This summer, I connected with a mentor through a Sauder mentorship program. Something that I have the utmost respect, appreciation, and gratitude for was his approach to mentorship, which was not centered around interview prepping, technical knowledge practice or networking advice, but was instead directed to reflection on career and life.
He showed me that through reflection, our goals become clearer and our pursuit of a career, whatever that path may be, becomes more fulfilling.
My perspective was therefore changed. To get to my true path, I need to be true to myself.
What do I want to do with my life? Why do I want to do what I want to do? How am I going to get there?
These are broad but important question that I hope Fogless Mind will cover. My goal is to reflect on life, what I want to do in it.
By putting down my thoughts here, I hope to show everyone what my mentor showed me:
It is not enough to let the winds fill your sail with no rudder to direct your boat. Reflection is the rudder that will point my boat to where I want to be.
Another benefit of publicly sharing my reflections is that it my notes will not be in some obscure notebook. Instead, they hold importance here. I will be pressured to follow the principles I put down.
A mind that reflects is a fogless one.
Our Debt to Life
When we are born, our life is defined by shifting paths. The path that we must take, the path that gives us that good feeling inside, might be found in the next hour, tomorrow, in a few years, decades, or may even never be found. What sets us on the right path are our covenants to ourself. This is the rudder of our boat, that directs us in a sea of waves and its crashes.
Finding a good painting to symbolize this idea was not difficult at all. The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich captures what I am trying to say perfectly. Rising above the fog means finding clarity in your goals and defining our principles to ourselves.
As Shakespeare put it perfectly:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
- Macbeth, Act V Scene V
Although this paints a morbid picture, our life truly is short. How can we ensure that our time on this stage is defined by purpose and a sense of fulfillment? It is only by holding ourselves to covenants that we set for ourselves.
We owe it to ourselves, whether we are 18 years old or 80, that we lead our life with thought-out, internally set rules, to guarantee that every step of our life is made with intention.
I use the word “covenants” for my principles because I genuinely believe that following our principles is not a choice that we make, but an obligation.
Just as a lender needs to hold his borrower to covenants to ensure full security, life requires us to hold ourselves to our principles to ensure that our life is secure, filled with purpose, and set in the direction of fulfillment.
This article will be me defining these covenants to myself. I am not setting the goalposts for anyone else, only for myself.
I. You are You
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are” - Carl Jung
Carl Jung’s quote really struck me. Your most prized achievement is not getting some job, living some where, or being with that one person. It is being able to live your conscious, independent self. It is about recognizing who you are and living who you are every day of your life.
Something that I noticed during my years at university so far (something that I also fell into as well) is a student's tendency to follow the crowd. I see this clearly in business school, where it is so easy to follow the “shiny new object”. This could be an internship, a job, how we network, or even the way we conduct ourselves.
During my second year, I fell into that same trap. I saw around me a deluge of students heading towards the famous investment banking route, so I parroted the same. I got into the bad habit of comparing what my peers are doing with what I am doing. I thought that whatever I did was never enough. Comparison is truly the thief of joy.
However, I realized recently that determining my path in life is one that takes reflection. In life, we have a limited amount of time and attentional space. It would be a shame to spend all our efforts on a path that was not for us in the first place.
This is why firstly, your goal(s) in life should be outlined clearly. This is not something that comes with just a moment of mediation, nor is it static. Finding purpose is a lifelong quest.
Second, be yourself. Every single person in this world has their own experiences and valuable insights to offer. These shouldn’t be hidden.
Don’t do fake laughs. Don’t explain yourself (to reasonable limits of course). Don’t say you are someone that you’re not. Speaking your mind (again, to reasonable limits) is how you establish who you are and signal to others that you have a strong sense of authenticity. I can guarantee that although uncomfortable at the beginning, you feel as if some weight was lifted.
Third, networking is being human. Too many videos on Youtube try to tell you what questions to ask and how to speak with people in the industry. The moment I realized networking is being yourself and providing value by sharing your thoughts was the moment I felt more authentic with whoever I speak to out there.
I don’t think of networking as a drag. It is a chance to meet people. It is a chance to share ideas and hobbies. Most importantly, it is a chance to fill in these knowledge gaps that you have with more experienced and knowledgeable insights.
Good rule of thumb for networking with industry professionals: if the conversation steers to sharing your insights - better yet, if it steers to talking about your hobbies and interests - you are having a good conversation. Why? Because you are being yourself!
II. Strive for Constant Development
As I’ve mentioned before, we have a limited amount of time and attentional space during our lives. This means that every waking moment, whether conscious or not, we are making decisions on where our resources are being spent.
Shifting our mindset to thinking about time and attention in this way helps highlighting what is really worth our time.
I am a firm believer in learning and improving. In a constantly adapting world, it is detrimental to stay where you are at, even if it is already a good place to settle in.
As my dad would always say, “life is you climbing an escalator that is moving the opposite way. If you stop moving, you will go backwards”.
