I feel guilty being idle
What I'm Up To (Nudging), What I Reflected On (Guilt & Idleness), and What's Occupying My Mind (HEALTHY RAMEN!!!) - all part of Allen's Friday Flights
Introducing my Friday Flights.
These are a flight of personal updates from me and it’ll be centered around what I’m up to, what I reflected on, and what book (or even thing) occupies my mind. Makes sense why I’d have a different selection of topics since I often choose samplers and flights when I go out.
I’ll still maintain the Wednesday Explainers, but Friday is for everything else!
Ciao!
Allen
Inside:
What I’m Up To
What I Reflected On (from my Career Break)
What thing occupies my mind
What I’m up to
TL;DR: Getting other people to start their own shit.
Nudging people to start their own business thing // catching up with people doing their own business thing. Wanna start a side hustle / business? I’m your crazy polymath to talk it out with.
I crossed 1200 miles ran since I started running in 2021.
Spendingpracticing my ecommerce online campaign skills using targeted ads - specifically desired keywords, negative keywords, and product channels. It’s hard man.Met up with some Morning Brew Accelerator Los Angeles folks
Got a phone call that someone I help coach from a very under-represented school (with the assistance of others, of course) just got extended an offer to work at EY
Talking about the LUNA x UST Algo-Stablecoin fiasco that resulted in the 99.99% wipeout of a $200b cryptocurrency in 24 hours
I’m on my way this weekend to Stanford MBA Diversity Conferences
What I Reflected On
TL;DR: I feel negative about being idle
Here's something that is carried amongst Asian-Americans, Immigrant families, anyone that's had two working parents, and even multi-generational homes.
I feel negative about being idle. You know, like guilt.
➡️Ever sit on a couch and get caught by your parentals, and getting shouts to find the next set of chores you need to do? Because there is always more chores to do?
➡️Ever played and felt bad that you weren't studying or "improving yourself". Because you can always study more?
➡️Ever come home from a days of work, and seeing people hustle their free time to "move forward". Because you should be leveraging every hour?
Yeah about that.
Experiencing all this, I learned this perspective:
🚩My ability to generate value to me, or to others, is linked to the hour I worked it.
🚩As in, nothing moves forward unless I spend my direct time on it.
🚩Formally, one can call it time & materials based value, and it bleaches into personal life
This needs to be unlearned. My career break has also given me time to unlearn that perspective.
➡️My biggest value creators in the workplace were those that create passive value, or value divorced from hours worked.
➡️If I spent time creating the systems, the environments, or the collaboration style, it means the people I work can move forward without me being there, and it means I can go take my 6 weeks of PTO without being a bottleneck.
➡️Above all else, if I am idle, I relish it and enjoy the fact that I get to be idle.
Because in idleness, comes our best curious selves.
p.s. take one month for each consecutive year you worked - guilt free.
What thing occupies my mind
TL;DR: Noods.
I love this LA Times article from Lucas Kwan Peterson about Instant Ramen
Ramen holds a special place in my stomach. At some point, it had a dedicated time slot of Wednesdays at 10 pm at night.
It’s one of the most commonly accessible and delectable delights, shared amongst college students and Asians.
For the longest time, and even for some people I know today, Top Ramen or Maruchan Ramen were the only instant ramen they know of because that was all that was available.
Realizations like this make me grateful for the exposure and selection of food I get, and it also puts me on a mission to expose these Instant-ramen lovers into other flavors to get addicted to.
Here’s a fun global fact:
Ramen isn’t just an Asian thing. In fact, this brand of ramen of Indonesian Ramen -
Is the dominant household wholesome snack of Nigeria.
To me its mind boggling and fantastically awesome that a dish invented in Japan can be locally customized in Indonesia, sold worldwide, and then become a food-culture icon in Nigeria.
And I love every bit of that.
Healthy Ramen
I also recognize that Ramen can be salty and not at all nutritious. So I’m here to do my duty to ALL OF YOU here: Check out Vite Ramen.
31g of Protein in each serving, with 7g of fiber, and other stuff.
It has the same chewy texture as Panda Express chow-mein, but better. And dear goodness, it’s so good I’ve already finished 12 servings of it since I got it last week.
