10 Biggest Lessons I Learned This Year

Originally published October 7, 2019

My life in the last 18 months has been ‘unique’. In that time, I’ve graduated from medical school, left clinical medicine, moved from Scotland to Amsterdam to start a career in venture capital, lived in the Netherlands for 7 months, and then moved to Montreal having only been to the city once before. It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind ride but throughout that time, I’ve learned a lot about myself and this abstract concept we call life.

One of my biggest goals in the last 12 months was that I wanted to read 50 non-fiction books, whilst simultaneously taking notes. Thankfully, after many hours of learning and writing, I accomplished that goal and read 52 books in 52 weeks (how I did it is a topic for another day). I learned many lessons along the way, but I wanted to whittle them down to the ten I thought were most impactful:

1.     Shift your mindset

I fundamentally think that this is the most important lesson I learned this past year. What you tell yourself in your mind every day and every second affects your life in more ways than you think. A few books I read this year have touched on this concept, but it took me a while to truly understand what they were talking about. In ‘Mindset’ by Carol Dweck, she touches on the difference between a fixed and growth mindset. Fundamentally, a growth mindset is one in which you push yourself to always be curious and look at failure actually as success. This goes against cultural norms but she makes a great argument to prove that the most successful people in the world are only there because they’ve failed over and over again. The difference is that they constantly self-reflected and learned how to improve on their mistakes.

You also have to change your self-talk to make it more appropriate for where you want to go in life. In ‘Think and Grow Rich’, Napolean Hill talks about how some of the most successful entrepreneurs in human history like John D. Rockerfeller and Andrew Carnegie never had more than a high school education, but ended up becoming the wealthiest people in the world because they never stopped believing in themselves. The key is that not only does your message to yourself have to be consistent, but also that you have to say it to yourself over and over again, every single day, so that your subconscious mind believes it as much as your conscious mind does. There will be many people who will not believe in your message but that’s irrelevant because the only person that has to truly believe it is you. Which takes me to my next point…

2.     Dream big

You hear about this concept a lot when you watch interviews with elite athletes or listen to billionaires talk about what sets them apart, but this year was the first time I started to understand why they kept mentioning it. Essentially, the world is only going to be changed by the dreamers; the ones who refuse to accept their current circumstances. When we’re kids, everyone is always asked ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ and somewhere along the way, whether it be school or parents or friends or drugs or relationships or whatever, we stop thinking about those dreams. But, there’s a small group of people who never stop imagining, and those are the ones that change the world.  In the ‘Magic of Thinking Big’, David Schwartz touches on the fundamental concept that you only win success by believing you can succeed (there’s many more tidbits he writes about that is hard to summarize, so would recommend checking out my notes page). He lays out a groundwork for how to change your belief system into thinking that you can accomplish anything, and he’s right.

So my advice to you is dare to dream. Whatever it may be, no matter how silly or stupid, or no matter how old or young you are, you can accomplish anything. Yes, we’re all not going to be able to be Lebron James or Lionel Messi, but we can all choose to believe in something that’s impossible and then go out and do it.

3.     Happiness should be a daily goal

Now this may be a bit controversial, especially coming from a physician, but I do believe that happiness is partly a choice. Yes, depression and anxiety have biochemical components to them that medication can sometimes help with, but that doesn’t solve the issue. It only treats the symptoms. The key here is the environment, circumstances and mindset that person is stuck in. Change that.

Stop talking to yourself negatively. Believe in yourself. Go out for a walk. Stop eating food that makes you feel like crap. Stop drinking and doing drugs to numb your pain. Face your fears and insecurities. Ask yourself why you feel that way. Really talk to someone else.

Breathe. And I mean really breathe. Take in a breath so big your lungs are practically bursting out of your chest. Remember, your a human being with access to the Internet, (something 3 quarters of the world can’t use) and likely with food and shelter over your head. You likely have some family and friends around you that cares for who you are. Remember that.

You can’t control what happens in your life around you, but you can control how you react to it.

4.     Ask for feedback

This is one that I was surprised to read about that a lot of people I don’t think do regularly.

When we were kids, remember when you used to be scared to ask the teacher for help? Because you thought your friends were going to think you were stupid or that you didn’t want to raise your hand in class because other kids were going to laugh at you? Well guess what, how were you ever suppose to learn?

A big shift for me happened this year when I started to realize that they only way to get better personally and professionally is to ask the people around you for honest feedback. And I don’t mean the ‘you’re doing a great job, keep up the good work’ type of feedback, but the ‘seriously, how can I improve on what I’m doing’ type of advice. I think most of us are scared to ask our superiors or colleagues for honest advice on how to improve because it makes us feel lesser than or that we couldn’t figure it out on our own. However, every single one of us has so many blind spots we don’t even know exist and without asking other people for their opinion, how are you going to be a better?

5. Stay curious

There’s something I read this year that talked about four categories of thought all of us possess: your known knowns, your known unknowns, your unknown knowns and your unknown unknowns. Most of us know what we know and know what we think we don’t know but there’s so much more out there that we have no idea even existed. And to me, that’s fascinating.

‘You can’t control what happens in your life, but you can control how you react to it.’

