Find Your People

Key ideas

Livingston tells graduates who want ambitious plans to stop drifting, use interesting people to choose what to work on, and learn to shrug off dismissal.

1. 1

   The fixed path ends at graduation

   Livingston says school trains people to think life is a series of known next stops, and that graduation is where it stops, though some jobs can keep it feeling that way. She calls this both frightening and exciting. She herself looked for a new track, taking a night shift in customer service at Fidelity because she didn't know better and doubted she had an aptitude for anything.

2. 2

   You can shift gears without permission

   Livingston says she believed her mediocre grades meant she was mediocre, and that the belief stayed with her for years. She argues the end of college is a chance to reinvent yourself, because new people don't know your record and no one will stop you from becoming more curious, responsible or energetic.

3. 3

   Narrow thousands of options through people

   Livingston says there are thousands of places to work and the first step is admitting you must choose rather than drift. Since you can't actually search them all, her trick is to meet people, find the ones who interest you and ask what they work on, and to leave any workplace where you don't like the people. She says this is how she found startups, which made her more ambitious and led to her book project.

4. 4

   Expect dismissal, and learn to ignore it

   Livingston says people will dismiss ambitious plans at first, as happened when she told people about a book on startups without being an author or a startup person. She says most ambitious ideas seem wrong initially, since an obviously good one would already have been done. She adds that seeming lame delayed copycats of YC for several years, and that she learned not to care through lots of practice rather than starting out that way.

In Jessica’s words

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