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

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.

Forget Your Purpose, Start with Meaning

The stories we hear of the successful often make it seem like they were destined for greatness. They identified their purpose from an early age and forged ahead, cutting down distractions in their path. But if you peel back the facade, few encountered sudden revelations. Purpose is hard won.

Child prodigies like Mozart or Tiger Woods are the exception. Robert Greene, best-selling author, worked dozens of jobs as a construction worker, hotel receptionist, translator, and screenwriter, before pitching his first book, The 48 Laws of Power, at age 36. But each step gave him a greater sense of meaning and direction on his way towards writing full time.

It’s human nature to crave a sense of direction. And direction comes from purpose, identity, and authenticity, each of which are intertwined. But they’re not the same thing. If you want to make progress, you have to be able to separate these and lower the stakes. 

Meaning is what purpose is made of

The trouble with taking on purpose from day one is that it appears insurmountable. When you break it down into its individual components, it’s easier to pursue. Purpose is the series of pieces you find meaning in. 

Your life doesn’t need a single purpose out of the gate. Just as it doesn’t need a single meaning. Meaning is an ebb and flow that tracks the motion of your life. If you follow this, it leads towards things you are uniquely suited to bring to life. 

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) discovered botany only after dropping out of medical school. And he wouldn’t publish his theory of evolution until twenty-four years after his visit to the Galapagos Islands. During that time, he speculated on diversity in the natural world through experimentation and careful observation–breeding pigeons, studying barnacles, and soaking seeds in salt water to see how long they survived. What tied together these seemingly unrelated experiments–where he found meaning–was working to understand the nature of life.

Purpose becomes attainable once you stop obsessing over it and turn your attention to the little things you find meaning in on a daily basis. Meaning is within reach.

What’s meaningful to you?

As you seek meaning in your day to day, there are different strategies worth considering. Robert Greene suggests a three-part approach in his book, The Laws of Human Nature.

1. Consider inclinations in your earliest years – moments when you were unusually fascinated by certain subjects, objects, or activities. 

2. Reflect on moments when certain tasks or activities felt natural to you.

3. Determine what particular form of intelligence your brain is wired for (mathematics, logic, physical activity, words, images, music).

Do more of these things. The key is determining what’s meaningful to you and not absorbing what’s important to someone else as your own. Otherwise, you’ll miss the mark. If Darwin listened to his father and remained in medical school, he wouldn’t have joined the crew of the HMS Beagle or discovered the theory of evolution.

And this is perhaps the most difficult skill of all–sorting through the noise and determining what’s your own. It requires years of exploration, introspection, and reflection to determine for yourself. But this exercise gives you a solid start. 

The long game and force multipliers

When you focus on meaning first, you create a system that favors an action-oriented approach. You shift your mental framework from external to internal–what’s within your realm of control. And this is the mindset you need to play the long game. 

“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.”

— James Clear

The promise of recognition or reward can carry you for days, maybe months. But not years. Only meaning provides that. Robert Greene’s latest book, The Laws of Human Nature, was the culmination of his life’s work and took six years from start to finish. You can’t fake 72 months of sustained effort without turning things back to what’s within your control and finding a stronger sense of meaning in your daily work. 

Aspiring to win a Royal Medal or become a bestseller can still be productive, if held in perspective. But if that perspective is lost and your self-worth becomes dependent on external validation, you’ll likely give up at the first sign of criticism or apathy–and there will be plenty. 

I find meaning in reading, writing, articulating complex problems, leveraging technology to simplify (rather than overcomplicate), and using storytelling to reveal something to people about their own lives. I can sustain each of these indefinitely because they’re meaningful to me and how I make sense of the world. If recognition comes along the way, I’ll welcome it (always keep the upside). But I also won’t stake my existence on it. 

The catch is that few reach achievement without first pursuing meaning. You can get lucky and reach the top once, but to sustain at that level, like Darwin or Greene, requires something more. Meaning is a force multiplier. The stronger the connection to your work, the more force you’ll be able to exert. 

