12 Lessons I Wish I Knew When I Graduated College

read on: themovementmemo.com

read time: 6 minutes 

Welcome to The Movement Memo, a bi-weekly newsletter where I share actionable tips to help you live your best day ever, every day.

Today's Programming 

• Movement: Weekend Chipper

• Quote: Jobs on connecting the dots

• Lesson: 12 lessons I wish I knew when I graduated college

• Optimization: My ultimate sleep hack

Today's Movement 

Complete For time:

• 50 dumbbell thrusters
• 50 box step-ups
• 50 dumbbell front squats
• 50 T2B (toes-to-bar)
• 50 sl arm snatch 

♀ 35-lb dumbbells, 20-inch box

♂ 50-lb dumbbells, 24-inch box

Today's Quote

Hindsight is 20/20. When we look backward all the pieces make sense.

But in real time we often struggle to feel the strides that we are making to achieve our goals.

The key is being able to trick your mind to allow you to keep showing up, and to keep working.

All our progress is made during plateaus.

Today's Lesson Learned

In May 2002, I walked across the stage at Geneseo. 

I remember waking up the next morning and not feeling my best. I remember feeling lost. I remember questioning what I was going to do with my life.

I was young, naive, ambitious, and I thought I was ready to make my mark on the world.

I thought my education was complete. In hindsight, my education was just getting started. I don’t regret the decisions I made in my 20s because they led me to where I am today. I optimized to live my life fast. 

But, the single most impactful piece of advice I would give to a young, ambitious recent college grad is:

Get out and experience the world because this is where learning happens.

You gain specific knowledge from:

1. Experience

2. Reflection upon that experience

But as graduation season rolls around every year, I start thinking about what I wish I knew when I graduated. Here are 12 lessons I would give myself if I could go back to the day I walked across that stage: 

1. You get compensated based on the amount of value you provide.
   
   If you don’t know the answer to how your work contributes to the bottom line of your employer, ask. If they can’t answer this question move on to a new job.
   
   Your goal should be to tie your compensation to this KPI and optimize for learning as fast as possible.
   
   

2. No one has it all figured out (no matter what you think).

   
   The problems you face today will feel so small in one month. You won’t remember them in one year. And you will laugh at them in five.
   
   As you age, you grow and become more adept at handling stress. Therefore you can take on more challenging tasks.
   
   But as time passes the same problems will mask themselves as different themes if you don’t solve the root issue.
   
   In my early 20s, I masked problems and it wasn’t until I found Ironman that I was able to start to become the man that I knew I could be.
   
   

3. Prioritize time around real people.
   
   

   Get around people who are further ahead of you. They still won’t have it all figured out, but they have walked in your shoes before and can help you expedite your rate of learning
   
   Work to pay down your ignorance tax as fast as possible.
   
   And in our increasingly digital world, where remote work and work from home are becoming increasingly popular, get in-person early in your career. 
   
   Time spent IRL has the highest return.
   
   

4. Find opportunities with long-term asymmetric upside.

   
   Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. Your actions in your 20s will compound exponentially over the rest of your life.
   
   Everything in life is a game and be conscious of the games you choose to play.
   
         a) Understand the game you’re playing.
         b) Study the rules better than anyone else.
         c) Chase games with exponential, long tail returns.
   
   The decisions you make today will impact how you feel and act tomorrow, which will shape who you become in a year and the person you grow into in ten. 
   
   
   

5. If you feel like you don’t know, know you are not alone.

   
   It’s normal to feel that you don’t have answers.
   
   No one really does. We are all just making it up and figuring it out as we go along.
   
   Social paints an incomplete picture; no one shows their true struggles.
   
   If you want to stand out, (and grow) it’s the authenticity and the problems that people will resonate with.
   
   

6. Read More

   
   Books give you direct access to the smartest minds that came before you. Most people don’t read and if they do, not nearly enough.
   
   Pick one topic. Find the modern creators. Study their craft. Once you consume all of their content, move on to the “godfathers” of the industry.
   
   Rick Rubin says to “steal like an artist”. But do you know how an artist steals? They find inspiration in the modern world. Then they go find their inspirations inspiration.
   
   In time this will provide you with a unique outlook and perspective.
   
   And your biggest goal in your 20s should be to become unique. 

   Your story and insights make you one of one. Lean into it.
   
   Being “one of one” is how you create long-term leverage.
   
   

7. Create a personal brand
   
   

   This didn’t exist when I was in my 20s.
   
   Focus on building the foundational skill sets of the best in the world. (And document your journey/ lessons).
   
