The great music producer Rick Rubin once said: “Great art divides”.
伟大的音乐制作人瑞克・鲁宾曾说过：“伟大的艺术是分裂的”。

Well, you’re either going to love this essay, or totally hate it. There’s no middle ground.
好吧，你要么会喜欢这篇文章，要么会完全讨厌它。没有中间地带。

This essay has concepts (and pics) I’ve never shared before. And it answers the question: “what do you wish you knew when you were younger?”
这篇文章包含我从未分享过的概念（和图片）。它回答了这个问题：“你希望年轻时知道什么？”

It starts with a single decision that changed my life.
它始于一个 单一 的决定，改变了我的生活。

That decision was to spend a year “Strategically Broke” — no job, no salary, and no plan.
那个决定是花一年时间 “战略性破产” — 没有工作，没有薪水，也没有计划。

At the time, it looked stupid. My friends laughed from their desk at JP Morgan.
那时，看起来很傻。我的朋友们在摩根大通的桌子旁笑。

But I had heard a quote from a guy I met at a casino: “I don’t know much, but I know one thing: the ordinary life isn’t for me”
但我听过一个我在赌场遇到的家伙说过的话：“我不知道很多，但我知道一件事：平凡的生活不适合我”

That line stuck with me for the 16 years since I heard it: The ordinary life isn’t for me.
那句话在我听到后的 16 年里一直萦绕在我心头：平凡的生活不适合我。

I wanted to live a life where I could be creative, with my friends, and get filthy rich in the process.
我想过一种可以发挥创造力、与朋友在一起，并在这个过程中变得非常富有的生活。

I didn’t know how to do it at the time, but I know now. So if you read this essay, you’ll learn:
我当时不知道怎么做，但现在我知道了。所以如果你读这篇文章，你会学到：

1/ How I Spent A Year “Strategically Broke” — my backstory being young, dumb and fearless. (with pics & numbers)
1/ 我如何度过了一年 “战略性破产”—— 我的故事是年轻、愚蠢且无畏。（附图片和数字）

2/ Permission to Wander - The 3-step system I used to answer the big question: “What should I do for my career?”
2/ 漫游的许可 - 我用来回答大问题的三步系统：“我应该为我的职业做什么？”

You in?  你在吗？

Alright, let’s start with this tweet that got me in a bit of trouble:
好的，让我们从这条让我有点麻烦的推文开始：

200,000 views - and my inbox slammed with messages.
20 万次观看 - 我的收件箱被信息淹没。

The reaction was split: 反应分为两派：

Older people: “yep, that’s right.”
老年人：“没错，就是这样。”

Younger people: “wtf - how am I supposed to do any of that without money?” 
年轻人：“我靠 - 没钱我怎么能做到这些？” 

I hear ya. I never wanted to be “that guy”.
我明白你的意思。我从来不想成为 “那个家伙”。

You know, the guy who goes on podcasts after selling his company for $737M dollars and says “money doesn’t really make you happy”.
你知道吗，那位在以 7.37 亿美元出售公司后上播客的人说过 “钱并不能让你快乐”。

(Really? Alright bet. Gimme half of your money if it’s not doing much for ya)
（真的吗？好吧，赌一把。如果对你没什么帮助，就给我你一半的钱。）

It’s like when Bill Gates went on Ellen and she made him guess the price of groceries: 
就像比尔・盖茨上艾伦节目时，她让他猜食品杂货的价格一样：

He thought a bag of Totino’s pizza rolls was $22. (which goes to prove you can be smart and totally out of touch)
他认为一袋 Totino’s 比萨卷 $22。（这证明了你可以聪明而完全脱节）

So - did I actually do that in my 20’s? Or am I just giving crappy life advice that I didn’t follow myself?  
所以 - 我在 20 多岁时真的这样做过吗？还是我只是在给出我自己没有遵循的糟糕生活建议？

Short answer, yes. I did. It was the most important 2 years of my life.
简短的回答，是的。我做到了。这是我生命中最重要的两年。

PART I: How I Spent A Year “Strategically Broke”
第一部分：我如何度过 “战略性破产” 的一年

After college - everyone from school went and got jobs. Good jobs, bad jobs…but definitely jobs.
大学毕业后 - 学校里的每个人都去找工作。好工作，坏工作…… 但肯定是有工作的。

I chose a different path.
我选择了一条不同的道路。

I decided to create my own “grad school”. Where I would spend 1 year with no job, working on my own projects, and traveling the world.
我决定创建自己的 “研究生院”。 在那里我将花费一年时间不工作，专注于自己的项目，并环游世界。

