Things I Learnt Raising A Wildly Successful Teenager

OK. First things first. Wildly is a hyperbole. I am fortunate to have a fairly accomplished & relatively successful 17 yo tech entrepreneur for a daughter. Let’s not waste time talking about the impressive stuff she accomplished, of which there are many, but how?

Here is a compilation of things I learnt & ideas that continue to influence her journey. I strongly believe that these apply to any kid willing to go the extra mile & replicate, nay, surpass her success!

Let’s dive in!

Things You Don’t Have To Do/Be

• You don’t have to spend tons of money or need a private school education. Lots of resources are free.
• You don’t have to be super smart or gifted.
• You don’t have to spend astronomical amounts on expensive extracurricular programs. Be very picky about them. Assess their true value. Focus on quality than quantity.
• Never do anything just to impress University admissions folks or anyone else for that matter. Unshackle yourself from that mindset.

Things You Do Have to Be

• Be good to people. Be kind. Be understanding. Be generous.
• Be adaptable. Especially in these extremely fluid times. Nature has emphatically shown us that it is not the strongest that survive but the most adaptable.
• Be creative. It doesn’t matter if it is just Tiktok videos or memes.
• Be the best at whatever you do.
• Be tenacious. Grit is super important.
• Be resilient.
• Be ethical. Be empathetic. Be authentic. Be principled. Especially in trying times.
• Be yourself. You do you.
• Be open to criticism. Seek & embrace criticism.

Learn & Practice

• Learning is the inevitable byproduct of doing.
• If you want to be good at something, be prepared to be bad at it for a while.
• Question everything. Try to learn how things work & wonder how they can be made better.
• Public speaking is essential. Attend competitions. They start at the elementary level.
• Speaking, public or not, is relatively easy. Listening is harder. Practice more.
• Focus on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math).
• Learn to code. Lots of free resources. Build websites.
• Attend science fairs & as many hackathons as you can. Lots out there. Attend hackathons for university kids even if you are in mid/high school. Always aim to punch way above your bracket.
• Learn how compounding works. It applies to everything. Your network, knowledge, relationships, finances…
• Learn at least two languages. Preferably three or more. Start preferably when you are 1 to 7 yo. Your brain is optimized for languages!
• Learn to be very thoughtful about what you say. Have a nuanced view of things. Avoid unnecessary generalizations.
• Learn to employ the full power of the word “yet”. Ex: “I don’t understand it, yet.” “I don’t know how to do it, yet.” “I haven’t succeeded, yet.”
• Learn how to get people to open up. Watch how the best interviewers in the world do it. It is a very subtle art. Pay close attention.
• Learn about a wide variety of cutting edge technologies. No field/tech is out of bounds. Start in middle school. Do free courses online.
• Pick a focus area/technology & go deeper. Try to learn everything you can about that subject. Become an expert. Then pick an unrelated focus area. Repeat.
• Learn & practice Storytelling.
• Learn how to negotiate effectively.
• Learn how to prioritize. Learn how to effectively use Time. See what approach works for you.
• Learn & practice the art of prediction.
• Learn philosophy & psychology.
• Learn Persuasion.
• Learn conflict resolution.
• Learn the concept of “Scalability” in middle school.
• Learn to manage stress. You can’t eliminate it.
• Learn & practice Improv Comedy.
• Learn behavioral economics.
• Learn to debate. Learn to think from other’s perspectives.
• Learn to see yourself objectively from the outside.
• Teach others what you learnt. Write articles about topics you learnt. Create videos. Publish on Medium/LinkedIn or other sites. Try explaining complex topics to complete newbies. If you can’t, you didn’t understand it well enough.
• Read voraciously. Start in Elem/middle school with reading stuff that makes you feel good. Not just stuff that teaches you.
• Twitter gives unprecedented access to the best minds out there. It democratizes access to top people. Learn from them. Challenge them when needed. Share your opinions/views.
• Learn Arts.
• Learn about the culture/traditions you inherited and study other cultures/traditions while you are at it. Carry forward what’s best.
• You will learn more from people who disagree with you a lot than from people who agree with everything you say.
• Learn to ask more open-ended questions. Unless necessary, avoid questions that can be answered with a curt yes/no/good/ok.

Mentorship

• Learn how to be a great mentee. Then, seek and reach out to mentors in whatever field you are interested in. Send cold emails. You will be surprised by how many people are willing to help you!
• Always follow up. Surprisingly, very few people do!
• Value people’s time. Don’t ask something you can easily find online.
• You are the CEO of your life. Assemble your Board of Directors. Convince mentors with different expertise addressing different facets of your life, to join your Board. Make their time worthwhile.
• Explore ways you can help and add value to your mentors. Keep it a two-way street. Maybe you can look at the problems they are tackling with fresh eyes! You could help them gain insight into how your generation views certain things…
• Mentor others. Pay it forward!

