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Welcome learners to another deep dive
Today we're uh embarking on a fascinating journey through one person's highly unconventional path
Yeah
We're pulling back the curtain on those critical moments of choice passion
And well that often debated quality talent were diving into a single rich source
Today excerpts from an interview
It's titled ten sarwicky cogonese
Which translates roughly to know ten share a theoretical physics phd from peaking university as you unpay college admitted by competition discuss ses talent
It sounds quite specific
It is
But what's truly fascinating here is how we can you know trace a clear threat of decisions
Some deliberate some maybe more scientipitist right decisions that span from a really unique high school experience
好的好的
All away through aphd and theoretical physics
And then a significant career shift into software engineering
So our mission in this deep dive is really to extract the most potent insights from this individual story exactly helping you may be to cern your own path
More clearly
Especially
When those big questions about passion
Purpose and yet talent come into play
Okay
Let some pack this unusual beginning
Then our interviewee who's now a software engineer in york
Thrirising rently tly right
He had high school school experience
That was well decidely not the norm picture this two dozen three the sars year and he's a science student in shanghai
Okay
But instead of grinding through preparation for the growling gualcow
You know china's national college entrance exam
Which is notoriously intense hugely
He actually secured admission to picking university's young pay college through an elite physics competition
Wow Okay
So that early successment his entire senior year was well
He describes the wonderfully as unsupervised and half free range hf free range ge like that doesn't a paint a picture
While most of his peers were locked into intensive goucow prep his small class
Maybe fifteen or sixteen students who also got in early
Were effectively left to their own devices
So what did that freedom look like so mentiontions living at school because of sars
But the teachers were mainly focused on the galcow kids were understandable as suppose
So these students had this incredible latitude
They spent their days watching movies
Hollywood lock busters
Classics
Everyeverything divwering books from the library
Digging into topics
They actually enjoy or just playing games
Listening to music sounds
Pretty ideal for a senior year
He even mentioned teachers sort of symbolially offering university level calculus classes um
But nobody not even the teachers really to come
Seriously he called it very happy and care free
It sounds i don't know like an educational dream
It absolutely does it's like an early profound lesson in sldirected learning
Yeah very different from a highly structured environment most students face and that initial taste of autonomy
You have to think it shaped his approach to learning and choice later on definitely that period of unsupervised learning clearly had an impact
Because when he got to peking university
He again made a somewhat unconvictiontional choice instead of going directly into say the traditional physics department
He chose you on pay college ah you unpay
Right right
It's quite distinct within the chinese university system
Or it set up as an experimental class
Or maybe like a liberal arts education program
Sworlike like the us
Somewhat's more yeah in the first couple of years
Students don't declare a specific major
They take broad foundational courses
Higher math
General physics
Chemistry
That's sort of thing
The idea being to explore broadly first
Exactly explore first
Then pick a specialization later on
And he chose it precisely for that flexibility
He said it was new appealing and and memeant if he covered
He know a burning passion for flexiics
Or something he could switch
Yeah
He could witwitch majors without the massive reaucratic castle le trfferering department
That's a big deal
When you're still figuring things out
It's huge though while that freedom was there his love for physics
It seems remained pretty strong oyeah he took a lot of physics courses
But crucially he also intentionally explored other fields
Well lehe got into philosophy
Which can a sparked from his physics studies in history
Which he admitted he wasn't great at in high school
But felt t needed some training in interesting
So not just sticking to the science selling not at all and of course lots and lots of maysics
Which he considered absolutely crucial for theoretical physics right so what really struck him about university especially compared high school was just this vast landscape of choices
The big shift huge
High school was about mastering a set currriculum being fed knowledge as he put it
But university he realized meant understanding that exhaustive learning is impossible
You just can't learn everything
Exactly he had to learn how a frame his own learning choose what to study
And really importantly discover what genuinely interested him
Which really makes you think about agency doesn't
He actually emphasizes that in college choices perhaps a more important factor than so called effort or involution uh one that term comes up a lot
And you that that briefly sure sure volution or wan in this context often refers to this phenomenon of intense
Sometimes kind of self deeding competition
Yeah like everyone stustuck in a rtrace working incredibly hard
But without much real progress or innovation like running faster just to stay in the same place
Exactly so he is suggesting that making smart authentic choices about your path
Might actually matter more than just trying to outcompete everyone through sheer grind that focus on choice seems key to finding your own way
Absolutely pivotal
I think so after university
His physics passioned in fade
It led him to pursue aphd and theoretical physics in the us thcking with it
But then after finishing his doctor
He made a really significant pivot
He transitioned into software engineering
It's a major career shift
It is and connecting this back
It wasn't like aa sudden shift
It seemed to have been a pretty profound realization
During his phd studies
He pointed to two main reasons for this pivot
Okay
What was the first one
The first was a stark realization about theoretical physics
Itself he described as as talent
Ent tensive talent
Yeah
He fell first hand that in this field
And this is his quote a person with more talent can easily achieve what you might struggle to achieve even with immense effort
He came to believe
He just lacked that specific inaid talent for peer theoretical physics is that
Is that common and highly specialized fields that kind of start realization
Or is it may be particular to theoretical physics
That's a great question
I mean look
Tell and helped everywhere right but feelds like theoretical physics high level math
