"Follow your passion" never mentions supply and demand

[Iblitan]

32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You need to aim for your highest passion, but if there is no direct path to doing your highest passion right now, then you use a lower passion to reach your higher passion. You do things you're mildly passionate about to create capital for the things you're most passionate about.

Jeff Bezos was passionate about space. So he built and ran Amazon for 20 years to capitalize his space company. Now he works mostly on space.

Foundational question: How do you realize whether you’re actually passionate about something or not? For example, space seems interesting. Does that mean I’m passionate about space? If a computer seems like magic to me and it’s very interesting, does that mean I’m passionate about technology? Is it the the thing itself or the work involved with it? What if I deceive myself into thinking I’m passionate about something? Or is it relative?

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Iblitan said:

How do you realize whether you’re actually passionate about something or not?

One good metric is, Does it make you cry? If it can't make you cry, then you're probably not passionate about it.

Would launching a rocket make you cry?

If not, what would? Do that instead.

But if you're young, you may not have enough experience yet to know what would make you cry. In which case, experiment with stuff to find what will make you cry.

What is the thing that is most interesting to you? Start there and upgrade it if you find something juicer.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Iblitan]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

One good metric is, Does it make you cry? If it can't make you cry, then you're probably not passionate about it.

Would launching a rocket make you cry?

If not, what would? Do that instead.

But if you're young, you may not have enough experience yet to know what would make you cry. In which case, experiment with stuff to find what will make you cry.

What is the thing that is most interesting to you? Start there and upgrade it if you find something juicer.

What if I deceive myself into crying because I think I’m passionate about something? Since self deception can go so far?

[Leo Gura]

8 minutes ago, Iblitan said:

What if I deceive myself into crying because I think I’m passionate about something? Since self deception can go so far?

Look, in this domain especially, you must err on the side of action.

There are not guarantees against self-deception. You must play the game and play it well. If you fail, you can play the game more than once.

If you deceive yourself about crying, then A) That's really weird, and B) You can learn your lesson and find a genuine cry instead.

You are better off taking action and making mistakes than sitting around doing nothing or worrying.

You will course-correct as you go by being conscious of feedback.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[bazera]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But if you're young, you may not have enough experience yet to know what would make you cry. In which case, experiment with stuff to find what will make you cry.

Do you think it's fine to spend 20s and 30s experimenting with stuff, even 40s? If you hadn't found your passion earlier in life, would you feel urgency in your 30s to finally find it? 

[Nemra]

27 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

But if you're young, you may not have enough experience yet to know what would make you cry. In which case, experiment with stuff to find what will make you cry.

What age do you consider "young"?

I have found that playing the piano makes me cry, like I'm in some ecstatic state. I'm not the best at it, but I have learned how to play from scratch without any theory. No matter how boring it got, I have never thought of not playing it. Sometimes I would not play it for a long time, then I would get back at it.

Edited 2 hours ago by Nemra

[Majed]

@Leo Gura My highest passion is rap music. 

Do you think it's possible for me to live off of it one day ? 

Somehow i always knew it had to be my career since i was 11 years old instinctively.

[Thought Art]

Music makes me cry. So does Qigong. 

[bazera]

Programming made me cry in the past, but those were not the tears of joy 

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, bazera said:

Do you think it's fine to spend 20s and 30s experimenting with stuff, even 40s? If you hadn't found your passion earlier in life, would you feel urgency in your 30s to finally find it? 

You need more urgency and efficiency than that.

You can't spend 20 years screwing around!

But do the best you can from today forward.

32 minutes ago, Nemra said:

What age do you consider "young"?

20-25

31 minutes ago, Majed said:

@Leo Gura My highest passion is rap music. 

Do you think it's possible for me to live off of it one day ?

To be very honest with you, I don't feel that you are serious enough to make that work.

It could work, but you'd need to have a much more serious attitude about it.

