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Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

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Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#391

Post by germinalphrase »

aazaa wrote: post #193

Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questio…

We talk about this a lot in k12 education (I teach at the high school level). It’s often immediately apparent how new/effective a teacher is by monitoring their question style.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#392

Post by tasty_freeze »

In junior high school, at the end of the brief morning announcements broadcast to all classrooms, the principal would end with some quote. One stuck with me, and was something like this:

The character of a man is revealed by how he behaves when he knows he won't be caught.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#393

Post by darkerside »

afpx wrote: post #306
darkerside wrote: post #192

This might be super basic, but... assume positive intent. Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy. Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are ano…

My life experiences don't match your mental model, sadly. Maybe it has to do with where and how one grows up? For example, I know with certainty that my parents, teachers, and first bosses were enemies. A lot of people on HN seem to have grown up in safe, nurturing, loving environments. But, remember that most of the world's people didn't. I don't mean to call you out - just saying that I would love to have had your…

Most people grew up with parents who love them. They might not know how to show it, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but love for offspring is about as close as it gets to universal human experience.

Parents may not express that love all the time, and may even harm their children in spite of it. And they will probably hate themselves after the fact for it.

I was oversimplifying, of course. You can certainly end up with enemies. But your boss didn't start out hiring you because he wanted an enemy. He hired you to do a job.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#394

Post by dnautics »

downerending wrote: post #368
dnautics wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget your friends. You want a BOSS that has your back. If your boss doesn't have your back, it's time to move jobs.

Yeah, that's very, very true. Spent way too much of my career not knowing that. Once had a real bastard of a boss, back in the early days of the web. I put together a prototype web site, carefully describing it as such and as never even tested with multiple users. Without telling me, he put together a demonstration that involved 20 big-wigs hitting it at the same time. Without doubt he was hoping for a major failure.…

yeah even if they're great. I worked for a nobel laureate, was hoping to get great letters of rec or whatever for professorships, but all he really cared about was getting his projects funded, tinkering in the lab, and spending pennies at the slot machines. After about three years, I just left.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#395

Post by mattlondon »

aazaa wrote: post #193

Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions. A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or disagree with a premise you feed to them. An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who; where; what; when; why. Imagine the responses to these two questions: - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading) - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led) How do each of these questio…

Not heard this term before - I believe this is often called "open Vs closed questions" (where open questions are the open-ended ones that cannot be answered with yes or no).

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#397

Post by ignoramous »

mwfunk wrote: post #357

One thing that’s been super meaningful for me is the notion that if you don’t put something into words, either in speech or in your head or on paper, you don’t know anything about it, even if it’s a feeling or a belief or an intuition deep within you that you’ve held for as long as you can remember. The act of simply putting a thought into words makes it immediately obvious to you if you really understand it or not,…

This works surprisingly well. I think to also pays to master a language for the same reason to be able to articulate thoughts precisely to self and to others.

Tangential: https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#399

Post by v64 »

paulcole wrote: post #383
v64 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every expert started out as a beginner.

Yes but the quote is to be told to beginners, none of whom have yet to “actually fight their way through their creative difficulties.”

I don't think we're in disagreement.

You asked: Of all the people who read that quote and nod along thinking, “yes this is me” how many are actually right?

Of those people who think "yes this is me" as beginners, those who stick with it and move beyond the stage of beginner by fighting their way through their creative difficulties will be the ones who actually did have good creative taste and were right. Those who reach creative roadblocks and blame the cause on external circumstances are not among those with good creative taste.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#400

Post by hnick »

purerandomness wrote: post #142

The idea that your mind is not you . That "thinking", as a process, is just a tool of your body, just like eyesight, for example. Listening to meditation and mindfulness practitioners like Jon Kobat-Zinn and Eckhart Tolle, I found it absolutely groundbreaking, for myself, to realize that the mind is an instrument that needs training and tuning, and sometimes can lead you astray, and can't be trusted unconditionally.…

I don't have a quote handy but one idea I'm partial to is that that mind is not one. It's a noisy group of sub-minds all clamouring for attention, with different goals.
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