The pursuit of knowledge, in any topic, is so interesting because it makes you a much more well-rounded person. To be able to have a conversation with anyone you meet and relate to them on their level is something that goes a long way. It makes you stand-out and more likeable if you can talk to someone about what they enjoy rather than just talk about yourself, because let’s be honest, everyone loves talking about themselves.

6. Intelligence is overrated

This is one thing that blew me away this year. In Daniel Coleman’s ‘Emotional Intelligence’, he discusses how through science and data, people who have high IQs aren’t necessarily the most successful people. IQ does not equal success. However, he makes a case the most successful people in every industry are the ones who are much more emotionally intelligent. The amazing thing about this was that this is something that everyone can pick up and learn. (Highly recommend checking this book out and if you want a taste of what it discuss, click here)

You remember in school when the smart kid in you class always got his test back and complained about getting 90%? Well guess what, once you enter the real world, that doesn’t mean anything. Anyone’s ability to be successful depends entirely on their work ethic, ability to pick up new concepts and emotional intelligence. So who cares if you didn’t do well in school, go learn something new.

7. Stay in the moment

This is one I spent a lot of time on this year. When I started this goal a year ago, it was right around the time I started meditating as well. Oprah, Ray Dalio, Tim Ferris, Sam Harris, Tony Robbins, etc. all are big proponents of this practice and no wonder. The ability to stay in the moment and really focus your attention on specific senses is something that is getting lost.

I’ve noticed this a lot over the last year and particularly when I look back at my university experience. Whenever there is a lull in conversation between a group of people, and I think especially for the younger generation, they always have a tendency to go directly to their phones to avoid awkwardness.

Even then, everything nowadays is geared entirely for social media. People are more concerned with the opinion of if jimbobsmith on Instagram sees or comments on their photo rather than enjoying the experience with the people directly around them. And I’m just as guilty of this as well.

This year I’ve consciously tried to listen to make myself more present by removing distractions. One of the best things I did this year thanks to some awesome advice from a former classmate of mine was to remove social media notifications of my phone. I didn’t realize the true power of this until a few months after I’d done it but it completely changes the way you interact with your phone.

I found out for the first time this year that Apple, Google, Facebook and Instagram all hire people from the gambling and slot machine industry to help them when they design apps so they know how addictive these things can be. By taking notifications off your phone, you remove the apps hold on your attention and you’re way less easier to be distracted. Trust me, the world won’t end if you’re on Instagram once or twice a day instead of 20-30 times.

8. Fear is our biggest insecurity

Fear. What an interesting word. It guides the direction of so many because they’re so afraid of it. Whether it be fear of failure or fear of disappointment or fear of spiders, people are too comfortable because of this word. And for what, to live a life you don’t fully enjoy?

Over the last few years, going through this whole pivot away from medicine and into the business world, I definitely had a lot of fear. Fear of disappointment from my family and friends, fear of not succeeding and fear of the unknown were some of the many things that constantly ran through my mind.

However, I can honestly say that you will live such a more interesting life by going against the grain and not succumbing to fear. By pushing yourself to do things you think are unachievable, you’ll realize you can do anything. Will Smith said it best ‘life happens on the other side of fear’ and I couldn’t agree more.

9. Automate your savings

This is more for people who are earning but I think this is such a basic thing that everyone can do right now. Go to your checking account or whichever one you get paid into and set up an automatic payment to a separate savings account (TFSA or Roth IRA or whatever it is where you live) on the day you get paid. Take at least 10% of your paycheque, if not more, and send it to that account. Trust me, you’ll never even realize that it’s gone and yet you’ll be accumulating money that you can spend on whatever you want.

The other concept I think a lot of people know about but don’t utilize enough is the power of compound interest. By investing your money into an ETF or a robo advisor like Wealthsimple, the earlier you start the more you’ll make. And you don’t have to do anything! Financial literacy is a concept that most people don’t know nearly enough about, and if you want more info check out my notes from ‘Tony Robbins Money Master the Game’ or  ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ or go to Youtube and spent half an hour watching stuff. It won’t change your life today but 5 or 10 or 20 years from now, you’ll thank me.

10. Make time to be bored

Boredom is where your best ideas come from. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the thoughts you have while in the shower are some of the greatest ideas you’ve ever come up with. This goes back to my earlier point as well with us being distracted by our phones all the time but we’re not allowed to think for ourselves anymore. There are so many stories of great scientists, philosophers, poets and leaders whose best ideas came to them in the most unexpected way. Just sitting undistracted and reflecting on what you’ve done and where you want to go will make a world of difference.

If you’ve made it this far, I really do appreciate you reading this and hope you took away something useful. The biggest thing for me this year by accomplishing this goal was you can really achieve anything you want to. By writing down your goals and changing your lifestyle to consistently tackle it everyday, you’ll eventually get there. It will take time, just like everything else, but you can do it. Time to run a marathon (no seriously)!

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*If you want to check out some of the references I mentioned or have an interest in a specific book, check out my library page as I took notes on almost all of the books I read this year. I know most people aren’t reading books because they don’t have time (even though we spend 3-4 hours a day on our phones tsk tsk…), but if you’ve heard about a book and want to check out what it’s about, take a look.

If there’s anything you want more information on or want to reach out to ask me about the books, feel free to do it through my website or reach out to me directly.

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