If I could change just one thing about my twenties, if I could hand one piece of advice to the me of those days, I'd say it without hesitation.
"Change your field, right now."
I was born and raised in Gwangju, in Korea's southwest. Within that field, I graduated from the best university around, and by chance I started my career at a startup that was decent within that field, too.
I worked hard, driven by a single desire to 'really do marketing properly,' but it never occurred to me to move to Seoul.
So it went: two years in Gwangju, one year in Seongnam. It took me three years of detours before I finally made it into Seoul.
At the time, my salary was around minimum wage.
Once I actually did it, settling in Seoul turned out to be neither as big a deal nor as expensive as I'd imagined. But the growth after I moved fields was incomparably steeper than before.
The density of information was different, the caliber of the people I met was different, and above all, the very texture of the opportunities I could encounter was different. When the field changes, the density of your time changes. In a small tank, no matter how fiercely a fish swims, there's a limit to how big it can grow.
That realization left me with a valuable instinct. It's why, two years ago, I could throw myself at the option of 'joining the Japan business' without hesitation.
Japan is, at its base, a market three times the size of Korea's.
I now know that the better path isn't to jump in once you're perfectly prepared, but to jump in first and grow yourself to match the size of that field.
There has never been a better time to change fields than now. 'Language,' the highest barrier dividing fields, is being torn down by a powerful tool called AI. There will still be detailed difficulties in face-to-face settings, but the era when a lack of language skills blocked a move between fields is over.
The same goes for work and compensation. The biggest lesson I've learned is that before increasing the amount of effort, I need to find the field where my effort sells at the highest price.
If the field you're in right now feels cramped, I recommend leaping to a wider one.
Throw yourself toward the place where your effort will be put to its most valuable use.
That's the most honest lesson learned I can offer to my 20-something self, and to someone out there right now.
