The Cosmic IQ Test

Yesterday I came across an inspirational nugget while listening to one of Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leader podcasts.  I was about fifty minutes through the discussion of Angel Investing when this anecdote caught my attention.  The only context you need to know is that this guy is speaking to a lecture hall full of Stanford students.  (Note that this is my rough transcription of the speaker so I'd encourage you to listen to the audio version here starting at 50:55)

     A couple months ago I was walking through the airport really early in the morning and the TSA guy goes to me "How are ya doin'?" And I said "Great. How are you doing?"  And he goes "What does it look like?  I'm livin' the dream!" 

     At that point this epiphany came over me that if you go to Stanford University, you're in the rare position of privilege that you'll pretty much get to choose what you do in life.  And that puts you in less than 1% of the world.  And so [those of you in this position] have no excuse in life not to do things that you're passionate about.  There are a lot of people that will never get to and so if you do something you're not passionate about, you're flunking a cosmic IQ test.  You can learn that IQ test now or you can learn it when you're 40 and miserable in a job you don't like -but in the end you know what your passion is.  And when people and forces in the world try to prevent you from doing it turn off the noise and the hype and believe yourself, because so few people do and it's just tragic - anyone who comes out of this experience who is not doing something they're excited about - it's just a tragedy of their own making. 

Given my recent frustrations with work this was a good kick in the rear for me.  It's a bit elitist to say this only applies to students from one particular university, but I think if you were to select any reasonably educated westerner from the total global population it's likely they're in a similarly privileged position.  It's good to have a reminder that not everyone has the ability to pursue their passion so for those who have the ability but don't use it that's a big shame.