Eric Johnson
07-19-2017
My self-help book.
I have been thinking about what makes us who we are, what propels us to where we are, and how people end up in their spots in life.
Formative is a word that describes something that made you who you are.1
People talk about their formative years and formative events in their life. Things that define them. Moments that truly altered their trajectory on the path of life. Byron Wien of Blackstone says
When meeting someone new, try to find out what formative experience occurred in their lives before they were seventeen. It is my belief that some important event in everyone’s youth has an influence on everything that occurs afterwards.2
Talk like this leads me to believe that the big things matter, like getting a job or into a school, etc. Or even big things you can’t control, like Byron Wien alludes to. This thinking is scary and has been a route of anxiety for me and I would imagine a lot of others too. What happens when you don’t get into the top school? What if you live a boring life before you are an adult? When you feel like the things that really matter are rare, important opportunities that are hard to get and easy to lose, you begin to fear failure and let it control you. It’s easy to become obsessive about the future and the big events that others have convinced you are pivotal points in life. If you mess them up you are nothing, and will never amount to anything.
This thinking also can drown out other areas that one may otherwise focus on too. Small things matter less when the big things are everything. Daily tasks or decisions get less attention, because we are all too busy trying to be ready for the next chance we get for a big break. I have skipped an entire day of classes just to try and get a job at a career fair. I lose hours of sleep because I am too worried about a test or upcoming examination. When I only think long term, my short term performance decreases significantly.
In reponse to Byron’s statement above, I think your “formative” event is the reaction to what happened to you before the age of seventeen. Moreover, although Wien presents a good rule of thumb, his claim doesn’t universally hold true. I argue that everyone’s small actions have an effect on them today, no matter who you are.
I am writing this to convince you and myself that this long term, event-driven, win big or lose it all philosophy is wrong. We are not defined by our jobs, our school, our test scores, our belongings, or other things that people stress about. I argue that our “small things” are the driving factors in our success, health, happiness, and trajectory in life. Getting the perfect job doesn’t mean anything. Work and employment is temporary. Work ethic is not. Going to the best school only matters to people who still go to that school. What matters to everyone else is your attitude, and how you treat your peers, superiors, inferiors, etc.
What follows is a list of things that are usually thought to be a defining quality or experience of a person:
People stress a lot about their health. People want to be x weight, and if they are not that weight, they have failed. Instead, I argue that people should want to eat less and eat well every day. This daily goal is small compared to a long term goal like a target weight, but focusing on doing it every day will keep people on track a lot more than stessing over a number.
Almost everyone wants to be rich. But a lot less people try to get rich every day. People want to someday cross the threshold, and become rich. Being rich is an attitude. The only way to adopt this attitude is to make it a daily habit. Spending less money than you earn will make you rich, and the only way to do this is to focus everyday on what you buy, and decide if this small decision is contributing to your long term wealth goal.
People are worried about going to a good school. People want to go to Harvard. If you don’t get into a top 10 school you will never be rich. The same goes for jobs. If you aren’t working at Google (software engineering), or Goldman (finance) or McKinsey (consulting), etc. then you have failed. I disagree. Every day you can make time to learn something. Every day you can also do something to make yourself more valuable. These go hand in hand, as learning something almost always makes you more valuable. Focusing on this daily improvement leaves you far better off than spending your finite time worrying about landing the big name job or elite school that you want to get into. Odds are, the people who land the jobs and attend the schools are the ones who work to become a better version of themselves every day. The most successful people were never chasing success.
I firmly believe that your day to day actions and habits are the formative factors in life. Big decisions, jobs, titles, and possessions do not matter. Doing the little things right does. Deciding to walk home instead of paying for a cab isn’t a major decision. But making the choice to walk (save money and improve health) everyday will have its benefits in the long run. (I know, sometimes time is money and this example doesn’t generalize, but still, you get the point). Think short term to achieve over the long term.
We are defined by our daily habits. Do the little things right and the big things will take care of themselves.