Phase 1 - Get Started

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What is great work?

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Great work is something that fulfills the 3 core human desires/principles. I call these The 3Fs:

F - Freedom of Choice (Autonomy)

F - Freedom of Time

F - Fulfillment

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These 3 are timeless principles that shape our actions and desires.

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But, what is great work?

I’ll let you read what Paul Graham wrote about what great work is before I tell you what I think about it:

I don't think you could give a precise definition of what counts as great work. Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible.

But there's no threshold for importance. It's a matter of degree, and often hard to judge at the time anyway. So I'd rather people focus on developing their interests rather than worrying about whether they're important or not. Just try to do something amazing, and leave it to future generations to say if you succeeded.

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While I mostly agree with Paul Graham, I have a slightly different definition to what great work is:

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First, what’s considered as mediocrity?

I define mediocrity (in relation to the digital economy) as “the common association between what a user thinks your offer is and what your offer really is”

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To me, great work is first measured by how much love you put into something.

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Going the extra mile is one of the few characteristics of what great work is made out to be.

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If you tell people you’ll make the batter for the cake, you actually go and make the cake to show how the batter looks like when cooked. That’s going the extra mile.

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Your passion, your drive to achieve something is the best meter for great work.

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As Steve Jobs puts it:

The only way to do great work is to love what you do — Steve Jobs

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Great work is something that fundamentally changes how something operates. It stops you in your tracks.

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Imagine the time when the first airplane flew and the people below it looked up to see it. The feeling that they had.

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Now, I’m not saying everyone must create something that revolutionizes the world.

It can be something that helps even one person. In a positive way. But if it can help one person, it can help a million.

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Figure out your obsession and dial it up (ethically).

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If that’s great work, then what is your life’s work?

Life’s work =/= Great work.

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Let’s look at great work as one unit and your life’s work containing multiple of those units.

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Creating your life’s work is not a one-and-done thing. It requires effort and it takes time over an extended period of time, which could be years or even decades.

So, multiple pieces of great work craft your life’s work but you have no clue how many.

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Alright, that’s the end of lesson 1. But I don’t want to call this a lesson. It’s more of my perspective on how I look at what great work and life's work are.

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Either way, there are 8 lessons (other than this one) in Digital Authority — totaling about 15000 words.

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There are also two bonus branding checklists you can access from the navbar.

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Have an insightful read, my friends! This has been a while in the making.

— Arjun, Founder of DisplayZen

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Click the button below to go the next lesson ↓

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