Adult friendships are hard but you should not let go of them without a fight.
Friends have this unique lens to view your life as a novel: Just far enough to see the changes, and close enough to connect the dots to your former self.
Minimum Viable Freedom (MVF) is the threshold below which one feels trapped in one’s circumstances. This is fairly straightforward though not easy to achieve. The formula looks something like this:
Set your goal on something important to you and to your social network. Bad news: The pursuit of MVF is not a solitary endeavor. Your social network matters at this stage.
Work hard to achieve it.
Try and get some money and social capital along the way.
Prescriptions and playbooks work great for mechanical things. Imagine trying to fix an intricate IKEA bed without an instruction manual!
However, when it comes to innovation, art, creativity or dealing with ambiguity, “how to” formulas don’t work beyond the very basics.
To do something innovative, you need to explore the edge of your field, go where others haven’t and be at peak performance.