If you ask my closest friends, they’ll tell you that Sherjan is a big believer of himself. No matter what the odds, I truly believe that I’m the safety net I’ve always been looking for, I am lucky to be where I am, and I’ll get through “this”…whatever “this” maybe.

Since we were kids, we’ve been designed to compete and win it all. Competing with fellow classmates in elementary school, competing to win a gold medal in high-school, competing to get the highest GPA and that Goldman Sachs offer in undergrad, and so on and so forth.

I had a call last night with a fellow entrepreneur friend who was struggling to take a break from work. He mentioned that he always ‘feels bad’ for taking a break or taking some personal time off because it would mean that he isn’t working on his startup.

As a leader or someone who manages people, you’ll often get into situations where you’ll get ideas or feedback from your team members and then you’ll have to decide on moving forward with those ideas or simply rejecting them. The issue with saying ‘No’ to people’s ideas is that they can sometimes get offended and feel disappointed.

A lot of my students and people that I mentor, sometimes end up not pursuing certain opportunities or taking the shot because they have these preconceived notions why the shot won’t matter. For example, one of my mentees decided not to apply to Goldman Sachs because she believed “they don’t hire from my school”.

With a busy schedule at work, sometimes one can feel overwhelmed with all the things that end up in our inbox and the high-volume of tasks makes it harder for us to figure out what to prioritize first. I learned a simple rule from my best-friend in how to triage multiple items in a day which I use on a daily basis.

As people, we all suffer from the unfortunate habit of trying to please everyone and worrying too much about other people’s opinions. I am not sure where this trait comes from, but, I feel like since we were kids a lot of our actions and choices were made to impress and please other people vs. doing it for yourself.

One of my favorite facebook features is the birthday notification. Every morning when I check that notification I learn two things: one, whose birthday it is, and second, who the hell are some of these people that are my “friends”?!

Life is a people business. Everything you’ll do in life will involve other people, and that’s especially true at work. People at your company or in your team can have the biggest impact on your career and it can sometimes feel daunting to please everyone. The truth is, you really can’t please everyone and make everyone happy.

One of the biggest fears people have is that of getting rejected. It just feels like crap. Sometimes it’s rejection from people, like that special someone, while other times it’s from companies and opportunities that you really wanted. In each case, it brings you down and takes a little bit of confidence out of you.

This simple effort changed my trajectory at the new firm: it differentiated me instantly from my peers, made everyone around me more efficient, and most importantly, allowed me to be more attentive during calls, absorb more information, and summarize the learnings in a digestible and actionable format.

Imagine your mood (the ball) hanging on a spring and pegged to a Steady-State happiness level. This is how we feel on a regular basis: 10 being the happiest, and 1 being sad. My personal steady-state is an 8 or around there; meaning, I am generally a pretty happy person and rarely will you ever see me sad.

What should I do with my career? A lot of my mentees ask me this question on a regular basis. Some of them are still in college, while others might be in their early 30’s and feeling a bit lost. Given I’ve answered this question too many times, I thought I’d write about it here so you can apply it to your own path.