Three years ago I was in Cape Town, South Africa. One year ago I was just starting my degree and moving to Brisbane for college.

At the beginning of this year I found myself in Sydney with a weekend of accommodation, no plan for work or where I would stay, after choosing not to enrol in any second year courses.

Now I’m working as a Growth Associate at Startmate.

I thought I’d kick off my writing with something light-ish and share some learnings and thoughts that stood out to me over the last few months of stepping into tech and moving cities solo right after turning 19. Particularly things I don’t think are spoken about as commonly.

I’ve skewed this more towards the student audience since that’s where I’m best positioned.

Preserving optionality

I've seen that most ambitious students already have a vision of what their careers should look like.

The problem with this surety is that as a student you are operating out of a very limited understanding of available options. You are chosing to internalise a narrative that will impact your whole life based on the information you’ve gathered between the ages of 0 and 18-25.

An example of a narrative might be that corporate is bad, startups are good. Uni is bad, work is good. I’m non-technical. I’m technical. Etc. The alternative is to preserve a level of optionality where possible.

An analogy;

If you are going on a trip and have your whole schedule planned day by day, you're getting rid of all the other options that you might have come across with less rigidity. Some of these destinations you didn't even know existed could have been the best.

Rather, every decision should, in a perfect world, end in a net positive of new doors opened (more exposure, not less). At least while you are fairly young.

Be bold, don’t buy too deeply into many narratives, and be concious of not letting your environment determine your direction.

Obsession v Balance

I'm not sure I've reached a great understanding here yet. The question is; does greatness only come from extremes?

I.e. is it necessary to have a constant obsession for your work/career or should you always maintain balance with things like exercise, going out, etc. if you want to do something novel.

I’ve reached a point where I see this as less black and white.

If you genuinely feel like working on some sort of project and it’s a weekend, if that’s going to give you energy, do it. Don’t let the idea of it being a weekend take that away from you. You’ll probably end up feeling worse because you didn’t do it.

I think what adds difficulty to this topic is discipline. How do you know that if you don’t want to do something, it’s not just out of laziness? I reckon that is something you just have to figure out overtime by understanding yourself and building decent systems into your life.

Imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a fun one. I knew it would be there but I didn't quite understand its extent. My way of thinking about this is short but usually does the trick for me.

If imposter syndrome isn’t there, you’re probably not in the right environment to experience accelerated growth.

This doesn’t mean you need to always be in this position. I think people can be just as content with life without playing its games. But if you've commited to playing the ambition game, you probably want to always be feeling a level of imposter syndrome.

If you aren’t, it could be signal of stagnated growth.

It then becomes more a question of how you handle imposter syndrome. Do you let it discourage you, or do you frame it in a way that makes you feel you're in the right place.

Context

Understanding the history of a startup, the people who work there, the reason why certain things have been done, the strategy, the past strategies, the founders, failures, even the past employees and leadership, all matter.

Don’t just aim to understand your domain, but realise that all these pieces work together and will form your foundation to start building and adding what’s closest to 'new' value.

This takes a long time, but I’ve seen that it’s worth it if you want to do things well.

Who you come home to matters

This one is a little bit different but worth a mention. I’m fortunate to be staying with a great group of people. People who I can learn from but also enjoy being around.

This opportunity made itself available because I knew one of them through Twitter, and another through my Flaming Galahs project. First time I've really lived the 'surface area for luck to strike' idea in a big way.

I’ve become very grateful for this. Having these people I can come home to makes all the difference in my quality of life.

My original thinking was that I’d be fine jumping between hostels, but I’m glad I didn’t. My takeaway here is that it’s important to make connections even before you move. Don’t let yourself become isolated.

Depend more on your design

It’s easy to underestimate adaptation. If you told me three years ago I would be in Australia I’d think its too big of a shift. If you told me one year ago I’d be deferring and moving to Sydney alone I’d likely think the same.

Most people will go through these changes, or at least be presented with similar relative options. Depend more on your design when you are faced with this. Remember that within a fairly short period time after making the change, you’ll be completely used to it.

The time it takes to get used to these changes will be proportional to its difference from what you are currently used to, but it’s a reliable thinking and worth being more concious of.

Think critically

There are things in the startup/tech space you will hear lots of people talk about. It’s quite interesting.

Game theory, mimesis, contrarianism, AI, whatever. Try not to be so plugged into this that you can’t think for yourself. Think about what’s happening, why people are talking about things, and what these things really mean.

Try preserve and develop your own unique thoughts where possible.

I hope you were able to take something out of this!