And I completely agree.
When I was a chef several years ago, I learned so much (ask me next time we bump into each other). How to cook was only part of it. Long story short, I eventually realised that I’d stopped caring about the food, and that it had become just a job. As soon as you realise that, you can no-longer do the job the same way. You need to give a shit. You need to be part of what you’re doing, and it will be part of you too. So I gave it up. Luckily I soon started to work at Comic Relief.. and during my time in the kitchen I started Loose Connection too.
The reason I started working in the kitchen in the first place was because I wasn’t enjoying the web any more, and I got out of that for the same reason!
Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot from the experiences of all those paths, and am happy to be back in the web/digital industry. I have focus, purpose, experience and (almost most importantly) community.
Now watch this, he says it better than me.
So, the points to remember: (and this is not exclusive to building things online)
- love it, or stop
- live it, you’ll be working *all the time*
- don’t just listen, take part
- be prepared to fail for your love, don’t compromise your ideals (that’s the hippy bit apparently)
- do something you’re actually into, it’ll show if you’re not, and you’ll lose interest
- and more… you can work it out
And go find him on Twitter, he’s worth listening in on.
For some more technical stuff about building things online, here’s my list of what it takes to build the perfect webapp.
Update: Oh I forgot, remember to be happy. That’s the foundation for being successful. In both life and business.