| Letter to My Three Nephews |
Dear Aden, Adrian, and Ethan,
As your uncle, I feel responsible for sharing the most useful lessons that I learned in my early thirties – lessons I wish I knew as a teenager.
I also want to provide my candid advice on how you should mentally, psychologically, and physically prepare for the life ahead of you in this perpetually competitive and changing world.
I would be happy to communicate this to you in person, but I fear that you may forget easily, so I decided to put this into a letter online so that you can always come back to it as you grow up.
If you trust me and want to build a better future for yourself, keep reading.
School is a Great Place to Be
Studies have shown that learning can boost our well-being and increase optimism and belief in our own abilities, and our brains learn best when we are young. Later in life, you will come to appreciate your schooling years as the best times of your lives.
School provides a suitable environment to build your primary foundational knowledge, namely in English, Chinese and mathematics. They are the rudimentary skills that you must have a solid grasp on, as they are widely applicable throughout your life.
Read, read and read.
You get to be a full-time learner and focus just on acquiring knowledge without worrying about making a living, because your parents have it covered. As you become a grown-up, you will be increasingly busy with many other things, so treasure this luxury time period to learn.
School is also a wonderful place to build lifelong friendships. I met your Uncle Alan in primary one and we have been buddies ever since. You don’t need many; a few close friends are all you need and they will make your life a little more fulfilled. Try to stick with friends who are genuine and who help you stay optimistic and vibrant.
The Truth about Grades and Exam Scores
To the people who don’t know you, you are a blank sheet of paper. Our society needs some form of metric to measure your performance as a student in order to evaluate and determine what you will be doing next: i.e. which class you will be assigned to or qualified to attend, which high school and university you will be admitted to, and even which company you will start your career with.
It is why subject grades and test scores exist.
Many would agree that such measurement scheme is imperfect because both grades and test scores can never reflect your true intelligence and capability in their entirety and instead incentivizes students to battle for high marks rather than focusing on learning quality.
Nevertheless, dealing with grades is inevitable in our school system. You need to prove yourself sooner or later through your achievements at school and outside of school.
As such, try your best to study well at school, but do not be drugged by the pursuit of the highest scores. Work on getting “good enough” grades to get yourself into a top university, which can provide a high quality education with the opportunity to meet high caliber friends. Both of which will bring you a nice start to your post-school career.
This is not to say that getting subpar grades and graduating from a low-tier college will never lead you to a good and happy life, but it will limit the scope of opportunities and options that you may desire as you join the workforce.
The clear conclusion is that doing well in school gives you significant upside in the medium and long-term, with virtually no drawback.
A key criterion for academic success is hard work. If you have put in serious effort at school, even you are unable to achieve high test scores at the end, the practice of learning and working diligently will bring you a long way and bear fruit eventually.
The Critically Important Truths that Schools and Exams Don’t Teach You
There is a reason I recommend getting “good enough” grades and not being overly obsessed by competing for the top spot in your class.
The truth that no schoolteacher would tell you is that mindlessly adhering to the school system will certainly help you make a living and “survive” in this society, but not necessarily help you thrive in life.
I discussed and shared this viewpoint on another article titled The “Differential” Equation: The Formula to Get Your Own Competitive Advantages Right, and I suggest you read it when you become a college student.
Hong Kong, where you all reside now, has been one of the most prosperous and resourceful cities in the world, with a tasty mix of Eastern and Western cultures and talents that no other city can rival. Yet I have long been disheartened by its education system, which has been consumed by the notorious ideas of “spoon feeding” and “cram schools”. Grades stand above learning, while memorization represents academic victory.
Disappointment with the education system was the reason I decided to head to the US at the age of fifteen for further education, only when I realized that Uncle Sam’s education system, especially before college, was flawed too, as were many other traditional education systems around the world.
The core issue, in my opinion, is that none of these systems is designed with the moral purpose to prepare our kids to really flourish in the real world after graduation.
If striving for the zenith in the world of academia will make you part of the most successful community later on, then shouldn’t all the powerful political leaders, prominent entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 CEOs, the Nobel Prize winners and many other influential figures be the valedictorians and salutatorians from their alma mater with perfect GPAs and SAT scores or equivalent?
Try to name a few of those world leaders at top of your mind and I guarantee they were not the students with the highest academic honors. They have likely graduated or studied from a reputable university, however.
This is because the world after college is substantially more diverse and complex. There is no official grading system, no structured programs for you to complete like the ones you are familiar with at school, and there are a million ways for you to succeed (or fail), as opposed to being confined by one letter or score.
