"What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?"

Dear readers,

Naval Ravikant once asked "What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?". I reflected on this question and jotted down my responses. Take a look.

1. Community building

2. Public speaking

3. Writing 

4. Building deep relationships with large groups of people

5. Mental math

These are not only my strengths but also activities that energize me. I would pursue them even if no one paid me. 

This question is pivotal for all of us, especially if we want to build our category of one. 

In order to do meaningful work that makes a real dent in the universe, we need to do 3 things:

1. Be consistent: We need to show up, put our work out there regularly. Certain days will be hard and there will always be competing forces vying for your attention. The difference between people who are able to get a lot done and those who don’t comes down to consistency. Talent doesn’t differ too much. Neither does intelligence. Ability to deliver output despite odds is the key differentiating factor. 

2. Be persistent: Grit matters. Overnight successes are massive lies. No one is an overnight success. Years of rejections, preparation and deliberate practice leads to exponential success. If you want to dive deep into this subject, we recommend listening to our podcast with Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Jones. 

3. Focus on micro improvements: Compounding is the 8th wonder of the world. To excel at something, we need to become 1% better every day. I didn’t become good at mental math overnight. I remember going to bed thinking of numbers and patterns as a kid. I found it interesting so I kept enjoying the pursuit. Without realizing, I kept getting a tad better. With time, compounding revealed its magical effects.

If we look at the abovementioned points collectively, it will become clear that success is a long term game. And the first rule of long term games is that we need to play for a long time to count. No one wants to be a one hit wonder. Shortcuts, prescriptions and hacks don’t really work so we need to follow our curiosity and create our own path.

Figuring Out "What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?"

The beauty of this question is that it that it contextualizes our skills and strengths. A regular strengths finder / personality assessment test is useful in that it gives us a flavor of what we are good at but it fails to put that in perspective to market realities.

Also, many of us are great at things we don’t really love. Case in point, engineering entrance exams in India. There are thousands of NC community members who studied at top engineering institutions but dislike engineering. Should they work as engineers just because they were good at taking an exam?

The ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life’ Fellowship

There is no formula for self-discovery. There have, however, been some attempts in the form of psychometric tests, algorithms and guided medical trials. No success stories so far but perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing. It will be a tad disappointing to know that our professional futures can be charted out by rudimentary algorithms. That said, are these rudimentary algorithms any worse than current ways of figuring out what next? Who knows….

We don’t want to make this a theoretical discussion. Let’s focus on figuring out what to do with this one crazy life that we have.

Whether you are a high school student, college senior, young graduate, mid-career professional, you will need to learn to reinvent yourself multiple times. It isn’t easy and you can’t do it alone. That said, it can be heaps on fun if you do it with a cohort of people you resonate with. 

This age-agnostic fellowship will help you learn new things, read charming content, meet interesting people and discover what piques your curiosity. No one else can tell you what you should do. The decision needs to come from you but there are some proven techniques that can help figure out the problem that needs you the most. Isn’t that what your work should be about?

This is our second cohort of the fellowship, and we look forward having you in this journey of discovery!

- Utkarsh Amitabh, Founder of Network Capital