"I think my journey has been driven by a mixture of three things: luck, curiosity, and enthusiasm."

By Sam Yang - Get similar updates here

There is something to be said for "out of the box" values. There are things we know are valuable: like school, working for the same company our whole lives, and working our way up. And some things are not so obvious: the ability to deal with failure, being a self-learner, an ability to make novel connections, pattern recognition, risk tolerance, and nonlinear problem solving.

There Is No Playbook Except the One You Write

School taught us that life has a playbook, follow it accordingly and you'll be comfortable. Now we're seeing people who seemingly did all the right things lose their jobs after decades of service. Or perhaps the company itself closed. Perennially safe spaces experienced massive layoffs. We define comfort as predictability, yet what is predictable in an unpredictable world?

The obvious path isn't any safer than the less visible, it's just more comfortable. But comfort also means more competition. Going the less comfortable route means closing some doors, but it also means opening less crowded ones. The analogy Dr. Spencer Johnson made in Who Moved My Cheese was: when the cheese moves, only the mice who follow the cheese survive. Change is uncomfortable, but change can also mean survival.

My Friend Peat

Financial instability has become too commonplace in hometowns. None of my friends growing up were academically inclined, so none of us were expecting much from one another. Just happy for each other if we were employed.

Last time I saw Peat, he was like the rest of us, an oddball. We played Dungeons & Dragons, watched anime, read comic books, and mostly avoided going to class. Peat came off to me as contemplative, curious, and full of energy. Peat always had an interest in new things, but not like the rest of us. We were only interested in what entertainment value they held. Peat was more interested in what they were capable of.

We weren't going to an academically competitive high school. Peat wasn't an exceptional student as far as I could tell. A few years after high school, I heard Peat was living in New Zealand. I figured he was stalling on "growing up" and trying to find himself. We connected for a bit while I was in college. Even back then I was blogging, though "blogging" had yet to become a term. Peat was doing some stuff with computers, I didn't really understand it, but he offered to host my website. (At the time I didn't even know what "hosting" meant.) I remember I declined and I didn't talk to him again until years later.

Don't Underestimate Startup Founders or Martial Artists

When we did reconnect, it actually came as a welcome surprise when I learned Peat was a startup founder, CTO, mentor, speaker, and professional photographer (among many other things). He was shy, he wasn't driven by fame, he wasn't connected—so in that linear framework of thinking, he was a complete dark horse. I probably should have known better from getting my butt kicked by mild-mannered martial art opponents my whole life, to never underestimate someone. There are many ways to be formidable.

We go to school and we expect some people to go off and do extraordinary things. We make educated guesses based on their people skills and/ or grades. We don't generally base it off of someone's level of curiosity, but maybe we should. Sometimes oddball kids find oddball paths.

I was curious how this awkward kid who I never thought would grow up, became this adult who mentors others. From where I last saw Peat to where he is now, it wasn't a direct straight-line transition. So I asked Peat about his life playbook:

Focus on the Right Qualities Rather Than the Right Goals