Love and Work

1. Discover Your Unique "Wyrd" and Embrace Your Loves

There is no one else in the world—nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be again—who has the same pattern of one hundred trillion connections as you.

Your Wyrd is your essence. It's an ancient Norse concept representing your unique spirit, formed by the clash of your chromosomes creating a network of synapses in your brain that is vastly different from anyone else's. This uniqueness is the source of your loves, loathes, and the way you see the world.

Embracing your Wyrd is key to thriving. Society often pressures us to conform, but true fulfillment comes from honoring your unique loves and channeling them into contribution. Your Wyrd can grow and become more effective, but it cannot fundamentally change its shape.

• Your Wyrd manifests in:
  • What you instinctively pay attention to
  • Activities where you lose track of time
  • Skills you pick up rapidly and naturally

2. Recognize the Three Signs of Love: Instinct, Flow, and Rapid Learning

Love isn't just a feeling. It is a source of energy, and like all energy sources, it must flow.

Instinct is when you find yourself naturally drawn to certain activities or situations, even before you've tried them. It's an internal pull that often defies logical explanation.

Flow occurs when you're so deeply connected to an activity that time seems to fly by. You experience the task from the inside out, as if it's a part of you.

Rapid learning happens when a new skill or concept just "clicks" for you, and you pick it up much faster than expected.

• To identify your loves:
  • Pay attention to what you volunteer for without hesitation
  • Notice when hours pass like minutes during an activity
  • Recognize areas where you show surprising aptitude

3. Pay Attention to the Details of What You Love

Love lives in the details.

Specificity matters in understanding your loves. It's not enough to say you love "challenges" or are "good with people." Dig deeper to understand the precise nature of what draws you in.

Use the "Does it matter?" technique. When describing what you love, ask yourself questions like:

• Does it matter who the people are?
• Does it matter when you do it?
• Does it matter why you're doing it?
• Does it matter what you're helping with?
• Does it matter how you're doing it?

Create a "love note" for yourself. Start with "I love it when..." and then add specific details. This exercise helps you articulate and own the uniqueness of your loves.

4. Beware of the Seven Devils That Can Lead You Astray

The devil's greatest power—according to the author Catherine Goldstein—is not his evil intent and forked tongue. It is instead that he doesn't know he's the devil.

Group-Think: Don't let shared identities overshadow your unique self. While group affiliations are valid, they shouldn't define you completely.

The Excellence Curse: Your strengths are not just what you're good at, but what strengthens you. Excellence without love can be draining.

Mis-Instinct: Be cautious of being drawn to outcomes (like prestige or money) rather than the actual activities involved.

Feedbacking: Be wary of advice that doesn't align with your unique loves. Focus on others' reactions, not their prescriptions.

Fear-Fighting: Embrace your fears as signposts to what you love, rather than trying to banish them.

Rate-Me-Rank-Me: Resist the urge to constantly compare yourself to others. Your uniqueness defies comparison.

Suckitup: Love is not a luxury in work; it's a necessity for sustained excellence and fulfillment.

5. Build Relationships That See and Amplify Your Uniqueness

Love is someone seeing the fullness of you and wanting you to be the best possible version of you.

Seek partners who see your whole self. The best relationships are those where each person helps the other express their uniqueness as powerfully as possible.

Practice "benevolent distortion." Research shows that the happiest couples tend to view each other through rose-tinted glasses, focusing on positive attributes.

Look for generous explanations. In healthy relationships, partners assume the best possible reasons for each other's behaviors.

Reframe weaknesses as aspects of strengths. Instead of trying to "balance out" a partner's perceived flaws, see how they connect to their core strengths and loves.

6. Shape Your Career Like an Hourglass: Explore, Focus, Then Lead

A career is not a ladder, nor a lattice, nor a jungle gym. A career is a scavenger hunt for love.

Early career (wide base): Explore various paths, always looking for activities that feel positively charged. Follow your red threads of love wherever they lead.

Mid-career (narrow middle): Choose a path and stay focused for a decade or more. This deep mastery builds expertise, creativity, and value.

Late career (widening top): Use your mastery as a foundation for leadership, inspiring confidence in others through your specific expertise and self-knowledge.

• Key career principles:
  • Just start; any opening into your "career forest" will do
  • The "what" of a job (daily activities) trumps the "who" and "why"
  • Find red threads (things you love) every single day
  • You always have more power to shape your role than you think

7. Create a Love + Work Organization That Values Individual Strengths

The organization's most valuable asset is its trust.

Implement weekly check-ins. Have team leaders spend 15 minutes each week with each team member, discussing:

1. What activities did I love last week?
2. What activities did I loathe last week?
3. What are my priorities this week?
4. What help do I need from you, my team leader?

Focus on learning about love, not fixing weaknesses. Help team members identify and amplify what they naturally love and do well.

Build trust at all levels. Organizations with high trust are significantly more likely to have engaged and resilient employees.

Characteristics of a Love + Work organization:

• No cascaded goals or performance ratings
• No centralized employee opinion surveys
• Team-based culture, not top-down
• Support for ongoing education
• Dedicated HR contact for each employee
• Strong alumni program and thoughtful offboarding

8. Transform Education to Foster Self-Discovery and Contribution

If we were truly worried about the psychological health and development of each student, these are the kinds of classes we would see.

Current education system problems:

• Focused on sorting and branding students for colleges/employers
• Relies on unreliable metrics like standardized tests and GPAs
• Neglects individual strengths and passions

Proposed changes:

1. Develop self-mastery curricula focused on identifying strengths and applying them
2. Invert the classroom: individual learning at home, personalized coaching in class
3. Eliminate GPAs and reduce reliance on standardized tests
4. Make college free to remove financial pressure from career choices
5. Ban the use of extracurricular activities on college applications
6. Stop treating college rankings as meaningful measures

Goal: Help students identify their unique loves and strengths, then learn how to turn these into valuable contributions to society.

9. Parents: Support Your Child's Unique Journey, Not Your Fears

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

Avoid competitive parenting. Don't treat your child's accomplishments as a scorecard for your own worth or future security.

Stop projecting fears onto children. Teach them to feel fear, understand it, and move through it, rather than trying to eliminate all risks.

Focus on revealing what's inside. The most powerful way to help your child learn and grow is to help them discover their unique loves and strengths, then show them how to turn these into contribution.

Trust in your child's path. Your role is to support and guide, not to dictate or control. Each child has their own unique Wyrd to discover and express.

Last updated: September 13, 2024