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How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

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Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#211

Post by josephjrobison »

zebrafish wrote: post #162
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…

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…

Great recommendation, going to buy it.

From what I’ve read on it, seems to take a Zen-like approach, which I appreciate.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#212

Post by josephjrobison »

RandyC42 wrote: post #135
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…

Check out "Time Management for System Administrators" by Thomas A. Limoncelli. It is showing it's age technology wise, being published in 2005, but a lot of the fundamental principles still apply.

Sounds niche, but that could make it even more useful - will check it out!

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#213

Post by adrianm »

moron4hire wrote: post #63
adrianm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should talk to a doctor about this.

I don't think that is a helpful comment, especially considering I did say I am working closely with my doctor to monitor my health and mood. The practice of medicine is not actually that hard. It's all about risk profiles and benefit tradeoffs. The Lexapro I have been prescribed for my anxiety and the Advair for my asthma could very well be more dangerous for me than any trans-dermal Nicotine patch might be. Our Food…

I’m a cancer patient undergoing treatment. Please be careful, you don’t want this.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#214

Post by _Schizotypy »

ptr wrote: post #138
Skrillex wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can make it even better, particularly if you can remember why you were making the decisions that you did.

Yes! It's actually great -- you can rant as hard as you want because you know the author won't be upset.

Oh but the author is upset, just with themselves

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#215

Post by pcpcpc »

200w wrote: post #150
pcpcpc wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's anecdotal, but I've noticed this a lot in the years since I've graduated from a "top-ranked" school. I worked on Wall Street after graduating from school and burned out very quickly. I had a very high estimation of my own ability and importance and a desire to accumulate visible markers of success. I saw this in my peers too. I've been working through these feelings personally and now feel much more well adjuste…

The exact same thing happened to me. Went to a top-ranked school; did internships in finance every summer, despite loathing every one of them; and once full-time came began spiralling down. I think the main issue that propels high-achievers into these careers is simply peer pressure. I was never happy in finance, my stomach churned as each summer internship approached, but I did it all because I couldn't imagine what…

I chased the opportunities in finance for the money and the prestige. Once I got there, I realized that those things were less important to me than meaning in my work, work-life balance, relationships outside of work, etc. They were still important to me, just less.

I ended up accepting an offer with a more prestigious finance firm shortly after beginning work in my first job. When I quit my job, I also renegged on that offer, and remember feeling very free. I went through some depression after quitting, but it was hard to recognize it as that at the time.

I then took a strategy job in another city. I liked the day-to-day work, but was still not motivated by the industry we were in, mission of the company, etc.

I took some time off (which allowed me to reset somewhat) and then started searching for work at an early-stage mission-driven company. I was lucky enough to find one that was a good fit. I'm much happier now working with a purpose in mind, but the work is still stressful and uncertain at times. It's not my company, so I won't see as much upside in a liquidity event, but I also feel like my work volume/stress is more reasonable than the founders and I've got more freedom to leave in a bad situation. Given my early work experience, it feels very important to me to keep that freedom to move on (run away?).

Since leaving finance and my job immediately after, I've focused on the following things which have helped quite a bit: - Reducing alcohol consumption - Finding exercise activities that I enjoy and am willing to do several times per week - Eating healthier - Striving for 8 hours of sleep (which I rarely stick to) - Meditating daily (which I rarely stick to) and with a group weekly (which I am pretty good about) - Therapy as needed - Seeking out mentors outside of work - Communicating my wants/frustrations/observations sooner with people in my personal/professional lives - Reducing work hours (I'm ok about this) and work stress (I'm not very good about this)

When I'm not doing these things, I definitely notice it. But I generally feel much better knowing the things that I can do to cope with stress, burnout, depression, etc.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#216

Post by pcpcpc »

yesh123 wrote: post #157
pcpcpc wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's anecdotal, but I've noticed this a lot in the years since I've graduated from a "top-ranked" school. I worked on Wall Street after graduating from school and burned out very quickly. I had a very high estimation of my own ability and importance and a desire to accumulate visible markers of success. I saw this in my peers too. I've been working through these feelings personally and now feel much more well adjuste…

Would love to hear what you are doing now and how you've moved away from those expectations. Going through a similar phase (worked in IB, now work in corp fin and do not like it).

Check out my response to your sibling comment.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#217

Post by haihaibye »

gordaco wrote: post #182
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…

My conclusion to the BS inherent to any job is this: get your "brain food" outside your job. Start today if you haven't been doing this. It's fine that sometimes we get to learn interesting things while on the clock, but we have way, way, way less control over what we learn. I have followed this strategy for some years: 1) Look for a low-stress job with manageable time. In tech this doesn't mean "low-pay" as well. I'…

I used to think like that but worked towards getting a better job.

My work has millions of dollars of DNA sequencing equipment, lab experts and a states / nations worth of patients data. No side projects for 7 years and I am ok with that.

I can also take days/weeks off to read or experiment but have been grinding lately.... with a family and meetings etc running a team of 3 I basically have to take any chance I have to crank out code.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#218

Post by _Schizotypy »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #183
_Schizotypy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the types of people that belong in research.

Until they get bored writing grant proposals and lose all their funding.

It would probably be optimal to have a business that can sustain itself in the background so a researcher can be self-funded.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#219

Post by withdavidli »

joelx wrote: post #206
pjungwir wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think going deep on something is the key. It lets you keep learning without getting bored and needing to jump ship. One of my pet peeves is how programmers think "keep learning" means "learn another programming language". Not that that's bad, but after the twentieth or so, . . . instead try learning something "adjacent" to what you enjoy & do well. For example for a Ruby+JS web developer: read some HTTP RFCs, play…

This article makes fundamental errors. School performance is NOT a great indicator of intellect. The most successful people I know did just enough to get by decently in school and spent the rest of their efforts on activities that made them happy or were more productive. People who drove themselves crazy working as hard as they could in school generally didn't get anywhere in the real world.

>People who drove themselves crazy working as hard as they could in school generally didn't get anywhere in the real world.

I think these are the people the author is referencing. These students did amazing if measuring by GPA, but did so through hard work and a lot of thinking. Got praised for GPA related achievements which reinforced their over studying/thinking behavior, which leads to the scenarios the author describes.

The most successful people you talk about likely wouldn't have the issues the article addresses.

Re: How Smart People Sabotage Their Success

#220

Post by MRD85 »

taneq wrote: post #193
dahart wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your theories, and the other theories here. There are lots of possibilities. People who do well in school may require structured settings and feed off the sense of accomplishment. Maybe it backfires in less structured jobs for those people. People who overly care about meet the expectations of others may not be as good at establishing expectations for themselves. People who do well in school may have something…

I think all of your listed possibilities sound very plausible. I'd add one more thing: That if you breeze through school, you never have to learn mechanisms for dealing effectively with difficult things. Everyone has a limit to what they can handle on innate talent alone, and the higher that limit the harder you hit it. Keeping detailed notes, organising and filing your paperwork, methodical study methods, even down…

I coasted through high school, I wouldn't do homework or study and I'd just rush through work so I could muck around. Despite this I had amazing grades, I was placed first of 350 in my year in maths and was voted most likely to succeed. I went to university and I hit a hard wall at second-year chemistry, which led to me dropping out of university rather than learn proper habits.

Years later I'm back at university and I'm studying properly and it shows. I"m halfway through my CS degree and I'm smashing it. Discipline trumps intelligence.

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