Reflections on career (II)

Principle: Be stubborn with your goals, not your methods. Discover natural stubbornness; don't create it. When you’re stubborn with your methods, that’s obstinacy. When you’re stubborn with goals, that’s persistence. [Source]

I've been doing some thinking on the value of stubbornness. A friend at Penn has a blog post where he describes it perfectly. 

Principle: Always produce. If you subject yourself to that constraint, it will automatically push you away from things you think you're supposed to work on, toward things you actually like [Source]

There's no need to know. Just do and continue doing; the mix of your intended and unintended actions will speak loudly.

Principle: Do a good job at whatever you're doing, even if you don't like it. Then at least you'll know you're not using dissatisfaction as an excuse for being lazy. Perhaps more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well. [Source]

special thanks to my dad, i love and thank you for telling me not to quit every job i don't like within the first week. i might hate you when you say i jump around too quickly out loud. but lord knows i get bored, very very quickly. follow your heart, but don't be a bitch to boredom or adversity. 

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Now career-wise, I've settled on losing the anxiety and opened myself to the notion of trying anything and that comes my way if it offers a compelling amount of excellent:

Learning experiences (technicals and building friendships/networks). Vision. Prestige. Money. Or a mix of the lot in that order, as usually is the case. 

I won't stick around if it's not for me. Try things long enough to know if I belong but don't get so absorbed in any of the above that I can't be flexible with my other goals.

I'm determined to live my life with my hobbies jointly with my career. There will be no "retire when I'm 30 and do what I love." Because do you really love it then?

{Paul Graham wrote an excellent article called How To Do What You Love. I think everyone should read it.}

Now I don't love traditional finance, but as far as I know, I did reach Venture Deals and love talking about early-stage strategic equity. I also love talking to people and learning about what they're doing. So that's a step in one direction; may as well pursue it and see what comes out of it.

So... apply everywhere, see what I get, see what opportunities I can make for myself, and just do.