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The annoying habits of highly effective people

economist.com

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Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#81

Post by manigandham »

taurath wrote: post #66
apatters wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spot an extreme growth opportunity, bet everything on it, and be correct. > Or be born into money. No amount of self-help is going to tilt the scale towards that. While there are undoubtedly success stories which resemble both of these caricatures, I think they're in the minority. I can't say I'm hobnobbing with the Forbes billionaires list but I have personal relationships with many people who built successful bus…

I’ll add - “they had the privilege of being able to focus their attention and not be harmed for it”.

That's a very complicated situation. People, especially when young, have incredible freedom and really don't need much at all to survive. As they get older, 95% of the responsibilities they take on is their own doing.

That's not a judgement on what they choose, but many times the "lack of privilege" is really they because they made different choices.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#82

Post by randomsearch »

matwood wrote: post #28
mamon wrote: post #10

I always laugh at this obsession with early rising. Many factory line workers wake up at 4:30 am every day, because their shift starts at 6:00 am, and somehow that does not make them billionaires.

Getting up early is a sign of discipline, but it's only a start. It's a mentality of going after every day with a sense of urgency. Obviously not everyone can become billionaires, but most people can better themselves by adding more discipline to their lives.

Getting up early - before you’ve had a full sleep window - is a sign of idiocy, not discipline. Those people are damaging their health and will underperform at work, even if they don’t realise it.

Read “why we sleep”.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#83

Post by randomsearch »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #34
bcheung wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early rising isn't so much what time you wake up as it is waking up early enough so you have time to yourself before you have to go into the office or start your day job. The important thing is your first few hours after waking go to your most important goals.

> The important thing is your first few hours after waking go to your most important goals. Why? I find I'm often more productive at the end of the day than the beginning. And more productive late at night than early in the morning. I find the obsession with waking up early very strange (and often counter-productive).

Some people are more effective in the morning, others later on. The morning and night owl thing is backed up by scientific evidence.

NB - I previously didn’t believe this, and posted so in the past. After reading “why we sleep” that cites evidence to the contrary, I admit I’m wrong.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#85

Post by ryandrake »

bicubic wrote: post #76
apatters wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spot an extreme growth opportunity, bet everything on it, and be correct. > Or be born into money. No amount of self-help is going to tilt the scale towards that. While there are undoubtedly success stories which resemble both of these caricatures, I think they're in the minority. I can't say I'm hobnobbing with the Forbes billionaires list but I have personal relationships with many people who built successful bus…

You can't bet on an opportunity if you don't have any money to bet. I've lost count of how many ambitious and talented people I know who had ideas they wanted to bet on, but couldn't because of lack of disposable funds. Having the resources to take risks is the number one factor to succeeding, I think. Being able to identify good opportunities comes after that.

And a lot of these people have the resources to keep betting after they fail. I recall someone I know who failed 4 businesses, falling back to his rich family after each try while he cooked up the next one. Eventually hit the jackpot on the fifth one and acted as though he was a self-made genius.

Baseball is easy when you have unlimited at-bats.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#86

Post by stephengillie »

ryandrake wrote: post #85
bicubic wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't bet on an opportunity if you don't have any money to bet. I've lost count of how many ambitious and talented people I know who had ideas they wanted to bet on, but couldn't because of lack of disposable funds. Having the resources to take risks is the number one factor to succeeding, I think. Being able to identify good opportunities comes after that.

And a lot of these people have the resources to keep betting after they fail. I recall someone I know who failed 4 businesses, falling back to his rich family after each try while he cooked up the next one. Eventually hit the jackpot on the fifth one and acted as though he was a self-made genius. Baseball is easy when you have unlimited at-bats.

...born on 3rd base, having grown up thinking she had hit a triple... - various, 2013

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#87

Post by galfarragem »

dtujmer wrote: post #77
dkarl wrote: post #48

At one time I thought highly successful people would be more like each other than less successful people. I believed it even more when it was explained as the Anna Karenina principle. But my experience hasn't borne it out. There are many things you can point to as advantages or "best practices" but in the end it all seems to dissolve into our penchant for telling stories. One guy is successful because he was born int…

Wow. This is honestly the best analogy I've ever seen. I still think that some particular behaviors are generally good and should be emulated (like e.g. exercise) - but even there you'll find exceptions. But taking CEO quirks and designing lives so that they include them... That's just guessing the teacher's password ( https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NMoLJuDJEms7Ku9XS/guessing-t... ).

The analogy of inheriting a position in a game played by somebody else is great. Winning or loosing depends on how you finish it. What I can't agree is using chess itself: in chess there's no luck, if you play better than your opponent you will certainly win. In life, even after you inheriting the position, luck is a relevant factor, and the better player can loose.

Paraphrasing Nassin Taleb, a good player is somebody that optimises the chances of black swans to happen in life. But even this might no grant you a win.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#88

Post by gitgud »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #72
gitgud wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, regardless of the industry. Most people would consider the tasks of: -leading a company -dealing with finances -constantly making important decisions As a hard job.

I hope that any company worth its salt has a CFO to deal with finances. Not that the CEO should be completely out of the loop (she has to sign off, after all). But if a CEO is dealing with nitty, gritty details if finances there's a severe delegation issue at best and a detail obsessed control-freak at worst.

True, I was mainly referring to making decisions with company money, like how much to invest in resources and development. Not managing the accounting details.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#90

Post by pg_bot »

shay_ker wrote: post #13

CEO biographies are interesting just like any other biography, I suppose. But never once have I heard/read, "I read this other CEO's biography and decided to copy their habits, and that was my secret."

May I suggest "My Years with General Motors" by Alfred Sloan
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