“There is only one success— to be able to spend your life in your own way.” CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
“Upon graduation, my primary driver was freedom. I remember thinking that at the time. I would like to be anywhere, anytime I wanted and have a lot of money.”
DAN ANDREWS
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What Deming, Deci, Herzberg, and Csikszentmihalyi all found can be summed up in two statements:
- We are naturally predisposed to be growing, goal-seeking, striving creatures.
- By following that impulse we can create more valuable work.
When we spend our time striving and growing towards a task that we freely choose, we do better work.
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For the first time in history, we’ve reached a point where humans’ natural drive to strive and grow by working on interesting problems aligns with what the market demands. It’s not only in congruence with fundamental human drives— it’s more economically valuable. Finding meaning in your work isn’t just fulfilling. It’s a profitable business strategy.
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Reading through venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s Guide to Career Planning, I was pleasantly unsurprised by his number one piece of advice on the topic:
Don’t.
The first rule of career planning: Do not plan your career.
The world is an incredibly complex place and everything is changing all the time. You can’t plan your career because you have no idea what’s going to happen in the future…Trying to plan your career is an exercise in futility that will only serve to frustrate you, and to blind you to the really significant opportunities that life will throw your way.
…
The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.
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To quote Peter Drucker, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”)
From “The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom without the 9-to-5” (finished it last night).
Habit chains:
- Meditation – 143 days
- Journaling – 36 days
- Art – 29 days
- Chinese Calligraphy – Day 9
- Monetization – Day 3
Casey's Journal 