There exist those dichotomies:
doing vs being
passive income vs active income
scaling vs hourly profit
hard work vs passion
right way vs hard way
effort vs effortlessness, wu wei
let’s examine
you can always do something better (or faster)
you can always scale something, do more of something
you can always learn more, then do more
you can always innovate
you can always get lucky, find an amazing idea: an amazing innovation, an amazing market, an amazing what-have-you
all that can happen to you
or NOT
when you have created something amazing — more customers will come for more
you will give them all you have, then make more
then have someone help you make even more
…see you talk about SCALING but WHAT do you want to scale?
first make something amazing
…you scale someone else’s product or service or idea
how do you know it’s any good?
…ah you know it’s good because you LEARNT THAT ONE SECRET
and HOW DO YOU KNOW that this “secret” is true?
how many secrets are there?
believing that some god-given source of information can make you profoundly informed is delusional
See for most UNINFORMED, UNEDUCATED PEOPLE — basics are TREMENDOUSLY ENLIGHTENING, and learning them yields tremendous benefits to their lives and careers
but you still have to take those basics and religiously incorporate them into your life
and then, after those basics — you are now in the land of rapidly diminishing returns
basics, almost by definition — are sufficient to set you apart from the clueless thoughtless crowd
but then it’s not so easy
then LEARNING becomes work like every other
You don’t scale if you have nothing to scale and nothing to scale it with
You need a product to scale
You need a leverage (capital or code or innovation or medium)
Either requires effort and skill and knowledge
Everything that happens over night is an illusion — as the ground for such sudden revolution you prepare your entire life
It’s work like every other
LEARNING is work like every other
IMPLEMENTATION is 100% work
OBVIOUSLY you can work smart and you can work stupid
OBVIOUSLY you can learn nonsense from a charlatan or you can learn from a worthy mentor
But the point is that:
-LEARNING HOW TO WORK is itself WORK and effort
-LEARNING from WHO to learn is itself work and effort
–FINDING a mentor is itself work and effort
–LEARNING from your mentor is itself WORK and effort
–LEARNING how to LEARN is itself work and effort
–IMPLEMENTATION of ANY KNOWLEDGE is itself work and effort
and so on
the ONLY DICHOTOMY here is between BEING STUPID and BEING INTELLIGENT
and this BEING STUPID can manifest in many ways:
–NOT LEARNING from your mistakes, repeating the same nonsense all the time
–NOT ITERATING and TINKERING enough, not facilitating the discovery of optimal solutions
–NOT QUESTIONING
–NOT IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF INFORMATION
–CEASING to ABSORB new information
…list goes on
The conclusion is
you’ll always have to LEARN, KEEP LEARNING, and keep EXPLORING and EXPERIMENTING and DOING
and that itself is “work”
and before you arrive at anything you’ll put in work
and before you put “smart work” you’ll still have to work
and before you learn some very valuable high-level information you still have to learn the basics
and before you know ANYTHING you still have to TEST ALL OF IT
…but what does it have to do with WU WEI?
Not much, really
We established that elevation from stupid-work to smart-work and from hourly to scaling and from basics to expertise and all the rest of it — that this itself is work — and the success of that elevation is dependent on one’s use of intelligence, throughout the entire process
You work either way
And the wu-wei dichotomy?
It’s a different dichotomy altogether
It’s not you smiling because you found a smarter way
It’s you smiling because you DON’T RESIST what you’re doing
Because what you do you have chosen fully, you do it fully, fully and spontaneously, and consciously
…and consciously
This does imply intelligence
So perhaps if you were to bring sincerity to what you are doing — you would do it intelligently and well — and you would learn
And you would learn and you would scale — scale what you’ve learnt
The effortlessness of WU-WEI implies you not exerting effort in your efforts
Not exerting psychological effort in your effort
This is brought about by being conscious and spontaneous
Which necessitates intelligence
And ironically — that intelligence leads to innovation leads to scaling — which, in our worldly terms, we’d call making it effortless
so perhaps
WU WEI (sincerity, spontaneity, attention, dedication)
-> intelligence and creativity and effectiveness
-> great outcomes
-> great outcomes at scale
…be simple
do what is truly necessary
do it to the best of your ability
be intelligent
INNOVATE
and you should go from effort to effortlessness
psychologically, and literally