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My past few newsletter issues have been centered around work and career. With college around the corner, I know I’m about to make a life-changing decision, and I can’t help but think about this question:
How do you find your life’s work?
There’s work. And then there’s your life’s work.
Patrick O’Shaughnessy, an investor and venture capitalist, wrote an essay about his definition of life’s work. He wrote, “Your life’s work is a lifelong quest to build something for others that expresses who you are.”
And I can’t stop thinking about that.
The truth is when most people hear “work”, they think about the boring, clock-in clock-out type of work. But I refuse to believe that that’s all there is to it. I believe life can be much broader than that.
While I don’t have all the answers, my goal is to write a guide for those who know they’re meant for more in life, but aren’t sure where to start.
This guide assumes you are very ambitious.
Step 1: Explore
The first step is to decide what to work on. But there are so many things you could work on, so how do you determine which one to pick?
The best way I’ve found is to simply start working on something. Anything. Because once you start working on something, you begin to collect data. The more you do things you don’t like, the closer you get to the thing you do like doing.
"What should you do if you're young and ambitious but don't know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action."
Wander, Don’t Climb
Imagine you find yourself in a foggy mountain range and you want to find the highest mountain — but you can’t see further than a few feet in any direction.
What do you do?
Most of us try to climb. Wherever we are, we try to take a step in the direction that takes us higher. That’s only natural.
But computer scientists say we’ve got it wrong.
If you climb from where you are, you’re chained to where you started. The risk with the climbing method is if you happen to start near a small mountain, you’ll end up at the top of a small mountain, not the highest one.
Not only that, but you’ll also find yourself further away from where you want to be… on the highest mountain.
Rather than climb, the math says “wander”.
Why?
Randomness gives you a chance to collect as much information as possible, from as many sources as possible.
Once you have a better understanding of the terrain, then climb.
Seek Feedback, Not Advice
If you’re asking for advice, you’re not going to make it.
Making it requires making it, not asking someone else how to make it.
Making it requires learning how to not make it ten thousand different ways, leaving one, which isn’t possible to teach in any practical way nor replicable, because:
Making it requires making it easier for others to make it, which means anyone who could teach you has already taken up the void you’d be learning how to fill.
Ask for feedback, not advice.
A big mistake young people make is seeking advice from everyone they know. The reason that’s a mistake is you end up with a lot of knowledge but have little practicality.
For example, let’s imagine you want to become the best three-point shooter on your basketball team.
You watch hours upon hours of footage of Stephen Curry shooting three-pointers. After a few months, you know everything about the mechanics of shooting.
Then one day, you go outside to your driveway and shoot a three-pointer. You airball. Do you see where I’m going with this? Knowledge is only power when it’s used.
Instead of collecting advice, a much more practical approach is to seek feedback.
You can tell a lot about a person by the quality of questions they ask.
“How do I make money with copywriting”
Vs
“I’ve taken action with your advice and have X problem, did you encounter the same issue? If so what did you do?”
Only 1 of these will make it.
— Jack (@CopyMaverick)
Sep 21, 2023
Take action. Ask someone for feedback. Implement their feedback. Repeat.
Step 2: Hone Your Craft
“The cost of not being surrounded by ambitious people is way too high.”
The most impactful decision you’ll make is who to surround yourself with. It’s cliche, but true. Through osmosis, you subconsciously pick up their habits and beliefs.
Hence, your most important mission when you’re young is to surround yourself with the most driven and talented people in the world in your chosen craft. You can do that in two ways: (1) Find the best, or (2) Study the best.
Find The Best
James Clear says, “One of the only true shortcuts in life is finding an expert and apprenticing under them.”
The first and most effective method is to go where the action is. Wherever all the smartest people are in your field, move there and get involved. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved to Venice Beach. Taylor Swift moved to Nashville. Walt Disney moved to Hollywood.
Go where it’s happening.
Study The Best
The second method is to immerse yourself in the work of those who have come before you. Instead of asking them to be your mentor… study them. Read their books, watch their interviews, listen to their podcasts.
Over time, you will understand how they think so well that you can hold imaginative conversations with them inside your head.
