Dave Cheong

So far, I’ll written two related posts - one about good patterns and the other about enlisting support from family and friends. Now, I’d like to introduce you to another key in my goal of transitioning from Software Engineer to Entrepreneur.

I title this post “Do something you love doing and admire”. In my goal to become an Entrepreneur, I know I need to look for ideas or projects that play to my interests and strengths. My strengths are clearly technical related - I am educated as an Electrical Engineer and make my living doing Java J2EE software development projects. It follows that my new business startup will be technology related - probably a web service of some sort - because that plays nicely to my strengths.

As for interests, these vary across the spectrum. Apart from being my job, I’m also passionate about technology. I actually enjoy coding and designing nice user interfaces. It’s hard to explain if you do not share the same interest in software development but try to apply it to something you are passionate about. For me, it feels great when a web page I’m working on is displaying the right set of values retrieved from the database. It feels great when my code is clean, succinct, easy to understand and structured correctly. It feels great when another developer uses my code and it “just works”. It feels great when a business user comes to me and tell me they love what I’ve “done to the page”.

This, I think, is part of the key. Do something you love doing. I know this isn’t a completely novel idea but it’s true nonetheless and doesn’t make it less important. If you do what you love, then you’re more likely to be better at it. Why? You’ll spend more time at it. You’ll read up about it in your spare time. You think about it when you’re on the train. You talk about it with your friends at the pub.

Doing something you love doing is very important. However, it’s only 1/2 of the key. Paul Graham has an excellent post which you should read if you have the time. His post talks about “How to do what you love“. In that post he makes a good point about doing what you admire. That I believe is the second 1/2 of the key.

You have to do something you admire.

Some people may do something they love but they do not admire it. For example, an accountant may love the repetitiveness of their work. They love the fact that each day is consistent and they can leave at 5:30pm without fail. They love the fact that if they follow a process, there are never any surprises. They may even love the fact that things balance and are accounted for every time. Sure, they love what they do. But do they admire accounting? Please don’t get me wrong, they may admire accounting and I’m not saying it is a lack lustre line of work at all. I’m only using it as an example.

Why do you have to admire what you do or the people doing it? If you only love what you do (and not admire it), then you may end up doing the wrong thing. Huh? Let me explain.

Firstly, you could stagnate. If there is nothing to admire, why change? What’s the incentive to become better? If you love accounting, but do not have an accountant you admire and aspire to be, what is your incentive to be better than you are now? Do you want to stay being an accountant as you are now forever?

Secondly, it may not be the best thing for you to be doing. Paul Graham talks briefly about it in his post. When compared to spending time on a boat on the Carribbean or playing on the Xbox, how can work possibly stack up? Well, it can’t of course. But spending time on a boat or playing on the Xbox are not the best things you can do in the long run. The key I believe is we don’t admire being on a boat or playing on the Xbox. We may love doing these things but we don’t necessarily admire them.

So do something you love doing and admire. Look to the heroes in your industry and aspire to be like them. I am fortunate enough to not just love what I do but I also have heroes I aspire to be more like. These heroes have made the successful transition from being just a Software Engineer. Now, they run their own businesses, create products and services they are passionate about and are ultimately masters of their own destinies. This is worth admiring.

What do you admire most about what you do? Can you name your heroes? Is there something or someone you aspire to be?

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