What I'd tell myself at 22
Three things I wish I had known at 22: communication is not about language, go deep, and learn to focus.
If I could talk to myself at 22, I would say three things.
Communication is not about language
I studied in a Hindi-medium school, in a second-tier city in north India. Then I moved to college, where everything was in English.
For years I thought my communication was weak because of my English. And I was very poor in English. But after 19 years, I have realised the problem was not the language. The problem was how to communicate: how to think, and how to explain my view.
Language is just a medium. It is not the obstacle.
Communication is an art, and everyone should study it in school and college: spoken and written. Language is only one part of it. How you construct your thoughts, and how you explain them, is the biggest thing.
If you ask me what I should have done at 22, I would say: spend more time on communication.
Go deep
The other thing I missed at 22 was going deep into technology. We stayed on the surface. We started to go deep, but we got lost in the noise.
So my advice to the young generation: spend real time on technology. Write very good quality code. Go deep. Write solid algorithms. Focus on the core engine.
This is not only about technology. It is true of any field. If you don’t go deep, you will never see the whole picture.
Learn to focus
The third, and maybe the biggest, is noise. One thing we don’t teach our kids, or our generation, is focus. Focus is something everyone has to learn for themselves.
Colleges, schools, society and companies should have separate training for young people, just to improve focus. Focus is one of the key things that gets a task done.
This matters most for fresh graduates, straight out of college. Teach them through innovative, practical work on real tasks. With innovation, good teaching and practical work, we can help them focus on the key task.
Today there are so many social media apps, TV and other things that distract people from proper focus. If you don’t focus, you cannot do justice to your work. You cannot do deep work, as Cal Newport calls it.
If I were 22 again, I would focus on my communication, my thought process, and my core technology or domain. I would spend more time learning how real systems work, and understanding them deeply.