When creation meets passion, Create your luck!

“showing up” is one created luck that a person can get unexpected experiences just by being there! It could be for a person, place, event, etc

Beautiful sunset in Syracuse!

I recently came across a podcast by Raj with Sahil Bloom on content creation. I have been following Sahil on LinkedIn and Twitter for a long time. If there is a metric of how profound a person can become, look at the consistency of his creation! There is a difference — for some people, it might look like doing the same thing every day, but for others, that’s how a person can evolve every day!

Closed mouths don't get fed!

A question that’s not asked is a stupid question!

There are so many endless cycles of thoughts people jump to before asking something! Sahil put it amazingly as simple as “picking brain” — a very mutual knowledge sharing without any expectations!

The kind of circumstances I was been through were “luck” — but many of those led by the consequence of “what work I have put in before!”

I got rejected for an offer when everyone who I went along with cracked! That day might sound rough! But the “luck” here is the time I have given to put me to meet the person who changed my trajectory of leadership, How I communicate, and How I have to believe in myself.

I thought of reminiscing about what my “luck surface area” is for my life!

1. Blind luck — I was born to parents who respect education, hard work, passion, and creation!
2. Luck for motion — I always valued small mentorship, lessons from people who say to me “Sangeetha, how about doing it this way”, and “Do you want to take this opportunity”. Luck is the result of these events, meeting people, valuing their thoughts, and engaging in active conversations!
3. Luck from awareness — I try to look out for spotting the opportunity that a person can provide me. Out of my way, after the semester, I emailed the professor asking for an opportunity — My passion for data science, Natural language processing is the result of the “luck” that I surfaced by actively spotting an opportunity! I try the best way possible to speak with people, introduce myself, and pick the common spot of interest. I am sure those relationships would be of great “value” and one day I aspire to become the “luck” that someone sees, as their luck that was created by them! This post is “one form of awareness luck” am creating with Sahil’s thoughts, which would put my writings as an acknowledgment that someone who is reading this might need.
4. Luck from uniqueness — Sometimes, when I look at people, there's a charisma that surrounds them and it closely resembles the profound experiences they carry. I try to be unique in the thoughts I openly say, the excitement that I show in my eyes, the happiness that resonates on sharing some of my interests, and the smile that spreads when speaking about what I like to do!

“Be the shoulder to people as much as you have been on others”

As much responsibility I have for giving back to my parents, the same relies on me to give back to “one person” who might be like me with curious eyes for learning, and a hungry attitude to creating.

A complete fulfillment that I aim for in life as a person!

Unexplainable fulfillment — a value that increments silently over the night!

Recently I have been through times of being “overwhelmed” — I am stoked to see how Sahil mentions it as a “compounding effect”, making a sense of connecting from different aspects.

When am looking for new opportunities, I tend to ask this question myself “what is that something unique in me” — there is definitely something! I loved it when he said “there is a constant transaction” and people are unfortunately taught in this way to “just hit the spot of what you want from them”

I have pinged many people on LinkedIn, not for what they do, but for how their posts made me feel the knowledge, and push to look out for even more. “Being genuine” is the play I wanted to cherish in my conversations.

Sahil mentioned these as “subtle signals” that a person is constantly sending on to the world but in the race of transaction of wants, these signals get subtly acknowledged. But eventually, the genuineness in signals wins across all the odds!

Thinking about me, what signals I have sent to this world, signals of passion, commitment, curiosity in learning, admiration towards people having the discipline, fear of portraying the needed content for the community, etc.

There is always a difference between asking people how you did it Vs why they did it, and what made them do it! I really like the purpose more than the destination!

I love what energy to do something you are passionate about drives you to places where you work for the purpose! The consequence of the small energy might lead a person to a place he/she couldn’t even think about it.

Acknowledging the ego of weakness

If there are 100 things we are good at, there might be 1000 other things that I will not say we could be bad at but didn't get a chance or time to be good at, but we shouldn’t drop the value of those 100, longing for the value that may or may not come from 1000.

I loved the “rationality” thinking — the probability of success * The unique value an idea could bring will make the process worth the try!

Impact of AI on creativity:

Sahil put out a healthy point of view — We are misunderestimating the desire humans have to speak to another human! My friend said chatGPT might replace you, I said to him, do you think the desire to speak to me when you are sad gets replaced with some chatbot all of a sudden? I still feel AI is a supplementary tool to create high-impact use cases. Consider an AI read the urgency and details in an accident report call, it's critical to not replace humans in the loop, but it's equally evident to replace the monotonous tasks to really create a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI. There is a difference between information connection vs personality-assisted information connection!

I later connected to myself on what my content creation looks like. Is it just purely on topics? If so, anyone can do it! What value do I add? I strive to keep a balance of “aggregating the perspectives” for one subject across different domains of knowledge and condensing it, and on top of it, add my thoughts on how I view it! This made me feel much more than writing what’s the topic about!

What does it mean to have a good relationship? Reliance on “nothing”. There is always a cycle of expectations from peers that put us ‘not getting what we expect’ That brought them to an excellent question of “ready to give up the selfishness or the obsession that's created”

The most powerful words to say to a person in a relationship is to whisper out loud I am with you! Sometimes we are ready to quit, but not ready to put in the efforts that might fix the relationship. We are in defense mode of proving ourselves, winning the argument, and recalling the past to make the peer accept it, but does winning the argument worth losing the friendship or relationship? It's very powerful if we think this way!

I was really stoked with the usual thinking of us could be this dangerous, Feeling you are right, Wanting to be right!

Principles in life:

1. Accepting the delay of gratification: When you put your complete efforts into some creation, you may not get instant results, but the knowledge and patience that's compounded will give you the mindset to look at the gratification in a totally different way! Sometimes, I do feel that I would have done some good impactful things, but the one gratification I was craving for doing that in my checklist is given much more a stab than a pat for doing impactful things!
2. Ethics: There is always a constant exploration for me to look out for what fits me, what I enjoy doing, and where do I enjoy working. The hours that I have done before for 4 years might not be the best hours, but the exploration for a year in different aspects of data science, made me stumble on the hours I really enjoy! Going to the best hike each day takes a huge effort by crossing screwed hikes!
3. Observe vs Judge / Listen vs Speak: I really felt Observing/Listening has much impact on getting to know about things rather than rushing to know about the things you need!

To end with, I want to remind myself of the person I was before, the person who is right now! I am happy, I don't want to rush this cycle of happiness, let it flow on its own as I make steps each day!

Overall, I loved the time I spent asking the questions Sahil and Raj discussed!