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How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

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Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#161

Post by ozzmotik »

wool_gather wrote: post #62
josephjrobison wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This part was also key: "Solution: Try taking a 30,000-foot view of when it’s worth tolerating some boredom to collect easy wins when it comes to your overall success. Instead of attempting dramatic change, decide when tolerating short periods (a few minutes or hours) of boredom could have a very beneficial impact on your success. For instance, devoting 5 hours a week to an activity that’s monotonous but lucrative. A…

Not quite exactly about "lucrative yet monotonous", but The War of Art is definitely an extended meditation on "putting in the elbow grease". It's not a manual of techniques about how to get things done, but it is inspirational for getting out of your own way, shutting up, sitting down, and writing. It's written by someone who mostly writes movies, but it applies to anyone who does anything remotely creative, where y…

hey thanks for suggesting this, based on what I've read so far it's extremely applicable to my situation and is the sort of thing I've been needing to read for a while. hopefully i can intuit the wisdom at this point in my life.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#162

Post by zebrafish »

josephjrobison wrote: post #51
bootsz wrote: post #4

> 4. Smart people get bored easily. Being smart is not exactly the same as being curious, but if you have both these qualities you might find yourself becoming easily bored with executing the same behaviors over and over. Some types of success stem from creativity, but other types come from becoming an expert in a niche and performing a set of behaviors repeatedly. If you’re smart, curious, and have a love of learnin…

This part was also key: "Solution: Try taking a 30,000-foot view of when it’s worth tolerating some boredom to collect easy wins when it comes to your overall success. Instead of attempting dramatic change, decide when tolerating short periods (a few minutes or hours) of boredom could have a very beneficial impact on your success. For instance, devoting 5 hours a week to an activity that’s monotonous but lucrative. A…

I haven't read but just a summary of the book but even that was helpful in letting me reframe some of these issues that I struggle with.

https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

The key message that stuck with me was that the early stages of the mastery slope are exciting because of how much new knowledge we gain. However, most of life is spent in the plateaus, and learning to love the plateaus is key to finding persistence and self discipline.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#163

Post by robaato »

josephjrobison wrote: post #51
bootsz wrote: post #4

> 4. Smart people get bored easily. Being smart is not exactly the same as being curious, but if you have both these qualities you might find yourself becoming easily bored with executing the same behaviors over and over. Some types of success stem from creativity, but other types come from becoming an expert in a niche and performing a set of behaviors repeatedly. If you’re smart, curious, and have a love of learnin…

This part was also key: "Solution: Try taking a 30,000-foot view of when it’s worth tolerating some boredom to collect easy wins when it comes to your overall success. Instead of attempting dramatic change, decide when tolerating short periods (a few minutes or hours) of boredom could have a very beneficial impact on your success. For instance, devoting 5 hours a week to an activity that’s monotonous but lucrative. A…

Try book "Mastery" by George Leonard.

https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/mastery

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#164

Post by SamvitJ »

jkuria wrote: post #147

The phrase that comes to mind is: A students become professors, B Students become executives at large corporations. It is the C students who--perhaps lacking the traits to succeed in the previous two pursuits have no choice but to endure the risk/hardship of entrepreneurship--endow professorships and name buildings. Examples of this: 1. Founder of Kinkos (failed in school and had to repeat two grades) 2. Billionaire…

On the other hand, Jeff Bezos, the richest individual in modern history, graduated high school valedictorian and summa cum laude from Princeton. Anecdotes abound!

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#166

Post by Balgair »

beaconstudios wrote: post #14

Currently working my way through "Grit" by Angela Duckworth, it has some interesting things to say on smart people and why they can often grow up into underachievers. In school, the more average kids have to study hard to achieve good grades and thus learn a strong work ethic. Smart kids can often "coast" through school and thus don't pick up the same attitude to working through boring, hard, or long-lasting work. It…

Interesting Idea: Find the smart kids that were up against massive cheating.

A local HS near me had a HUGE cheating scandal. It ended up on the front page of the local Big-City paper and some episodes of Dr. Phil. The story, as I heard it, was that the kids made a wiki for their classwork and tests. It worked ok the first year. But in the second year, all the kids found out that none of the teachers ever changed a single question on a test or HW. Hence, all the answers were already in a wiki, ready to be applied. This went on for a few years before they were found out. I think there were about 300 kids in the racket, but I'm not sure. HSs here are about 3k kids, so ~10% of the school.

