the end of the video because I think all ten tips
work better when you enact them together. Subscribe and give this
video a like to help spread this positivity to more people. Huge
shoutout to Skillshare for sponsoring this video, and let's get right into it.
- **Believe in Yourself** -
The whole reason I began making content like this is that I want my viewers to begin to believe in
themselves. I get it. If you would've asked me 6 or 7 years ago, I would not have predicted
that I'd get to where I am today — I wouldn't have even imagined anything close. Beginning
to believe in yourself is a process, and is not something that can happen overnight. You have to
build the self confidence over time, and start to have conviction in yourself and the goals you set
out to achieve. Having a strong conviction in yourself will go a long way, and will determine
the paths that you ultimately pursue. Two people could have the same background, same environment,
and same level of intelligence — but if one of those people has more belief in themselves,
that is the person that I would bet on to achieve more. So first and foremost,
simply strive to believe in yourself. And this doesn't mean to believe in this idealistic
version of yourself that you hope to potentially be one day. Believe in the person you are today,
and then continually work to better yourself and improve your self confidence. Complete new
projects, look back at past accomplishments, and or just tell yourself that you can do anything
you set your mind to. Remember that you are enough. And if you genuinely believe this,
your whole outlook on life will change. - **Know Your Worth** and don’t settle
- This next tip is also a non-trivial one. I still struggle from time to time truly understanding my
worth and the value that I bring to any given team. Knowing your worth involves not settling
at any given point. A task may have bene worth your time in the past, but isn't any longer.
Know that your worth is something that continues to grow with time — as you continue to gain more
valuable experience and understandings. I would recommend to position yourself to get jobs that
are worth your time and expertise at that point in time. If this isn't possible given certain
circumstances, learn to advocate for yourself and ask the appropriate people when newer
opportunities will present themselves. - **Be Ready to Adapt** to knew
and exciting opportunities - The next tip is to be ready
to adapt to knew and exciting opportunities. You never know when you may get offered a promotion or
when a recruiter may reach out to you, but you can prepare yourself by simply being open and
ready to adapt. A mindset that I live by is to say yes before doubting myself. This means that if I'm
offered some sort of promotion or am given new responsibilities, I understand that the person
wouldn't have asked me this if they didn't truly believe in me and my skillset. In situations like
this, I would say yes before I even get the chance to doubt myself. I've learned to not even doubt
myself for things as big as becoming a startup founder. Once you realize how relatively normal
the backgrounds of a lot of young and successful entrepreneurs are, you'll realize that conviction
in yourself and just taking that leap of faith could get you pretty far in life. Things are much
scarier on the outside looking in. In general, it's okay to feel uncomfortable with change,
but the more that you do become comfortable with change, the higher your ceiling will be in the
opportunities that you pursue. There will always be opportunities, but you have to go out and find
them, or start the path towards them. - **Embrace Challenges** and set
goals that are seemingly beyond reach - Embrace challenges and set goals that are
seemingly beyond reach. This all goes hand in hand with your level of self confidence. But having a
mindset where you consistently set goals that are a bit further out of reach than you're used to,
you will almost surely continue to move in a positive direction. For example,
if you want to be a CEO of your own startup, but in the meantime you become a product lead, you're
still moving in the right direction towards your aspirations. Each challenge that you overcome,
the better you'll feel about yourself. this ultimately creates a positive feedback loop that
has you wanting to pursue even more challenges. - **Always be Learning**
- My next tip is to always be learning. There will always be new skills and new ways of thinking that
can better yourself as a person. While you should be confident in everything you do, you should also
understand that you do not know it all. There will always be someone with more experience or
knowledge in a given field, and that's okay. When you share the same environment as those people,
soak up as much as you can. Analyze what makes successful people successful, and see what habits
they have that can transfer into your lives. Be a sponge, and just never be satisfied with your
knowledge. Read books, listen to podcasts, and watch interesting YouTube videos where you can
learn from experts in their fields. The more you learn, the more well-rounded of an individual you
will become, and the more opportunities you will be qualified to partake in.
Another great place to learn or cultivate new skills, is a proud channel sponsor of mine:
Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for
creatives, on topics ranging from design and web development, to entrepreneurship and finance. With
Skillshare, you can explore new skills, deepen existing passions, and get lost in creativity.
