consolidated life and career lessons from the past 3 years
Gen Mafia updates…
Amazing updates regarding Gen Mafia in August.
We have two new members:
João - former Associate Intern at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), user acquisition at Wildlife, and currently Associate Intern at pyne in Berlin.
Felipe - Founder at Portalform (YC 23), former Software Engineering Intern at Meta, Fellow at Fundação Estudar, and undergrad of Economics and C.S. at Yale.
Very happy to have such smart and obsessed people in our group.
We published the 2nd episode of our podcast with Rafa Bulka. It was amazing to hear his story and learn from him about recognizing patterns, confidence, and the importance of mentors. Thanks a lot, Rafa!!
We'll be bringing more people in the upcoming weeks so if you want to apply, just click here.
Consolidated life and career lessons
It's been three years since I left my hometown to live in São Paulo. In the meantime, I did a lot of different things, met a lot of smart people, and went through challenging times.
If I could pick the most valuable learning from all these years it's to be obsessively and irrationally genuine. Life is uncertain. People leave, we leave people, we miss forecasts, we surpass forecasts, we change our mental models, we change our jobs, etc.
But those who don't conform regardless of the uncertainty and stick genuinely to people, to their unique curiosities & convictions, and do it in an obsessive way always stand out.
There are many more I decided to put together a list. Here it is:
We underrate our adaptability.
Act like a duck. Calm above the surface but swimming obsessively under the surface. No one needs to know the amount of work you put in. Make it look effortlessly.
Your parents will always be your biggest supporters. Be grateful for it.
No one cares if you are frustrated, sad, or fearful. Everyone has to put their own shit together. It shouldn't be sad, it should encourage you.
Days are long, but decades are short. We underestimate how things worth living take time.
Nothing is as glamorous as you think.
People help you as long as you help yourself. No one helps the person with a broken car that is not trying to push it.
It's not hard, you just didn't practice it enough.
Finding the game you're the most suitable to win and irrationally sticking to it is the most actionable attitude for a better life.
Be comfortable with chaos. If necessary create some of it in capped downside scenarios just for practice. The worst scenario for one's life is to freeze when chaos kicks in (and it will).
Be comfortable with tough conversations. If necessary create some of it in capped downside scenarios just for practice. The worst scenario for one's life is to freeze when a tough conversation comes up (and it will).
The silence and loneliness of Saturday nights will teach more about yourself than hundreds of psychology sessions. Embrace it.
Respect and admiration are gained. When you start something new or get into a new environment people tolerate you. It's your job to gain respect and admiration. Great people will admire you if you can pull it off elegantly.
Trust your gut feeling when analyzing people. People who we share time with are one of the most critical factors when building our mental models. If you feel a red flag don't ignore it.
When deciding whether to work with someone, ask yourself: “If everything goes wrong would I still want to have a beer with this person?”
You don't need to have all the next steps figured out, just the next one. Focus on executing obsessively well the next step. It's enough for now.
One of the best questions to always ask yourself is “What is the thing I believe I'm right while everyone else is wrong?” The greatest outcomes for life are on the edge of common sense.
Nobody cares about attempts. People care about making it.
You'll be surprised by how fast you'll change. At some point in time, you will not even recognize yourself. It's part of the game.
Your most valuable asset is your reputation. How you'd like people to describe you is different from how people actually describe you. Narrow that gap.
Root and help people like it was your own journey. Making people feel special is an underrated superpower. Make an unsolicited intro, write about something you learned with that person, send an article that reminds you of him/her. They'll always remember.
Show up consistently. Make luck follow you. Speak up, meet people, get out of your home, put your thoughts out.
Don't throw commitments around like nobody was listening. “I want to start going to the gym.” “I want to start writing my own substack”. If you are not serious about it, don't say it. Great people are great observers, they'll remember if you say and don't do it.
“More often than not, the person is the problem, not the incentive system. No incentive system turns mediocre into extraordinary.” Farnam Street.
Invest a decent amount of time looking for or creating “collective hallucination” environments of extraordinary people.
Every day I wake up I think about the quote: it's more about accumulating tiny daily gains than a one-shot gain.
Disclaimer: This is a personal perspective and this is how I've been approaching life and career.
Last but not least… Time to learn or time to earn?
A friend of mine just posted his first newsletter. Hugo is a unique guy with unique building skills.
It's an amazing read and I encourage reading it. His first essay brings up a question I have never thought of: Is it the time to learn or the time to learn?
Congrats,