Everyone thought the idea was stupid. How will you pay rent? How will you travel with no salary?
每个人都认为这个主意很愚蠢。你怎么支付房租？没有工资你怎么旅行？

Here’s how I did it:
这是我做到的方式：

Step 1 - Living “Scrappy”
第一步 - 生活 “拼凑”

My two best friends (Trev & Dan) drove to Boulder, Colorado and we rented the worst 2-bedroom apartment you’ve ever seen.
我最好的两个朋友（特雷夫和丹）开车去了科罗拉多州的博尔德，我们租了你见过的最糟糕的两居室公寓。

There were 3 of us, so Trevor put his bed (aka air mattress) in the living room.
我们有三个人，所以特雷弗把他的床（即气垫床）放在了客厅。

Boulder is a great city. There’s amazing outdoors, a university party scene, and tons of entrepreneurs (Techstars was based there).
博尔德是一个很棒的城市。这里有惊人的户外活动、大学派对场景，还有很多企业家（Techstars 总部就在这里）。

I think our rent was about ~$1,400 a month. Split 3 ways, that was $466 a pop.
我认为我们的租金大约是每月 1400 美元。三个人分摊的话，每人是 466 美元。

We lived cheap - no furniture, craigslist desks (that we got for free), and Target air mattresses.
我们过得很简单 - 没有家具，免费的 Craigslist 桌子，以及 Target 的充气床垫。

Oh, and our living room was our bedroom, our office, and our gym.
哦，我们的客厅是我们的卧室、办公室和健身房。

We also ate cheap. This was our menu: 
我们也吃得很便宜。 这是我们的菜单：

• Costco frozen grilled chicken bag ($25 for 10 pounds of chicken) 
  好市多冷冻烤鸡袋（10 磅鸡肉 25 美元）
• Eggs  鸡蛋
• Avocados (our luxury item)
  鳄梨（我们的奢侈品）
• Rice  米饭
• Ranch style beans 牧场风味豆
• Tons (and I mean, tons) of frank’s red hot sauce
  大量（我指的是大量）弗兰克的红辣椒酱

It’s not the blueprint diet to live forever (and I’m sure they give out better food in prison), but it was effective to let us live cheaply. 
这不是让人永生的蓝图饮食（我敢肯定监狱里的食物更好），但它确实有效地让我们以低成本生活。

MONEY - OK so how did we pay for everything?
钱 - 好的，那么我们是怎么支付所有费用的？

Instead of trying to figure out how to make the most money, we calculated the minimum money needed to live with max freedom.
与其试图弄清楚如何赚取最多的钱，我们计算了生活所需的最低金额，以获得最大自由。

I realized I needed about $1,000 a month. So I decided to try to make that in ~5 hours a week of work.
我意识到我每月需要大约 1000 美元。所以我决定尝试在每周大约 5 小时的工作中赚到这个钱。

• I met a girl at a bar who needed help with math (yea, I didn’t have much game)… so I offered to tutor her and, eventually, her friends for $35/hour.
  我在酒吧遇到一个需要数学帮助的女孩 (是的，我的魅力不太足)… 所以我提议以每小时 35 美元辅导她，最终也辅导了她的朋友们。
• I loved playing basketball, so I became the head basketball coach at a school for autistic children ($35/hour x 2 hrs a week).
  我喜欢打篮球，所以我成为了一所自闭症儿童学校的篮球主教练（每小时 35 美元，每周 2 小时）。

At one point - the girl asked if the tutoring would be free if she was my girlfriend. I replied, “I’ll take the $35/hour, thanks”. (Rule #35, you can’t hustle a hustler)
在某个时候 —— 女孩问如果她是我的女朋友，辅导是否会免费。我回答：“我还是要 $35 / 小时，谢谢。” (规则 #35，你不能欺骗一个骗子)

These gigs were fun, easy, and gave me $700/mo - at only 5 hours a week.
这些工作很有趣，简单，每月给我 700 美元 - 每周仅需 5 小时。

Ok. So that was $700/mo. But I hit my 5 hours a week cap. So what do I do? Well, constraints breed creativity. I asked myself “what’s something easy I could do once, that would give me my entire year goal?”
好的。那是每月 700 美元。但我达到了每周 5 小时的上限。那么我该怎么办？好吧，限制激发创造力。我问自己：“有什么简单的事情我可以做一次，可以让我实现我的全年目标？”

I was already thinking of business ideas - but instead of launching them, I realized there was a shortcut: I could just pitch the idea, and get paid for the pitch (without even doing the business).
我已经在考虑商业想法了 —— 但我意识到有一个捷径：我可以只提出这个想法，并获得 提案费（甚至不需要做这个生意）。

There were niche business plan competitions - with decent prizes and low competition. I entered a dozen of them, got paid for 2 of them, and we won $25K+ in prize money. That was ~2 years of living costs.
有一些小众商业计划竞赛 - 奖品丰厚且竞争较少。 我参加了十几个，得到了 2 个的报酬，我们赢得了超过 25,000 美元的奖金。这大约是两年的生活费用。

Our scrappiness had no bounds. 
我们的拼搏精神没有界限。

Instead of a dog, we got a mouse for free as our pet (RIP Marty).
我们没有养狗，而是免费得到了一个老鼠作为我们的宠物 (愿马蒂安息).