Students today need to be aware of this very important fact, that topping traditional classes alone is not sufficient to help you excel in life upon graduation.
Instead of dedicating every ounce of your time pursuing that valedictorian status or that perfect A Level, IB, SAT or HKDSE score, work hard enough to get into a top university while diverting some of your time to understand the following 7 “neo-school” lessons:
The Ultimate 7 “Neo-School” Lessons For You to be Peacefully Brilliant
1) The Career Lesson
Spend some quality time to think, research and plan for your post-graduation career, including what you aspire to do for a living and how you can get there.
Career is a much longer and more important journey than the one you are having at school. When I was your age, I used to think that twenty-five years of age is considered very old. As I look back now, I realize that my life had practically just started then.
We generally spend about eighteen to twenty years in school, but we have the rest of our lives to spend on our career. If you join the workforce at the age of twenty-two, you have the next thirty to forty years to deal with your career, to say the least.
Know the big picture of your career options. Regardless of which industry you want to enter, it is crucial to understand the differences among gig workers, corporate employees, business owners and entrepreneurs. I have shared further thoughts in my other article titled “We Are Our Own Operations Managers”, specifically under the section “Attaining Your Personal Operational Greatness”.
2) The Creator Lesson
One of the problems with our traditional school system is that it forces students to be passive learners. You read the textbook and do the problem sets given to you. You sit in class and listen to the professor teach. You memorize what you learn and take the paper exams created by the school. Students are, in effect, knowledge “consumers”.
But what students like you need more, as you become teenagers, is active learning that grooms you to be knowledge “producers”.
Opportunities that allow you to express your thoughts, create your own content, construct your own architectural models, compose your own music, write your own movie script, conduct your own scientific experiments, and program your own computer games.
The reality is that society rewards those who manufacture, create, or innovate value-adding products and services the most.
Be an active producer in your own right. Don’t just be a consumer.
3) The Persuasion Lesson
Persuasion is another topic that I would make a compulsory course if I were a school principal. It is too critical to be left out of the school syllabus. You may also refer to it as marketing, communication, debating or presentation skills, as they are all somewhat related.
When you graduate from college, you will need to persuade prospective employers on why they should hire you.
Once you have a job and as you become more experienced in the company, you will want to have the persuasive skills to negotiate for a higher salary or a promotion.
When you want to buy a house, you may need the skills to persuade the landlord to sell the unit at a more reasonable price.
When you meet the love of your life, you will need to find sensational ways to convince her that you are the one to whom she can entrust.
When you become an entrepreneur, you will need all your power to convince investors that you are a credible founder, your start-up idea is highly viable and that they can generate a hefty return by investing in you and your company. You will need all your power to persuade potential customers to use your products and services.
Take the time to develop your persuasion skill.
4) The Investing Lesson
It is strange how our traditional high school curriculum does not include the topic of finances, when we know that every human being on this planet needs to deal with this indispensable category throughout our lives, whether we like it or not.
As an example, how is learning personal finance, a specific branch within the finance universe, not more important than learning certain subtle branches of mathematics such as Trigonometry in high school? I would respectfully argue that having my nephews understand the significance of saving money outweighs that of memorizing the laws of sines, cosines and tangents.
(Well, you can learn both subjects actually, kids like you these days are smart.)
In a country as developed and as indebted as the US, where monthly personal saving rate shockingly averaged at 8.6% over the last decade (April 2011-March 2021), only 21 states require some form of personal finance classes in high school, according to the Council for Economic Education.
If the educators are really thinking for the better of your life and the lives of the next generation, we should extend proper financial education to more teenagers.
Money, or capital, is a form of resource that you can leverage to exchange for products, services, or more importantly, more money.
Just like fire and depending on how well you manage it, money is something that can either improve your life or ruin it.
The idea of investing is essentially putting your capital into use to generate more money. Trust me, this simple notion is life changing. If you apply it early and wisely, you will no longer have the money problem in the long-term.
Go learn the basics of finance, including the concept of time value of money, interest compounding, asset allocation and risk management.
As a start, let me share with you two pieces of advice:
The first is citing renowned billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s classic investing advice: “Rule #1: Never lose money. Rule #2: Never forget Rule #1”.
My second advice: start investing your capital EARLY and regularly.
5) The Horizon Lesson
Start small, think big.
Everyone needs to start their education and career somewhere. Living in a convenient, culturally rich place like Hong Kong may reduce your desire to get out of your comfort zone. But the world is a gigantic place. Go around and enrich yourself through learning about how foreign communities operate.
