I\'m just going to start this with being honest\...I\'m a horrible community member. I see people seeming to make waves and I get a smidge jealous and start wondering how I can up my game. That\'s the thing tho\...to \"make waves\" I need to be a better community member. I have a hard time with doing that. I\'m a part of a few communities and that\'s cool but for some reason the speed and velocity of this new crypto community is overwhelming. I\'m not in college anymore with bs classes either. I have other things going on and I \'ll admit it\'s a bit hard to balance my focus. I hope to get better before the new year when I take my annual vacation. Anyway you came here for more than that so let me tell you what I have learned about this new area. Yes web3 is new, docs aren\'t always clear (looking at testing for rust), and everything is moving at the speed of light. How do you work with this? Well I think there are two things you have to be ok with and no, passion is not one of them. You need to be ok being a test subject and you have to be ok with long hours. Longer Study Hours ------------------ I\'m not saying don\'t sleep but I am saying that you should extend that 1-2hr study period you have on your schedule. Give yourself more like 3-4hrs. Why so long? I think you will end up doing more reading than coding in the web3 space. I\'ve noticed that to understand the code I\'m writing and why has become easier when I\'ve experienced whatever I\'m building like buying an NFT. I know ETH is expensive but look\....find a test project on the test net and be fake rich or switch to SOL (tots biased but it\'s better). Another thing you should do is make purchases and practice moving money (coinbase, ftx, trust wallet, binance). All these things help you understand the user perspective and in my opinion that helps you understand how to structure your contracts. Being a Test Subject -------------------- Now\...how does one become ok with the unknown? Well you just have to keep reminding yourself that everyone is new. I know people are going to show the positives, but you can\'t worry about that. You have to remind yourself that your time is coming and that your helping build the foundations (seriously). I think some of these things should be pretty easy to mentally get through if you are in certain industries or done a grad program. If you haven\'t you need to \"extend yourself grace\" or whatever people be saying. I\'m not too sure how to do this but when I need a break I usually take a walk to appreciate the day, or go to the gym to be humbled by weights and appreciate my strength. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let\'s Recap\... {#lets-recap} ---------------- In this web space you need to be an active community member, be ok being a test subject, and be ok with long hours. This means time on social, extended study sessions, and reminding yourself that your helping build the foundation. Now I know this wasn\'t the glamorous pov you wanted to read about, your probably wondering why I didn\'t mention money. I really don\'t know much about the money aspect but what I can tell you are the following: 1. 9-5 jobs seem to be as high as \$400K - \$1M 2. There are a shortage of devs that understand this space so if you willing to put in time to be seen you can probably make it big 3. There are ways for you to work with groups through grants or working with a DAO. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization\...in simple terms it\'s a group of people with common interest. (I can post about this more in detail later). On the grant front I\'m not too sure where to look but I would just keep an eye on twitter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I hope this was insightful if your also new and balance web3 and your career and life and biz and things.