Pay it forward without measuring it
Advice that resonates.
Here’s a bit of advice from Naval Ravikant that resonates with me.
Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure—your patience will run out if you count.
Notice the “long enough timescale” part. I like Naval because he explains things in a simple way without pretending they are easy.
We should be mindful of survivor and selection bias when listening to advice from successful people. What worked for them at a specific time might not work for us today.
I might be falling prey to biases as well, but I trust in Naval’s advice because it mirrors my experience with mokacoding.com.
I started writing on mokacoding.com because I was interested in software testing and wanted to get better at it. I was “good” at it and started “helping people” with how-to articles that I wrote as learning exercises. I gave them away for free on the blog and on Twitter. I kept at it consistently because there was so much for me to keep exploring. I also got lucky with the occasional retweet by respected folks—”attract what you project.” Eventually, that work led to a very modest book deal, a few invitations to teach workshops, a few more job opportunities, and, more importantly, made some great connections in the iOS community.
The time scale is the scary and frustrating part. Naval says “over a long enough timescale” and warns “your patience will run out if you count.”
This is why you should be writing—or sharing in whichever medium you prefer—to learn, first of all. If you write to become successful, and you don’t have the benefit of an existing platform, you’ll run out of patience. But if you write to share what you learn, to clarify your thinking, to solve problems, then you’ll go on forever, because you won just by writing the post. Anything else is a bonus.
Footnote: The quote comes from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. I searched for the podcast in the Ferriss archives but could not find it. However, the book