Network

• Network is your Net Worth. Build it as early as possible. Get on LinkedIn even if you are in middle school. Reach out. Expand.
• Use Twitter/LinkedIn and other social media to build your network.
• Build & nurture relationships with people you meet. Not just “connect” on LinkedIn
• Many interesting things happen because of chance meetings. Play in traffic. Push yourself out there. Interact with many. Participate and get involved.
• Attend as many conferences as you can. Especially ones for adults. Some are free. If they are not, ask them if they can make an exception. Use sites like Eventbrite to search for events around you. Sneak into conferences if need be. Talk to attendees/speakers. Get them to open up by putting your interviewing skills to good use! Think of what value you can provide to those you connect with at the conference. Maybe you could send them a compilation of your key takeaways from all sessions?

Brand You

• Build your brand.
• Be differentiated. Be dependable. Be principled.
• Be Trustworthy. Build Trust. Remember, Trust comes in walking. Goes out in a Ferrari.
• Build your portfolio starting in middle school.

Entrepreneurship

• Be an entrepreneur. Sell something. Anything. Starting preferably in elementary school. Create a Shopify store. Lots of programs to help entrepreneurs. JA is one such.
• Have a goal to build at least three startups with at least 1000 paying customers by the time you finish high school. Join an Incubator. They will assist you with your entrepreneurial journey.
• If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product/service, you released it too late.
• Iterate, iterate, iterate.
• While pursuing your own startup, intern at other bigger startups & well-established companies. Observe and learn. See what you could emulate in your own company.
• Attend adult pitch competitions. Participate in adult pitch competitions.
• Think big. Start small & scale-up.
• Ideas are dime a dozen. Execution is what matters.
• Learn about Venture Capital and how to raise funding in High School. Follow & learn from VCs on twitter even if you are not interested in VC. They dole out great advice!
• Focus on interesting problems.
• Focus on finding product market fit, distribution and sales.
• Understand the difference between technology and product.
• Whatever your ask is, money, help…, be very specific. Have a clear idea of: Why you need it? What are you going to do with it? Why that specific amount? What will happen if you don’t get it? What’s in it for them?
• Learn to pitch. Learn to sell.
• Be adaptable. Learn when to pivot and when to stay the course.
• Learn to create pitch decks, presentations & one-pagers. Preferably in elementary school.
• To find areas where the potential is: Stay close to the money. Find where the capital is flowing & stay close to it. Practice this in high school.
• Subscribe & listen to podcasts of successful/failed entrepreneurs & other experts. Watch TED talks.
• Learn how to recognize & recruit the best talent. Learn how to convince people to join your mission/team. Learn how to retain talent. Practice with school project teams. Preferably seek someone who complements you.
• Learn how to price products, thinking about COGS, margins & profitability.
• Learn how to lead & manage a team of people smarter & older than you.
• Build diverse teams. Learn to work with diverse teams.
• Being a Leader of a team doesn’t bestow any special status. You are just another team member with some additional responsibilities.
• Always praise in public. Admonish in private.
• You will see fewer highs & more lows. Lean on your support system. Seek help. If you are facing a challenge, talk to people who faced similar challenges. There will be many. Learn how they dealt with them.
• Even if you don’t end up starting a company of your own and want to pursue a career, the skills you gain from pursuing entrepreneurship will be viewed as a great asset by many companies!

Career Advice

• Think way ahead. Most of the jobs you see now may not exist or in the current form. What worked for your parents may not work for you. Be prepared for disruption. Or better yet, disrupt things.
• You will, more likely than not, be working in different disciplines/fields/areas over your lifetime. Focus on portable skills/traits that transfer easily across domains. Be a generalist. Be prepared to specialize on demand though.
• Seek out internships as early as middle school. Nothing beats work experience. When interning, surpassing job requirements is just table stakes. There is so much more to learn. In particular, pay close attention to what’s working in that company & what’s not. More importantly, why? Things to observe: Culture, Environment, Management Styles, Processes... Ponder, if you were running the department/company, what would you do differently & why? What would you choose to emulate in your own company in the future?
• You can gain almost everything that an Ivy League University can offer (Network, Contacts, Credentials, Access to Funding…) by the time you finish high school. If you put in the work.
• To find areas where job opportunities are: Stay close to the money. Find where the capital is flowing & stay close to it.

