This Jeff Bezos Quote Changed The Course Of My Life

I wish I had read it sooner!

Never chase the hot thing whatever it is. That’s like trying to catch the wave and you’ll never catch it. You have to position yourself and wait for the wave. The way you do that is you pick something you are passionate about. Missionaries build better products. I would take a missionary over a mercenary any day.

2021 was a pretty eventful year. Things weren’t exactly perfect at my end.

Life happened and I thought to myself, I want to start making money.

With the lockdowns and everything, I had had enough of wasting time.

So, I decided to look for opportunities that could end up being profitable.

The most sought-after thing was drop-servicing. Virtually everyone was making a course about it.

The way it worked was, you make a list of companies who have poor reviews and call them asking them if you could help market their product for them.

Being the money crazed person that I was, I decided to go for it.

So there I sat, 9 hours in one day. No break, nothing. I made a list of over 200 companies.

When the list was done I felt like the smartest person in the world. My rich days were a short reach away.

I started calling the companies one by one. I would call them and ask them if they were interested in raising clients. The few of them who would say yes would cut the call the second I would utter the words ‘Facebook Advertising.’

I joined Facebook groups and tried offering my services for free.

In my head I had made the perfect sales script, in truth, I was an inexperienced boy swept aside by money. I had no service to offer as I had no skill to market.

When I finally figured out the problem I was devastated. I didn't know what to do.

I was looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. It was eluding me.

I had a shorthand vision. All I wanted was attention. I wanted people to scream my name and tell me how smart I was when I told them I made it.

It was futile, not to mention immature.

I had to tell myself the sad truth. It wouldn’t work that way.

If I am being honest, had I tried harder it probably would’ve worked but I am glad I didn’t.

I don’t like marketing. It seems deceitful.

I was thinking with a million-dollar sized chip on my shoulder.

The quote changed my life

Never chase the hot thing whatever it is. That’s like trying to catch the wave and you’ll never catch it. You have to position yourself and wait for the wave. The way you do that is you pick something you are passionate about. Missionaries build better products. I would take a missionary over a mercenary any day.

It made perfect sense. I was going after something I was not in ‘love’ with.

I was automatically not going to be putting all my energy into it. It was a mental game. I had started off on the wrong foot.

So I asked myself, “What is it that I am passionate about?”

And so the hunt began. I researched the damned words, “How do I find my passion?”

I looked up on Youtube, Quora, Reddit, you name it.

It all came to no avail.

Even though I had shunned drop servicing I was still clouded by money.

What I was passionate about had to be something that paid a lot. It just had to.

Hours and hours spent on the internet bore no fruit.

With all my ‘Chase your Passion’ banners flowing around my profile, I got to writing knowing people were willing to pay a lot. The irony.

I came across a Youtube ad about a wiring platform and I told myself, ‘This could be fun!’

I joined Medium through that platform.

The first 2 months were disastrous

Nothing seemed to work. At a point, I couldn’t care less.

My uploading schedule was all over the place. I wrote what I wanted to, didn’t edit, didn’t think twice.

This shaped me

I saw my mental attitude improving so much when I wrote. I was appreciating the process. Numbers were irrelevant.

I started appreciating writing. It felt relieving. It was like magic, like some type of therapy.

Now here I am having written 37 articles in the last 34 days. This may not seem much to most people, but for me it was massive.

I wrote 20 in the two months prior to that!

What happens when you chase something you are not passionate about?

People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true. And the reason is that it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up. It’s really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. — Steve Jobs

It is easy to be entirely focused on results and it works for some people.

These people are mercenaries. They kill for results.

Missionaries are out on a goal. They focus on improving their craft. They play the long game. It is rewarding, but not in the short term.

If you don’t get results, you become dissatisfied. You are constantly chasing what provides results.

What you want, that is of no concern to you.

At a point when people have made a living out of it because if you work hard you manage in the end, they are not happy.

There are so many people who make more than enough money but are not happy. What is the point then?

Building empires takes time.

Rome wasn’t built in a day

These people then end up becoming get-rich coaches. They tell others how to make money.

Jeff Bezos confessed that in his opinion there is an irony that missionaries end up making more than mercenaries.

They focus on building a legacy, some way to change the world. That is powerful, but patient work.

When everyone is running in a frenzy, the patient one wins.

You have to take the losses

Looking at the long term has its drawbacks, of course.

People will pass you, they will earn more than you. They will be driving Ferraris while you are waiting for an Uber.

You have to take it with a pinch of salt.

But you have to continue doing what you are doing. That is important.

Let others pass by, be focused on your craft. Make that your daily work.

You may have to work a 9–5 to pay the bills because you aren’t paid well by your passion. No worries, go for it with everything you got.

While Rome wasn’t built in a day, it was built and someone made it. Why can’t you?

Everything that is around you, everything in your life, you were creating and putting there. So that means you can create anything. Nothing is impossible.

— Dolores Cannon

Be a missionary

Missionaries have a life to be proud of. It is easy to be distracted by other people’s successes.

I have been there. It is always going to be hard to get over.

But congratulating someone over achieving something and being genuinely happy for them when you do, is where you want to get to.

Don’t listen to the voice at the back of your head telling you you can’t. Or think you are unlucky.

If others can do it, you can too.

If people are getting ahead of you while you are trying your best, be patient. It is going to happen for you, there is no doubt.

All you need is a constant effort, a direction, and a heart that does not give up.

If you have that, you are already set for life. Congrats then.

If not, you will get there. Focus on yourself, develop yourself, your destination is just a minute away.