Step 3: Find YOUR Thing
So you’ve explored many things and learned from many people. Now what? Typically, this is where most people become satisfied. They haven’t quite found their calling, but they aren’t unhappy either.
Why strive for great when good is well… good?
If you’re reading this, chances are you already know the answer. There’s something in you — your inner voice, muse, or conscience — that just won’t let you settle for “good”.
Keep searching.
Find Your Intersection
“Find out what you’re best at and keep pounding away at it.”
By now you have data to work with. You have a general sense of what you like and don’t like. Now your goal is to develop your “Personal Monopoly”. Something you, and only you, are uniquely qualified to do.
Author Jim Collins has a framework called The Hedgehog Concept to pinpoint your intersection:
Best — What can you be the best in the world at?
Passion — What are you deeply passionate about?
Economics — What drives your economic engine?
Surrender to Your Nature
"Have some friends whose careers are absolutely taking off, and the common theme among them is how they’ve surrendered to their nature. They’re done trying to be somebody they’re not.”
You can read all the books, watch all the YouTube videos, and listen to all the mentors in the world — but at some point, you have to look inward. No one can tell you what your life’s work is. It has to come from within you.
Spend a day with no inputs. No podcasts. No music. No books. Just you, a pen, and a blank journal. Then ask yourself:
• Where do you feel great resistance or fear?
• What do you do that looks hard to others but feels easy to you?
• What would you keep doing no matter how much money you had?
• What’s the weirdest thing you spend a lot of time on? Or, what’s a passion you’d be embarrassed to admit publicly?
Step 4: Focus
The paradox of success: the more successful you become, the more you’re set up to fail. Distractions disguised as opportunities multiply. And it gets more difficult to distinguish between the two.
Be Ruthless
Saying no is hard. When your heart says yes but your head says no. But it’s essential if you want to do great work. No one knew this better than Steve Jobs, who said:
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.”
Be ruthless about the things that don’t matter and relentless on the things that do.
Turn Pro
One of my favorite words is ‘Precision’. Those who are doing their life’s work pride themselves in doing things the right way — whether it was Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Kobe Bryant — they all obsessed over perfecting the small details.
“No matter what discipline you are in, there’s a common denominator in how we approach our craft. The attention to detail. The level of commitment. Those things are the same across the board. That is my message: Don’t look at what I did but how I did it. The how. And then you can transfer that over to any profession and any discipline.”
Step 5: Compound
Make time your ally. Your advantage. Your moat against everyone else.
Iterate For Decades
Mastery is a game of iteration disguised as consistency.
“If you want to be an outlier, you have one option:
Obsess over the details, every day for a decade, on something no one on Earth is doing.
No cheat codes. No playbooks. Just, obsession.
Obsess over the details for a decade, and you will win.”
Without getting all motivational on you, the key message is this:
Everything great takes time. Everything. Quick success is a myth sold to you by those profiting off of your impatience.
Instead, take the hard route. The long route. The route most people aren’t willing to take. That’s how you become a one of one. That’s how you create your life’s work.
Final Words
In summary, there are five steps to finding and living out your life’s work:
Step 1: Explore
Step 2: Hone
Step 3: Reflect
Step 4: Focus
Step 5: Compound
If you have doubts about whether you’re “good enough” to find and live out your life’s work, read this quote:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Finding and doing your life’s work will take effort and sacrifice. But so will doing any other type of work. If you’re pursuing something you’re genuinely interested in, not only will the load be less burdensome, but you’ll also inspire others to pursue their life’s work.
It won’t be obvious at first. But if you keep searching, you’ll find it.
Steve Jobs was once asked: "Why do you think some of us want the best? Why can't we be content wanting just 'good'?"
"We get to create only a few things in this life," Jobs answered, "We really have such a short time here, some of us just want it to count."
Jay “Make It Count” Yang
🔥 Jay’s Picks
This guide was heavily inspired by Paul Graham’s most recent essay, How to Do Great Work.
Another approach to being great is to focus on being consistently good.
The greatest definition of “Life’s Work” that I have come across.
A great story and lesson from Tom Brady’s time at Michigan.
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