Twenty Twenty, in Review

It’s been a while since I’ve written here and it’s mainly because I’d been thinking about some things for the last month which I didn’t know how to write down (and there were finals for school). Now that I’m home and have had about a week to just calm down, I’m writing my year in review - 4 days before the new year!

I’m going to be dividing this into a few categories of things I talk about. This will be my first post with actual styling as well!

Addressing the Craziness

This is the obligatory section about how this year was tough for many people: coronavirus, stay-at-home, blm, crazy election, rip mamba, rip black panther, and everything in between. Hoping for everyone to take everything they’ve learned from it in 2020 and apply it to the same challenges that won’t magically disappear next year.

What I’m Good At

This year, I’m happy that I wasn’t afraid to try new things, specifically with the launch of my first venture in Placeware. Sure, it hasn’t really worked out the way I had hoped, mainly due to the fact that we don’t solve a top painpoint of our target market (small brick and mortar stores). Even if we did though, selling customer-to-customer would have been slow and the idea overall would really just need some revamping. But, I’m happy I did this because atleast now I know the words “painpoint”, “product-market fit”, “willingness to pay”, and more. I also realize that if I want to start a business, it’s important to understand the core of problem before going out and building something cool (even though going out and building something cool is fun). In the process, I’ve found that even though I may not like doing some specific thing I’ll do it just because it’ll knack my brain if I don’t. I also see that if I’m ever slacking, I have some sort of split-personality to talks in my head and tells me to get back working. This split-persona works almost all the time when I’m in Berkeley, but at home, I tend to relax way more (don’t know why - something I should fix). I’ve also found that I’m pretty good a connecting with people, and have formed so many new connections to people this year be it cool people in tech, angels, VCs, other fellow students, etc. People actually reply and want to talk if you say you’re just a student trying to learn more about something :)

What I’m Bad At

There are a few days where if I wake up wrong, or I feel like I don’t want to do anything. Even when I try to do something on those days, I just get distracted or can’t stay put. This is only on select days and doesn’t happen super often but it’s something I still need to figure out how to fix. The best solution I’ve found to it has just been taking like a 15-min powernap and waking up but this risks the possiblity of me napping for more than 15 mins. I also feel that this applies to me in certain social situations where I, for some reason, just don’t feel like talking with others. It’s mostly because of some random change in mood or something lingering in the back of my head but I feel like I have to fix this because it’s just not a good thing to do. I need to get rid of this mindset I have sometimes where I just don’t feel like doing anything, or don’t feel like talking to people - for no apparent reason.

Favorites

Book - Zero to One by Peter Thiel. I know that this book came out a while back and was a very popular one but to be honest, I don’t read that much (need to change this) and just got to reading this two days ago. It was so good though that I literally finished it in 2 days. Biggest takeaway that applies to me right now - developing proper methodology in finding secrets.

Movie - Arrival. I forget if I discovered this movie this year or last year but it’s still my favorite. The idea that language is one of the our biggest barriers in terms of the way we think - is a pretty insane thought. Imagine if English wasn’t based on time (past, present, future) and instead some other quantity (direction, emotion, etc).

Music - Logic is still my favorite but the main new artists I started listening to include Jack Harlow and The Kid LAROI. Something about Jack Harlow as a person - I relate with (not sure what).

Twitch Streamer - I discovered this in the last week but I really love GMHikaru, better known as Hikaru Nakamura. It made me start loving chess again and I really love the fact that he has such a nice, relateable personality talking with his viewers even though he’s one of the best to ever play chess.

Looking Forward

Next year, I look forward to fix a few of the things I’m bad at which I mentioned above. But, I also look forward to my next venture and will step things up to the next level as I keep on with the trend - finding secrets. There is so much about the world we either take for granted, assume, or don’t understand. I want to find those secrets and solve any problems that come with them. Other than that, I also look forward to going to Hawaii with friends right before the start of next semester, seeing more friends during the semester, and the summer I’ll be spending Scale AI.

Every year, I see pretty drastic changes in me as a person - and I’m happy that I’m seeing this again at the end of 2020. So long.