Working hard is my biggest mistake
by the show of hands
who would agree that a tremendous amount
of work was put
into building the burj khalifa
what about ronaldo becoming one of the
most notable soccer players
in the world or malala
breaking the record for being the
youngest noble peace prize
laureate we all accept the norm that
working hard
leads to greatness but what if i told
you
that my biggest mistake is working too
hard
and before i modify all the parents and
teachers
let me explain in school
i had perfect grades participated in
many extracurriculars
and tried to do it all
and it wasn’t because i was some sort of
genius
or had some amazing talent i
just worked hard i had all the energy
and couldn’t
fathom what it would look like if i
burned out
i literally lived up that saying you’ll
catch up on sleep
when you’re dead we all have
aspirations and dreams that drive us
each and every single day
and with that come sacrifice love
and dedication towards the end result
my dream is to improve the way students
learn
and combat the issues with the education
system
there were many moments during school
where my siblings and i desperately
needed tutoring
but my family could not afford it and it
hurt
because we saw other students overcome
the same challenges much
faster because their family could
and just like accessing tutors was a
difficult situation for us
student debt was also a major concern
but the thing is we were not alone
millions of students like us share these
problems and while i
was fortunate enough to have overcome
the challenges
i know many students have it worse
and so after i graduated from high
school
i became very invested in tackling these
issues
and immediately started a company with
this purpose
as i transitioned into the university of
washington the work for my company
started ramping up
i worked on it alongside school
internships and volunteering
i was trying to build a company from
nothing a process that is a full-time
venture
on its own while managing the stressful
life
of being a student
there were many days where i had to
manage company deadlines
exams and internship interviews
and i wouldn’t know where to start
sometimes
i would break down and lose hope
so to accommodate i worked as much as
possible and never wasted a second
i disregarded my emotional well-being
isolated myself for long periods of
times to accomplish goals
and was on this bulldozer mentality
where i wasn’t going to let
anything prevent my company from being
the number one platform
in the world pausing and taking a break
seemed absurd i don’t have time
to waste and so here i was bolting
through everything and was able to
graduate two years early from the
university
keep in mind i was doing a lot of
execution
but little reflection and with this
momentum my company was selected to be a
part of the university startup
competition
with the chance to win the first place
award
however to me this competition was more
than just getting
an award it was going to determine
if my company was going to succeed so it
was
crucial we win
fast forward to the award ceremony my
team and i were anxiously waiting
to hear our names the companies moving
on to their next round
were being announced in alphabetical
order
and finally we got to the letter right
before
hours okay then
the next name we heard was nano dropper
my heart sank
they didn’t call her name and i felt
like everything i had done
up to this point was in vain i felt that
my company wasn’t good enough
and just like that at the snap of a
finger
all the blood sweat and tears
that i had put into launching my company
were disregarded
as if i hadn’t done anything no one
believed in me
and it was all over
in may of 2019
after years and years of adrenaline and
pushing through
i finally burnt out
i had no motivation and did nothing for
the next few days
and that was weird but whether i liked
it or not
life forced me to slow down and think
about the situation
i try to identify why we lost the
competition
but never got an answer and this
frustrated me
so i reached out to my close circle for
advice which was unusual of me
in our conversations my brother
introduced me to the creativity walk
a walk where you reflect on the things
going on in your life and evaluate both
past
and future decisions i immediately
laughed and called it a waste of time so
you’re telling me that a walk will
magically vanish all my problems
he kept insisting and saying that it
helps him a lot
so i took that as a challenge to prove
him wrong after all
if it doesn’t magically fix all my
problems
i still got some exercise
and so the next morning i put on my
headphones and jogged the park across
the street
i was going to walk a mile or two and
think about the competition
and well i finished the two miles
and just like i thought i wasted
my time so i called my brother
and as i was about to say i told you so
he told me to try it again and you can
call me crazy
but i listened and did it again
and again and again
until eventually i gave up
at this point it’s been two to three
weeks
since i tried and while i was still in
distraught
from the competition i was doing a
little thing
here and there but to make the situation
worse
but our company faced its first server
shutdown
which affected all of our students at
2am
i was the only one awake and it was up
to me to find a resolution
and i was panicking at the same time
i was not in the right mental state to
handle it but unintentionally i got up
and i started pacing around the house i
went back
and forth it kept going
until eventually i started to feel my
stress level drop
and i was slowly able to identify the
problem
within a couple hours of sitting back
down i fixed it
and so that’s when it clicked what my
brother had been saying about the
creativity walk
wasn’t nonsense while pacing back and
forth
i felt like i was taking a break from
the crazy motions of life
to ask myself what’s going on
i was able to phase out the chaos and
approach the situation
with a clear mind and so
this made me confused why did nothing
happen the past two
to three weeks well it was because i was
constraining my thoughts
i forced myself to think about the
competition which is
actually ineffective it turns out
that the whole purpose of a creativity
walk is to let your mind wander free
and so for the first time i felt like i
was having a conversation myself
the creativity walk allowed me to
visualize my thoughts and rediscover
myself it gave me an unbiased
perspective
allowing me to form new connections
i realized that the bulldozer mentality
i had was restricting my ability to grow
trapping me in an everlasting cycle of
work i was often consumed by the events
in my life
which were clouding my judgment and
making me oblivious to the obvious
you can think of your everyday life as
the execution period
and the time spent reflecting as the
research period
and so just like it is necessary to
research a project before executing
it is imperative you do the same with
yourselves
our life journey is our biggest project
and reflection is essential to making
sure we’re growing and discovering
what truly matters to us not
only did the creativity walk become one
of my most important habits
it extended to other aspects of my life
i started taking the stairs instead of
the elevator to stimulate my mind
i would regularly take breaks in between
tight deadlines
and i forced myself to take a day off
every week
and do something fun because a break is
actually productive and while adjusting
my lifestyle was hard at first
after i got comfortable i quickly
noticed my ability
to recover from stress and reboot
studies from harvard indicate that
people who reflect and exercise
have a greater volume in the parts of
the brain that stimulate thinking
and memory the continuous work
i had been doing without breaks had
hindered my ability to
think clearly which was a huge reason we
lost the competition
i missed numerous factors during the
preparation that were critical for our
success
and so this creativity walk helped me
overcome burnout
and organize a plan to recover from this
daunting failure
to start my team and i reached out to
the judges to give feedback
we analyzed all our weaknesses and
decided it wasn’t time
for us to give up we completely revamped
our app
changed our strategies and truly made a
huge leap forward in terms of traction
a few months later we were invited to a
program that provides mentorship
and the chance to receive funding in our
final presentation
we addressed the issues from the
previous competition and
absolutely nailed it
while losing the competition seemed like
the worst day of my life
it taught me a lesson i will never
forget reflecting
is not an optional part of the journey
it’s a necessity
it will help you grow from mistakes
provide added perspective
and is crucial for your emotional
well-being
the truth is many of us are busy with
our lives and forget to take a moment to
slow down
we need to recognize the importance of
reflection in the
impact it has on our lives
we all have different reasons to reflect
whether it be to identify change
uncover breakthroughs or solidify new
ideas
there is no one-size-fits-all method
for some it may be biking for others
it may be gardening and while the
creativity walk
may be special to my brother and i the
concept
is universal at the end of the day it’s
simply time
allocated to free up your mind and with
that being said
i urge everyone here to discover your
version
of their creativity walk and take some
time
out of your day to reflect reboot
and rediscover yourself thank you san
diego