Maybe even something like grandmasterter chess
They often seem to have a clear ceiling
Where that in inatability really grantiates people so effort takes you far
But maybe not all the way it can take you incredibly far
But beyond a certain point
It seems to be about seeing connections
Making intuitive leaps
Grasping concepts in a way that others just don't so his feeling isn't unique in that specific disciple okay
And the second reason for the shift
The second was about nnature of urotheretical research
Itself it demands just immense patients the ability to as he put it sit on the cold bench for years
Maybe even decades without major breakers sit on the cold bench
That's aoccative in during long periods without reward or recognition
Exactly just doing the work
Often unheralded
He questioned if
If really had the
The fortitude for that kind of path
Especially realizing he had many other interest
He wanted to explore ore all he was still young make sense
So this brings us right to the core
Doesn't it how do you even identify talent
And how does it really interact with passion
He should are really compelling perspective on this kind of a too part idea on this
He 's just just too main aspects
First he does wwling that passion can largely compensate for a lack of talent
Which is what we often here right work work hard love what you do
Exactly your passion will carry you
But and this is important
There's a critical caviout to that okay
Here's
Where it's really new onced
He says there's a strong almost intuitive personal feeling about talent like an intervoice and innate knowing
Yeah
Where's an intellectual intuition for complex problems or say a physical give for sports or music
Some things
He feels are just inaate a gift from god as he put it crucily
If your passion cannot compensate for that lack of talent
Then he warns that very passion will often just fade away
That's a stark thought that passion alone isn't enough to sustain you
If the underlying ability isn't there at a certain level
He is stck
And he said he realized this most accuutely in the second year of his phd
When he started doing real research
Eah the shift from learning to doing
Precisely he highlized this huge difference between learning from books and actually conducting research books
He explains give you predigested organized clear beautiful knowledge
It's sort of fed to you on a structured path right
But research he describes it is exploring a complete wilderness
A wilderness
Yeah
I can see that
You don't know the direction
How long it'll take
If the patheoron is just a dead end
Exactly unlike structured learning where effort often lead s directly to reward sesearch offers sensively see you could por years and like menmention with no breakthrough
So this really makes you wonder about intuition
Again
He argues that someone with talent can sort a sensitively see a good hopeful worthwhile direcrection in that wilderness
Ness Yeah
They have a better compass
Maybe
Maybe
And without that talent
It's easy to get trap
Just exploring failed paths
Hitting dead ens over and over which ultimately arrolled your passion
He thinks this is how many people lose that initial enthusiasm the wilderness is just wears them down
Or thinking about all this
If he had a time machine
What advice would he give his younger erself
So maybe young people today navigating their own paths
Well first he thinks today's youth action
They have a huge advantage that previous generations didn't the internet it just provides vastly wider horizons
So many more choices than ever before access to information different perspectives that's true
And he emphasizes that many people especially from older generations didn't really choose their college majors
Freely their choices were often dictated by external factors like parents societal pressure
What jobs paid well exactly leading them downath
They didn't fully understand or maybe even want
So his core advice then is that the period before and doing university is absolululowest cost
Cost environfor for al al error lowest cost meaning
Meaning the consequences of making a mistake of pivoting are much lower
Them the cost only increases as you get older enter the professional world
Get locked into careers
Take on more responsibility
Right he get ts right
Right he gets harder to change
Course later on
So if you're to make mistakes to figure out what you really want
It's profoundly better to make them early
He argues that the earlier er disdisver ver what you dislike the higher your probability of successvely finding what you do like so a process of elimination
Yeah
Eliminating what doesn't fit
Helps reveal what truly resonate tes
Which commenintes in this powerful take away
Really for you the listener explore different fields
Secure inner voice
Your inner voice
Not the voices isn't still led by elders
Teachers
Family or society
Exactly he stresses how important
It is to distinguish between what i truly like
And you know what's popular
What's easy to find a job in what's the current trend
It boils down to self awareness
And he doesn't regret his own choices which is key
He's happier is no
Not at all
But he firmly believes that
If he had explored more initially
And he he ended up making the exact same decisions
He would have felt more certain
Even more certain
More unwavering in his path
It's about building that conviction through active exploration not just sort of stumbling into something that works out so wrapping this up what is all this mean for you are learner this deep dive into a really unique journey
It underscores a few critical ideas doesn't it
It really does
Does the immense may be underestimated value of active choice that sudtle but powerful play between en sion and the sometimes uncomfortable reality of talent in the liberating power of that early low cost exploration
Trying things out
It encourages us to think not just about what we learn
But how we learn
And maybe most importantly why we pursue something yeah
Cultivating that self awareness to recognize when a path might not be the best fit
Even if you once loved it
Dearly and then having the courage to actually pive it if needed and perhaps
The most compelling thought to leave you with is this in a world with more information and opportunities
Than ever are you actively seeking your own inner voice or are you maybe falling a path
Just because it's well trauor
Because it's externally validated or simply because it feels safe
What areas in your life
Right now could maybe benefit from a period of that trial and error with the lowest possible cost
What's one small thing you could try this week perhaps to explore a new interest or just to listen a bit more closely to that voice
That's truly your own not someone else 's echo
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive
We hope it sparks some interesting reflections for you
And perhaps
Even some new choices for your own journey
Head
