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Carlos Saba's avatar

Thanks for this piece David. I love your honesty and transparency.

The idea of trying to pick the right path reminds me of something from the book 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He talks about decision making and how the awareness of the finitude of our lives affects our ability to make decisions. Knowing we've got a limited amount of time makes us aware that any path we take means closing down an infinite number of alternative paths.

I loved your clear breakdown of monthly hours worked and annual revenue. Using a revenue per hour metric sounds like a useful way to understand which path to choose. The added question for me is also about the quality of experience of each of those hours. 4 hours a month on Talent Collective sounds great given the annual revenue it generates but if those 4 hours are painful then could your time be spent more enjoyable (and creatively)? Just a thought to illustrate the point that it isn't just about revenue per hour worked.

One of the ways that I've found useful in terms of making choices is finding out how it meets my core needs. For instance 3 of my core needs are learning, play and friendship. If the work that I do helps me grow as a person, gives me space to experiment without having specific goals and I do it in the company of people I care about then it's definitely worth considering. I call it Leading with Needs.

I'd love to have you join us on our Friday Fireside webinars to talk about your sabbatical and your current space of not knowing (living a liminal life) and how you're tackling choosing the next path. Would you be up for that?

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Simone Stolzoff's avatar

Nice to see all of these potential paths :). I’m in an eerily similar place. A next step I might explore is asking which of these paths do you still have the most questions about. Rather than “pick” one I might try to prototype a few (I.e. make a personal investment before raising a fund, try building an mvp of one of the micro saas products, etc). Good luck!

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