Seek Meaning Over Influence

“If you care too much about being praised, in the end you will not accomplish anything serious…Let the judgments of others be the consequence of your deeds, not their purpose.”

— Leo Tolstoy

Six months after reaching space aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor, Mae Jemison announced her resignation from NASA. Her childhood dream was fulfilled. And while she wasn’t done with space exploration, she wanted to apply her knowledge, skills, and experience in new ways that would have otherwise been limited by the specialized training of the astronaut corps at NASA.

Many people considered her foolish to leave NASA—why walk away from the pinnacle of human exploration? But she trusted herself and knew it was time to focus on the next thing she found meaning in. This wasn’t the first time she made a decision that challenged the status quo in favor of an opportunity that was meaningful to her.

At 20 years old, after graduating from Stanford with a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering and Afro-American Studies, Jemison enrolled in medical school at Cornell. In between semesters, she traveled and found a real sense of purpose in providing primary medical care in developing countries. These experiences taught her more about herself and helped her feel more connected to the world. She immediately knew she wanted a deeper experience in this environment after finishing medical school.

Going against the grain

But the expectation at Cornell—an elite medical school—was that their graduates pursue a prestigious residency after graduation. Jemison simply wasn’t interested. She planned to complete a brief one-year internship at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. She would then return to work in the developing world to help in whatever capacity she could.

The deans at Cornell weren’t thrilled about her plan. One afternoon, they called Jemison in for a meeting and asked her to reconsider. She explained her reasoning, but they interrupted and claimed she was making a mistake. They outlined the consequences—she would fall behind her peers over the next decade and feel less accomplished. She followed her decision anyway.

After completing her internship, Jemison joined the Peace Corps as a Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia. She was responsible for the health of all Peace Corps volunteers, staff members, and embassy personnel. She acted as a primary care physician and managed a medical office, laboratory, and pharmacy.

While in West Africa, she navigated environments with insufficient equipment, medication, and supplies. But she honed her resourcefulness, pulling knowledge across different disciplines to navigate challenging situations.

Early in her tenure, one of the Peace Corps volunteers became sick with what Jemison thought could be meningitis with life-threatening complications. She worked to stabilize his condition through the night. But his condition worsened, and she knew she had to act.

Jemison called the U.S. Embassy to secure a military medical evacuation. They questioned whether she had the authority to give that type of order. She calmly explained the situation and that she didn’t need anyone’s permission. The Embassy conceded. By the time Jemison and the volunteer reached the Air Force hospital in Germany, Jemison had been up for 56 hours. But she had saved his life.

These types of experiences would prove invaluable and set her apart when, on her return to the U.S. in 1987, when she applied to NASA’s astronaut training program. Out of 2,000 applicants, Jemison was one of the fifteen accepted.

Almost ten years from the day that the deans at Cornell told her that she was setting herself back in her career by taking a non-traditional approach and that she would regret it, Jemison was orbiting Earth as the first black woman in space.

What type of person are you?

Rather than prioritizing influence or prestige, Jemison was operating from a different place. She was focused on who she was and what she found meaning in. It wasn’t a position that she wanted to define her life. It was the type of person she was.

Jemison found meaning in creativity, exploration, and being helpful. She found meaning in engineering, art, dance, medicine, exploring space, exploring other countries, and exploring new ideas. Above all, she wanted to help and make a difference in the world through the skills and interests that defined her. She channeled this into her work and the opportunities she pursued at each step.

If you focus on work that matters to you and discover significance in yourself, you put yourself in a position to build something that strikes a deeper chord with others.

Influence wasn’t Jemison’s end goal. She approached it with indifference and chalked it up as nice to have but non-essential. Instead, she focused on her character, investing her time in what she found meaningful. She sought meaning over influence at each step of her life.

The desire for influence, like the desire to belong, is human nature. Many people allow this to dictate the course of their lives, often unconsciously. But acting deliberately and purposefully requires a deeper sense of awareness.

If influence acts as your guiding principle, you dull your sense of authenticity and compromise the quality of your work. How effective can your work be if you sacrifice your integrity and sense of meaning along the way?

People gravitate toward those who have discovered a sense of meaning in their work. It just hits differently.

Start with meaning

By focusing on meaning first, there’s a greater chance your life and work will resonate and make a measurable difference in the world. And even if it doesn’t, it remains valuable because it meant something to you. There’s a fundamental beauty in that.

Influence is far more likely to follow if you build something you believe in. And irrelevance is all but guaranteed if you continue to wander the path of least resistance, looking for a quick hit of attention or praise.

Your work must resonate with you before you can expect it to resonate with anyone else. You must fight like hell to ensure your work feels true before you release anything of your own into the wild.

Meaning starts with something that’s all your own. By prioritizing meaning over influence, you build the courage to speak from a place that resonates with you rather than following what other people have deemed important.

It’s a dangerous game to tie your sense of meaning and self-worth to external conditions. You introduce dependencies that can drop you into a state of anxiety, envy, or despair without warning. You allow yourself to be pulled along at the whims of others.

Regardless of the expectations or paths others had followed, Jemison made decisions that optimized for meaning over influence. She trusted her internal compass over any sort of fleeting recognition, status, or prestige.

After NASA, Jemison launched her own company. One of her first projects was to create an international science camp—The Earth We Share—that promoted critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Jemison also started teaching environmental studies at Dartmouth. Eventually, this led her to found 100 Year Starship, an initiative to establish capabilities for human interstellar travel within the next 100 years.

It’s a rare thing in this world to seek significance in yourself and build the courage to create something that resonates with you.

Seek meaning first, and authenticity and influence will follow.

Seek influence first, and you’ll risk losing yourself along the way.

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Sources:

1. Black History Bootcamp, Day 21, Mae Jemison

2. We Regret to Inform You: Rejecting Dr. Mae Jemison

3. StarTalk Radio: A Conversation with Dr. Mae Jemison

4. Jon Talks With Dr. Mae Jemison: The First Black Woman in Space

5. Find Where the Wind Goes, 2nd edition by Dr. Mae Jemison

6. Shooting Star: Former Astronaut Mae Jemison Brings her Message Down to Earth

Find Your Flow

“The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, to find the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you.”

— Naval Ravikant

It was a humid summer afternoon in 1978 and Jay-Z was on his way home to the Marcy Houses in Brooklyn after a Little League game. As he wandered the maze of concrete paths, he noticed a group of kids huddled, rocking back and forth in a circle. Jay-Z shouldered his way toward the middle to see what was going on.

