Lenny Rachitsky: evaluation

Transcript context

…Yeah. Gosh, Lenny, it sounds so cliche when you say it like that, that I almost cringe a little bit. Let me try to give it a little bit different framework where it won't sound as ... because cliches are cliches because they're true. But let me try to give you a little bit different framework to think about it. I think about it as you have sort of your heart or your soul or your internal scorecard, and then you have your head and your mind and the world's external scorecard. And I'll speak from this from experience. So when I graduated from business school, I took the job I was supposed to take. And it was the safe job at the big private equity firm that paid well and looked great on my resume. And I took that job. That was the external scorecard. My head said that. I built an expected value calculation, all that stuff. The problem was it wasn't my internal scorecard. It had nothing to do with what I actually cared about and wanted to do with my life. And so the way that shows up is just this tension, friction, stress, anxiety, burnout, all those things. And you can will that, you can will yourself through for long periods of time. In fact, if you want, you can will yourself through that your whole life. But then once I got into the path of the thing that I was excited about, that's when I really felt my energy change dramatically. And I developed almost a superpower in that thing, because I had more energy. I was willing to work longer, I was willing to do it. I've been running my company now for 23 years. I was willing to do it for a longer period of time. I thought about it in the shower. I thought about it when I went on runs. I talked to people. They wanted to join because I was excited. And it was a whole different level of power and life force that I was able to bring to that. So I'm saying this from experience, that you're going to show up so much differently in the thing that you're excited about, that that alone is going to make your life a lot better. But the great irony is you're going to do so much better in that thing than you are the thing you are, quote, "supposed to do." And I certainly, certainly understand that people have real life constraints on their finances. And I 100% get that. And so a big part of what I do with students is work through those things and say, "Okay, great. Let's talk about this job you're going to take for X years and you're going to pay off your loans or whatever. But during that time, let's get you on the path of the thing you really want to do." So sometime soon in your life, you want to get on that path. There's a bunch of directions I want to go here. One is I'll just share, what you're describing is exactly what happened to me, without knowing this advice. I just started writing things online because the poll was there and people seemed to enjoy it. So I just kept following that path. And the whole time, my wife's like, "You can't make money writing on the internet. That's not a thing. Why would you do this? You have all these skills, that you can make a lot more doing other things." But I just kept doing that, and that's what led me to this life now where I make much, much more than I made as a product manager at Airbnb. And also, it's a lot less stressful. And so, I'm a living example [inaudible 00:26:39]. Yeah. And if you go back to what I was saying before, you probably were answering the question, "What would I do if I didn't have to make money?" You just did that because you enjoyed it. What's play for you that's work for other people? What do you do in your free time? You were answering all those questions. And then I think a lot of people just say, "Oh, well, that's just a side hustle or a hobby." It is until it isn't, right? And you're a great example of that.…

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