Juan David's Newsletter - September 11th, 2022
Following your Intuition is the Highest Return Activity of All Time.
Happy Sunday,
Following your intuition is the highest return activity of all time. This is especially true if past and future intuitions combine.
That’s a big statement so let’s talk about what it means.
Without a doubt, some days are more energetic than others. But some days are just energy nonstop, and that is precisely what happened this Friday.
My Friday started by finishing a semester class in 5 minutes and visiting an art museum.
More than a good start!
I continued coding and finally made my website live, a rough draft with elephantine improvements coming soon but hey, it’s finished! On Monday, I told myself I would finish it by Friday and I did.
Momentum continues to build up.
Back in May, I was inspired and I followed my intuition to stop studying for finals for a couple of hours and create the UIUC Free Food project. It gained around 100 followers in just one week but school ended and the project took a pause.
School started again and the UIUC Free Food Twitter Bot has just been buzzing with nonstop free food everywhere.
So I checked the Twitter bot and I see a free food opportunity but at the moment, I was talking to the media department trying to set up an internship program for the UIUC Talkshow.
After I was done, I went to the free food opportunity and enjoyed it quite a bit.
And this is where two intuitions come to connect: the UIUC Free Food and the UIUC Talkshow.
The event ended and more than 50 Jimmy John’s sandwiches were left behind. Everyone left and they just left the food, not in the trash, but almost.
I notified the UIUC Free Food and some folks came but still, a lot of it was left.
And suddenly, my eyes opened, I jumped off my seat, and said “UIUC TALKSHOW EVENT at the QUAD.”
I picked the food and the event was ready to start. I started by making a UIUC Reddit post, posting on my Snapchat story, and getting some UIUC Talkshow music ready.
I walked about a mile carrying the boxes and getting excited.
We get to the main quad (the center of campus) and the event is almost ready. But before that, I took some flyers on it and tape them to the boxes and most importantly my shirt.
My limited edition UIUC Talkshow shirt.
And now we are fully ready.
The event lasted for about two hours and we spread happiness to everyone who came by from students and professors to workers, mariachis, and even the famous rotten pig.
And I had so so much fun. At the end of everything, we gained about 50 new subscribers and about 100 people who know the UIUC Talkshow is a thing.
None of this would have happened if I didn’t create the UIUC Free Food Twitter Bot and even way before that if we didn’t create the UIUC Talkshow.
This is why I say this:
Following your intuition is the highest return activity of all time. This is especially true if past and future intuitions combine.
And last Friday could not have been a more perfect combination of those two intuitions. Those projects are not big deal, they really aren’t. I’m just having a lot of fun with them while, perhaps, creating a new movement:
I truly, truly believe that being more vocal, building projects in public, and being unapologetically yourself is how we can start … a cult, I mean a movement where people can find and think for themselves.
From Quad Day 2022 and Why NPCs need to f*** clubs and do projects
Perhaps they will lead to something bigger or perhaps they won’t but who cares? What matters the most right now is how much I enjoy doing these types of projects. They are interesting so I follow interesting. That’s it.
This is the true purpose of college: creating hypotheses, testing them, and starting again to find and experience what I love doing and most importantly, what I’m uniquely great at.
Back in February 2022, I reflected on what I would call a life worth living and how college could help with that:
[In college] you have one purpose. That purpose needs to be in your mind while you follow your gut about the things that seem interesting to you. Sure, they may look dumb and people around may think it’s stupid but be brave enough to pursue and follow your intuition because your intuition knows, and knows a lot.
Do what you want. Do what’s interesting and exciting. Do what you’re thinking right now.
That’s what I would call a life worth living.
From College: a place to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life.
I’m writing this right now and I can’t help but think how similar running the UIUC Talkshow has become to running a startup.
We reach out to guests (investors) and we find customers (subscribers) while doing everything in between from editing, social media, distribution, design, programming, and lots of fun.
Perhaps this is just preparation for something bigger. Perhaps I’m just getting the reps in. Perhaps, perhaps, and perhaps. But one thing is certain, and that is the endless excitement I have when working on these projects.
Let’s keep the fun going and follow whenever wherever and whatever it may lead.
Until next Sunday,
Juan David Campolargo
🎵 Song I listened to while writing this: No Bad Days