When he got through the crowd, he found an older kid named Slate freestyling and rhyming at the center. Slate threw out lyrics off the top of his head, rhyme after rhyme like he was possessed. He carried on like this for 30 minutes without pausing to stop. 

Jay-Z was captivated. He had never seen anything like it. And he immediately thought, I want to do that…no, I know I can do that.

As soon as Jay-Z got home, he grabbed a spiral notebook and started filling it with his own rhymes. He covered every crevice on the page with lyrics—horizontally, vertically, writing as small as he could. He pounded beats on the kitchen table. He scoured dictionaries for new words. From the time he woke up in the morning until he went to sleep, he practiced. He lived and breathed rapping, writing lyrics, and composing rhymes. 

Poetry came naturally. And he didn’t view the hours he spent practicing as painstaking work. It was something he loved to do.

Even when Jay-Z was out running around town with his friends, if a rhyme came to him, he would stop what he was doing, grab a brown paper bag from the corner store, and spread it on a mailbox to write down the idea to get it out of his head. His mind was constantly working, turning things over. Nothing was more important than writing rhymes. 

As Jay-Z got older, another rapper named Jaz-O took him under his wing to teach him the fundamentals. They locked themselves in a room to hone their craft together—trying new flows and pushing themselves to improve their speed, delivery, composition, and structure. At school, Jay-Z practiced to beats in the cafeteria during lunch. 

Eventually, Jay-Z talked his way onto the tour of a successful rapper named Big Daddy Kane. He spent four months touring with Kane, unpaid, sleeping on the bus floor. During intermissions in the show, Jay-Z would get on stage and practice his freestyle—sharpening his lyrics and delivery. 

He studied Kane on stage, watching his breath control, his wordplay, and the way he stacked rhymes. Jay-Z was a student first, enamored by the craft.

Jay-Z had found his flow—a sacred place where time seemed to melt away while focused on the task at hand. Rapping came naturally to him, and he combined this with dead-serious discipline. He could outwork anyone. Because he loved it. As he immersed himself in writing lyrics, performing, and practicing the fundamentals, he tapped into a flow state. 

Find the intersection of what you love doing and what you’re good at

Your own flow state will guide you to what you should spend more time doing. It points to the intersection of what you love doing and what you’re good at. When you identify this, you can outwork just about anyone. Because you’re immersed in something deeply rewarding to you—no matter how hard it is. It’s a competitive advantage that leads toward something you are uniquely positioned to create. 

Ask yourself, what activity are you engaged in when hours seem to pass by in the blink of an eye? What feels like work to other people that feels like play to you? What type of work invites you into a state of relaxed concentration where you feel like you’re in the zone?

You’re not going to win or create your best work by pursuing something that feels mundane or uninspiring. It’s impossible to keep up with someone who truly loves their craft—they are just willing to give more than you are capable of. When you’re not invested in what you’re doing, you give up on creating anything worthwhile. Life becomes an exercise in watching the hours pass, living for the weekend, jumping from one distraction to the next. 

When you find your flow state, it’s not that work stops being hard. It will still feel challenging. But it will feel worth it because you’re engaged in what you’re doing. When the work you’re doing resonates with you on a deeper level, you can persevere through almost anything. You can push through endless agitations and tireless hours of practice. The work is the reward. You don’t need the same level of external validation that dictates other people’s lives because the act of doing is what’s fulfilling. 

It will take years of hard work to create something meaningful—to bring the best version of your work to life. There are no shortcuts. If you want to be able to persevere long enough to create your best work, you have to find where your flow lives.

Jay-Z loved rhyming for the sake of rhyming. He immersed himself in practice—challenging himself to stack his rhymes and structure his songs in the most compelling way possible. He experimented with moving around couplets and triplets, speed rapping, and adding multiple layers of meaning. It was all he could think about. It’s what helped him make sense of the world and channel his energy. 

It takes years of honing your craft before it starts to pay dividends. And honing your craft requires thousands of hours of effort and practice. That’s why it’s paramount to identify the work that energizes you and pulls you into a flow state. Leaning into that type of work will allow you to sustain the engagement over the years and decades required to become exceptional at what you do. 

Magic is the product of relentless effort

After 14 years of practice, Jay-Z stepped into the beginning of his professional career. Clark Kent, an A&R representative at Atlantic Records, pushed Jay-Z to lay down a song with another rapper, Sauce Money. Patrick Lawrence, the producer in charge of booking studio time, set the date and brought the two rappers together to record. 

Jay-Z and Sauce sat there laughing and telling stories for the first three hours. As the night wore on, Lawrence grew agitated. Finally, he told Jay-Z that he had to record his lines. They were running out of time.

Jay-Z asked to hear the song, so Lawrence played the track. Jay-Z began mumbling to himself over the track. He picked up a notebook and seemed to write a few things. He continued pacing, muttering words, appearing to scribble on the pages. After a few minutes, he placed the notebook on a table and told Lawrence he was ready. 

Jay-Z stepped into the sound booth to record his part, and Lawrence picked up the notebook to see what he had written. The pages were completely blank. Not a single word. It was all an act. With over a decade of constant practice, Jay-Z had developed the ability to memorize all his verses instead of writing everything down. What appeared like magic to everyone else was the product of relentless effort. 

But to get to that point where it looks like magic to everyone else, it requires you first to identify what immerses you in your own state of flow. That’s the work you should invest more of yourself in. 

Your flow state is the clearest indicator you will get in this life. Whether it’s building, coding, cooking, leading, performing, writing—whatever provides your shortcut to a state of mind where time melts by and you’re completely immersed in your work is a signal worth following. 

There’s no better indicator of who you are than the work you lose yourself in

The question you must ask yourself is, what part of your life triggers this for you? You must answer this with precision. What are you focused on when you feel like you’ve stepped into a flow state? You must constantly come back to and find a way to harness this.

I have reflected on this question more times than I can count throughout my life. I use it as a checkpoint to bring myself back into focus. 

But the first time I gave it the attention it deserved, I was wandering through my mid-twenties. As I dug for my answer, I remembered how much joy writing brought me when I was growing up. It always felt natural to me and I excelled at writing assignments with less effort than my peers. I loved the puzzle of crafting and structuring a compelling story.

One afternoon I walked over to a coffee shop in Nashville near my crumbling duplex on Grandview Drive to attempt writing again. I put on my headphones, opened a word document, and started writing—whatever random thoughts came to mind. As I wrote, a great sense of relief came over me. This was my thing.

