A few years ago, I attended an alumni Happy Hour in Downtown Los Angeles for St. Patrick’s Day.
I conversed with a fellow alumnus who works in the aerospace industry that evening. We clicked well, because we are both engineers and shared an amusement with today’s society often construing opinions as facts. He told me that for America to continue staying ahead, America must continue innovating. From the computer, to the internet, to the smartphone, innovation has made all our lives more convenient. His words carried a deep meaning over the past few years, especially as I was on this journey towards becoming a grounded man.
An unexpected outcome from writing Noy Sauce consistently these days is that doing so forces me to continue innovating my life, becoming better at what I’m already good at while trying new things in the process.
When I struggled getting second dates with women in my 20s, I did not have many hobbies outside of work besides running and serving community. I made myself too available to spend time with women whom I liked. Once they got the sense that’s all I did and how much I sold myself short (by giving them special treatment), they stopped returning my calls and texts.
To become the grounded man I desired to be, I innovated myself by creating a statement of purpose and doing compound exercises that took me out of my comfort zone.
A statement of purpose defines what we do and why. This purpose is a fulfillment that is bigger than ourselves and is non-validation-seeking from others. Reading this statement each day helps instill the belief we will fulfill the purpose, and keeps us grounded when we are tested along the journey.
When I started this journey of innovating myself, my statement of purpose was, “Courageously taking initiative towards a brighter tomorrow through humble devotion and commitment.”
A compound exercise is an action that works on multiple aspects of ourselves. Like compound exercises that work multiple muscles in fitness, doing so speeds up our personal growth than if we just worked on one skill.
Attending events and meeting people is a compound exercise. This exercise builds multiple skills, such as confidence, keeping a conversation, maintaining proper eye contact and vocal tonality, getting someone’s (like a cute lady’s) phone number, and understanding when to gracefully end the conversation. Following up with people whom I met at those events also taught me that it’s all a numbers game (pun intended), in which a small percentage of those conversations will become meaningful relationships.
Traveling to places, whether it was a trip to another town or country, is also another compound exercise. This exercise builds and tests skills, such as patience, resourcefulness, creating spontaneity, and adaptability to changes in plans. Habits and mannerisms considered normal in other cultures may be considered rude to us. The weather outside might be raining, causing slight changes in plans for the day. Some locals may not speak English and would try to rip you off because you’re a tourist. Yet, the experiences whether good or bad, make fun stories to share with people.
When I visited the Vatican City with my mom and Mama two years ago, some crippled middle-aged women walking in canes approached us tourists waiting outside to enter the city, asking for money. After 10-15 minutes of asking tourists for money, the police approached the women and told them to knock it off. The women, who a few minutes before were crippled, picked up their canes and walked away like normal. It is as if divine intervention had magically healed them! Us tourists started laughing at them and for being grifted.
Compound exercise examples. The first picture is volunteering at a soup kitchen in Downtown Los Angeles. Meeting one person at that volunteer event who encouraged me to join a group at work opened new doors to meet and network with many people within the company. The second picture is traveling to Montserrat, Spain. Since we had toured much of Barcelona in a day after failing to get tickets to the Sagrada de Familia, we were spontaneous to book tickets to Montserrat for the following day. Montserrat is a mountain range with religious landmarks, which are about an hour away from Barcelona by train. And it just so happened that the train station to Montserrat is right next to the hotel we stayed at in Barcelona. Montserrat wasn’t originally planned in our itinerary, but was one of those “nice to visit places if we had time”.
Even after including a statement of purpose and a couple of compound exercises, I still haven’t lost sight of hobbies from many years ago. I still run three times a week, and use the lessons learned from having a consistent prayer life and serving community as inspiration for the Noy Sauce blog.
It is easy to fall into complacency, being too comfortable with the life we are in. The problems with complacency are that we mentally crumble when faced with a crisis, and that our brains come up with problems for the sake of making problems. If we do not have problems in our lives, then we have problems.
Innovating ourselves take us out of our comfort zones, keeping us mentally ready for life’s crises as we become better versions of ourselves. In addition, innovating ourselves give our brains a productive goal to work on. Rather than regret about the past or fret about the future, we remain present in the moment.
We may not get everything we desire as we innovate ourselves, but amazing things will happen. Those amazing things are experiences we share with others and the next generation, moving things forward.
Be like every great person and company that has moved things forward for all of us and innovate. We can’t wait to see what you become 🙌