It’s almost impossible to beat someone who’s engaged, finds meaning in their work, and is committed to the long game. 

You still have to determine what you want out of life, make sacrifices, and focus on a few important things. But it’s not worth agonizing over the search for a single purpose from day one. 

Instead, look for the pieces you find meaning in. Trust yourself. Discover ways to blend your unique abilities, interests, and experiences. With dedication and reflection, you’ll discover a sense of purpose that ties it together along the way. 

How the Stoics Mastered the Art of Influence

Desire for influence is human nature. Many people allow this to dictate the course of their lives, often unaware. But the Stoic philosophers developed a deeper sense of awareness and took the opposite approach.

Influence wasn’t their end goal. They approached it with indifference and chalked it up to fortune–nice to have but nonessential. Instead, they offered a more effective strategy–seek meaning over influence.

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.

“Find significance within yourself. Within your own sphere of power–that is where you have the greatest consequence.”

— Epictetus

But if influence acts as your guiding principle, you dull your sense of authenticity and depth. You might get lucky and hit the target a few times. But you’ll always be guessing. And it’s difficult to sustain when you’re creating from outside of yourself and dependent on things beyond your control.

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.

Sooner or later your voice begins to waiver. By allowing influence to dictate your decisions, you compromise the quality of your work and your character. And how much good can you do if you sacrifice your integrity and a sense of meaning in your work along the way?

What you’re building must first resonate with you before you can expect it to resonate with anyone else.

“But if you lose your honor in striving for greater (perceived) significance, you become useless.”

— Epictetus

People gravitate towards those who have discovered a deeper sense of meaning in their work. That’s why the Stoics remain relevant to this day. They created from a place of meaning and valued their internal compass over recognition.

When you seek meaning over influence, you add an unusual depth to your voice that draws people in.

Epictetus, Marcus, and Seneca knew this well. They channeled their own sense of authenticity into their work and they way they lived their lives.

As their influence grew, they leveraged it to contribute something worthwhile. But they weren’t dependent on it. Despite the obstacles faced and privileges afforded, they remained focused on what was within their realm of control–living a meaningful life to the best of their ability.

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.

You would be foolish to ignore your audience entirely. But that’s a secondary consideration because there’s no guarantee. You’re the one who has to live with the work you put out into the world and the way you live your life.

Influence is far more likely to follow if you build something you believe in.

Keep your principles in order. When influence tilts your way, you’ll be prepared to lead with a steady hand like a Stoic. You’ll position yourself as the antithesis of the paranoid, corrupt leaders scattered throughout history.

But if you fail to assign things their proper value, you’ll risk losing yourself to an obsession with influence and power.

Focus instead on the things that are your own and create from there. There’s more fulfillment in this work and it often leads to better outcomes.

When you focus on your own authenticity, there’s a far greater chance it will resonate and make a measurable difference in someone else’s life. And even if it doesn’t, it remains valuable because it meant something to you. There’s a fundamental beauty in that.

“Beautiful things of any kind are beautiful in themselves and sufficient to themselves. Praise is extraneous...Are any of those improved by being praised? Or damaged by contempt?”

— Marcus Aurelius

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

When you value meaning over influence you’ll achieve a state of relaxed concentration to do the work that matters. The work you find meaning in. And it’s through this work that you build character and a sense of authenticity.

Seek meaning first, authenticity and influence will follow.
Seek influence first and you’ll risk losing yourself along the way.

*My original post appeared on Daily Stoic – a great resource for all things Stoicism. Check out their daily email for thought-provoking morning meditations.

The Philosophy of Remarkable Minds

Each of us has the capacity to face difficult work. In many ways, this defines life. The struggle to create something of our own is where we find meaning.

Our modern era of comfort and convenience can be a double-edged sword. It’s allowed us to eliminate the daily struggle for survival and afforded us the privilege of having this discussion. But when taken to an extreme, it leads to a deep anxiety and restlessness. Emptiness can be a fiercer foe than hardship.

“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary.”