Once I found it, I was all in. I returned to that coffee shop every weeknight, like clockwork at 5:00 PM, and spent four uninterrupted hours writing. I didn’t have some grand plan to get rich off my writing. I just loved the act of writing. And I still do. That’s my craft. It’s where I go to find or lose myself. It’s how I make sense of the world. 

If you’re unsure what your thing is, experiment with as many different ideas as possible. Before I realized with precision where I found my flow state, I tried returning to academia, recording music, producing music videos, pursuing medical school, working in marketing, running triathlons, and waiting tables at a Tex-Mex restaurant. It wasn’t always pretty, but each attempt taught me something new. It allowed me to cross something else off the list. And ultimately, this discovery period led back to where I found my flow state—in writing. 

As long as you continue to spend your time somewhere where every hour feels like an eternity, you’ll be marginally effective. But once you identify and lean into what brings you into your flow state, you alter your trajectory. You shift the playing field in your favor. No one is going to outwork you. And there’s no better indicator of who you are than the work you lose yourself in. 

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Sources:

1. Decoded by Jay-Z

2. Empire State of Mind by Zack O’Malley Greenburg

3. Three Kings by Zack O’Malley Greenburg

4. My Next Guest with David Letterman, Season 1, Jay-Z

5. Founders Podcast, #238 Jay-Z: Decoded

6. Oprah’s Master Class Podcast: Jay-Z

Run Your Own Race

“What is my job on the planet? What is it that needs doing, that I know something about, that probably won’t happen unless I take responsibility for it?”

— Buckminster Fuller

In the mid-1990s, whether you were an investor or entrepreneur, everyone in technology was flocking to internet startups. Companies like eBay, Amazon, and Yahoo were gearing up for monstrous initial public offerings. It was a frenzy.

Meanwhile, Tony Fadell went to work for Philips building consumer electronics and handheld computing devices. Everyone told him he was out of his mind. Philips was a dinosaur. The Internet was where all the innovation was happening and fortunes were being made. No one needed another handheld device. But while everyone else chased lucrative internet startups, Fadell continued building hardware. 

Prior to Philips, Fadell spent five years working at General Magic—a failed company that lives on in the lore of Silicon Valley because of its alumni who went on to play pivotal roles at Adobe, Android, Apple, Google, and Nest, among others. 

At General Magic, the team worked to create a mobile computing device for personal communications and entertainment. It was released as the Sony Magic Link and had a phone, touchscreen, email, apps, games, a way to buy plane tickets, and animated emojis. The problem was that the technology wasn’t reliable and it was built for an audience that didn’t yet exist. 

The product was clunky—its processors weren’t fast enough, the touch screens weren’t great, and the battery life was too short. The team at General Magic built almost everything from scratch which was incredibly time consuming and expensive. And in 1995, the Internet was still in its infancy—email had yet to reach widespread adoption. The device became an exercise in innovation to impress other engineers at the company. The team failed to start with a problem that real people experienced and could relate to. They were ten years too early.

As the product floundered, Fadell created a plan to pivot away from making a communications and entertainment device for the general public, instead focusing exclusively on businesspeople. He pitched the idea to Philips since they were already a partner, making semiconductors and processing parts for General Magic.

Explore a different angle

Fadell held to his conviction that there was room for something amazing between desktop computers and cell phones. After pitching the mobile computing device for businesspeople on the go, he joined Philips full-time and got to work. It remained a niche market, but they successfully launched the Philips Velo in 1997 and the Philips Nino in 1998.

In 1999, after a successful run at Philips, Fadell left to start his own company. His vision at Fuse Systems was to build a better digital music player. People were starting to ship MP3 players but they were all clunky and difficult to use. And Fadell was tired of hauling around his collection of CDs everywhere he went. 

Again, he was cautioned by peers that he was continuing to compound his own mistakes by remaining in consumer electronics while the next big wave in tech passed him by. In 1999, internet startups were reaching their pinnacle of hysteria. Fadell continued to stick with personal electronics because that’s what he loved and that’s what he wanted to learn—bridging hardware and software, atoms and electrons.

The dot-com bubble finally burst in 2000—markets crashed and venture capital funding dried up with it. Fadell pitched his company to 80 different VCs and was rejected by every single one. Risk off. No one was interested in investing—even if it wasn’t internet related.

The team at Fuse was barely hanging on when Fadell received a call from Apple in late 2000. Apple had recently purchased iTunes and the application was starting to take off. Steve Jobs wanted iTunes to work with MP3 players and realized Apple needed its own device.

Jobs asked Fadell to join Apple as a consultant on an initiative to create a digital music device, codenamed Project Dulcimer. Fadell agreed, hoping he could use that money to continue paying his team or parlay it into a buyout for Fuse. 

As conversations developed, Fadell joined Apple full-time in January 2001 and brought over his team from Fuse. Jobs signed off on the concept for the device proposed by Fadell and his team in March. And the first iPod was shipped in November.

Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the soon-to-be iPhone. 

While people thought he was a fool to stick with hardware and personal electronics for a decade across five companies, by the time Apple called him to make the iPod, he knew exactly how to do it. Every job he held had given him a different vantage point on the same problem. He built a more complete view of the challenge and knew with precision what to work backward from. 

In retrospect, Fadell’s decision to stick with personal electronics seems obvious. But to hang in there for a decade while everyone around you is clamoring after the next big thing—internet startups—and constantly in your ear about missing out while they make nauseating amounts of money is no small feat. That takes serious discipline and trust in yourself. 

Chase problems you care about solving, not trends

Fadell was never optimizing for money. His primary focus was aligning to problems he wanted to learn more about and a space he was passionate about driving forward. That meant building devices and working at the intersection of hardware and software. It’s what he loved doing and that was enough justification for him. 

The most difficult challenge we face in life is to avoid getting pulled into races we aren’t willing to run. It’s why we end up chasing trends or grow insatiable in our quest for more. We’re perpetually consumed with a bigger title, a larger paycheck, the next milestone in life. We don’t want to miss out on anything. But this comes at the cost of sacrificing ourselves along the way. 

Oftentimes we allow ourselves to be carried away by the herd because it gives us a convenient excuse to cling to throughout life. By not committing to our own personal direction, we tell ourselves what could have been. “If I wanted to, I could have written a book, built my own company, led this team.” But you didn’t. The fear of actually dedicating yourself to becoming, grinding it out, and putting your ass on the line left you cowering in fear. So you chased after everyone else. 

