Motivation Monday #4: Intrinsic, Again
We’ve all heard it said “if you like what you do you’ll never work a day in your life.” The people who fit this maxim are what we like to call Lucky Bastards. And they are the people who found some little thing about life, some tiny details, and went to town. Every day. Yep. That’s what they did. And then, over time, they got real good at the tiny detail and then it wasn’t so tiny any more. That’s what they do, that’s who they are. The Lucky Bastards club is all jammed to the breach with men and woman, those who found value in something the rest of us thought was boring or unreasonable.
The brother of an ex-girlfriend was a geeky little kid. He spent hours writing code and tinkering on his own website. The family thought it was cute, but then that geeky little kid got his first programming job at 17. By the time he was 25, he’d already worked for some of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley, like Stripe, Square, and Pay Pal. At 30, he sold all his shares, bought a house in Russian Hill, and started a consulting firm. The dude is one of the top data security programmers in the world. And he started by clacking away on Dell in a basement. And when I asked “why?” the profound answer he gave me was “dunno, I liked making stuff.” He’s part of the Lucky Bastards club.
My ex-girlfriend’s, brother’s love of “making stuff” is an intrinsic value. And he is lucky, all jokes aside. It’s not that he merely “like(s) to make stuff.” Making stuff encompasses the entire whole of stuff making including dresses, bread, and gas station boner pills. And I don’t believe Pete would be as fulfilled kneading dough or threading a needle. The kicker is Pete found he liked to “make” code. And he wrote code long before anyone paid him to do it. Good for him. I wish we were all so lucky.
I’ve got more to say on my intrinsic values. For now, I want to spend the week meditating on the subject. Have a good week.
