The Application

Once you've arrived at The Answer, the next step is The Application of the Answer.

Once again, I can only tell you how I applied it. But first, a little history.

My career is in software design and development, which happens to fit my Answer, create something from nothing.

When I was programming for free, 100% of my time was spent doing what I enjoyed.

When I turned my hobby into a job, the fun was slowly reduced to about 10% of the time.

The other 90% is spent doing all kinds of thing I don't like.

Effectively, I've ruined my hobby.

Of course, I have a great career, but at the expense of a hobby.

The lesson here is once you've arrived at the Answer, i.e. the activities you love, don't try to make money with them.

So, I do photography, blog, write screenplays, make short films, etc.

And don't get me wrong, if I accidentally make money in these endeavors, I'll be even happier, but it's just icing on the cake.

The Application of the Answer is simple. Just do it. (My apologizes to Nike).

Reduce TV watching, Internet surfing, etc. and redirect that time to the activities that make you feel alive.

The Answer

The next logical step once you've asked The Question is to try to answer it.

Easier said than done.

There is no single correct way to find the answer. The best I can do is try to recall my method.

I looked at all of things I like to do.

The list went like (write software, design software, write screenplays, take pictures, write music, graphic arts).

Now this is not a list of things I can make money at. Nor things that I'm good at.

The list contains activities that I like to do.

I could have stopped here but I wanted to understand what each item in this list has in common.

After a little while, I realized that all of these things had creativity in common.

Digging a little deeper, I also realized that all of these things require almost nothing but an imagination.

So I created an abstract version of my answer:

I like to create something from nothing just using my mind.

There it was.

Now the power of an abstract answer is that I can use it like a touchstone to compare an activity that wasn't in my original list to see if I would like it.

For example, painting isn't on my list but it fits the abstract answer. It's something that you create just using your mind.

So I'd probably like painting.

Reviewing the process:

1. Make a list of activities you like to do
2. Figure out what they all have in common
3. Create a single statement that encompasses all of the activities in an abstract way

Now that you have The Answer, the next step is to apply it.