— Sebastian Junger

It’s easy to sit by as a passive consumer and allow someone else to assume the risk. On a surface level, it might even appear that you’re reaping all the benefits. But if you fail to establish a creative outlet where you can build something of your own, you sacrifice your primary source of meaning along with it.

It’s through the work you put out into the world and the way you live that you instill your life with a sense of meaning. By creating more and consuming less you claim a larger part of yourself.

Those who have lived remarkable lives hold this philosophy in constant focus.

Into the Venezuelan Jungle

When Alexander von Humboldt was born in 1769 to a family of wealthy Prussian aristocrats, by all standards of the day, he had it made. His father was an army officer and advisor to King Friedrich Wilhelm II, and his mother was the daughter of a rich manufacturer. If he wanted a comfortable existence, all he had to do was sit back and stay the course.

But despite these advantages, he was anxious and unhappy for most of his early years. His adventurous spirit was never satisfied by the confines of a classroom or the promise of a lucrative career as a civil servant. His dream was to explore the natural world.

As a child, Humboldt was fascinated with the journals of Captain James Cook and his accounts of distant countries and cultures. Humboldt wandered the Berlin countryside to recreate adventures of his own, stuffing his pockets full of plants, rocks, and insects, earning the nickname ‘the little apothecary.’

But after his father died at the age of nine, his financial dependence on his emotionally distant mother allowed her to dictate much of the early, unfulfilling course of his life. Despite his objections, she demanded that he work his way up the ranks of the Prussian administration.

Humboldt found creative ways to channel his deep interest in science, geology, and languages at different universities and academies along the way. He poured over the work of various artists, botanists, explorers, and thinkers. And while each provided inspiration, it was not enough to fill the void he faced for the first twenty-seven years of his life.

Humboldt was torn between the expectations of his family and his insatiable desire to set sail, experience the world firsthand, and contribute something of his own to the scientific community. He lacked an outlet to discover and create in a way that resonated with him. Without this, an emptiness continued to build.

It was only after his mother’s death in 1796 that he felt in control of his own destiny. Longing to escape his tiny corner of the world, he began planning a voyage to South America.

At age thirty, Humboldt set off on the expedition which altered the course of his life. He would explore treacherous landscapes that no scientist had set foot in before. The driving force was his desire to piecing together a more cohesive understanding of the natural world. Most scientists of his day were focused on isolated disciplines. Humboldt was interested in bridging the divide and the interconnected whole.

After arriving in Venezuela, Humboldt trekked for two months across the tropical grasslands of Los Llanos, facing temperatures near 120 degrees Fahrenheit. He followed this with seventy-five days of grueling river travel down the Orinoco, covering 1400 miles to reach the Casiquiare canal–a natural tributary between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. Along the way, he faced torrential rains, incessant mosquitos, the occasional jaguar, and bouts with fevers and dysentery.

This would seem disheartening to most, but Humboldt came alive with boundless energy and enthusiasm during these explorations. No matter the conditions, he insisted on measuring the height of mountains, determining longitude and latitude, taking temperatures of the air and water, making astronomical observations, collecting new species of plants, and documenting it all with detailed notes. Each new environment brought him closer to understanding how the natural world fit together.

The pinnacle of his experience in South America came during a 2,500-mile journey from Cartagena to Lima to explore the Andean Mountains. During this trip, he attempted to summit Chimborazo, an inactive volcano standing at 21,000 feet.

At 15,600 feet, the porters refused to go on. But Humboldt continued his ascent, fighting through freezing conditions, deep fields of snow, and altitude sickness. Without fail, every few hundred feet he stopped and fumbled with freezing hands to set up his instruments to measure temperature, humidity, altitude, and boiling points. He reached 19,286 feet–a world record at the time–before he was forced to turn around due to impassable conditions.

This experience inspired Humboldt to sketch ‘Naturgemälde,’ a depiction of Chimborazo’s cross sections with the distribution of vegetation, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure according to altitude. Humboldt showed for the first time that nature was a global force with corresponding climate zones across continents. And he presented it in an unprecedented infographic style, allowing those without a scientific background to understand the concept.

