I am early on a lot of trends. Before they were popular, I was into RV living, being a digital nomad, online gambling, wool, pickup, cryptocurrency, home automation, minimalism, and a whole lot of other things. There are also several things I’m into now that I believe will be more popular in the future (like living in Vegas, shared property, cryonics, etc).
Being early on blogging meant that I could build up a readership just by writing good posts. I didn’t have to additionally do the promotion and clickbaity stuff that is all but required today.
In pickup it was very easy for me to get access to the best people out there and learn from them because they weren’t as popular and guarded. With financial things like poker there’s an an obvious benefit to being early.
The biggest benefit, though, is the freedom of creating your own path. It’s fun to explore things by yourself, to make your own rules, and to sometimes be able to influence a field. This process becomes self-reinforcing, because as you discover things for yourself, you realize it’s not so hard and you’re more willing to do it in the future.
Also, I believe that the people who are earliest in fields tend to be the most interesting. They are more likely to be motivated for reasons other than financial gain and being trendy. So your peers tend to be very interesting people that you’ll be interested in knowing.
The main reason I’m early on many things is because I’m a little bit idealistic. I believe that there is a potential solution for just about anything. If it exists already, I’ll unearth it. If it doesn’t exist, I’ll create it.
A good example is being a digital nomad. I figured that there was a way to travel around the world efficiently and inexpensively, so I set out to figure it out. Some of it I learned from other people traveling, but a lot I just figured out on the fly.
I’m also comfortable with going at something alone and possibly failing. If I find something good by myself, I assume others will follow eventually. I am stubborn enough to try to turn most things into successes, but I also realize that not being willing to fail means hobbling my chances at success.
The point, of course, isn’t to be early on trends just for the sake of doing so. It’s to think about what you’d like to exist in this world, or in your life, and to make it happen even if the process for doing so isn’t clear. I can’t imagine going through life without this as a core component of my behavior.
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Photo is a really cool tree in Budapest
I didn’t get enough interest for my Superhuman 2 event to make it happen. Very surprised! If I don’t get more this week I will probably cancel it and try again later.
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