Dangerous Ideas: Getting Started Is Overrated

Success requires that you know what you're doing, before you begin:

In short, I've noticed that people who succeed in an impressive pursuit are those who:

• Established, over time, a deep emotional conviction that they want to follow that pursuit.
• Have built an exhaustive understanding of the relevant world, why some succeed and others don't, and exactly what type of action is required.

This takes time. Often it requires a long period of saturation, in which the person returns again and again to the world, meeting people and reading about it and trying little experiments to get a feel for its reality. This period will be at least a month. It might last years.