Technology and globalization have made international accessibility and exploration easy for you.
In case you forgot, in 2019-20, I made a “career detour” and worked in Mexico for six months. It was one of my most adventurous and fulfilled career endeavors and it profoundly expanded my horizon.
Whether you would like to reside in Hong Kong in the long-term or move to a different location at some point, always know that there is a whole world of knowledge and experience you can obtain out there.
Your physical body may be constrained by geography, but your mind and your knowledge base should not.
Look beyond borders and expand your horizon when the right opportunity arrives.
That’s how your mind develops, your wisdom grows, and your creativity gets nurtured.
Start small, think big.
6) The Destination Lesson
Imagine a spaceship or submarine. No matter how superior the machine is or how talented the crew members are, without a target destination or goal, that piece of advanced equipment along with the crew will achieve nothing.
The same rationale applies to all of us. Without our own goals, we will be directionless, leading no progress. On the other hand, when wired with specific goals, we will have the direction to make headway and accomplish.
Hence, setting your personal goals is necessary, both at school and outside of school.
By now you should have an idea of how well you want to do academically. If it is too far to think about goals beyond school, please keep that mind as you enter college.
Goals can span across multiple categories: from health to wealth, from career to relationships, from hobbies to skill sets, from professional certificates to higher academic degrees, from language to athleticism.
While adults like myself and your parents can guide you, you are the one who is ultimately responsible for setting and achieving these goals for yourself.
As you set your goals and make steps towards achieving those, don’t be distracted too much by your peers. Peer comparison does not necessarily breed healthy competition. Peer influence is good only if your peers motivate you to work harder for your goals.
The only person you should really compare with is yourself, and the only key questions you should answer every day are:
Are you doing better today than yourself yesterday?
Are you making progress towards your goal(s) today?
7) The Power of Long-term Thinking
This is conclusive lesson of the six points above. If you can master this concept, then your life down the road will be fruitful.
Most people these days are very short-term focused, as suggested by the progressively popular beliefs of YOLO, FOMO, or the like. They want to enjoy the moment, spend the money, consume the resource, and break the rules, now or never.
All animals, including humans, love the idea of “instant gratification”.
But instant gratification also naturally comes up with a price: eating chocolate frequently will increase your body fat and deteriorate your health, while playing video games and buying more toys will take time away from your studying and exercising.
If you enjoy the moment now, you will not get to enjoy the moment in the future.
Instead, learn to resist the immediate temptation of pleasure and practice “delayed gratification”.
When you see junk food, avoid eating it. It is essential to maintain health and even get ripped.
When you have some spare cash, save or invest it. It is imperative to become wealthy and have a fine life in the future.
When you want to rage quit your school or your job, think twice and think ahead before opting in. It is prudent to consider your career path carefully.
You may not feel good at first, but you will reap your return in the not-so-distant future.
Remember, all your decisions and actions today determine your outcome tomorrow. Don’t be clouded by the immediate feel-good factor.
Thinking long-term is especially impactful to youngsters like you, because you have at least another half a century to live and build a better life for yourself and for our future world.
Final Thoughts
School is still important to build foundational knowledge and meet great friends. You must study hard and do your best to prove yourself by getting admitted to a top university, even though you will not be able to apply most of the things you learn in your post-graduation career. Doing well at school will at least help you land a decent job upon college graduation, limiting your career downside.
But of course I do not want my nephews and niece to just have a life of “survival”. Just like your parents, I would love to see you shine along your life journey!
Bright kids like you need to have a solid understanding of the big picture of their lives beyond school.
It is why I have come up with these 7 “neo-school” lessons that the old schools neglect to teach.
Take the time to plan for your career early, learn to become a knowledge creator, pick up the skill of persuasion, invest your money early, develop a global mindset, set your own life goals, and navigate your life through a long-term thinking principle.
I guarantee you will be ahead of 99% of your generation if you can master these concepts.
But learning does not stop at graduation, nor does it stop at my 7 lessons. Learn constantly so that you can keep growing as a person.
The world that you will live in tomorrow has not existed yet, and it is for you and your peers to build. Think long-term. Be creative. Be innovative. Be growing. Stay optimistic.
Now I do realize that at the time of writing this letter, you are only thirteen, eleven and five.
Read this when you turn sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, and thirty. Your reaction to this letter may change over time.
I hope this will be a useful letter to you, for years to come.
Your Uncle,
Sherman
Time to Mobilize.
Wow they’re so grown! Good stuff Sherman 🙂