Learning sales. I use to only code and my ability to make money doing things I enjoy went way way up once I dedicated $$$ and time to learning how to sell.
Can you share some resources to learn this?
Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
451–460 of 579 posts
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#452SQL. Ultimately a software company is a business, run by business people who have to solve business problems. Often to do that they come up with questions which need to be answered by ad-hoc (written on the fly for one purpose) SQL queries. Having that ability, to answer arbitrary questions FAST will elevate your status in the minds of managers and business people.
What's a good place to start learning SQL? (for someone with 5+ years C++ and now dabbling in Clojure/ELisp)
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#453Think about WHO AM I.
I think this is the most important question one can have for his entire life.
I am 28, but I have spent about 15 years to think about who am I? Where am I come from? Where will I go?
And gradually, I get clearer and clearer about it.
And knowing who am I is the greatest source of happiness, strength and calmness.
If you also do this, I think you may understand. You will have small enlightment day by day, and finally a big enlightment.
What you really need to do is keep thinking, and you body will take you to where you belong.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#454Think about WHO AM I. I think this is the most important question one can have for his entire life. I am 28, but I have spent about 15 years to think about who am I? Where am I come from? Where will I go? And gradually, I get clearer and clearer about it. And knowing who am I is the greatest source of happiness, strength and calmness. If you also do this, I think you may understand. You will have small enlightment da…
+1
I believe the best way to reprogram yourself is to study yourself with no goal in mind.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, for heavens sake. That's as far as you can see? You can get that in prison. We were born and raised on a giant slave plantation. There are enough resources to take care of everyone, so much that some of it has to be kept off the market to keep up the illusion and prices. I'm currently scraping by at a bare minimum, growing my own vegetables and foraging whatever I can find in the area. And I find it infinitely mo…
"I'm currently scraping by at a bare minimum, growing my own vegetables and foraging whatever I can find in the area. And I find it infinitely more satisfying than writing software for startups and helping them rape the world in the name of profit." Oh really? You're "scraping" by? How then are you growing your own vegetables? Please tell me, on who's land do you sow thy seeds? Where is this magical place that you ca…
Hey now, none of this is my fault, most of us are in the same boat. As much as I would want to be completely independent, this society tries it best to make that really difficult. But I'm working on it, I don't consider myself a victim anymore.
You seem to have missed the memo on visualization, yours is pretty much a perfect example of how not to do it. You may safely trust me on this one, you'll never go anywhere if you start by enumerating all the reasons it could never work. First you commit, then all sorts of solutions appear seemingly out of nowhere. It always starts with a leap of faith to make sure you really want it.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#456Ear training. After spending twenty minutes a day at it for two months, I could hear an unfamiliar meldoy and know how to play it.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of people who are managing that without making any money at all, despite all sorts of prolonged efforts to turn their way of living into hell. Integrity, being surrounded by loving people, being in good health, having the freedom to be all that you are. Those are all more important from my perspective. We've been carefully conditioned to believe that this game is the only alternative, it's not.
>Integrity, being surrounded by loving people, being in good health, having the freedom to be all that you are. Those are all more important from my perspective. Sure, because you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. As soon as the risk of death due to starvation or exposure to the elements is real, your priorities are going to change real quick. More than anything, we have to survive. Money…
Worrying where it will come from is never going to be a good idea, worrying in general is the worst kind of visualization. Dying from starvation is not really realistic in any western country, many will even stop you from doing it by your own choice. Money is not how we survive, you can't eat money or build anything worth building using it. All it takes is a slight disruption and it's paper with funny faces on and digits in a computer that doesn't run anymore.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#458Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…
I'd be interested in a few real world examples of these cases where you are able to apply the CS knowledge in your day job. Would you mind sharing one or two?
We were storing HTML blobs in a database, and we needed to run through all of them and manipulate some tags. A coworker argued that we should use regex. I was able to turn that into a teaching moment about the Chomsky hierarchy, and how (simple) regex can't be used to parse languages which feature arbitrary levels of nesting.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#459Running. Been running ~ 2 years fairly seriously. Lost a lot of weight, and have never been healthier. Now have run marathons under 3 hours, qualified for Boston, ran in international races, Hawaii, etc. Running and any active sports feel fun when you are fast.
I wish everyone who runs that may they never stop , ever :-) Was a long distance runner from 2012-2016. It was so fun, used to look forward for my morning run every single day - I'd once forgotten all my credit cards when flying to another city but not my running shoe. Almost never missed it for anything. Minor injury broke it for 1.5 months. Been struggling to pick up again since then. It's 2 years. Procrastination…
Ever get shin splints? Every time I make the attempt to make running a habit, I get them after a week or two and have to stop. I think I just really need to ease in and let my legs adapt.
Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?
#460Learning a musical instrument to a high degree of proficiency. What's a "high degree of proficiency"? Obviously somewhat subjective but I'd argue its one of: 1) being able to play intermediate to advanced pieces in the standard repetoire. In the case of my instrument, piano, it's being able to play Bach, Brahms, Debussy, Bill Evans, T Monk, etc. 2) being able to think of a musical phrase and then play it on your inst…
The song in question is intermezzo, Op. 118: No. 2, in A