maverickJ

It’s all about positioning one’s career where one has max leverage which lead to relative higher career earnings; hopefully converting some of this to cash producing assets.

It’s similar to other advice I have heard such as one’s communication and general peoples skills tends to lead to favourable career success after a certain threshold.

A great article on why one should not depend on technical skills alone is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...

Interesting article. I had the same realisation which I coined the phrase ”everything is not for you”.

It’s the idea that even things termed as good might not be good for you; especially in the long term. Our time on earth is finite.

It involves choosing a focus and cultivating the attention to stay on track. It also involves being comfortable looking wrong in the short term.

The article below can be read adjacent to the one in this post

https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/everything-is-not-fo...

“Focus is doubly important for early stage startups, because not only do they have a hundred different problems, they don't have anyone to work on them except the founders. If the founders focus on things that don't matter, there's no one focusing on the things that do.”

Paul hits the nail on the head with this.

I like to think of this as the idea of everything is not for you. It’s very important to know what the goal is and ignore every other thing that does not align with it.

The article below helps provide a framework of focus and the idea that everything is not for you.

https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/everything-is-not-fo...

Marketing is very important.

As mentioned in my article on Nikola Tesla's breakthrough, "Doing brilliant work is not enough; Showing|demonstrating brilliant work is not enough. What is enough is showing your brilliant work to the right people. When your brilliant work is shown to the right audience at the right time, it triggers action for the next stage of the work. In Tesla’s case, it was the commercialisation of alternating current by George Westinghouse of the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburg. When your work is shown to the wrong people, the merits of the work are typically dismissed"

If you want to read more, the link is below https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you...

Are you not tired of this trope?

>"You need to create for an audience of one that you understand well.

An audience of one is specific. Whether it’s you or someone you know well, there are clear preferences that you can cater to. They have a manageable number of needs and pieces of feedback. Which means that creating for an audience of one is specific and attainable. You have a goal post that can tell you whether you scored or didn’t, so failure and success are both explicitly defined. Now, you know what to make, but more importantly, you know exactly when you’ve failed making it."

Interesting quote. What was not mentioned is how to find the audience for what you create; whether it's a new thing with a new market to be created or an improvement on an existing thing with an existing market.

An interesting blog on why it's important to find the right audience for your work is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you...

Great write up Paul.

An interesting add in my opinion is that one can also do great work when working on a project not of your own origination but of an area where one's interests lie or where visions intersect.

>"You have moments of happiness when things work out, but they don't last long, because then you're on to the next problem. So why do it at all? Because to the kind of people who like working this way, nothing else feels as right. You feel as if you're an animal in its natural habitat, doing what you were meant to do — not always happy, maybe, but awake and alive."

While the above does ring true to some extent, one can also approach all tasks with a sense of being awake and alive; This is something some eastern religions preach about. I do admit that this will be hard to implement in practice though. i

One person who was able to test out their own ideas while working for others is Nikola Tesla. He might be used a case study by others with grand visions who want to do great work. Although, it can be argued that Tesla had to at some point seek independence.

"In 1883, Nikola Tesla was sent by his employer - The Continental Edison Company- to fix the problem that had occurred in the powerhouse and electric lights installation at the railroad station in Strassburg. This presented him with the opportunity to test out his theory of a two phase alternating current motor encompassing his rotary magnetic field discovery [at that time, everyone who had tried to make an alternating current motor used a single circuit]. He set to work and tested his theory in the power plant. He was successful in starting up the power generator with this new system. This meant that Tesla now had a novel electrical system that utilised alternating current."

The above was taken from https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you...