It takes a village:

It takes a village.

Anyone who’s ever achieved success should reflect on how important other people are in their path to where they’ve gotten to.

I would say they’re the most important.

Yes, your genes matter. Who your parents are matters. Who your siblings are matters. The environment you’re born into matters.

But the people you meet along the way shape your life into what it is.

I got lucky to be born into the situation I’m in. Educated immigrant parents who valued hard work and education above everything else. I grew up in a country where I was able to get a great public education and have great healthcare. My parents loved to travel and showed me the world as a child. Visiting 50+ countries before the age of 21 is not normal.

Yet I didn’t control any of that. My parents did. My dad’s love of travel and his job allowed us to stay in the nicest hotels around the world using points. We got to see the world on other people’s dime.

Yes there were sacrifices growing up, like not seeing your dad during the week because he was always traveling. But there were major perks like trips around the world multiple times a year.

I didn’t control any of that. That happened to me.

Then I went to a Montessori school where a teacher changed my life. Shoutout to Shushi who saw something in me that no one else did. She knew I could pick up concepts much faster than the rest of the kids so she was tutoring me outside of regular class. I was only 4 at the time and she was making me learn math that was reserved for kids who were 8/9. I memorized the multiplication and division tables up to 12 by the time I was 5.

I didn’t do that on my own. If no one saw that in me and didn’t teach me outside of class, I never would have skipped a grade.

Then growing up, my mom drilled in us the power of discipline. Every time we came home, the first thing we did before anything else was homework. Didn’t matter what else you wanted to do, your homework always had to get done. This subconsciously pushed me to finish everything as quickly as possible.

Because I was always in this rush against everyone, I used to finish math homework in the middle of class. If we had 10 minutes left of class, while everyone else was talking, I was finishing my homework. I didn’t want to bring textbooks home and do more homework than I needed to. I wanted to watch cartoons and play Pokemon.

Because I had this discipline built into me as a kid, I kept that up throughout elementary and high school.

Then grade 10 came and everything changed again. Only this time it was a personal decision. I was burning out. This drive to do all the homework assigned caught up to me as I was doing 4-5 hours of homework a night as a 13 year old. Because of my own internal desire to be the best in class, I laboured over work that most other kids would just half-ass. I knew I needed a change, which is when I dropped out of IB.

Then I met a kid who told me about the St. Andrews Edinburgh medical school program. We both wanted to study medicine in the UK and he told me about this program that just started. You get to study at these 2 great institutions, while also doing clinical electives in Canada and preparing you for board exams. So instead of staying in Canada to do the 4 year undergrad and 4 year med degree, you could do everything in 6 and get back faster.

Again, I was only able to go because I was born into a family that could afford to send me. I didn’t earn that. I had no control over how much my parents earned. Yet because of luck, I took the opportunity to move around the world at 17.

Traveling from when we were kids showed me the world is not a scary place. The unknown is really exciting. Most people don’t travel too far from their houses because the media makes the world out to be a scary and dangerous place. It’s not.

But if I grew up in an environment where everyone around me was telling me it was, you can guarantee I would believe the same thing. It’s not until you let go of the opinions of those around you do you realize how trapped you really are in your beliefs about the world.

Then when I got to Scotland, I tried talking to upper years at parties to understand how they succeeded in class. 2 guys, Ala and Sof, changed that part of my life forever. They told me that a lot of questions on exams are recycled from years past, and they had resources of past question banks I could use. When I was studying for exams, I always studied the questions they gave me as well as the content. Turns out they were right as every exam I wrote had at least 40% of the exam being questions I had already seen.

They were the ones who got me a first class degree.

Fast forward a few years and as I was finishing up medical school, my dad introduced me to some people in his industry outside of medicine. Because he worked in the business side of healthcare, he introduced me to doctors and business guys who told me a bit more of what goes on outside of medicine. My dad then told me about venture capital, which is how I ended up getting a VC job in Amsterdam.

Again, that’s not all me. I didn’t deserve all of that. I was born into that privilege. Did I try and use it for everything I could? Absolutely. When life presents you with resources and privileges that others don’t have, use it. So many people out there wish they could be in the same situation you’re in and you’re wasting it if you don’t use it.

Now 3 years on from first getting into venture capital, others have opened doors for me that I did not expect. Tim Ferris taught me the value of writing and investing in yourself. Naval taught me life and how to differentiate yourself in this world today. Joe Rogan taught me to be myself. Sam Harris taught me to mediate. Warren Buffet taught me the principles of investing. 

Then I did what I have done my whole life and jumped into the unknown.

Now I got to the point where I may have predicted a market crash that will go down in history.

All this to say, I didn’t get here alone.

It took a village.