I’m a big believer that where you focus your effort is 10x as important as how hard you work.
Now, that’s not to say hard work isn’t important.
It’s definitely essential but in my opinion, overrated.
So in this piece, I want to focus on how to select the right opportunities and get the most leverage on your inputs.
First, I believe that starts with finding your niche.
Find what seems like play to you and work to others, and can pay you for it simultaneously.
As a creator and builder in today’s society, the great news is that you no longer have to choose between your passion and what can bring food to the table.
You can quite literally make a community online (who will pay for your services) based on anything from eating spicy food to deconstructing basketball highlights.
The reason that combining your passions with your work is so important is because you will, by definition, go the extra mile in everything you do because you love it so much.
It’s no longer a chore to you, it’s what you want to do day in and day out.
So, at that point, it really isn’t even hard work anymore.
You would rather not do anything else.
If this sounds like a fantasy for you, I can assure you it’s not anything unattainable and in fact, it’s easier today than ever before.
So get started as soon as possible on finding what makes you excited.
Chances are, you probably have a few interests at the moment, you just don’t believe it can pay the bills.
But I heavily recommend you look into those paths because what you are intrinsically interested in is not a fluke.
It’s a calling.
Once you’ve found this area or multiple areas, you have to focus on the most high leverage activities that will one, build a paying community around what you are trying to do, and two, allow you to own/reap the benefits of compound growth.
Such examples of this include creating unique content online that is tied around your personal brand, building products whether software, hardware, or objects that you own a piece of, or joining forces with a few other individuals that share your values/vision to make a company.
In all of these scenarios, you are owning a piece of an entity that if done right, can provide fortunes as exponential growth trajectories come into play.
Never underestimate compound growth.
Even those who think they understand it often do not.
That’s why taking on these high leverage activities (where your input is not directly correlated with your output) are so important.
They can quite literally become beasts of their own.
And that’s it.
You select opportunities where you genuinely love what you do, even if you did not get paid for it.
Then, you work (but not really) relentlessly hard to put that passion into the real world.
Focus solely on owning pieces of your value-adding, exponentially growing creation, and let the wonders of compound growth do the rest.
It really is that simple, it’s not easy but it’s simple.
These are the only opportunities worth your time and mind.
Having these systems in place early on will eventually reap massive benefits.