When you learn something for the first time, everything is new to you.

So you explore, you try different things, you fall down, you fail, you fail, and you fail some more… But you keep persevering and you get up again and again and give it another go. There are no expectations and there are no critics, there’s only you and the work you are toiling away at. Then, people start to notice your work, comment and compliment you.

And suddenly, people begin to expect a certain style and excellence from your work in that field. You’re recognised and you can no longer be a fool - you’re an expert!

Now that you’ve learnt how to make it in that field, your once steep learning curve plateaus and your learning step increments shrink.

When this happens, find something new. Start something you can be arrogant about for not knowing, something where there is no expectation, where the only person whose curiosity you want to satiate is your own. Be playful, rejoice from and learn so that you grow. Branch out into something new and dare to create genius in what you know not.

Kieran O’Neill started up holylemon.com, a sight that shows funny videos, funny movies and funny videoclips when he was 14, and sold it for US$1.25 million while studying at the University of Bath, during his exam period. He was 19 at the time. Now 21, he’s working on PlayFire and PlayStation Universe, while finishing off his degree. He spoke at Imperial College recently, and dispensed the following advice:

(1) If you’re starting a technical company, have at least one technical co-founder. Have someone great.

(2) Raising capital from equity is the most expensive source of funding. It’s way better to bootstrap or borrow.

(3) Finding the right co-founders is essential to the business.

(4) Figure out what your key business metrics are, and measure obsessively.

(5) Get onto the feedback loop as soon as possible. I.e., launch as soon as possible.

Critics are those who stand on the sidelines waiting for you to muck up so they can laugh at you, point out your mistakes gleefully and then congratulate themselves on being clever enough to point out your mistakes to everyone else.

Even the most mediocre performer contributes more than the shrewdest critic.

If you want something to be great, don’t stand on the sidelines dispensing advice, (life experiences, overly generalised), get in there and make it great!

Be a performer, and not a critic.

The recurring problem with malaria is that mosquitoes have evolved to be immune to every vaccination ever invented against them.

Humans too are incredible creatures of evolution, which is why fads come and go. People get excited and curious about the intoxicating new, immerse themselves in it and spread it amongst their friends. Fads are the vaccination which we poke at, learn about and play around with for a bit. Then, something better comes out. The old is abandoned in favour of the new. We buzz around the nets, asking the same questions and borrowing each new product as the “best thing” for a while before flying on. It’s in our nature.

So what’s next? Mosquitoes will eat through mosquito nets. What will humans do?

Either act, or forget.

Talking about someone else behind their back makes no difference to them, and all the difference to you. Your friends have to put up with you, you get frustrated, and sharing with your friends only reaffirms your complaints and causes them to perpetuate. I.e., in order for you to be consistent with what you say, you will find more and more evidence (that someone is bad/wrong/evil/stupid) to back up your word and “prove” to your friends your point of view is correct. The vicious circle continues with you and your friends, while the complaint (the someone) lives happily in oblivion. They are indifferent, you continue poking and you get to “be right”.

It doesn’t seem fair, does it? They’re the complaint, and you and your friends are the ones that suffer. What’s that about?

Give it up! And clean it up! Tell your friends you’re going to stop talking about X behind their back, tell X you’ve been speaking about them behind their back, but that you’re not committed to that anymore, and just let it go!

Complaining is silly. Either act, or forget.