To combat this, you must determine what is your own. You must slow down to clarify what you’re after, hone in on the problems you want to spend your time thinking about, and ignore everything else that gets in the way.

If you allow yourself to get caught up in the status quo—what everyone else around you is doing—it’s easy to end up in a dead-end career. You trap yourself into solving problems you don’t find meaning in and in doing so, diminish the impact you could have otherwise had. 

You’re not going to make a dent in this world or create anything meaningful by jumping ship every two years and chasing the next big thing. If you’re deeply interested in a problem and care about solving it, you have to stick with it, regardless of who thinks it matters. Over a long enough time horizon things will work out in your favor.

Staying true to yourself will be the hardest, loneliest thing you will ever do. You’re going to be standing in the wilderness wondering what you’re doing while other people get rich and seem to have it all together. But authenticity is about playing the long game—what can you sustain indefinitely? What were you meant to bring to life? That’s where your best work is born from. 

And while those same people who got rich overnight lose it just as fast and get written off as one-hit wonders, you will have slowly built an empire. Because you ran your own race. 

Ready yourself to face distractions

You’re still going to receive calls that entice you—opportunities to make more money, follow your friends, work on something trendy. But these are distractions that will only pull you away from the work you find real meaning in. That’s why you must determine what you’re after and hold to that with all your might. 

You must be able to navigate these distractions without losing yourself along the way. Do you have the willpower to stand up for yourself? Are you prepared to do the hard thing and turn down opportunities that don’t align with where you want to go? Do you have the endurance to stick with a problem you care about while everyone else jumps ship and tells you it’s a waste of time?

In 1973, Ed Catmull, the founder of Pixar Animation Studios, visited Disney to pitch a new computer rendering technology for animation. Disney laughed him off and instead tried to tempt him into a job designing theme parks with the Imagineering team. Holy shit, what a cool job. Since childhood, Catmull had been fascinated with Disney. But he turned it down without hesitation. He knew it was a diversion. He wanted to animate. And he trusted that. 

Life will throw everything it can at you—attempting to distract or tempt you along the way. That’s the test you must face. When things get tough are you going to give up on the work you care about? When the easy money or the comfortable job comes knocking are you going to sell out on your own priorities? Or are you going to stand steadfast in what matters most to you—the work you are meant to do?

If authenticity is what you’re after, you have to find and stick with what you believe in. You have to trust yourself enough to run your own race. And if you do, it’s just a matter of time before you come out ahead. 

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Sources:

1. Build by Tony Fadell

2. General Magic by Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude

3. Masters of Scale with Tony Fadell

4. The Tim Ferriss Show: On Building the iPod, iPhone, Nest, and a Life of Curiosity

5. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

Call Your Own Shots

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

— Teddy Roosevelt

Jordan Peele, like so many other comedians, saw Saturday Night Live as the pinnacle of sketch comedy. By 2008, Peele had worked his way up the ranks through Boom Chicago, Second City, and Mad TV to hone his sketch and improv skills. Along the way, he earned a reputation for imitations. He could become anyone. 

Around this time, Senator Barack Obama was emerging as a leading candidate for the Presidency and SNL needed someone to play the part. Peele received a call from Seth Myers asking if he had an Obama impression. Peele worked on it for a week then flew out to New York to audition. This was his chance to reach the top after years of hard work.

Peele played it perfectly. SNL offered him the job. There was only one problem—he was still under contract at Mad TV. Peele figured he could negotiate his way out, but the producers at Mad TV wouldn’t budge. Despite his pleas, they refused to concede. He was required to finish out his contract. End of conversation. 

Peele was crushed. SNL was the dream he had worked so hard towards for his entire career. And just like that, with an offer in hand, it was ripped out from underneath him. What right did these network executives have to use his fate as a bargaining chip? Peele was forced to grapple with an uncertain path forward. 

In the weeks, months, and years that followed, Peele discovered a way to channel the anger and frustration from the experience. He realized that if he could become a producer, he would have more leverage and avoid trapping himself in a similar position in the future. 

Peele recognized that producers were the ones making the final decisions about art and comedy. But most of them were shit at it. They mindlessly followed what had worked in the past and were oblivious to what made good art or comedy. Peele was tired of everything having to pass through these gatekeepers to reach audiences. 

Seize creative control

In 2009, after a five-year run at Mad TV and 94 episodes, Peele’s contract finally expired. And he set out with full force to take creative control over his own comedy and content.

As Peele found his footing, he began to explore the idea of his own sketch show with Keegan-Michael Key, a fellow Mad TV alumnus. And the more they discussed the concept, the more they realized it was something they had to do. Key & Peele was born soon after. 

Over the course of thirteen weeks, Key and Peele created more than 250 sketches that showcased the breadth of their comedic skills. They would pare this down to 54 sketches for the first season. As their own executive producers, they could take bigger risks than they otherwise might have been able to. They were constantly assessing how far they could push because that’s what they believed audiences deserved.

The show would run for five seasons on Comedy Central. It is widely considered to be one of the best sketch series ever created. Key & Peele dialed into what they knew people were thinking but might not be saying, and brought it to life through comedy. The polished, bite-sized skits only increased their virality online. Skits like “Obama’s Anger Translator” and “Substitute Teacher” became staples in popular culture. But without Peele pursuing creative control, they would have never been made. 

When Peele was forced to let the SNL offer go, he could have thrown up his hands. He could have accepted that he was powerless against the weight of those who held creative control and made the executive decisions. But instead, he used this as motivation to seize creative control. To define his own work. To answer to himself.

Unveil the hidden risks

Despite what we might tell ourselves, there’s no real justification for taking a hands-off approach in our own lives. But we often do exactly this. We get comfortable operating as passengers in our own stories and console ourselves with empty anecdotes like ‘whatever happens, happens.’ The consequence is that we let mediocre leaders, peers, producers, and executives dictate our future. 

In our indifference, we allow inertia to dull the edges of our work and limit our trajectory.

Living—at least meaningfully—requires a hands-on approach. You are the only one who understands what brings you life, why that matters to you, and where you want to take your work. There are certainly things that exist beyond your control. But you damn well better pry back control of the things that are. 

You must move with conviction, direct your own life, and learn to circumvent the gatekeepers. When you subject yourself to the whims of a committee whose opinions you don’t respect, you end up compromising on too many critical aspects of your work.

