I Am Starting Over
How Starting Over Makes Me a Stronger Individual.
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It is wild how a short vacation to Asia changed my entire perspective on pivoting my writing.
Starting over is not just about making a new choice in your life, it's about embracing change and growth. It's about recognizing when a current path is no longer serving you and having the courage to pivot. This transformative process is a powerful tool for personal growth and resilience.
Let me be honest: I hate starting over.
When I didn't run in a while and started to run again, I experienced a runner's itch.
I felt uncomfortable.
I lost the habit of running and felt like regressing in my progress.
Now, I feel the same way about writing. I have stopped writing for some time and lost my writing habit.
It isn't easy to rebuild that writing habit.
On the other hand...
Starting over has been a turning point in my life. I've come to realize that each new beginning has made me a stronger, more resilient individual. It's not about the discomfort, but the growth and learning that come with it. This learning empowers us to face new beginnings with enlightenment and confidence.
I've had several pivotal moments in my career where I needed to start over.
One of the earliest was when my parents enrolled me in the Taipei International School in Indonesia during the 3rd grade. Suddenly, I had to forgo my mother tongue, Bahasa, and adopt Chinese. I found myself playing catch-up in all my classes because I was behind. It was a challenging time, but it taught me the value of resilience and adaptability.
No matter how hard I try to keep up with those Taiwanese kids, my Mandarin grade suffers.
Then, high school came, and I migrated to the United States. From there, I had to start over again and learn to speak and write English.
The catch-up game has again been bestowed upon me—I have to spend nights and weekends altering my mindset from thinking in Chinese to English.
Looking back on those days, I realize that I sacrificed a lot of my time, youth, and energy to improve and reinvent myself.
Looking back on my life, I am grateful for what happened.
Because each incident made me stronger.
Sometimes, you must take one step backward to move two steps forward.
My experiences have taught me about grit. It's not about avoiding challenges, but about facing them head-on and emerging stronger. This resilience is indeed contagious, and it's a quality that has served me well in my journey. It encourages us to face our own challenges with determination and perseverance.
Resilience is indeed contagious, and it's a quality that has served me well in my journey.
I incorporate that perseverance mindset through college, searching for a job, and navigating my career.
In this article, I briefly explain and discuss why starting over is paramount in our lives and why it is better to start over as early as possible rather than later.
Starting Over Makes Me Resilient
From reading Charlie Munger's book, "Poor Charlie Armanack," I learned that Charlie Munger experienced a significant life event that could be seen as a "start over" when he was 39 years old. He moved away from a stable and prosperous legal career to venture into the uncertain and challenging world of investing.
Charlie Munger started his investment career at 39. He transitioned from a successful lawyer career to focus more on investing. Without that pivotal moment in his career, he couldn't have met Warren and formed the greatest partnership in business history.
His ability to adapt, learn, and grow from these experiences is a testament to the strength and resilience that can come from starting over.
At 44, Sam Walton faced a major setback when the lease for his successful Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas, was not renewed.
Despite his efforts to negotiate, Walton lost the store, which was a thriving business and a significant investment of his time and energy. This was a pivotal moment that could have ended his retail career.
Instead of giving up, Walton decided to start over. He relocated to Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened the first store in 1962.
Walton's new vision was to offer "low prices every day" by focusing on cost-cutting and supply chain efficiency. Unlike his previous stores, which followed traditional retail models, his store was designed to be a discount retailer that could offer goods at lower prices than competitors.
That company is Walmart.
This decision to start over and embrace a new retail model made Walton far more successful than he likely would have been had he continued with the Ben Franklin stores.
Walmart grew rapidly, revolutionizing the retail industry with its focus on low prices and broad selection. By Walton's death in 1992, Walmart had become the largest retailer in the world.
When you start over, you face challenges that test your ability to adapt and overcome obstacles. Each time you do this, you build resilience, making you more capable of handling future difficulties.
Each Starting Over is Different
Our brains are these magical creatures that are able to detect past performance to evaluate future possibilities.
This is why successful business owners are built from multiple failures in the past.
Walton has vast experience in the retail industry, and he drives around retail stores every week to observe what works and what doesn't. When he pitches the idea of a "low-price discount store" to his executives, they don't believe it. They don't believe it, not because they don't believe it will work, but because those executives don't want to start over.
When you are very comfortable with your current business, it is hard to adopt a day-one mindset.
Because having a day-one mindset means you must look at things from a new perspective.
The first time starting over is different than the third time starting over. Because the third time you start over, you gain more wisdom and learning experience from the first two tries.
The Walt Disney Company has continuously started over and adapted to film and media technology changes, from transitioning to television and cable TV to embracing streaming services. Each pivotal moment of starting over helps them perpetually strong and more resilient than before.
My dad had to start over at 50, rebuilding his watch business in Indonesia. It took him much quicker than the first time building the business because of his vast experience in the domain and the network.
Each time you start over, you gain a better experience from learning from your past mistakes and those around you so that you don't step into the same minefield.
Each Starting Over Gives You More Clarity
Starting over gives you the chance to reassess what's important to you.
This clarity can help you focus your energy on what truly matters, whether in your personal life, career, or business. You can channel your efforts more effectively by shedding old distractions or unproductive paths.
Munger was deeply inspired by the ideas of value investing, particularly those advocated by Benjamin Graham and later by Warren Buffett.
He recognized that investing, especially value investing, aligned with his analytical skills and allowed him to build substantial wealth. His interest in investing had been growing over the years, and this was the perfect time for him to commit fully to it.
In the 1950s, Disney faced a new challenge: the rise of television. Rather than viewing TV as a threat, Disney embraced it. The company started by producing television shows like The Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland, which helped popularize the brand and introduced Disney to a wider audience. Most recently, Disney faced the challenge of the digital age and the decline of traditional cable TV.
In 2019, the company started again by launching Disney+, a streaming service that significantly shifted how Disney would deliver content.
In these two events, Disney knows what is important to help their audience and business growth.
They know that to pioneer in the media industry continuously, you must always adapt to the ever-changing landscape of media technology. Disney's ability to start over and embrace new technologies has kept the company relevant in an ever-changing media landscape.
Each time Disney embraced a new platform—TV, cable, or streaming—it expanded its audience and strengthened its brand.
Final Thought
There are many things in life where the best thing you can do is start over.
I am starting over in building my writing habits and pivoting my content strategy to my personal newsletter.
Overall, I wanted to share with you what I have learned and gone through in my mind, and I think starting over by repurposing this newsletter to a more generic individual growth in my area will make future content a lot more relatable.
Starting over can make you stronger by forcing you to grow, adapt, and learn in ways your comfort zone never could.
The challenges, lessons, and new paths contribute to a more resilient, confident, and capable version of yourself, leading to greater success and fulfillment.
Do you have any pivotal moments in your life where you start over?
In the meantime, feel free to connect with me through Twitter, where I post daily content on software engineering and portfolios of side projects.
Thanks,
Edward