General Tips for ”Success”

• The key to everything is to start as early as possible & painstakingly building your foundation brick by brick.
• Start with building your support system. Preferably, for each facet of your life. You will most certainly need it. A lot. Remember, you are not alone in your journey. Don’t be embarrassed to seek help. Be part of someone else’s support system.
• Have a strong answer to Why you are doing what you are doing? Don’t settle for superficial answers. The How? will easily follow.
• Start early. Fail early. Experiment. Age is no barrier.
• Make “looking stupid” your superpower.
• Optimize for learning.
• Try anything twice.
• If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
• Reduce the friction between knowing and doing.
• Think big. Always. Try to tackle the biggest problems.
• Strive to make a positive impact on the world. Use every resource you possess.
• Success is not linear.
• Don’t let others define what success is, for you.
• There is no future state where you will be guaranteed happiness or if some conditions are met. Be happy. Live in the moment.
• Realize that early failure could lead to later success and early success could lead to later failure. Lookout.
• Show up! 80% of success you gain is just by showing up! Get in the game.
• Luck & serendipity play a significant role in success. You can’t create it. But you can create the right environment, to entice it to drop by.
• Stay close to where the action is in whatever field you are interested in. Nothing beats sheer proximity to the smartest people building new & bigger things. Luck is known to frequent these places.
• Hustle & create your opportunities. Hustle some more.
• Spend more time on stuff outside your comfort zone. Make discomfort your comfort zone.
• Get comfortable with getting rejected tons of times.
• Don’t follow the herd.
• Unconventional path will lead you to Unconventional Success.
• Don’t settle for superficial answers from people, including yourself. Dig deeper.
• Spend more time and work with people smarter than you.
• Seek ways to make boring stuff interesting.
• Always find time to spend with toddlers & old people. You will learn a lot!
• Hone your decision-making skills. Practice making decisions with scant, unattainable info. Analyze the results of such decisions & learn. Refine. Repeat.
• Don’t be a Yes person.
• Fear is natural & just a sign telling you to address something. Tackle it head-on.
• Don’t stay in your own self-imposed bubble. Interact with & listen to people unrelated to your field of interest, those with diametrically opposite views, people you think you hate...Expand your horizons.
• Understand when “good enough” is good enough.
• Give & receive. In that order. Explore ways you can help others or add value. You can always find a way to add value.
• Very few are interested in how you will benefit if they do you a favor. More are interested in how it will benefit them. Focus on that part.
• Share draft versions of you, your product, your writings… with the world. Don’t wait for it to be perfect! Feedback is the breakfast of champions!
• Shortcuts often end up taking longer.
• Don’t look for excuses to give up. Find excuses to take up a challenge.
• One of your biggest assets is your beginner’s mind. It will allow you to see what others can’t or may not consider.
• Praise is easy to come by when you are young. Don’t let it intoxicate you. Ponder if the same people will praise you for doing the same thing if you were, let’s say, 40.
• Don’t seek praise. Seek & earn respect by delivering high-quality output exceeding that of adults.
• Forego youth-focused competitions and go tete-a-tete with adults any chance you get. You may fail abysmally. But you will learn.
• Don’t come to conclusions about anything until you understand the associated context.
• Always continue to thank people who helped you get where you are. Inquire how they are doing periodically. Make time for them.
• Maintain notes about people you meet. Where you met them last, their preferences, their likes & dislikes, what excites them… At a minimum, memorize their names.
• Observe & study what’s going on around you. Don’t bury your head into your phone at all times.
• If you start feeling you are indispensable to a team or company, dip your fist in a bucket of water, take it out & let me know how much of a hole you made.
• Your successes are never exclusively yours. Your failures are.
• Always watch out & be conscious of any biases influencing your decisions. They tend to sneak in unnoticed.
• Build assets that will generate wealth even while you sleep. Pair pursuit of wealth with a sense of a larger purpose.
• Focus on your health.
• Offering constructive criticism takes more time & effort. Value people who offer that more than people who merely applaud you.
• Celebrate your successes, reflect on your failures. Get your ass back to work the next morning.
• When you encounter a seemingly intractable problem, just sleep on it.
• CHIPS on your shoulder => CHIPS in your pocket.
• Enable others to succeed. Promote other ambitious kids. Introduce them to your network. Be the connector. Help them move up. Even if it means surpassing you. Remember, the pie is huge!
• Allocate some time every week to just sit back and reflect on your journey so far.
• Make appointments with yourself.
• Blow off some steam occasionally.
• Periodically, turn down all noise and enjoy complete silence. Let your mind wander.

If a lot of traits I mentioned seem difficult to master (Persuasion, Creativity, Curiosity, Risk-Taking, Experimentation, Learning, Inquisitiveness, Not afraid to fail…), Always remember! You excelled at these in Pre-Kindergarten!

Have Fun!

What are your Reflections? What advice would you give to kids? Love to hear! Please Comment👇

I have one ask before you leave! Please share this article with as many kids and parents as possible! Hope some will benefit! Thanks!

Please Note:

• Most of these ideas are not my own. I stole liberally from some great minds over my lifetime.
• You may notice that I suggest learning a lot of things but I don’t expound on the Why? & How they will actually benefit you. I expect you to question everything I suggested. Do your research. There are tons of articles written about them. Read them. Ponder. Come to your own conclusions.
• Though I highly recommend implementing the above stuff as early as you can, you can still make use of these ideas/tips, regardless of what age you are!
• Most of the stuff will take more than a lifetime to master. Some less, some more. The intention is not to be perfect but to enjoy the pursuit!