There is an important difference between collaborators and gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are rent-seeking suits who justify their position through resource guarding. Collaborators are operators with skin in the game who want to help you wrestle back creative control. Collaborators pass the foxhole test.

The difference is in intention and risk tolerance. Gatekeepers aren’t looking to push things forward. They’re just trying to follow a playbook that prescribes success. Why take a risk on something new when you can make Batman for the 97th time? Never mind that it’s derivative or that in 50 years our grandkids are going to be convinced that we lacked any sort of original thought and we all had a superhero fetish to boot. 

It’s important to surround yourself with collaborators who push you and help bring your work to life. The work that’s true to you. The work that’s helping you to uncover what you believe about the world. Not a watered-down version. Collaborators will be there in the trenches helping you dig.

Create leverage

Similar to creative control, another way to think about this is by seizing the means of production. It gives you flexibility to set the tone. It creates an opportunity for you to go on the offensive, create momentum, and stop resistance in its tracks. 

By 210 B.C., Carthaginian general Hannibal had been wreaking havoc, fighting on the doorstep of Italy for sixteen years. The Roman general, Scipio Africanus grew tired of being baited into exhausting battles that they couldn’t win. Scipio then turned his attention to slowly capturing Hannibal’s means of production so he could better dictate the battles moving forward. 

Scipio’s first step was to take control of New Carthage in Spain—a regional capital where the Carthaginians stored vast amounts of wealth and supplies. Then he realized New Carthage depended on Carthage so he took the battle to modern-day Tunisia. This forced Hannibal and his army to return to their homeland and play defense for the first time in more than a decade. And finally, Scipio saw that Carthage depended on its fertile farmlands for material prosperity, so he struck the Bagradas Valley. This was a turning point in the war. Carthage sued for peace and they were all but eliminated as a threat to Rome. 

By controlling the means of production, Scipio was able to dictate his own terms. You always want to be able to set the tempo, rather than allowing yourself to be thrashed around, reacting to events happening around you. 

Maximize your upside

When you take creative control, you put yourself on the line. You assume the risk. But you also gain exposure to the upside. Both in terms of success and in what you’re learning.

You will learn far more creating your own art, training for your own race, or launching your own startup than you otherwise would optimizing the sign-up funnel at a behemoth tech company, mindlessly consuming sports, or performing sketches that have to be approved by a committee of risk-averse producers.

Far from being the thing that derailed Jordan Peele’s career, not being able to work things out at SNL allowed him to be more ambitious in his work. In five seasons at Key & Peele, he was able to hone his own writing and directing abilities which would prove invaluable later in his career. He was able to pursue more ideas, explore more worlds, and craft more characters than he would have been able to playing by someone else’s rules.

Peele leaned in, taking more creative control and risks when he could have retreated. In doing so, he created a far steeper trajectory in his own career. While it was impossible to know then how things might play out, he trusted himself and his intentions to move towards taking back creative control over his own ideas. And he acted upon that. This gave him more flexibility, room to maneuver, and eliminated dependencies that stood in the way of bringing his ideas to life. 

By taking creative control and calling our own shots, we put our ass on the line. But this demands its own level of respect. The credit belongs to the man in the arena.

When we shut the escape hatch and there’s no turning back, our commitment is what empowers us. It’s what emboldens us to face obstacles and gatekeepers head-on. In doing so, we create more opportunities to show up and take risks for what we believe in. And in those moments when we move unapologetically towards creating something that resonates with us, the universe has a tendency to answer the call.

Bet on yourself. Always.

The Danger in Projecting Your Most Important Thing

After graduating from college, I poured most of my time and energy into triathlons. That was my most important thing. And it stayed that way for most of my 20s. I optimized my days for training across each discipline—swimming, cycling, and running. 

When I went out on my bike, I’d ride with a group of cyclists twice a week. For years they would throw shade my way for not showing up to as many rides as they did. They couldn’t understand why their most important thing wasn’t mine. Their attitude towards me was dismissive—triathletes were just flaky, wannabe cyclists who couldn’t commit to one sport. And if we’re being honest, I harbored a similar sentiment in return. 

There’s a certain level of arrogance most of us hold with our own priorities. We believe, to varying degrees, that our most important thing is often the right thing for everyone. Our priorities take precedence.

But while it’s important to build confidence in your own path, presuming you know best and projecting that same path upon everyone else is hubris. To avoid spiraling past this golden mean, it requires humility. Without this, you become rigid and inflexible. You squander your limited time and energy on things beyond your control. And your relationships are worse for it. 

You are only responsible for yourself, your path, and identifying your most important things. Every second you spend consumed by what you believe other people should want is truly wasted. You are never going to change or help someone by prescribing what they should do with their life. You’re just going to piss them off. And in doing so, you’ll begin to stagnate as your focus drifts from your own life. 

The counterbalance to losing alignment with this golden mean—the place where you build confidence and trust in your own direction while respecting other’s differences—is reminding yourself that not everyone will share the same goal as you. Not everyone is your competition. Different people will have different priorities, and that’s okay as long as it isn’t harmful to society. All you can hope for is that everyone is thoughtful in their own approach. 

This manifests itself in different ways depending on your priorities. Consider your career and lifestyle. You might think someone is crazy to leave (or stay with) your company based on the opportunities available and the company’s trajectory. But that’s based on your vantage point, your level of engagement, and your aspirations. Rather than judging their decision—something beyond your control—all you can do is hope that they were thoughtful and made the best decision for themselves. What’s right for you right now will not be the same for everyone else you work with. And the same holds true for your lifestyle. 

When I was younger, it used to shock me that people would stay and raise their kids in the same town they grew up in. Weren’t they missing the opportunity to discover themselves and wreck their comfort zones by moving somewhere new? But my judgment assumed their priorities and mindset were identical to mine, which is exactly wrong. If someone’s most important thing is deepening their roots in the community they grew up in, all that matters is that they’ve aligned themselves to that. And while I will never have this experience, it’s something I’ve grown to appreciate as equally valuable.

Not everyone needs to see the world the same way as you. You don’t need to convince people you are right. The best you can hope for is to achieve a sense of alignment and authenticity within yourself. And respect when other people are trying to do the same. Besides, the world would be rather uninspiring if everyone held identical values and pursued the same paths. 

Your perspective and the principles you live by are what define you, your art, and your life. Trust that. Find solace in your direction. But don’t presume it’s for everyone. And don’t allow others to throw you off your game. 

