How Do You Tell Who’s Actually Serious?

This is something I’ve wrestled with for years:How do you tell if someone is actually serious?I’ve spent decades in research. Every idea takes years—sometimes a decade—of grinding, failure, rejection, and getting back up. And yet most people don’t understand what that commitment really means.The problem is cheap talk.Most people say they’re passionate. They say they’ll do the work. But when the reality sets in—the loneliness, the rejection, the endless iterations—they vanish.And here’s what breaks my heart: the few who stay, the few who actually care, are almost impossible to find. Everyone else is too busy chasing prestige, status, or the next shiny thing.What I want—what so many of us want—is not cheap talk. Not another person “playing researcher.” But someone who will actually show up, again and again, when it’s brutal and nobody cares.So here’s my open question to you:👉 How do you identify those rare people who are truly serious?