I had a Serious Conversation with My Dad, and His Career Advice Shocked Me
He observed my lifestyle for two weeks and gave me counterintuitive lifetime advice.
My dad is a small business owner who successfully scaled his business in Indonesia. He scaled them to $1Million+ in revenue.
He has been doing this for the majority of his life.
When he comes to the States to visit me this year, we have a deep father-son discussion about life.
His wisdom in scaling and business has really changed how I view my life and my career.
Although it is counterintuitive to the advice I heard from my mentor for the work environment in the United States, it is very eye-opening and refreshing.
It helps me contemplate my life and gives me more guidance in navigating my career.
These are the three biggest lessons that I learned from our conversation.
Business Owners have more time if their Business is Going well
This message shocked me.
He said, "If you are always busy as a business owner, your business is not doing well."
The reason? When your business is going well, you did well as a founder in orchestrating your company to do the right thing. You don't need to put more effort into making your company work.
Conversely, when your business is not going well, as a founder, you need to think about multiple things to ensure that the business can be picked back up or that it is growing the way that you want it to grow.
It is counterintuitive. You should be busier if your business is going well. How can you have more time if your business is thriving?
It is indeed true.
Think about it—Amazon wasn't doing as well in 1994 as in 2024. I saw a picture of Jeff Bezos when he was young and building Amazon. He worked tirelessly day and night and didn't even have time to take a break. There is a picture of him staying at the office for long nights in an old Amazon office building.
There is no work-life balance. It is either life or death. Either you can keep growing your company, or your competition will eat you alive. Undoubtedly, he was scrunchy back then because all of his time and effort went into building Amazon.
Fast-forward to 2020, when you see the Buff Jeff Bezos. You can tell he has much more time to work out, go on expensive vacations with his girlfriend, and go to Coachella. At the same time, Amazon is a trillion-dollar company. He has more time now because his business is booming.
It's not just Jeff Bezos, but if you consider the Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
He was so busy back then that he only wanted to wear the same color of T-shirt - gray.
Once, someone asked him why he wore the same T-shirt every day. He answered, "Because I don't have the mental capacity to think about what kind of T-shirt I wear today." This was during the time when he scaled Facebook from a startup to a big corporation.
Fast-forward to 2024, and you'll see him wearing designer clothes and watches and wearing a chain to do interviews.
He has more time to pursue other aspiration sports, such as Jet Skiing or Jiu-Jitsu. He started to have all of this time to pursue his hobby and aspiration because he is the third richest man in the world. In other words, he doesn't have to put as much work into his business because it is growing in the right direction.
This speaks to the reality of being a business owner - you are the orchestrator.
You need to be ready to step into any role that needs filling, like playing the piano until a pianist is available.
Your main responsibility is to ensure that each position can eventually be filled by someone more skilled than you. At times, you may need to take on the role of orchestrator until you can find a replacement who is even better.
This can be similar to transitioning from a CEO to a chairman role.
Be as Generous as someone Below you, and be as selfish as someone above you.
Below here doesn't mean someone is inferior. It just means your subordinate - if you are a business owner, manager, tech lead, or landlord, you will have someone who reports to you.
I provide most household products, such as tissues and paper towels, to tenants in my house. Although the shared bathroom is used among tenants, I provide all the toiletry kits for that restroom.
One day, I noticed that our toilet paper was used up really fast. And by really fast, I mean that when I put a roll of toilet paper in the shared restroom, it was used up for almost 7 days.
My mom told me, "Edward, you should let your tenant pay for their toilet paper since we never used it."
However, my dad told me, "If I were you, I wouldn't mind providing them toilet paper. Those items didn't cost a fortune, but at the same time, it would leave a great experience for your tenant."
"When should you start haggling about your requirements?" I asked my dad.
"When you are trying to negotiate a salary with your boss, your upper management, or a contract," I stopped and contemplated.
You don't want someone to tell you that you are cheap. Nevertheless, generosity doesn't apply to everything.
My dad said, "If I notice that one of my employees has put in extra hours and gone above and beyond in their work, I will make an effort to reward them with a bonus or additional time off instead of just thanking them verbally. Doing so will help build loyalty and trust in my company, ultimately benefiting the business. On the other hand, when a client demands more products without paying for their previous work, instead of accommodating their demands, it's important to push back and be firm in addressing these requests.
When you are negotiating a contract with another party, you want to be as nitpicky as possible. You want to ensure that you get good terms for your business.
How about the smaller details, such as inviting them for a meal or giving them drinks during their work hours? Be generous in that aspect.
You want to leave a good impression on the other business party.
If you are leading a team of engineers, if engineers in your team is struggling, you should put more effort into helping them grow. You offer her one-on-one guidance, share resources, and help them develop the necessary skills.
Advocate for them during performance reviews, highlighting their potential and accomplishments to upper management. On the contrary, when a product or senior management is asking your team to take on an additional project, you want to be cautious with the asks and ensure that they don't stretch the capacity of your team's workload. Don't accept immediately. Instead, think about it and push back for the necessary reasons.
You need time to Wander
On his second day of visiting, he told me that I had spread myself too thin with all of these productivity and routines.
"You don't even have time just to do nothing."
Wandering is often frowned upon, especially in a society where productivity means squeezing your time to do the most work during the day.
Why? The problem is that wandering often helps you discover new ideas you have never noticed.
Do you know why we often have new ideas in the shower? Our brain's neurochemistry is active in hot showers, and we can't do anything else.
Thus, it gives space for our minds to wander. Wandering resulted in new ideas and solving complicated problems.
You might think that daydreaming is inefficient. You might even question why you're thinking about ice cream instead of something more important. However, daydreaming is the only way to stumble upon a good idea and follow it through to fruition.
He said, "Every entrepreneur should only fill out their space 60% of the time."
The remaining 40% can be left to think about new ideas and opportunities, which are very important for growing the business.
When Lex Friedman asks Jeff Bezos how he solves particular hard problems, he says, "It involves lots of wandering. When I am going through a problem, I wander and do not know where I am going. Efficiency and invention are sort of at odds. Real lateral thinking requires wandering because the invention is a real invention, not incremental improvement. You have to give yourself permission to wander."
Closing
Sometimes, the most productive thing to do is to do the contrary.
I learned from his wise words that business owners are not the most capable people in the room.
You need to be the irreplaceable one.
That doesn't mean that every person in the company is replaceable.
It just meant that you have to be good at understanding what your role is in the company.
The fine line between generosity and selfishness is like walking a tightrope—lean too far to one side and risk falling into exploitation; too far to the other, and you isolate yourself from those who need your support.
However, his experience and my experience can be different than your experience.
You may experience that wandering is a complete waste of time, and I respect that.
But if you think that wandering is a complete waste of time. Think twice.
And let me know if you discover some opportunity that will help uniquely propel your career.
Do you have any other counterintuitive lessons that you learned for entrepreneurs?
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Thanks,
Edward