The Greeks had a term for this—euthymia, which Seneca defined as “believing in yourself and trusting you are on the right path, and not being in doubt by following the myriad of footpaths of those wandering in every direction.” The key is that this starts and ends with yourself. 

Until I worked this out, I’d waste a soul-crushing amount of time judging and dismissing other people because of my own insecurities. It wasn’t malicious or all-consuming, but it was decidedly unproductive. When I developed the awareness to recognize this, I was able to better hone my own focus. In turn, this unlocked all the time and energy I wasted worrying about other people and allowed me to channel that towards my own growth. And that’s when I was able to define a stronger direction for my own life. There was nowhere to run when I faced uncomfortable conversations with myself. I couldn’t point to other people as a distraction to avoid self-reflection.

In my own life, self-sufficiency (within reason) is my guiding principle. I want to have skin in the game and make my own way, rather than spectating and criticizing from a distance. I believe voluntary hardship and forgoing too much convenience are key to living a fulfilled life. In moments that force me to choose between comfort and growth, I almost always choose growth. No matter how painful that is. But I no longer pretend to believe it’s for everyone. Directions in life are mutually exclusive. And it’s important to respect divergent paths because those differences are what make life interesting. 

Building confidence in your own path is a critical skill if you want to live a meaningful life. It’s the golden mean between self-doubt and hubris. Find your thing. Trust in your path. Figure out what you’re after in your own life and double down on that, knowing your priorities are unique to you. 

When you stop worrying about what everyone else is focused on and play your own game, you can better navigate distractions and channel that energy towards the things that matter most—actually listening to those around you and making meaningful progress towards your own priorities. 

“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading in the same direction, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only one wasting time is the one who runs around and around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.”

— Hindu proverb

The Art of Drawdown Periods

Inspiration is important. Your influences matter. But you also need time to process, reflect, and create your own connections before jumping into your next project. Whether that’s a book, startup, or scientific theory, the lesson holds true for artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists, alike.

Best-selling author, Ryan Holiday, refers to these as “drawdown periods.” In the months leading up to writing a new book, Holiday guards himself against new information with the potential to clutter this mind. Instead, he seeks a period of stillness where he’s able to distill information and settle his mind before jumping off and creating something new.

““For one of my books I gave myself a January 1 start date for the writing. Two months before, in November, I entered my drawdown period. No more reading or rereading. Just thinking. Long walks. Resting. Preparing.””

— Ryan Holiday

The danger of neglecting a drawdown period is failing to create a buffer where you’re able to discover and piece together your own thoughts on the subject. Instead, you’re just regurgitating the latest idea or concept you’ve heard, as if it’s your own. To be fair, this is human nature — we’re highly impressionable, social beings.

But creating a little more distance is a good thing. It provides additional perspective that you’re able to bring back to your work. Without this, you’re just facing an onslaught of information and distraction which can be difficult to make sense of.

Is your idea worth pursuing?

Above everything else, drawdown periods help inform whether or not an idea’s worth pursuing. The original source of “drawdown periods” — where Holiday borrowed the concept from — was military strategist, John Boyd. After he encountered a breakthrough or exciting new idea, he would spend weeks examining it, assessing its originality, and stress-testing it for problems. If it survived this period, he knew it was worth investing in.

The greater the endeavor, the more vital a drawdown period becomes. It’s important to act when inspiration strikes as it relates to the little things — an article, a small experiment, a new tactic. But the mountains — new books, startups, theories — are worth reflecting on before jumping in.

This helps create a natural filter for the things you’re not completely invested in. If the idea still resonates with you tomorrow, next week, next month, you might be on to something.

Tapering before the race

Far from killing inspiration, drawdown periods promote creativity. They allow you to find your voice and the guiding principle behind your next project. Without this, it’s impossible to sort through what’s your own.

Drawdown periods are the calm before the storm. If you set off scrambling without first setting your feet, you’re putting yourself behind from the start. While everyone loses their way at some point, it’s important to have a sense of your guiding principle — this initial footing — that you can return to along the way. And the best way to establish an early version of your guiding principle is by creating room to reflect before taking the leap.

Creative work is difficult enough, as is. Don’t make it more difficult by cluttering your mind at the start. Allow yourself time to breathe before setting off on your next pursuit.

It’s similar to tapering before a race. If you’re rested, you’ll be in better condition to handle the strenuous demands of the real race and guard yourself against burnout. In endurance sports, two days before a race, your metabolic fitness level is what it will be for the upcoming race. No matter how hard you train during those final 48 hours, you won’t see any benefits to your endurance in time for the race. Rest matters.

The value of tuning out

In 1902, Albert Einstein took a job at the Swiss patent office. The years he spent there could be considered the ultimate drawdown period. It was challenging enough to keep his mind engaged, but not enough to distract him from his more important focus on comprehending and redefining physics.

Three years later, Einstein published his paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” which outlines the special theory of relativity. Its contributions to the field of physics were profound. But one of the most astonishing things about the paper was that it had exactly zero footnotes or citations. It was like he reached the conclusions through years of pure thought, without listening to outside opinion.

While Einstein is an extreme example and a profound abstract thinker, the underlying lesson holds true. For originality and creativity, sometimes you need to allow yourself to tune out.

““If you’re constantly exposed to other people’s ideas, it can be tough to think up your own.” ”

— Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky

Deliberate or impulsive?

Drawdown periods aren’t an excuse to avoid getting started. You’re never going to be as prepared as you might like. Drawdown periods are more about giving yourself a moment of calm before the grind of creating something from nothing. New startups, books, and theories can take years, if not decades, to develop.

The difference between great artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists is the difference between drawdown periods and procrastination. Drawdown periods are deliberate. Procrastination is impulsive.

At a certain point, it helps to limit exposure and turn things back to yourself. Allow yourself to mull ideas, forge connections on your own terms, and see what comes out of it. It’s impossible to find your own voice if you’re bombarding yourself with other people’s ideas without giving yourself time to breathe.

Drawdown periods offer a temporary refrain when you’re able to step back and see the terrain. This allows you a chance to appreciate the interconnected whole and create connections or bridge ideas that you might have otherwise missed. The more perspective you can build, the better you’ll be for it. And the same goes for your craft.

As a smart creative, drawdown periods are essential. Give yourself time to prepare, rest, and reflect before your next endeavor. You’ll need every ounce of energy you have if you want to get your thinking clean and bring the best version of an idea to life.

