Find Your North Star: The Thing You'd Pay To Do

Know what you love, then promote it

Here's the question. Your honest answer tells you more than any strategy session ever could.

Imagine no one could ever know you did it. You couldn't post it, couldn't film it, couldn't tell a single soul. And you would never make one dollar from it. What would you still do?

Now the twist that makes it honest. What is the thing you would spend your own money to do? You'd work the job, take the cash, and pour it right back into this. The thing you pay for, not the thing that pays you.

That's the thing. And it's usually something you've gotten good at for years without even noticing, to the point that you don't call it a skill.

For me, it's travel. I've been doing it for decades, across countries, states, cities, and hundreds of towns most people would never think to stop in. I'm the one who finds the single good vegan meal in a place with no reason to have one, who knows which playground fits the kid who bolts for the tallest slide and the kid who lives for the swings. I'd do every bit of it if no one ever knew, and I pay to do it. I did this for years before I ever called it a skill.

That's your North Star. Everything else is just how you fund it. And here's where AI finally fits, off in the background. It's never the point. It runs the systems around the thing you love, the finding, the planning, the busywork, so you get more of the actual thing.

Here's the part I'm exploring with my other ventures. AI doesn't have to be a business about AI. If I go all in on the thing I love and build content around it, AI is what runs the systems behind that content. The planning, the sorting, the logistics of landing somewhere new with two kids and finding the good stuff fast. That's a completely different business than teaching AI for its own sake. The love stays the point. AI just runs the machine behind it.

Then promote it

Knowing what you love is half of it. The other half is being willing to say it out loud.

Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate. So much of what passes for content online is someone naming what's wrong and stopping there. All problem, no build. When a whole identity gets organized around what you hate, you never actually make anything. Point at what's broken if you want, then go build the answer, even a small one.

And when you share it, share where it's going. People will tell you to show the messy middle, and there's real truth in that, the process is relatable. But be honest about what actually pulls people in. It's the destination. The transformation. The proof that the path led somewhere.

So there it is. Know the thing you'd do for free, the thing you'd pay to do. Then promote it like it matters, because it does. That's the whole game.

One thing to do today: name your North Star, then say it out loud

Answer the question on paper, just for you. If no one could ever know, and you'd spend your own money on it, what's the thing? Write it in one sentence.

Then do two things with it. Name one piece of it, the finding, the planning, the busywork, that AI could run for you so you get more of the thing itself. And say the thing out loud, once, somewhere one other person can see it.

The thing stays yours. The friction goes to the machine. And your people learn you exist.

If this is your kind of conversation, join me for the next Seed & Society® newsletter.