How Do You Deal With Ambiguity While Doing Deep Work?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.720 | All right, let's see what we have here.

00:00:07.360 | Next is a question from Lily.

00:00:10.720 | Lily asks,

00:00:13.200 | "Given the nature of deep work,

00:00:16.160 | it is often hard to determine the quality of the work produced

00:00:20.080 | because it's rather nuanced.

00:00:21.520 | How do you deal with such ambiguity?"

00:00:24.920 | Well, Lily, I would say

00:00:28.320 | maybe look at how your career is going.

00:00:30.160 | So what is the non-nuanced factor here?

00:00:33.600 | Am I getting promoted? Is my salary going up?

00:00:36.800 | Am I in more demand?

00:00:37.840 | Am I being given more interesting projects?

00:00:39.760 | That's a pretty good proxy for

00:00:41.760 | am I producing high-quality output.

00:00:45.040 | So even if you can't look at the thing

00:00:48.160 | you just produced in the small scale,

00:00:50.720 | the report you just wrote,

00:00:52.080 | the strategy memo you just put together,

00:00:53.600 | and say, "Hey, this is an A+ or a B+ or whatever,"

00:00:57.040 | if over the course of six months or a year

00:00:59.200 | you're getting more interesting work,

00:01:02.560 | you're being eyed for advancement,

00:01:05.040 | other people are trying to poach you away,

00:01:06.960 | that's a pretty good sign that things are going well.

00:01:09.920 | I mean, this reminds me of the maxim

00:01:12.400 | that I included in my book,

00:01:14.320 | "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:01:15.840 | a maxim that came from the entrepreneur Derek Sivers,

00:01:19.760 | where he said, "When you're working on new things,

00:01:22.640 | deep things,

00:01:24.960 | money is a good neutral indicator of value."

00:01:28.480 | And what he meant by that,

00:01:30.400 | and we've mentioned this before on the show,

00:01:31.520 | but what he meant by that was

00:01:33.120 | people are reluctant to give other people their money.

00:01:36.320 | It's not a big deal to ask me to give you praise.

00:01:39.920 | I'm happy to do that.

00:01:41.440 | That doesn't cost me much to be,

00:01:42.720 | "Hey, this looks great."

00:01:44.400 | You know, like, "Hey, Jesse,

00:01:46.080 | I really like what you're doing over there.

00:01:47.520 | Keep up the good work."

00:01:48.560 | It doesn't cost me much to give praise.

00:01:50.160 | Ask me for money, though,

00:01:52.640 | I'm probably not going to give you money

00:01:54.240 | unless the stuff is actually good,

00:01:55.520 | unless the work is actually good,

00:01:56.720 | unless there's actually value in the product you're selling,

00:01:59.360 | there's value in the position you're filling in the company.

00:02:01.520 | So it's actually a really great way

00:02:02.720 | of getting honest feedback.

00:02:03.920 | So if you're getting promotions and raises,

00:02:08.000 | if people are trying to hire you away,

00:02:09.280 | then you're probably doing better work.

00:02:10.720 | And I always make the distinction,

00:02:13.120 | Derek was not saying money is what is valuable.

00:02:17.840 | So he wasn't saying your goal, therefore,

00:02:20.400 | should be to acquire as much money as possible.

00:02:22.880 | Obviously, he did the opposite.

00:02:24.880 | When he sold his company, CD Baby,

00:02:27.280 | for something like $20 million,

00:02:28.800 | he gave all the money away.

00:02:31.440 | It wasn't about having money.

00:02:33.040 | It was about, if I'm making money on this,

00:02:37.360 | if people are willing to pay for this,

00:02:38.880 | if people are willing to hire me for this,

00:02:40.720 | and that means this has value.

00:02:41.920 | And if they're not, I need to go back to the drawing board.

00:02:43.920 | And so keep that in mind.

00:02:45.600 | Look at the unambiguous indicators

00:02:47.360 | of your career going well.

00:02:48.960 | If those are trending in the right direction,

00:02:50.480 | you're probably doing the right amount

00:02:52.320 | of deep work and applying it to the right types of things.

00:02:55.280 | If those indicators aren't going well,

00:02:57.360 | then maybe it's time to rethink things.

How Do You Deal With Ambiguity While Doing Deep Work?

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