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Start before you think you’re ready

austinkleon.com

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Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#51

Post by friendlybus »

DayDollar wrote: post #23

Encourage others to take impossible risks. Theire failure and corpses build a bridge to your success. Try to see obnoxious "You-can-do-it-talks" not as ego-pumping, but as leveraging of stupid people into free R&D. Do not be first, find others who are stupid enough to develop and research for you- invest just enough, to become a goto adress once they are desperat- skin the carcasses. Be the general in the fifth row o…

You couldn't pay me enough to have a boring 9-5 job where you clock in every day and do the same thing for 20 years that you're not really that great at. Some people have a built in character for taking these kinds of risks. I actively turn down investment money to fight my away from lifestyles that you have described. Everybody dies, even the guy safe in his treehouse, next to the water cooler from a heart attack built up of years of pointless stress worrying over someone else's dream.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#52

Post by otterpop »

kaycebasques wrote: post #42
wsinks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on taking the first class! I forced myself to do something similar after a nasty breakup, and the first 4-6 classes were brutal. Then I finally got the hang of it! Glad you aspire to be more like Jake the Dog.

> the first 4-6 classes were brutal I’ve also been thinking about this a lot lately as I play piano more consistently. When I first learn a song it’s agony . I’m straining my brain so hard to figure out a reasonable fingering. The first week or two (assuming practice every day) is likewise quite tough or draining. And then muscle memory kicks in and I’m amazed that I’m able to play the song faster than expected. I fe…

Learning is such an incredibly interesting topic for me. The concept behind something like machine learning is easy enough to understand- especially since you can implement everything by yourself and know exactly how it works. 'Human learning' is just so spectacularly abstracted from these models that it leaves me wondering how the heck we actually learn anything. Some examples like your piano playing and muscle memory are some of the more straightforward ones, where we figure something out like 'oh, this section is easier to play with this fingering'. But, like, you're not consciously drawing on all your previous conversations whenever you talk with someone and you don't think 'that conversation went well, time to add this to my corpus of conversations and retrain my "how to speak" module.'

I think it's beautiful that we'll never figure out exactly how learning works.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#53

Post by tombert »

jodrellblank wrote: post #34
tombert wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going through this now; I've wanted to learn Esperanto for awhile now, had similar experience going through YouTube trying to find the most optimal way of learning it, looking at reviews of different methods, when in reality I would have been better off choosing virtually any of the tutorials out there and just going with it. To those curious, I've settled on Duolingo just because I realized I should just choose…

Felicxajn studojn! Check out the KernPunkto podcast for themed audio, "Esperanto Variety Show" Youtube channel for vlog audio, and Reddit /r/Esperante for text shorter than a book, and the /r/Esperanto [1] Discord ("Diskordo" in the sidebar) for text chat, and very occasional voice chat, but I suspect other tools are better for that (Amikumu?). [1] /r/Esperanto is about Esperanto the language, meta-commentary or lear…

I will definitely check out the podcast; at what level do you feel I'll be able to listen to it and understand a reasonable percentage of what they're saying?

I've only been doing the Duolingo course for a little more than a week, and while I have enough grammar to do some very basic sentences, I'm far from fluent.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#54

Post by jodrellblank »

tombert wrote: post #53
jodrellblank wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Felicxajn studojn! Check out the KernPunkto podcast for themed audio, "Esperanto Variety Show" Youtube channel for vlog audio, and Reddit /r/Esperante for text shorter than a book, and the /r/Esperanto [1] Discord ("Diskordo" in the sidebar) for text chat, and very occasional voice chat, but I suspect other tools are better for that (Amikumu?). [1] /r/Esperanto is about Esperanto the language, meta-commentary or lear…

I will definitely check out the podcast; at what level do you feel I'll be able to listen to it and understand a reasonable percentage of what they're saying? I've only been doing the Duolingo course for a little more than a week, and while I have enough grammar to do some very basic sentences, I'm far from fluent.

I don't know how to guess, I'd been learning on and off for a long time before I started listening, and I still can't understand all of it fluently. The things I like about their podcast particularly to recommend it is that it's a lot of content - 30 minutes or more at a time and loads of episodes, of consistently good recording quality, it's two people and sometimes a guest talking quite clearly so it's very regular speed and accents to get used to, and they talk about a topic each time so there's quite a lot of repeated vocabulary during one episode, and it's all talking no cuts to music.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#55

Post by RobertRoberts »

throwaway35784 wrote: post #43
RobertRoberts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have bad motivations, but that is not true for everyone saying these things. I had no choice, I couldn't do anything but start a business, I was a failure as an employee because of how I looked at life and the process of building/creating. I was always at odds with my employers to make things work better. (I was told to work slower and less hard because I made others look bad sigh ) So what do you say to…