Inverting the Distraction of Social Media

There are plenty of articles out there that rail against social media. The trouble is not that they’re inaccurate–most hold valid points. It’s that they’re often a laundry list of complaints without any real takeaways, other than “social media sucks” or “regulate Facebook.” At best, you get a call for moderation. 

A more effective approach is to invert the problem. How does the ever-present distraction that is social media present an advantage for you?

Most people aren’t going to dedicate their time to reading, writing, creating, training, or reflecting. Each of these are difficult things to do. It’s much easier to turn to Snapchat or Instagram as a crutch to waste away the hours. 

If you train yourself to do the difficult work that others avoid and ignore the distractions that others can’t resist, you put yourself years ahead. 

But this requires mental toughness and an ability to suffer. Most people panic at the first sign of discomfort. You’re sacrificing immediate for delayed gratification. If you’re able to master this impulse and embrace discomfort, you provide yourself more opportunities for growth. 

“We distinguished the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one who makes no demands on himself…”

— José Ortega y Gasset

In the age of distraction, there’s no greater differentiator than establishing yourself as a stalwart of focus and creativity. 

This comes from allowing yourself to sit with something, even if it means getting stuck. Nail Gaiman, author, uses a similar technique when he sits down to write. He gives himself permission to either write or do nothing. But everything else is off the table. Sooner or later, staring off into the distance gets boring and the only alternative is to write. 

In many ways, distractions are a training ground. Social media is just the latest culprit. If you’re able to resist the easy thing within reach and focus instead on the more challenging task, that translates across every aspect of your life. 

“Most people think they can wait around for the big moments to turn it on. But if you don’t cultivate ‘turning it on’ as a way of life in the little moments – and there are hundreds of times more little moments than big – then there’s no chance in the big moments.”

— Josh Waitzkin

You can either complain about the distraction that is social media or you can use that energy to turn in to your advantage. And it’s a tremendous advantage for those able to ignore the noise and create more. 

Are you going to sit down and do the work? Or are you going to be a sucker for another quick hit of empty recognition that comes from someone mindlessly scrolling through their feed and tapping on your status? 

Let other people wander towards distraction. Social media should be just another test to hone your focus and practice tuning out the noise. 

The more time you spend creating, the more fulfilled you are going to be. History belongs to those able to overcome the incessant distractions of their time. 

The Essential Question for Every Entrepreneur

Sometimes the best question you can ask yourself is, "Am I building something I would want?"

As an entrepreneur, this should precede every other question. If the answer is no, there's a fundamental disconnect. You're going to have a difficult time sustaining the necessary effort over the long run. Momentum comes from engagement.

The real secret to product development is creating something that you would want to use.

I evaluate every new product, opportunity, and startup that I consider pursuing with this filter. Success demands years of hard work. If I'm not engaged or I don't find purpose in the work, it's a nonstarter. Otherwise, I know I'll be at a disadvantage facing off against someone solving for their own point of need.

I use the same filter when considering partnerships or investments. I look for founders and teams who are building things they've demonstrated a deep interest in for years.

Consider those who have sustained success over decades–Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin. Each person created things they wanted in the world around them. They pursued fields of work they found engaging and compelled to contribute to. That's what kept them going.

And that's the difference between people who burn out or get lucky once and people who sustain success–regardless of industry.

But despite this simple truth, many entrepreneurs insist on building things or addressing problems that they have no real interest in themselves. Most often this is due to inexperience or a lack of integrity.

Inexperience reveals itself in early entrepreneurs who believe that their first decent idea is their only shot at making it. Instead of practicing patience, they force the issue.

But the real currency of successful startups is in execution. You can have the best idea in the world, but if it doesn't resonate with you as an individual, it's going to be difficult to get through the necessary struggles. Creating something from nothing is hard work.

The notion that ideas are a multiplier of execution is empowering. It frees you to be more selective about the startups and projects you get involved with. Instead of looking for a single brilliant idea, look for a strong idea that resonates with you and that you are uniquely suited to bring to life.

There’s no shortage of ideas out there. You might as well take on something you're aligned with and invested in so you feel like you're working towards something worthwhile.

Entrepreneurs with integrity don't involve themselves in projects that aren't aligned with their values and interests. They don't allow themselves to be distracted–even by the allure of easy money. And they don't allow envy to dictate their direction in life.

If you're building something you wouldn't actually want and that you're not proud of, you're sacrificing integrity. And integrity is far harder to come by than money, recognition, or an inflated sense of self-importance. Never mind the ensuing search for lost time.

“Your goal in life is to find out the people who need you the most, to find out the business that needs you the most, to find the project and the art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you. What you don’t want to do is be building checklists and decision frameworks built on what other people are doing. You’re never going to be that. You’ll never be good at being somebody else.”

— Naval Ravikant

The world needs more people creating real value–building things that resonate with them and pursuing work that reflects their deepest interests and principles. That's what it takes to build something great and sustain the effort that it takes to overcome inevitable obstacles.

For most hard-working, talented people it’s just a matter of time. Years of consistently showing up, learning, and dedicating time to your craft pays dividends. The power of small, calculated decisions, habits, and behaviors grows exponentially over time.

But first, you must find alignment.

Are you building something because you think someone else might want it?

Or are you creating something that you would actually want to use? This reflects a deeper interest and resilience. It's an immediate advantage that puts you in a far better position to succeed. This is where you want to be.

A Quitter's Guide to the Galaxy

What you walk away from in life defines you as much as the things you stick out.

There are those who pride themselves on persistence, regardless of the cost. And there are serial quitters who seem incapable of sustaining a single effort. Somewhere in the middle is a delicate balance of knowing when to keep going and when to quit. This balance allows you to dedicate your limited energy to the things that matter most.

As far as big decisions go, no decade seems to demand more or carry such monumental consequences as that of your 20s. Part of this is born out of naiveté in terms of experience — fewer years equals a shallower perspective and an inflated sense of self-importance. But this mindset also holds some validity in that it’s setting the trajectory for your later years, which is why quitting is such a valuable skill.

The importance of quitting grows in proportion to the number of new things you explore.

The trouble is that there is rarely ever a clear-cut “right” and “wrong” decision. The vast majority of life plays out in a gray area. Although, I’ve found that by pursuing almost everything that has piqued my interest throughout my 20s, I’ve been able to develop my own strategy to navigate this perpetual in-between and make more effective decisions.

Whenever I encounter a moment of self doubt or the urge to quit, I ask myself, do I feel like quitting because this is difficult? Or do I feel like quitting because it contradicts my character, values, or priorities?