   When you frame content around the idea of helping the younger, less educated, less skilled, version of you, everything changes.

   
   I think the world becomes a better place when we share our learnings and insights with the world. 

   
   And selfishly you can go back and see the progress you’ve made that is impossible to feel in real time.
   
   

8. Ask yourself what can you be the best in the world at
   
   In Grit, Angela Duckworth describes how people find their passion.
   
   Passion comes from persistence in a single path for a sustained period, until you become a little better at something. As humans, we tend to like what we are good at. And then once we are a little better than average, all of a sudden we’ve found our passion.

   
   When we get started we will not be good.
   
   Most people get this wrong because they don’t remember a time when they were a true beginner. 

   
   But one of the benefits that comes with age is that we don’t have to start over from 0. This is the power of compounding and foundational skills. When we find a new passion or transfer industries, we get to carry all of our learnings into our new field.
   
   The key is finding a game we can play for the long term, a minimum of ten years, and working to become world-class. 
   
   

9. Get out and travel

   
   The world is a massive place with so much inspiration and so many ideas and experiences to offer.

   
   Most people go straight into playing the next game “because this is what you’re supposed to do after college”. Then all of a sudden you pick your head up 2, 4, or 10 years down the road and realize that you spent all this time climbing the wrong mountain.

   
   This was my biggest fear and something that I thought about constantly.
   
   What is the mountain that I am climbing? Is it worth it? Is it going to take me where I want to go?
   
   The honest answer was I didn’t know.
   
   But to get to where I am today, I had to try as many things as possible. This is how I learned the activities and work I enjoy (and many things I don’t).
   
   If you’re early in your career travel, meet new people, and collect new experiences.
   
   Someday, maybe you will have an answer. If not, at least you will have the experiences you can look back on and cherish. 
   
   

10. Age is just a number.

    
    

    At the end of the day, age really doesn’t matter.
    
    We all have our own stories and experiences. Early in your career, you have insights to offer that none of your managers can because you grew up in a different world. Lean into that, it's how you can provide the most value.
    
    And people and companies get compensated based on the value they create.
    
    This is becoming increasingly true in our new world with AI. If you’re mediocre, you’re not going to last. 

    
    AI will be able to do your job faster, cheaper, and more consistently.
    
    In the future, people will get rewarded based on their ability to think. 
    
    

11. No one will teach you about money.

    
    When I graduated, I was extremely insecure about money. I had no idea what I should have been doing with it; how much I should have been spending, how much to save, and what to invest in.
    
    I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do. Eventually, I realized most people live paycheck to paycheck. And that was not what I wanted.
    
    So, I started learning how to create financial freedom and security for myself. Which builds tremendous confidence.
    
    A Harsh Truth: The financial habits you create in your 20s become the foundations for the rest of your life.
    
    If you want to be wealthy when you’re 80, you have to start today. And you likely need to work on your relationship with money.
    
    (I certainly did).
    
    

12.  Most people are horrible communicators.

    
    The digital age has severely hindered our ability to communicate.
    
    Most people today don’t know how to communicate. Most people don’t know how to articulate. Most people don’t know how to enroll others in their ideas.
    
    Communication is 7% diction, 38% tone of voice, and 55% body language. Once you understand this, and build the muscle of being able to communicate you will stand out.
    
    An Actionable Tip: Handwritten thank-you notes are incredibly powerful because they don’t scale and they stand out in our increasingly digital world. 

It’s hard to believe that I am 22 years out of college this month.

Today's Optimization

Sleep is the single most important protocol in my recovery and I have used Beam every night for years. I control everything about my pre-bed routine, from when I stop looking at screens to what time I take Beam. The importance of the routine is almost as important as the product; the action of making and drinking beam signals to my body that it is time to get ready for bed.  

Since taking Beam my sleep schedule has become way more consistent, from what time I am able to fall asleep, to consistently waking up at 6:30 am every day. I sleep through the night, every night, and wake up feeling energized, ready to train. Today Beam is offering Movement Memo subscribers a deal: 35% off your first order when you subscribe and then 20% off all following orders! Plus, when you subscribe, you will receive a FREE frother with your first order! Use code “EHINMAN” at checkout.

Know friends, training partners, or co-workers who would take value from weekly tips on a healthier lifestyle, enhanced accountability, and improved routines? Thanks for sharing!

WAS THIS FORWARDED TO YOU? Sign up here!

QUESTIONS OR THOUGHTS? Reply to this email!

Publisher: Eric Hinman

Editor-in-chief: Bobby Ryan