I always wondered about the kids that were up against those cheater-kids. The smart ones that were trying to get into college (a huge motivator) yet were never clued into the cheating wiki. Likely, most of the smart kids just gave up in the face of near-perfection and massive cheating. But I imagine there were a fair few that kept on plugging away. I can't imagine what that did to their psyches, especially in those very formative years.

EDIT: Found the citation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Park_High_School_(Plea...

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#167

Post by moron4hire »

Pete_D wrote: post #128
moron4hire wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say this, but I've been finding Nicotine to be very useful for dealing with anxiety, restlessness, and boredom with rote tasks. I've had some issues with depression and anxiety that I've been managing with my doctor, but there are still times where extreme stress can cut through the drugs and still give me some issues (work has been very political lately). I started craving a cigarette, which is weird becau…

Since you say you're on a very low dose, may I suggest gum or lozenges? I tried nicotine patches for focus a while ago and found that even the weakest ones were far too strong.

Did you try cutting the patches in half?

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#168

Post by Pete_D »

moron4hire wrote: post #167
Pete_D wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you say you're on a very low dose, may I suggest gum or lozenges? I tried nicotine patches for focus a while ago and found that even the weakest ones were far too strong.

Did you try cutting the patches in half?

I didn't - I'd heard it was dangerous since breaking the membrane meant you'd absorb the contents a lot more quickly at the cut edge.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#169

Post by nrclark »

dageshi wrote: post #111
thrower123 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicotine was one of the few nootropics that had real measureable positive effects in gwern's testing. Unfortunately it's addictive as hell, but nonetheless, you'd think that as much as we research into opiods and other narcotics, there would be more effort to find safer forms of nicotine or nicotine derivatives. https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics

Genuine question based on personal experience, is nicotine itself addictive or is it nicotine + method of delivery? Cause as someone who smokes cigars (don't inhale, do absorb nicotine via the mouth lining) I really don't find them addictive at all, that seems broadly the case with most cigar/pipe smokers we generally aren't addicted to them. And yet cigarettes are obviously super addictive, so is it something else i…

I've been a daily nicotine gum user for years, and I'd say I'm addicted. I've tried to quit several times. I'll kick it for a couple of months, and then I'll have a stressful week and I'll buy a box. Then I'm back on it for a couple of weeks until the box runs out. And sometimes I just go buy another box.

For me, it's not addictive in the sense of "I experience withdrawal symptoms", but I have very strongly conditioned habits with specific triggers. Nicotine spikes my dopamine, and also improves my concentration and memory when I'm using it. Which makes me like it, and also chemically encourages situational cravings.

As an example, I chewed it when I was driving to work every day for a while - and now I think about it almost every time I drive anywhere. It's not really an "I need a piece right this second" kind of feeling for me, but more like a "Man, some nicotine would be awesome right now" kind of feeling.

One aspect of the addiction that I think many nicotine users would agree with - it's not an instant process. I knew I was developing the habit long before it was a full-blown addiction. I kept telling myself I wasn't going to get addicted, that I was stronger. Turns out maybe not so much.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#170

Post by walshemj »

brianmcc wrote: post #154
catherd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like all too often that leads to an outlook where you assume whatever job you end up in must meet your preferences in all things, and it's a pretty brittle way to conduct your career. Sure, from an individual standpoint that would optimize your short term happiness, but I've found the ability to know what the role requires and be that person is a skill that's rewarding in it's own way (and often, but not alway…

Agree 100% - if you as an individual decide you're clearly a "Plant" and so don't need to take care of details, that's bad. Or if you decide you're an "Implementer" and will never do well in a more creative, explorer style role, that's also bad. I think the Belbin stuff's explicitly designed for managers though: if you have a team of "Implementers" and you know the concepts here, you might go out of your way to blend…

I think its M&P grades i.e. Professionals as well as as Managers.

When I did it I was Plant Shaper Chair for my top 3, later I did it at British Telecom the course leader said so you work at the Labs (aka UK version of bell labs) :-)

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