Everything I’ve stuck with, despite the urge to quit because it was purely difficulty or challenged the confines of my comfort zone — new careers, meaningful relationships, deep personal interests — has always been worth it.But I must often first work my way through an initial period of insecurity to discover what’s sustainable, then I allow the power of compound interest to run its course.

Everything I’ve quit because it was in contrast to my character, values, or priorities has always proven, over time, to be the best available decision. This includes jobs that have run their course, relationships that lack reciprocity, undergrad majors that have bored me to tears, organizations that demand blind obedience, and even hobbies that I haven’t been all in on.

In other words, whenever I’ve doubled down and completely committed to the things that truly matter to me, they’ve paid significant dividends. Whenever I’ve cut ties with the things I’m supposed to want or that have made me question my own value system, it has allowed me to better allocate energy elsewhere.

The only disclaimer is that it’s often more difficult than simply asking yourself where the desire to quit is coming from. Most of us are in the habit of reacting to initial emotions and rationalizing our subsequent decisions beyond all recognition. To improve your decision making, you need to examine your true motivations, which demands a level of mindfulness and introspection.

Don’t take everything you feel at face value.

If you start a new job and feel like quitting, is it because you’re feeling insecure, overwhelmed, and haven’t given yourself enough time to learn? Or is it because the culture isn’t a great fit, you don’t enjoy the work, or you were misled in the interview process?

It demands greater courage to act independently and in your own best interest, than it does to sit back and allow inertia to take you down the path of least resistance. It’s easy to grow comfortable with current circumstances. That’s what makes quitting so difficult — by definition, it is change. But being able to quit something you’re not invested in is the mark of a self-sufficient mind.

If you invest more in the things that resonate with you and bail on the things that don’t, you’ll begin to develop a stronger sense of self and identity. This is the only sustainable source of gratitude in life — an awareness of what matters most to you and the persistence to adapt and see it through.

You can’t sustain something that’s in fundamental opposition to you and your priorities and expect to come out better for it.

“You always have three choices: You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it.”

— Naval Ravikant

Struggling to Find Direction in Life? Try This

Few things cause more angst in your 20s than struggling to come to terms with what you want out of life. But the best insight often reveals itself the moment you accept that you cannot be anything you want. In a world that loves empty sentiments and the delusional advice that you will be great at whatever you set your mind to, it’s an empowering realization.

I recently received a LinkedIn request from someone fresh out of college whose headline read: “Experienced Project Manager, Thoughtful Leader, Aspiring Musician and World Traveler.” My immediate impulse was to send out the word that, at long last, we’ve found the next Leonardo da Vinci. But empathy set in soon after, as I realized I was this exact person for most of the past decade.

When you trick yourself into believing you can be anything it often leads to paralysis. You become unwilling to make a single move out of fear of closing the door on a potentially rewarding alternative. But the reality is that many directions in life are mutually exclusive. Only once you check your inflated sense of self, are you free to focus on a single direction and begin creating momentum.

“Picking a lane isn’t limiting. It’s the first act of empowerment.”

— Ryan Holiday

To say I struggled to determine what to dedicate my time to during most of my 20s would be an understatement. It wasn’t that I had a shortage of interests, but the opposite–I felt like I had far too many. I wanted to be everything and as a result ended up unable to commit to anything. I convinced myself that I could balance dozens of unrelated goals. But meaningful progress proved impossible because I was unwilling to prioritize.

As I came to this realization, I discovered a thought exercise from Warren Buffett which he refers to as his “not to do” list. Rather than approaching my lack of direction and focus in the same way that I had for years, Buffett uses inversion to reframe the problem. And for me, this made a world of difference. It was only after I used this model that I was able to refocus and commit to the right things.

Here’s how to do it:

1) Write down your top 25 aspirations

List out 25 things that you want out of your life. 25 is general rule of thumb, go crazy. No matter how ridiculous you think they might be, get them on the page. My original list was all over the place and included things like publish a book, become a travel photographer, join/start a forward-thinking technology company, study Stoicism, and live near the mountains. Side note: There were far more ridiculous goals, but I’ve omitted those to avoid public humiliation.

2) Circle your top five

Ask yourself, which five aspirations are essential to having a good life. Which can you not live without? Which leverage your natural talents and allow you pursue more of what you enjoy? Remember, most of these are aspirations and goals for a reason. You’ll have to put in years of dedication and hard work to achieve them. Figure out which include a process you’re able to immerse yourself in and sustain for indefinite periods of time, because that’s what it takes.

There are certain goals that you should be able to cross off with relative ease, while others might require additional soul searching. “Become a travel photographer” was an easy one for me. That’s a dismal idea for someone who is average at photography and has no natural curiosity to further my skills in this area. All it took was a simple reminder to look beyond the romanticized end result and consider the process involved.

3) Avoid the other 20 at all costs

Once you’ve narrowed it down to your top five, bury the other 20. Buffett refers to these as goals to ‘avoid at all costs.’ They’re particularly dangerous because as long as you allow them to, they’ll linger in the back of your mind, distracting you from making progress where it matters. This can be difficult to come to terms with, but it’s essential if you want to contribute your best work to the world. You only have a small window of opportunity. Your focus must be dialed in to your top five if you have any hopes of accomplishing them.

This exercise demands a deep level of honesty and introspection, but can be done in a single afternoon if you’re dialed in. Don’t get too caught up in the specifics, you can adapt it however you see fit. But no matter how you approach the exercise, it proves to be one of the most valuable frameworks to help you negotiate your priorities and reflect on life’s more difficult decision.

My personal approach is to use the top five for larger aspirations which encompass dozens of smaller goals. One example that made my final list is publishing a book. I’ve broken this down further into its individual components, which I view as necessary to the success of the greater objective. These include growing my newsletter to 10,000 subscribers, writing shorter articles that cover a range of subjects to see which gain the most traction, and partnering with online publications that match my style to generate additional exposure.

There’s great value in using your 20s to try as many new things as possible and allowing your work to teach you as you go. In this trial by fire, you often learn as much about what’s worth sticking out by discovering what you don’t enjoy and what you’re not good at.

But you have to be realistic. The earlier you cross the irrelevant off your list, the faster you’ll be able to make meaningful progress and give your complete attention to the things you can’t live without.

Remind yourself that you don’t have to be everything. There will be things you suck at, and that’s okay. The only true responsibility you have in this life is to give something back to the world based on what resonates with you as an individual.