Naturgemälde – Alexander von Humboldt’s first depiction of nature as an interconnected whole

Upon his return to Europe, Humboldt’s exploration of South America inspired him to write thousands of letters, essays, publications, and lectures. By making connections and framing nature as a unified whole, his work revolutionized the way we view the natural world. As an interesting aside, he was also the first to observe and describe human-induced climate change.

Humboldt inspired generations of scientists and writers including Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir. But his greatest contribution was making science more accessible and exciting to a broader audience.

In Berlin, his series of free lectures packed music and university halls with royal family, students, servants, women, and children. He took his audience on a journey that ignited their imagination–combining exact observation with painterly descriptions. He brought distant landscapes to life through poetry, geology, and astronomy, bridging the divide between art and science.

Humboldt continued exploration into his sixties with a 10,000 mile, six-month journey through Russia. He was invigorated by each expedition, showing the same youthful energy and endurance that he had thirty years earlier. He shared his learnings in publications and letters up until his final moments when he died in 1859 at the age of eighty-nine.

The Struggle to Create

Humboldt could have settled into his early existence, lived a comfortable life, and allowed others to assume the risk in their own research and exploration. But this shallow life wasn’t enough for him. Instead, he set out with an insatiable curiosity to better understand the natural world and contribute what he learned along the way.

His adventures were his outlet for creativity, discovery, and meaning. There’s nothing easy about a 2,500-mile trek through the Andes. But the struggle to study and create something that resonated with him at a deeper level brought him to life. Without this, he would have never found his own sense of authenticity and fulfillment.

Creativity is about finding something worth struggling for.

We live in a unique time. Most of us, like Humboldt, could coast through life without facing any significant hardship if we so chose. That’s a wonderful thing. But it collapses into its opposite when we allow our entire lives to be dictated by comfort and immediate gratification. We must not forget the importance of meaning, which is found through the struggle to create something of our own.

Spending the evening watching four episodes of your favorite show on Netflix or scrolling through Instagram might be the path of least resistance, but it’s mostly empty. There’s little opportunity to create meaning of your own. More often than not it’s a distraction that pulls you away from the things that actually matter.

Your unique identifiers are the work you put out into the world and the way you live your life. These are what add depth to your voice. Not the things you consume–fashion, film, food, music, research, sports, technology.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t appreciate other people’s original work. But you should use it as inspiration. It should serve as a catalyst for you to create more and find alignment in your own sense of authenticity. It’s the height of selfishness to expect other people to create meaningful work for your personal benefit without contributing anything of your own.

Creating begins with making yourself an essential part of the process. Not standing by as a passive consumer and allowing someone else to take the risk.

But don’t let anyone fool you, creating is challenging, uncomfortable, and a slow grind. There’s no way around it. That’s why most people fail to sustain the habit. You have to trust your capacity to suffer. But it’s where all the upside is found.

Endurance, Imagination, and Depth

When you prioritize creating something of your own, you give yourself more opportunities for peak experiences and claim a larger part of yourself–just as Humboldt did at the age of twenty-seven when he shifted the course of his life. This is infinitely more satisfying than the temporary highs of a consumer.

By creating more and consuming less, you add an unusual depth to your voice that draws people in. Your creative outlet is where you are able to channel the questions and struggles you’ve faced into something that offers profound insight. And that’s what life is all about.

Whether you forgo a life of privilege to trek through the Venezuelan jungle or you set aside Instagram so you can focus on your art, science, startup, or relationship with the person right in front of you, what matters is that you provide yourself an opportunity to create.

Those who make a measurable difference in the world are inspired to contribute something of their own. Instead of taking the easy route–opting for comfort and immediate gratification–they push themselves further into the unknown.

Human nature has given us remarkable endurance to face difficult work and the imagination to build something from nothing. It’s through this struggle to create that we instill our lives with a sense of meaning.

To find your sense of authenticity and fulfillment, you must fight to create more.

*If you want to learn more about Alexander von Humboldt, check out The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf. It’s a tremendous read and the source of many details in this article.

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.