Fogless helps me sharpen my financial edge. So any of my time spent writing these articles is not time wasted, but time spent growing. Find that “thing” for you. What is it that you want to learn about? How does that match with your future? Why do you want to learn? Do you enjoy what you are doing? These are some questions that should be asked when beginning a learning journey.
The second layer to developing is thinking long-term.
Highlighting long-term smart goals and actually investing your resources into achieving these goals is important. If you really think about it, it is usually the long-term smart goals, not the short-term quick reward achievements, that have the highest return on invested capital.
The third layer is actually taking action.
Everything is fugaizi (shout out to Wolf of Wall Street), unless action is taken.
I know it is hard getting over the initial effort required to get something going. But once it starts, inertia will keep you going. I have found that even if I work towards a planned goal for one day, I feel immediately rewarded. Chase that feeling.
III. My Debt to Family
This is a long one so bear with me here.
In 2016, my mother and father turned to face a different direction, one that was better for their children’s future. Behind them, they left everything they knew to bring us to the calm and beautiful province of Prince Edward Island. At the time, I didn’t understand the magnitude of the sacrifice that they made. Now I do.
That is why I can confidently say that I owe a lot of who I am, and who I am going to be in the future to my mom and dad.
I am very fortunate to have a gentle, kind, and understanding mother. She is a strong woman of principle and understanding. I think my desire to learn and better myself partly comes from my mother, who never in her life gave up her dreams to be a photographer, no matter how much motherhood tried to hold her back. She even went through college again to get a certificate in photography and videography. She is always looking for the new “thing” to learn about.
She is a young soul at heart. I don’t think I am the sharing type. But whenever I needed to tell my mom something, I thought of her as a sister.
Her emotion, dedication, and love for her children is as strong as steel.
I believe that there are two types of mothers; mothers that take a large role in their children’s decisions, and mothers that let their children experience their own decisions, either to reap the benefits or to learn the lesson. My mother, unless it came to something that was genuinely harmful like getting concussed from playing Rugby (sorry mom) and the like, allowed my brothers and I to make our own decisions, and most importantly, learn and grow from them.
It is because of this I believe that my brothers and I have a strong sense of self.
In case you’re wondering: no, I don’t play Rugby now. Arab moms and contact sports with minimal gear don’t mix well, something I found out the hard way.
My mom, who has no background in finance whatsoever, is always the happiest whenever I post a new article. My mother’s support is worth more than anything.
My father is a large part of who I am today. He is the person that instilled the value of hard work and learning into everything that I do.
From early adulthood until today, my father was always dead set on the future. He went through hardship so that we can enjoy every day.
His dedication to family is incomprehensibly strong. I think it would take a lot for a normal person to have strong sense of selflessness, but my dad does it without even stopping to think. Every. Single. Day.
During my youth, I had the privilege of hearing dinner stories of how my father’s garage door business was going, from early days when he was making its logo to getting customers across the island. It is precisely these stories that led me to go into the business world.
A memory I will never forget: As I became more interested in the capital markets during middle school, I started learning how to read charts and using simple company ratios to make trades. Every time I looked at financial statements, I was baffled by complex line items and their relevance. So, I printed out TSLA’s Yahoo Finance statements and asked my dad to go through each line, one by one. Later, he gave me his compilation of markets resources that he used when he was younger to learn about the markets.
He always reminds me of the importance of learning and improving oneself. My father never held back from supporting my ambitions. I am thankful to have a father that supports what I do.
That man is a family man, an entrepreneur, and a believing man. He has a beautiful soul that will never rest.
My parents have instilled not only the value of family, but the beauty of it. Coming into a new country, our family was a team, an unmovable unit.
Family grounds you. Family supports you. Family lifts you.
With family, you will be a force to be reckoned with wherever you go. Family gives me the confidence and pride to walk through all the challenges that face me. I can easily do so because I know that I have my people to lean on.
Family doesn’t only mean your immediate family (mother, father, siblings). It also extends to your future family. In the natural flow of life, one moves from their immediate family towards the family they establish with their partner. The institution of family is nevertheless strong.
My mother and father turned to the bright future back in 2016. They drilled the values of learning, hard work, and family into my brothers and I. My parents opened doors for my brothers and I not expecting anything in return.
Family is where you see pure selflessness in action.
Everyone should reflect.
What values lead the decisions you make?
Finding the answer to that is finding yourself. This reflection exercises is simply us installing the rudder on our boats, and plotting our destination on the map.
What I realized after doing this is that this is not a one-and-done act. Reflection is an ongoing project that never ends.
I hope Fogless Mind serves as just that. My journal to an ongoing journey of reflection. My logbook to a long sea journey.
Take what I have said with a grain of salt. In fact, sit for a few minutes and think of what you just read. Does it apply to you? Is there another principle at play?
I’m serious. Take your time.
I hope that this brings instills the value of reflection in you just as it did for me.
Hope I cleared some fog for you today.
Very inspiring 👍