The Work That Isn't Assigned

I think a lot about the work people do that no one assigned.

The other day, I (Kevin) was listening to Hamilton in the car with the kids, and I couldn’t stop thinking: No one asked Lin-Manuel Miranda to write this.

He just did it.
He read a biography on vacation and followed the spark.

This morning, I was drinking coffee from Cometeer—a company that flash-freezes great coffee into little frozen pucks. It’s delicious. (They sell Intelligentsia—my favorite).

Anyway, I kept wondering: Who asked these guys to build this company? Probably no one.

That’s the thing about meaningful work:

It’s rarely assigned.
It’s not on a checklist.

And it usually starts with someone thinking,
"You know what would be cool?"

Most of us spend our days following instructions.
But the work that changes things?
 

It usually begins with a whisper—
and someone willing to listen.