Want To Make Big Progress? Stay Forever Curious
When I spoke with David Kadavy for my podcast the other day, it became clear he’s a master of many trades.
David lives in Colombia. He has a top podcast that’s received 500,000 downloads. He’s written an Amazon best-selling book (Design For Hackers) that occupied the #18 spot in the Amazon store. He has 30,000+ followers on Medium.
So what is he? A designer? A podcaster? A writer?
Part of the reason he’s so hard to define is because he’s always followed his curiosities. David looks at learning and what we’re meant to do as an evolution, not a destination.
His journey as an indepedendent creator REALLY started about five years after college, and for the past ten years it’s led him on one heck of a journey. Now he’s living life as a Digital Nomad in South America, spending his time doing exactly what he wants to do, wherever that may lead him.
Together we spoke about curiosity — the engine behind his mastery of many subjects — and why that’s the key to his progress so far..
Five years after college, David was in the midst of a major career transition.
After working in Graphic Design for a good chunk of time, he decided to work towards a more nomadic lifestyle — one that revolved around his passions.
“They had these big tileboards at Home Depot so I just bought one for $11, put it on the floor of my apartment, and sketched out ideas.
I was going to consult, do freelancing for 10 hours per week, then spend the rest of the time trying to build passive income. I figured at some point I would be free to explore the things that I was curious about, and I’ve been doing that for the last 10 years.”
You can’t always do what you’re curious about (at first)
Like David said above, it’s not as simple as quitting your job to focus on whatever you want — you do have to support yourself.
In addition to what I’m curious about, I’m still trying to find ways to make money and those things don’t always line up perfectly.
Somebody asked me ‘What would you do all day if you didn’t have to work?’
And I said I would read books, and have conversations, and share what I knew with other people. So two years ago I really doubled down on that. I had enough of a base with courses, sales of Design For Hackers, and some affiliate stuff along with a decent enough audience that I would be able to pursue that and not starve.
I’ve been doing that for the past two years.
Make sure you can support yourself before you jump into curiosities.
We work the hardest at things we’re curious about.
A lot of people think that if they just had the chance, they’d be able to follow all of their dreams and they could write a novel or start a startup.
But, when you wake up in the morning and you realize you actually have that opportunity — and you just have space — it’s more frightening than it is exciting because now you actually have the opportunity.
It’s like you’re trying to throw punches at some huge guy and your friends are holding you back and then they’re like, ‘Okay, you can have at him!’
It was a little bit of a strategy for me to stop myself from playing Guitar Hero all day. I knew I didn’t want to work for somebody else. I knew that to do so I was going to have to work really hard, and in order to work really hard it was going to help if I was able to work on something I was curious about or that I loved.
Because curiousity fuels our work ethic, it makes sense we should place that at the center of our lives.
Harder work means faster progress — and when we’re chasing what we love, we’re finding ourselves that much faster than before.
Why we lose our curiosity, according to David Kadavy
It’s the rat race, it’s the working world. And let me be very realistic with you — there’s a lot of ways you can go about making money and there’s a lot of ways you can go about making money independently, but when it comes to using your curiosities as your compass, this has been the most important thing in my entire life.
I’m 38 years old, I’m not married and don’t have kids, this has been my life for the last 15 years. If I decided to do those other things — I would’ve had to make compromises.
This is the thing that I’ve decided was the most important thing to me. Those other things still might come — who knows — but it’s just I felt I had no choice because I was on fire to follow my curiosities.
If you want to get more of David’s story before the success, listen to our interview on my Post-Grad Survival Guide Podcast. We talk about college, careers, and living a more meaningful life!