I put these photos here to show you: it’s not glamorous.
我把这些照片放在这里给你看：这并不光鲜。

Frankly, it’s gross… 坦率地说，这太恶心了……

‍… but this was the best trade I ever made. “Nice stuff” was cool, but freedom of time was much cooler.
… 但这是我 有史以来 做过的最好交易。 “不错的东西” 很酷，但时间的自由更酷。

A year of free time in your 20s is worth a decade of free time when you retire at 65. When you’re young, life is a lot more fun.
你在 20 岁时的一年自由时间，相当于你 65 岁退休时的十年自由时间。年轻时，生活要有趣得多。

The relationships and skills you build in your 20s have 20+ years to compound. The travel is more fun. You literally just have more energy.
你在 20 岁时建立的关系和技能有 20 年以上的复利效应。旅行更有趣。你真的有更多的精力。

So, what did we do with the freedom?
那么，我们对自由做了什么呢？

Traveled like hell. I road tripped across the States, then went international - China, Bali, & Australia.
像疯了一样旅行。我在美国自驾游，然后去了国际旅行 —— 中国、巴厘岛和澳大利亚。

Why not just travel later in life? Because when you’re young, traveling is easier, cheaper, and much different than traveling later in life. 
为什么不在生活的后期再旅行呢？因为当你年轻时，旅行更容易、更便宜，并且大大不同于晚些时候的旅行。

Backpacking through Thailand and sleeping in hostels with strangers is cool when you’re in your 20s, uncomfortable in your 30s, and damn near impossible when you’re in your 40s.
在泰国背包旅行，与陌生人一起住青年旅舍在你 20 岁时很酷，在 30 岁时不太舒服，而在 40 岁时几乎不可能。

In fact, traveling young deserves a totally different word than traveling when older.
事实上，年轻时的旅行与年长时的旅行应该用完全不同的词来形容。

• Young travel is a lightweight spontaneous adventure, like backpacking. 
  年轻旅行是一种轻松自发的冒险，像背包旅行一样。
• Family travel is more like a U-Haul move, with fist-fulls of diapers.
  家庭旅行更像是一场 U-Haul 搬家，手里抓着一把尿布。

I still travel, but it feels much different with a wife & 3 kids. 
我仍然旅行，但有了妻子和三个孩子，感觉完全不同。

Step #2: Work on projects (not jobs)
步骤 #2：进行项目（而不是工作）

Now - the goal was not to be unemployed forever.
现在 - 目标是 不 要永远 失业。

The goal was to use my 20’s to figure out what I really love to do. What am I really great at? What do I enjoy?
目标是利用我的 20 岁来弄清楚我真正热爱的事情。我真正擅长什么？我喜欢什么？

I wasn’t sure - so I started off by just learning master skills.
我不太确定，所以我开始时只是学习 掌握技能。

Have you ever seen a janitor’s key ring with like 573 keys on it?
你见过一个清洁工的钥匙圈上有 573 把钥匙吗？

Well - they also have 1 key called a master key that unlocks many doors.
好吧，他们还有一个叫做主钥匙的钥匙，可以打开许多门。

That’s a master skill. A skill that unlocks many doors in the future.
那是一项大师级技能。一项在未来开启许多门的技能。

So I made a list:
所以我列了一个清单：

• Skill of making something out of nothing (hustle)
  从无到有的技能 (拼搏)
• Skill of selling stuff online (sales/marketing)
  在线销售商品的技能 (销售 / 市场营销)
• Skill of pitching ideas, get people on board (persuasion)
  提出想法的技巧，让人们支持 (说服)

To be clear - I had no clue how to actually learn this stuff. So I just started “doing projects”.
为了明确 - 我完全不知道 如何 实际上学习这些东西。所以我只是开始 “做项目”。

Pixar says their process of making movies is to start with something that sucks, and then remove the suck.
皮克斯表示，他们制作电影的过程是从一些糟糕的东西开始，然后去除糟糕。

Every version 1.0 of everything, sucks.  So your job is to edit, and tweak, over and over again until… it no longer sucks. 
每个版本 1.0 的东西都很糟糕。所以你的工作是反复编辑和调整，直到… 它不再糟糕。

