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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

#211

Post by nathan_long »

Const-me wrote: post #162
DecayingOrganic wrote: post #115

"The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, smartness, efforts, willfulness, hard work or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matte…

> Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests Read this: http://www.physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/papers/EPJB-17-723-2000... The authors started with even distribution of money, and random transactions with uniform probability, yet they arrived to very uneven distribution of outcomes.

I get a 403 on that link. Have a copy?

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#212

Post by cloverich »

phakding wrote: post #40
matwood wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that you couldn't become the CTO? Serious question. What qualities are you lacking?

Well I don't even know what a cto does. I have been in many meetings with them, but besides making high level decisions and asking for status, I don't know what they do. Besides I was born in poverty and needed lot of efforts to be able to socialize with people born upper middle class. I can only imagine what else I need to learn to socialize within upper echelons. I can't explain it to you fully. Thanks for asking t…

As part of that journey you should also seek to understand if you actually _want_ that job, because it will likely be a lot different than you're current one, and possibly quite a bit different than you imagine. That makes a good conversation point to have with the CTO however: "I want to learn more about what a CTO does". But I wouldn't let your conception of your poverty block you. My parents both grew up poor and eventually ended up in executive positions (in completely different fields).

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#213

Post by hedvig »

manigandham wrote: post #178
justaguyhere wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it - his boss took credit for his work, likely without his consent or even knowledge (I'd guess he came to know after his boss took credit). And yet, you want him to cover for his boss? He also mentioned his boss was incompetent. How can you trust such a person to watch out for you, even if you let it go?

Because relationships matter, and that's how you build that trust in the first place. Why not work with them, teach them, and make them better. Instead of being upset, be on their side. Almost always, they'll help you in return. Being confrontational and going around them though, will only guarantee more negative outcomes. Remember that your boss's boss and other colleagues probably don't want to deal with someone wh…

Wrong. Bad actors should be punished.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#214

Post by throwaway5250 »

DecayingOrganic wrote: post #115

"The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is due mainly, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, smartness, efforts, willfulness, hard work or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant material success. But, as a matte…

This demonstrates that the outcome isn't entirely a linear function of the inputs. But it doesn't show that the inputs mentioned aren't monotonic and a complete explanation of the outputs.

It may very well be that "luck" matters a lot. (And I'd argue that at a metaphysical level all of those traits are due to luck.) But that argument simply doesn't prove the result.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#215

Post by Const-me »

nathan_long wrote: post #211
Const-me wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests Read this: http://www.physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/papers/EPJB-17-723-2000... The authors started with even distribution of money, and random transactions with uniform probability, yet they arrived to very uneven distribution of outcomes.

I get a 403 on that link. Have a copy?

https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0001432

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#216

Post by Const-me »

dbingham wrote: post #173
Const-me wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale invariant distribution of outputs, suggests Read this: http://www.physics.umd.edu/~yakovenk/papers/EPJB-17-723-2000... The authors started with even distribution of money, and random transactions with uniform probability, yet they arrived to very uneven distribution of outcomes.

This makes perfect sense given the multiplier affects built into the Capitalist system. The more money you have, the more easily you can grow that money. The moment an imbalance forms it would naturally continue to grow. The fact that Capitalism will amplify and exacerbate any imbalance that forms, does not preclude the possibility that there are structural factors that help form those initial imbalances in Capitalis…

Have you read the article? It's written by physicists not capitalist. It discusses how 100% fair random transactions result in very uneven outcomes. Not unlike Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, which is also very uneven: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%E2%80%93Boltzmann_dist...

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#217

Post by [deleted] »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #210
tomnipotent wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone bother to read the definition? 1. verb "train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." 2. noun "the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." So yes, having to wake up to make it to a job at a certain time or else you get in trouble is actually the very definition of discipline. If people on m…

You don't gain discipline by waking up earlier than necessary. If you don't need to be at work until noon, waking up at 5am doesn't add discipline to your life. Waking in time to go to work is discipline, but if you don't need to be at work until 9am, there is no need to wake any earlier than it takes you to get to work on time. Waking early for the sake of waking early or having general "discipline" isn't such a thi…

[deleted]

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#218

Post by tomnipotent »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #210
tomnipotent wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone bother to read the definition? 1. verb "train (someone) to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." 2. noun "the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience." So yes, having to wake up to make it to a job at a certain time or else you get in trouble is actually the very definition of discipline. If people on m…

You don't gain discipline by waking up earlier than necessary. If you don't need to be at work until noon, waking up at 5am doesn't add discipline to your life. Waking in time to go to work is discipline, but if you don't need to be at work until 9am, there is no need to wake any earlier than it takes you to get to work on time. Waking early for the sake of waking early or having general "discipline" isn't such a thi…

> You don't gain discipline by waking up earlier than necessary.

You absolutely do. Please take a second to actually lookup the definition of the word. It may not be added discipline in your life, but it is for many other people that don't live with the same daily habits as you. You don't get to change the definition of a word to fit your narrative, sorry.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#219

Post by tomgp »

larrywright wrote: post #180
tomgp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard is it really though? If someone said to me: "you can either work in an Amazon warehouse (either shift 7.00am-5.30pm or 5.45pm-4.15am) or be the CEO of Amazon but you're going to get paid the same whichever you choose" I know which I'd do.

Whether a job is hard or not depends on more than just how many hours you work and the physical aspect. Which of those jobs is more stressful? CEO, hands down. The decisions you make as a warehouse worker don’t matter all that much - if you make a bad one, the impact of that decision won’t be felt far. If the CEO makes a bad decision, it could lead to his removal, the failure of the company, huge financial losses, pe…

I’m sorry, no, I believe the precarious warehouse job is many times more stressful. Especially in the US where time off is limited and health care is essentially contingent on your employers goodwill. Stress is very often a function of lack of agency.

Re: The annoying habits of highly effective people

#220

Post by theshadowknows »

lukeholder wrote: post #100
theshadowknows wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started out at my company building HTML emails. I started seeing places things could get better. Better code base so I built it. More sophisticated tooling and build chain so I built it. Problems with the Econ site so I helped find and fix them. Possible places to integrate and become more efficient so I helped build them. 3 years in, 3 raises (I’ve more than doubled my starting salary) and 3 promotions now I’m a S…

That's great and I am in no way diminishing your achievements; but a work of caution for others reading too: It's most likely that you were severely underpaid in the first place, the raises have just slowly brought you up to industry standard, just spread over 3 years. Your title increase is also great, but keep in mind, having you feel like you are a leader is also a great retention tool for you to keep working for…

That’s sobering but good advice. It’s easy to fall into the “hey, they do care” trap just for some more money. Good advice also on looking into other places in the same industry - I’m still 3-5% too low for median!
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