Fill Life with Sidequests

There's a reason why the YouTube channels featuring creators embarking on "Learning <x skill> for <y number of> days" catch on. It's because they've figured out a way to dedicate the amount of hours equaling a full-time job for a continuous amount of time, full-sending it on learning a new skill and aiming for an ambitious goal.

Not all of these videos start with a goal in mind, many of them are open-ended – trying to answer the question of, "How good could I become?"

I'm a big fan of side-questing. Every single hobby I pickup becomes a new skill I can use to connect with people and diversify the lifestyles I can embody. Maybe it's because my curiosity is intense and I can't take anything chill, though I definitely know I enjoy the journey of progression and improvement.

The more I learn, the more I'm able to bridge different groups who would never typically interact with each other. I enjoy it. As someone who successfully engages with creatives, athletes, and entrepreneurs, I can say that there is so much in common across all disciplines that I find it difficult to tolerate those who disrespect the paths of others and the time and effort it took for them to become experts at their craft.

Despite not being the best at any single thing, I am an expert at closing the gaps between seemingly unrelated concepts. Because I've tried so many things and have explored different domains out of curiosity, I know how hard it is to become great at something.

Cursed by Depth and Curiosity

Whenever I listen to music, I'm active listening – paying attention to the different elements and how they work together. When I'm watching content online or film, I'm focused on the way the director framed the scene and the way the video was edited. When I see dancers perform, I see the choreography as a way they interpreted the music. In athletes, I see the amount of training they did to perform their personal best. In entrepreneurs, I see the persistence it took to build their businesses and teams. There's nothing great that comes easily with no effort.

In work, they often say to find your "superpower" or your unique advantage. What is something that comes easily to you compared to everyone else? However, I find that as someone who has so many interests, it is precisely this depth to which I explore so many domains and connect them all that makes me have my unique advantage. I specialize in the pursuit of curiosity and diversification of my skillset.

A Mid-Career Crisis

I was recently (and currently still am) tackling my mid-career crisis – the moment when work gets boring again after going a little too well and you wonder to yourself, "That's it?" During that time I started TKD which I mention in my mid-year reflection. I had committed myself to a new and seemingly random goal: to reach black belt. I didn't even know what I was getting myself into. If I'm going to be honest, I overcame a bit of hesitation when starting my journey and beginning my official dojang membership, but the amount of healing I've gotten since has paid dividends on the investment.

Short (Relevant) Tangent

I went to Canada for 2 weeks in mid-August. Specifically Alberta province, visiting the dinosaurs in the Southeast near Calgary and then going west towards the mountains for Banff and Jasper. Parks Canada collaborating with Pursuit to setup experiences in both parks was a novel experience to me. One specific moment I remember was riding the bus back from the Banff Gondola and overhearing some staff who happened to be from Australia talking about their travel plans later that year, and it seemed to me that they lived nomadic lives. One person said they might "go to America for 2 months". I remembered how diverse a person's lifestyle could be.

In tackling my mid-career crisis, it seemed like another door opened after asking my grandmaster for career/life advice. I don't know what came over me, but I had a feeling that he'd be a good person to ask since his dojang clearly advertised itself with, "Every great journey starts with passion" in its About Us page. There's a level of instant trust and sympathy I have towards people who bootstrapped their own passion businesses. So there I was, having a crash-out about my future on a Friday night when I send a text at 11PM with a highly personal question to my grandmaster asking him about tradeoffs and what it took, despite only having been at the dojang for 3 weeks after verbally committing to showing up 3x/week. I made sure to give a very easy out – most people I know wouldn't answer such a deep question that soon, but I had an inkling that enough trust and rapport had been built.

And boy did he pull through.

The next afternoon, I receive a multi-paragraph text giving a bunch of context and answering the question. It almost felt like I had met an older version of my neurodiverse self, mirrored in someone I had just met. (I'm also a very open person and willing to help others, regardless of how well I know them.)

I'm very grateful to have received such a detailed response and added yet another version of the future into the pool of possibility. And as I've spent the past 3 months mulling over how to build my lifestyle, I remembered that fractional careers existed and that when the trust and network exists, there was always a way to negotiate for the terms you want.

As TKD gave me structure back into my week, and I learned more about it, I regained my fitness and energy for the other ambitions in my life. I enjoyed TKD, but I also wanted to milk the opportunity I had at my 9-5 where I had finally found something I was good at and enjoyed. And, I still wanted to finish that musical. There was so much that I wanted to finish. Maybe the version of my future is not one where I commit myself to one business, but one that is built with variety. It's 2026. With the right amount of audacity, I think it's possible.

By the way, I also started songwriting classes with McAllister Music Studio so that I could also make more progress and have some accountability towards my goal to release a song. Songwriting class is probably the hardest thing I've done because there are no right answers, and I'm working through a creative weakness of mine.

Note from author: Over the past few quarters, I've realized that my goals have gotten more broad and vague. Less quantifiable like "SMART" and more qualitative like "north star" directions. As such, I'm choosing to pivot these blogs as quarterly reflections of how my time has been spent and where I'd like to go with that time. I've spent the past 4-5 years writing yearly goal blogs starting with "New Year's Reflections and Resolutions" and evolving them into something more like a quarterly earnings call. Because the core timeline of my goals: becoming a polyglot, getting a TKD black belt, finishing a musical– are long and span multiple years, it no longer makes sense to write goals that are quantifiable. My brain doesn't do well with quantifiable metrics.