(2021-01-22) Shapiro What You Should Be Working On

Julian Shapiro: What you should be working on. I spent an hour listing out everything I cared about — from human connection, to self-education, to wealth. In the process, I surprised myself: There is a better way to achieve these goals than pursuing a startup.

I created a rubric to compare my career choices on the values I care most about today.

Is the fundamental difference between Elon Musk and others that he's better at knowing what to spend his time on every day?

I wrote down the values I cared about when choosing what to work on. My goal was to articulate how I subconsciously assess a project's worthiness.

It took 15 minutes to realize those are the things I care about

the next part in the exercise was tallying up how much each career path — startups or writing guides on Julian.com — satisfied those values:

I ordered the values from top to bottom in terms of what I cared about most today. Then I placed checkmarks next to each value that the projects likely fulfilled

Judge for yourself whether my focus on guide writing was worthwhile. Here are my first two handbooks: Building Muscle and Growth Hacking. Each took 600 hours to write. They've since been read by hundreds of thousands of people.

But why do I still feel the overwhelming desire to start a Startup?

Why do you revere that entrepreneurial impact, Julian? I guess because I want to attain money, fame, and power. And I want to impart meaningful change onto the world. (ChangeTheWorld)

Writing is actually better than Startups at fulfilling my values. Hmm. So the real thing keeping me pursuing startups is momentum. The fact that that's where my career started.

what framework am I supposed to use to put the past behind me, appreciate that my values have changed, and blissfully move on?

Regret Minimization

Determine which path you'd be more regretful not having pursued by the time you're 80 and are reflecting on your life choices.

The moment I understood I'd be more regretful if I failed to become a successful writer than a successful entrepreneur, I was no longer distracted by the urge to pursue startups. Instead, I was focused on ensuring I didn't die without becoming a successful writer.

I'll share are a few pointers for ordering your values rationally. I'll start by highlighting values you don't want to discount.

sustaining your enthusiasm for a long-haul project requires at least two things: Knowledge, which leads to personal growth; Exercising talents, which leads to being challenged

in addition to not discounting Knowledge and Exercising Talent, I urge you to not overvalue MakingMoney.

Until you've accomplished something deeply fulfilling, you don't realize the following: If you're already attaining the other values on your list (e.g. Adventure and Knowledge), Money rapidly becomes less interesting. (MeaningfulLife)

“making the most out of life”

Many others think "making the most out of life" means doing nothing more than finding a spouse, buying a home, securing a job, and raising kids.

that list will include Knowledge, Adventure, Fame, Power, Money, Exercising Talent, and Human Connection. I'm certainly missing others that matter to you. That's good! My list isn't necessarily universal.

Which project would I most regret not having accomplished by the end of my life — in terms of the motivations I have today?

What matters is that you establish the routine of periodic self-assessment. In doing so, your current pursuits will always remain aligned with your current values.

see also (2017-06-14) Pearson How To Discover Your Values And Use Them