Hill Climbing
When listening to yet another Tim Ferriss podcast, I came across Chris Dixon. Chris Dixon is an investor and successful businessman who has now turned his interests to blockchain and cryptocurrency. When I heard Naval Ravakant and Chriss Dixon discussing the future of NFTs on a platform as big as Tim Ferriss’ I couldn’t help but feel excited. Although this was an episode I loved to listen to and may speak about in the future, it’s not what I’m going to write about today. Today I’m writing about a blog post that Chris Dixon wrote back in 2009. They refer to it in the episode and so I decided to give it a read. It’s titled, Climbing the Wrong Hill, and speaks about our goals and how we approach our careers.
It’s a simple and short blog post and I’d recommend that you read it. The post basically makes a comparison between what we want to do in life and the mathematical optimization technique called Hill Climbing used in iterative algorithms. If we view our careers as hills, and there are many hills out there that we could possibly climb, then it makes sense to say that we would want to climb the highest hill we can. Meaning that we want to achieve the most and be the best that we can be in anything that we do. The other part of this analogy is that we must find the top of the highest hill, but we can only see one step in front of us. This means that if we just walk up, we may reach the top of a much smaller hill. I hope this is making sense and that you’re still following.
Dixon goes on to explain that a learning algorithm would have a few approaches to finding the top of the highest hill. The first would be to go up, the second would be to add some randomness to your walk to understand the terrain better. And better yet, dropping in on random areas of the map to get a better understanding of the terrain and climbing multiple hills and then deciding which one is the highest. I’m sure you can see which approach would get you the best outcome.
This algorithm can be applied to our lives and our careers except we get anxious when we feel like we’re taking a step back or changing paths. We’re determined to feel like we’re taking a step up, but it may be on a path to the top of a smaller hill. We tend to commit to something we don’t really enjoy, or we say things like, “I’ll start my own business in 5 years.” Either way, we’re not figuring out exactly what it is we would like to be doing every day of our lives or we’re putting up with it for security. I know this may seem like a stretch, but I agree with it.
I’ve come across many people, myself included, who say they’re working towards changing jobs or trying to create a financial cushion to do so. Many people aren’t happy at their jobs but they aren’t exactly sure what it is they’d prefer to be doing. That’s where this approach comes in and this approach is obviously easier to take when you’re younger with fewer responsibilities, but it isn’t a necessity. Trying out many different career paths and figuring out what you enjoy and what you’re good at can make you more money and give you financial freedom in the end. If you enjoy going to work every day, you’re going to work harder and better than anyone else. You’re destined for greater success than doing the bare minimum in a job you don’t really like. So, sacrificing early financial benefit for long-term success seems like a fair payoff to me.
I know there may be other factors at play, and it isn’t that easy to just change careers. If you do find yourself thinking about leaving and that it would make you happier then maybe start planning to leave. Set yourself milestones, financially or in your side hustle, that if you reach them, then you will leave. There’s always going to be something keeping you there, and that could even just be fear. Making changes like these is scary, but it always seems to be decisions like these that we learn the most from. If the best approach to finding your highest hill is by walking up a few hills, then so be it. I’d rather know that that isn’t my hill than wonder what if.
I hope this made sense and maybe got you thinking a bit. It has acted as a bit of a reminder for me to get moving and put some things in place to enable me to try more things. I’m slowly starting to really understand the things I enjoy and I’m happy with the risks and changes I’ve made up to this point. I’ve learnt a lot and I wouldn’t have learnt them if I hadn’t done things differently from what I was used to. I know there are so many more things to try and paths I’ve got to go further down to fully understand whether it’s something I want to pursue further. There are so many amazing new career paths popping up every day and we don’t know if we would be good at them if we don’t try.