I recommend productivity classes in order to help you stay focus, and also any class that gets you
acclimated with the nuances of investing. I personally am really interested in the class:
"Demystifying Cryptocurrency: Understanding Bitcoin and Beyond" by Meltem Demirors,
the Chief Strategy Officer at CoinShare. Everything is tailored for efficient learning,
so there's no ads, and new premium classes are launching all the time. This makes it really
easy to stay focused and actually work on new skills. The first 1000 of my subscribers to
click the link in the description will get a limited time 1 month free trial of Skillshare
so you can explore your creativity today! - **Reevaluate Your Relationship with Risk**
- My next tip is one of the most important ones that I will discuss today, and that is to
reevaluate your relationship with risk. I've seen even loved ones put arbitrary boundaries around
their given situations. They are afraid to look beyond the comfortable confines that they have put
themselves in. I believe that a situation is as risky as you make it. We're in a new day and age
where employers understand that if they don't make their employees happy or compensate them fairly,
they will lose them. We're seeing this in sports with athletes requesting trades or transfers and
we're seeing this in industry where people aren't sticking around their jobs as long
as they had been before. I would go a step further and say that you should continually
be aware of other opportunities outside of your current one. This doesn't mean that you
all should quit right now if you're unhappy, but knowing what's out there will help you better
analyze the situation you're currently in. If you don't have any tangible comparison points, there's
no way you'll be able to correctly evaluate your current situation. Risk isn't binary. There isn't
just either "very risky" or "not risky at all". There are in betweens. For example,
you can explore new jobs, and even apply to them and talk to recruiters. The situation doesn't even
have to become risky if you don't quit your job until you have a firm offer on the table.
- **Pursue Your Passions** Continue to pursue your passions,
or continue the pursuit to find your passions - Continue to pursue your passions, or continue
the pursuit to find your passions. If you are working on something that you're passionate about,
it will take the work out of working. For me, I get to help solve world-changing challenges on
a daily basis, so it doesn't feel like work. It feels like I'm just making a difference,
so everyday, I get a little extra push to continue to work hard and think deeply about
what I'm doing. If you don't have a trues passion yet, you need to put yourself in
the position to find one. Don't be afraid to pursue a new career path or change companies,
if you see greater upside somewhere else. Don't get caught doing something you're not passionate
about just because it was the comfortable thing to do. If you have those inklings of doubt,
or if what I'm saying is hitting too close to home, you already know that you're not in your
ideal situation. And maybe putting yourself out there is the best choice right now as you
have those doubts. The arbitrary boundaries people place on themselves could last your
entire working career, and honestly I just don't want any of you to have to live with the regret
of not pursuing what you love, or not pursuing a situation where you're appreciated and can show
your best self. - **Look in the
Mirror** Objectively assess yourself - In order to take those steps forward,
you'll need to look in the mirror and objectively assess yourself. Acknowledge your strengths and
short comings, and either pursue things that highlight your strengths or put in the work
to help your short comings. Either way, you'll be moving in a positive direction, and you'll be more
likely to put yourself in the positions that you hope to be in. The better you understand yourself,
the better you can pitch yourself to future employers or start up partners. This all goes
back to being confident, but also humble in the fact that you don't know everything. And
once you do look in the mirror, take action. Not tomorrow or next year,
today. You can start with one Skillshare class or with simply planning a path forward. But don't be
complacent, and always continue to look forward. - **Surround Yourself with Positive Energy**
- My next tip is something that I say all the time, but is so important. If it weren't for the
people that I have surrounded myself with, I would not have had the confidence or the knowledge of my
worth that I have today. My family never fails to remind me that I am an extraordinary individual,
and that I literally can achieve anything that I put my mind to. My friends, humble me when they
need to, but are also always there to lift me up when I do well in life. And Michelle gives me a
life to look forward to beyond the hard work of today. It is important to be intrinsically
motivated, but it's also important to have people around you that can help lift you up
in times of need. Others who will be there for you unconditionally, so you never have to worry about
whether they'll be there for you or not. In your down days, they will remind you of your worth and
your accomplishments when you forget. And in your positive days, they will lift you up even higher,
which will help push you to strive for even more. - **Take Care of Your Health**
both physically and mentally - Everything that I've mentioned
so far won't mean anything if you don't take care of your health, both physically and mentally. You
can't achieve anything if you aren't well enough to actually achieve those things.
Your health is what allows you to keep trucking along. Being physically healthy gives you the
energy to keep pushing towards your goals. So this means sleep well, eat well, and find time
to exercise as well. Staying well mentally, allows you to push through the down days,
and gives you the confidence and energy to continue to pursue your goals. For myself,
even if some random diseases continue to take away my physical health for the better part of a year,
all of the other tips I gave in this video helped me keep my head high through it all.
Even if you're perfectly fine health-wise, don't overload yourself in the pursuit of
everything. Burnout can cause you to take even more than two steps back when you thought you
took a step forward with productivity doing parallel tasks. Find things outside of your
work and your studies to help you destress, and it will definitely pay off in the long run.
That's all I had to talk about today. I hope these tips helped
all of you out. Make sure to follow me on instagram and twitter to see what I'm
up to. Subscribe for lots of new and exciting videos coming up as I do get better health-wise.
As always, thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.