> So what do you say to someone like me? Welcome to the club! You are an entrepreneur. It is really hard. Depressingly so sometimes. You are on your own because you can do it! Learn to sell. Learn what selling is. Find a problem you have. Solve it in a repeatable way. Sell the solution. Talk to people. What are their problems? Repeat. Build up multiple cash flows. Software. Real estate. Consulting. Find entrepreneurs…

Ha, this is ridiculously cheery. I feel like I shouldn't need this, but I did. Thank you.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#56

Post by steve_adams_86 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #18

> Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something. --- Jake the Dog [1] Maybe not exactly on-topic, but ever since I heard this quote it's been my mantra whenever I'm learning something new. For example I took a beginner's hip hop dancing class last night. A younger me would have been very embarrassed at how uncoordinated I was. That embarrassment probably would have kept me from go…

It's exceptionally hard to start when the end results (i.e. other more experienced people) are so graceful or impressive. It makes the beginning seem like such a farce. Like going to the gym and deadlifting an empty bar beside someone pulling 5 or 6 hundred pounds off the floor.

But yeah, you have to start somewhere.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#57

Post by agumonkey »

tombert wrote: post #22
tentboy wrote: post #9

Struggled with this a lot when I started studying foreign language. I spent way too much time deciding between Turkish, Russian or Japanese and trying to justify my decision with arbitrary metrics of usefulness. In the end I went with Japanese as I had the most interest in the culture, but then ran into another phase of paralysis by analysis in determining the most efficient study methods. Finally bought a "recommend…

I'm going through this now; I've wanted to learn Esperanto for awhile now, had similar experience going through YouTube trying to find the most optimal way of learning it, looking at reviews of different methods, when in reality I would have been better off choosing virtually any of the tutorials out there and just going with it. To those curious, I've settled on Duolingo just because I realized I should just choose…

Modern life distorted the notion of "most optimal", in older times I'm sure you had a much sharper sense of recognizing an opportunity and seizing every one that came.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#58

Post by photonios »

kaycebasques wrote: post #18

> Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something. --- Jake the Dog [1] Maybe not exactly on-topic, but ever since I heard this quote it's been my mantra whenever I'm learning something new. For example I took a beginner's hip hop dancing class last night. A younger me would have been very embarrassed at how uncoordinated I was. That embarrassment probably would have kept me from go…

Somewhere in my career I realized this as well and it has been incredibly helpful.

I call it "embrace the suckiness". When faced with a problem that seems impossible because you lack so much knowledge you are just going to have to accept that you suck for a little while. You have to stay calm and break the problem down into smaller problems and start trying the most retarded things you can think of. Sure, you'll struggle. And yes, half of what you try is going to be worthless, but you're acquiring knowledge and understanding at every step. Eventually it'll all make sense. You have to stay confident that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Solving tough problems and learning new things is all about persistence.

I can't express how important this mindset is for me. It's so statisfying to know that I can handle any problem thrown at me and I won't freak out or me give up. I just keep sucking until I don't.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#59

Post by mettamage »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #25
DayDollar wrote: post #23

Encourage others to take impossible risks. Theire failure and corpses build a bridge to your success. Try to see obnoxious "You-can-do-it-talks" not as ego-pumping, but as leveraging of stupid people into free R&D. Do not be first, find others who are stupid enough to develop and research for you- invest just enough, to become a goto adress once they are desperat- skin the carcasses. Be the general in the fifth row o…

Some people have bad motivations, but that is not true for everyone saying these things. I had no choice, I couldn't do anything but start a business, I was a failure as an employee because of how I looked at life and the process of building/creating. I was always at odds with my employers to make things work better. (I was told to work slower and less hard because I made others look bad sigh ) So what do you say to…

You seem like a fun person to have a conversation with!

I kind of feel to be in a bit of a similar predicament.

If you're up for it, my email is in my profile.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#60

Post by dumbfoundded »

friendlybus wrote: post #51
DayDollar wrote: post #23

Encourage others to take impossible risks. Theire failure and corpses build a bridge to your success. Try to see obnoxious "You-can-do-it-talks" not as ego-pumping, but as leveraging of stupid people into free R&D. Do not be first, find others who are stupid enough to develop and research for you- invest just enough, to become a goto adress once they are desperat- skin the carcasses. Be the general in the fifth row o…

You couldn't pay me enough to have a boring 9-5 job where you clock in every day and do the same thing for 20 years that you're not really that great at. Some people have a built in character for taking these kinds of risks. I actively turn down investment money to fight my away from lifestyles that you have described. Everybody dies, even the guy safe in his treehouse, next to the water cooler from a heart attack bu…

So I'm an entrepreneur and I think this is a negative and unhealthy attitude. It also just doesn't make sense. If you're an entrepreneur, is everyone that helps you build your company a loser?

It comes down to risk tolerance. Some people can tolerate more risk and desire more automony. For me, I view my company as a combination of many dreams. I don't make all the decisions or come up with all of the ideas. I actually find encouraging autonomy and mastery, my employees are more productive and happier.

It also seems wrong to morally judge people for living a life they want to live. For too many people simply having a stable job is a dream.

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