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You're not behind. You're underexposed.
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Hi Reader, Yudi here, Sometimes I wonder what I'd say if I could sit across from the version of myself that landed in California in 2014. Not the version people see today. The version carrying two suitcases. Checking his bank balance every other day. Wondering if leaving India had been a mistake. I don't think I'd tell him how to write a better resume. Or how to network. Or which certifications to get. He'll figure those things out. Instead, I think I'd tell him something much simpler. Stop measuring your career by the number of applications you send. Because for a long time... I did exactly that. Every application felt like progress. Every rejection felt personal. Every day ended with the same question. "Did I do enough today?" Years later, I realized I had been counting the wrong things. Dear younger me, One day you'll meet students who proudly tell you they've applied to 600 jobs. They'll think that's an impressive number. You'll stop asking that question entirely. Instead you'll ask something they've never considered. "How many people know your name?" You'll eventually notice something strange. The students who always seem lucky aren't actually lucky. They're simply easier to discover. One professor remembers them. A recruiter has seen them before. Someone attended the same meetup. A founder recognizes their LinkedIn post. From the outside, it looks like opportunity keeps finding them. From the inside... They simply gave opportunity more places to find them. There will be days where you think nothing is happening. Nobody replied to your message. Your LinkedIn post gets 14 likes. The recruiter ghosts you. You'll assume the effort didn't matter. Five years later... You won't even remember which message led to which opportunity. You'll only remember that showing up consistently made people familiar with your name. If I could leave my younger self with one thought, it'd be this. Stop asking whether you're working hard enough. Start asking whether the right people have had a chance to notice your work. Those are two different questions. One measures effort. The other changes careers. I wish I'd understood that sooner. Talk soon -Yudi |
Yudi J
I'm a podcaster, youtuber, and educator who loves to talk about personal development, business & entrepreneurship, and education. Subscribe and join over 52,000+ newsletter readers every week!
Hi Reader, Yudi here, There is a job in tech right now that pays around $300,000. And most people in this space are either not aware of it or not taking it seriously. Here is the part that might sting a little if you are currently chasing a traditional software engineering role. That door is not just getting harder to walk through. It is quietly splitting into two halves. One half is shrinking because AI is doing the entry-level coding work faster and cheaper than any new grad ever could. The...
Hi Reader, Yudi here, Let me tell you what separates students who get into their dream university with a scholarship from students who end up at their backup school with no financial aid. It isn't GPA. It isn't how strong their SOP is. It isn't even which consultant they used. It's how early they started. I know that sounds simple, almost too simple. But I've watched this play out enough times to say this with confidence: the timeline you follow over the next 12 months will have a bigger...
Hi Reader, Yudi here. Most people in the US on a work visa spend years focused on one thing: getting a green card. And that makes sense. The green card feels like the finish line. But here is what I have noticed talking to hundreds of immigrants over the years. Once people get the green card, they often have no idea what comes next or what their actual options for permanent settlement look like. And one of the most misunderstood topics in that conversation is US citizenship itself....