#2 Are you a dishwasher or a toaster?
16 May 2025
Ever feel like you’re doing everything “right”, but nothing’s working?
You follow the advice. Try the techniques. Tweak your routine. Still, something feels off. Like you're not getting the results everyone else seems to be getting.
I heard an analogy the other day that really resonated:
What if you’re actually a dishwasher trying to follow the instruction manual for a toaster?
It struck me so hard because for a long time, I felt like I was living by rules that didn’t make sense to me. No wonder the buttons I was pressing weren’t doing anything!
The reality is, everyone’s brain is wired differently. The advice you get – from family, friends, podcasts, influencers – is almost always tailored to the person giving it, not to you.
Social media has now cranked this confusion up to the next level. Millions of different manuals, millions of conflicting opinions, millions of people telling you exactly how you should be living your life (usually accompanied by suspiciously perfect holiday photos).
But life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. And if it did, someone else’s wouldn’t work for you anyway.
That’s why I believe you don’t just find your purpose — you create it. You write your own manual, one imperfect page at a time.
School never really helped us with that part… Why are we left to figure it all out by ourselves?
That’s what I explore in the article below, along with some practical tools to help you identify what device you really are, and start writing your own rules for life (and yes, I see the irony in giving you even more advice…)
→ Why school didn’t help you find your “thing”
Speaking of things school missed, we want to know…
What’s the one thing you wish you’d learned at school?
We're running a short survey (2 mins tops) to uncover the skills school totally skipped over.
👉 WIWILAS survey
Why bother? Because your answers help us create & curate stuff people genuinely want (rather than us guessing and crossing our fingers). School left some big gaps, and we want your help to identify them and fill them with the best, most useful tools & resources the Internet has to offer.
→ Relevant video (well worth the 3 mins!)