What I Learned from Paul Graham's 'How to Do Great Work': A Review and Reflection.

Are you familiar with Romeo & Juliet? Even if you haven't read the book, you've likely heard the story. Who's Paris? You probably don't know, since Romeo & Juliet take the spotlight, overshadowing this side character who loves Juliet.

As I noted key points from Paul Graham's book, I realised that, achieving great things require three notable essentials: zeal, talent and opportunity. Like Paris in Romeo & Juliet, opportunity plays a secondary role, with zeal and talent taking the spotlight in the pursuit of greatness.

Although unlocking talent and passion effortlessly can be the case for some people, for others, discovering them requires a lot of exploration. Try out many things: meet people, ask questions and read a lot of books to find your passion. When you do, nurture and invest in them.

Quite elaborately, Paul suggests this: invest only in work that truly interests you. Like stubborn children, like kids deeply passionate about playing video games and unwilling to budge at bedtime, pursue your interests with zeal — cultivating ambition along the way.

Have you ever seen a ship in transit? Can you imagine how mighty the engine that powers it is? Just as a large engine powers a massive vessel, you'll need a tremendous amount of zeal to drive the greatness within you on a journey far beyond the limits of diligence and hard work.

Curiosity is also an important element. It is a superpower that will produce great results if applied correctly. How Paul explains the use will blow your mind.

Paul suggests that there are three things we can apply it to:

Choose a field that you're passionate about and seek more knowledge on them, until you're at the cutting edge of leading technology, and practices that are within the field.

Look for deficiencies, areas that need improvement and unanswered questions in the techniques and practices within the field.

Conduct research and experimentation on your findings, developing new practices, techniques and technology to meet the needs of those deficiencies.

Apparently, the first and final steps require considerable effort, and procrastinating on them will greatly limit our ability to do great work. Therefore, our project demands a combination of grit, discipline, curiosity, and nurtured passions to be completed successfully.

I love how Paul says that showing up everyday and working on something, no matter how little is highly rewarding in the long run. Just like a drop of water will fill any tank with time, we need to see work that interests us in this light, knowing that greatness is forthcoming.

Moving on, in the context of starting great work, consider this: young individuals enjoy an abundance of advantages compared with their elderly counterparts. The book reveals that although a lot of young people are ignorant of what to work on, time and energy are often on their side.

They have time to fail and learn. So it's crucial that they watch out for external validation, which can coerce them into work where their interests aren't. Because seeking external validation can lead them towards achievements that come at the cost of personal fulfillment.

Now, let's discuss planning. When beginning a massive project, you might think you need to spend a lot of time planning right? Wrong! The author made it clear that excessive contemplation often leads to stagnation. The most important thing is working on passion-filled work, not to perfect the plan.

Back-tracking is a very good practice. You must have heard the phrase, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again". Although, we understand the motivational purpose of the statement, it isn't a statement of intellectual ingenuity. The book points out that the saying doesn't address the need for strategic thinking or adaptive approaches to address the problem. When we fail, we shouldn't just repeat the steps we took; instead, we should re-strategize through backtracking until innovation solutions emerge.

When you start working on something, you need to think critically and originally. Every profession has systems with limits and rules designed to be preserved, not broken. A compliant place for original thinkers? Wrong. This book opened my eyes to seeing that challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box, breaking rules to see beyond the limitations — what original thinkers do is a pre-requisite to achieving great things.

In the process of transformational innovations, one must ensure that one's product will appeal to one's interests, be futuristic (useful for many generations) but not too sophisticated. As the book made clear, this approach ensures that your friends will probably resonate with what you've created, since you share identical interests with them, and they'll similarly invite their friends, generating more fame for the product.

Now, what does it take to achieve greatness? Venturing into the territories of greatness is certainly not a walk in the park. Besides discovering our talents and passions, cultivating curiosity is necessary to consolidate our findings. Moreso, we shouldn't understate the place of grit and persistence to push through and utilizing critical thinking and originality to break mental barriers. After having completed all these steps, opportunities will arise, it's just a matter of time. Thank you for reading, I trust you had a wonderful time.