That’s what I did with my projects. I’d launch them, but they sucked. Then suck a bit less. Until finally, I didn’t suck much (still suck a little tho). 
这就是我对我的项目所做的。我会发布它们，但它们很糟糕。然后稍微好一点。直到最后，我不再那么糟糕了（不过还是有点糟糕）。 

Here are some of the projects I worked on that made me ‘suck less’:
以下是我参与的一些项目，让我 “变得不那么糟糕”：

• An e-commerce store that sold custom wristbands to frats & sororities. We made $1k in our first weekend. This taught me how to sell things online, find manufacturers on Alibaba, drop ship products, and cold email.
  一家向兄弟会和姐妹会销售定制手环的电子商务商店。 我们在第一个周末赚了 1000 美元。这让我学会了如何在线销售商品，如何在阿里巴巴上寻找制造商，如何进行代发货，以及如何进行冷邮件营销。
  
• Game Shows: I always wanted to go on a gameshow. So I said, why not? Being young gave me the license to do irrationally dumb things. Me and my buddy Dan got casted onto Wheel of Fortune. Dan almost won a trip to Italy.
  游戏节目：我一直想参加一个游戏节目。所以我说，为什么不呢？年轻让我有了做不理智的傻事的许可。我和我的朋友丹被选上了《财富之轮》。丹差点赢得了一次去意大利的旅行。

• Video editing for real estate. I pitched real estate agents a service that would turn their photos into an animated video for each property. We charged them $500 for, basically, a cheesy slideshow of pics with music - $500 for like 15 minutes of editing.
  房地产视频编辑。我向房地产经纪人推销了一项服务，可以将他们的照片转化为每个房产的动画视频。我们收取他们 500 美元，基本上是一个带音乐的低质量幻灯片 - 500 美元大约 15 分钟的编辑。
  
  Agents were hard to sell to. But we learned video editing, more cold email practice, and that I should do things where my earning power ($$) is not tied to my time (like tutoring).
  代理商很难销售。但我们学会了视频编辑，进行了更多的冷邮件练习，并意识到我应该做一些我的收入能力（$$）不与我的时间挂钩的事情（比如辅导）。
  

• I got obsessed with poker. I even won $10K in a poker tournament one night. We used that money to travel Australia. This taught me a ton about strategy, thinking in probabilities, controlling my mind, and figuring out if others are lying.
  我对扑克着迷了。 我甚至在一个扑克比赛中赢了 1 万美元。我们用那笔钱去旅行澳大利亚。这让我学到了很多关于策略、概率思维、控制我的思维，以及判断别人是否在说谎的知识。

• A delivery-only sushi restaurant. This taught me how to make sushi, run a restaurant, negotiate a lease, get financing from a bank, etc. 
  一家只提供外卖的寿司餐厅。 这教会了我如何制作寿司、经营餐厅、谈判租约、从银行获得融资等。

To be clear - none of these projects were a big success financially. A few made money. Most went nowhere. 
要明确的是，这些项目在财务上都没有取得大的成功。有几个赚了钱，但大多数没有任何进展。

At the time, I felt like I was striking out. Over and over again. But I was having fun, so I kept going. I didn’t realize that those early skills would pay off so big later, but as Steve Jobs said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward, only looking backwards.
那时，我觉得自己在失败。 一次又一次。但我很享受，所以我继续前进。我没有意识到那些早期的技能会在后来的时候带来如此大的回报，但正如史蒂夫・乔布斯所说：你无法向前看时连接点，只能向后看。

So my job was to just make each project, each ‘dot’ as bold as I could. Having faith that it would connect later.
所以我的工作就是尽可能让每个项目、每个 “点” 都变得突出。相信它们会在后面连接起来。

So - sushi? poker? e-commerce? how did you ultimately figure out what you want to do? 
所以 - 寿司？扑克？电子商务？你最终是如何弄清楚自己想做什么的？

Great question. I figured out what I wanted to do in life with something I call the Permission to Wander. A 3-step system for figuring out what you really want to do in life.
好问题。我通过我称之为 漫游的许可 的东西找到了我想在生活中做的事情。这是一个帮助你弄清楚自己真正想做的事情的三步系统。

That’s coming in Part II (tomorrow). 
这将在第二部分中出现（明天）。

Stay thirsty my friends, 保持渴望，我的朋友们，

-Uncle Shaan - 山叔

ps. if you loved this essay, let me know. (hit reply). I’m fueled by caffeine and compliments.
如果你喜欢这篇文章，请告诉我。（回复我）。我靠咖啡因和赞美来充电。