I am not discouraging you, I'm just being very real about what success requires. You need to be real honest with yourself about how serious you are. If you don't want to be that serious, pick an easier goal.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

I feel I could one day live off Qigong as I already have a website with paying customers I just need to scale it through work and right now I’m boot strapping. 
 

Music, I doubt it but I see it as a life purpose and something I love. I believe I could build a following. I’ve been putting a song in playlists on Spotify and it’s getting traction and I’m gaining followers. 
 

For me, the payoff with music would be being able to play my songs to a dedicated fan base. I would pay lots of money to make that a reality. I’m planning too long term. The gear, education. I have lots of experience too. 
 

"Need you to get up in the stage with me honey,

show the men it’s not about the money ". 

Edited 1 hour ago by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

I want to update my life purpose statement soon

[Ulax]

@Leo Gura What do you think of Cal Newport's so good they can't ignore you philosophy these days?

I am 27 and pursuing cybersecurity atm (9 months in). I have some limited interest but not a passion (no crying etc). but according to Newport that is okay, and will come in time.

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, Ulax said:

What do you think of Cal Newport's so good they can't ignore you philosophy these days?

I never agreed with his philosophy. I'm a follow your passion guy. To me, not following your passion is a recipe for mediocrity.

You cannot be great at something you don't love.

For me, love is not a luxury. I need it to be great.

Edited 51 minutes ago by Leo Gura

[Lyubov]

1 hour ago, Thought Art said:

Music makes me cry. So does Qigong. 

I’m wanting to start a qigong practice myself, I really found it helpful the few times I did it. 

[Thought Art]

@Lyubov Sweet man, if you have questions I’m happy to share some perspective. 

[Lyubov]

Timing is also very important. Not just time management. But the actual timing of things. What is the best choice to make in these next two hours. Have you all ever had an experience where you spent weeks or months trying to accomplish something but then suddenly as you changed course or reflect on your actions, in the matter of a few hours or days suddenly you made tremendous progress? More than in the last 3-6 months? There is a quiet flow of energy at play and it’s incredibly important to become conscious of timing. There are people who did everything right at their company but when it came time to ask for a raise they did so the moment their boss got off of a phone call with their wife who is asking for a divorce. So always pushing always rushing always thinking you need to be doing a ton isn’t always the case. There is a dance to it. You need to know when to release the arrow. There needs to be tension in your bow which is created through force but enough ease to aim and control the bow as you do so. Effort mixed with flexibility and ease 

Edited 37 minutes ago by Lyubov

[Leo Gura]

Look, all success assumes intelligence. You can't succeed in anything if you do it stupidly. You actually need to have a valid and accurate model of how the world works, how business works, how people work, how capitalism works, etc.

If you have delusional or fantastical ideas of how that stuff works, you can work for 20 years and get nowhere.

The key to success is knowing what you're doing. If you can't figure out how stuff works, then you need to work for a boss who will train you.

Not everyone is cut out to lead. If you are not good at leading, become a good follower of a good leader.

If you want to get good a rap, you need a very accurate understanding of how the music industry works, the business side of it. You need to not just be a good rapper, you need to be businessman. Learn rapping, learn business, learn marketing, learn how to be a celebrity, etc.

Edited 26 minutes ago by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

Listen to some biographies of people in your industry. If you were stupid in how you did things make a new plan, adjust. Honour your life. Build a mastermind group. You don’t need to do it all. 

[Mata]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

One good metric is, Does it make you cry? If it can't make you cry, then you're probably not passionate about it.

I have a question about this, @Leo Gura. I really love dancing; it makes me feel alive and brings me a lot of joy. But I can't imagine it making me cry; it has almost the opposite effect and lifts my mood. When I imagine building technology that helps people, especially disabled people, though, thinking about the impact it could have has made me cry a few times. But when it comes to actually coding and building the technology, I don't really enjoy the process itself. So, in this case, which one seems closer to passion? I'm twenty-three, btw, and I'd really appreciate any thoughts you have on this.