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Start before you think you’re ready

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Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#61

Post by afarrell »

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…

But when you started your business, was it:

- With a goal of supporting your health and personal needs

- An exercise of your own judgement, where your decisions were based on your own huristics for evaluating reality?

When you looked at something and thought "this is, based on my genuine judgement, impossible" did you decide to do something else? Or did you say "I have strong evidence that this cannot possibly work, and I'm really sleep-deprived... but sleep is for the weak and impossible is nothing." and plow onwards relentlessly?

If the former: great!

If the latter: Thats the problem that I think DayDollar is talking about. It is a pattern that I fell into at MIT -- I took on more commitments than was possible to grow into with the skills I knew how to gain because "impossible is nothing". I was constantly drunk-with-fatigue. I looked for help learning how to write first drafts and got told "just do it!" so I spent hours digging my nails into my skin in front of a blank page. I didn't know how to "do it" but the answer was too obvious for anyone to believe me. I asked for help learning how to manage my time and manage writing. Instead, I got encouragement.

The problem with giving advice like "you can do it!" or "start before you think you're ready!" is not that it is wrong. The problem is that it does not assess the situation. Bad advice is a zero-argument function.

Good advice recognizes that you are the source of observations about your situation and gives you a tool to do that better. Good advice offers heuristics: fallible methods of solving a problem which rely on human judgement.

The author of this piece quotes author David McCullough:

> There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

Good advice would be a question to ask to guide someone to realize when they've hit that point.

--------

The comment below me by /u/throwaway35784 tells you to do a whole bunch of things and the only thing it asks you to observe about your current situation is "Find a problem you have."

Everything else that he says is advice that is often a good idea but depends on the situation.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#62

Post by kstenerud »

I've always taken this approach. Before I wrote KSCrash [1], I didn't have a CLUE how crash managers worked. In fact, here's my first implementation of a crash handler [2], which did EVERYTHING wrong. I ended up innovating a number of things that were thought impossible at the time, but are commonplace today (such as tapping into the Mach error handlers).

It was the same for the Musashi 68000 emulator [3]. Before I wrote this, I had no experience with emulation other than playing one of the Pac Man emulators in the 90s, and yet the first iteration outperformed the x86 assembler core in Mame by 15%, and thus replaced it in the next version.

6 months ago, I didn't have a CLUE how ieee754 floating point worked. Now I've developed a floating point compression algorithm [4], which is being used in Concise Binary Encoding [5], also something I've never tried before.

You absolutely should try diving into things before you know what you're getting into. Even if it doesn't turn out the way you wanted, you're in for one hell of a ride, and what you'll learn is priceless.

[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/KSCrash

[2] https://github.com/kstenerud/Crash-Manager

[3] https://github.com/kstenerud/musashi/

[4] https://github.com/kstenerud/compact-float

[5] https://github.com/kstenerud/concise-binary-encoding

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#64

Post by Doxin »

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…

So I've seen this advice before and I do see it's value, but it doesn't quite work for me.

I know that sucking when you're new at something is expected and merely a step towards the goal, but that doesn't stop me from still feeling inadequate.

The knowing/feeling dichotomy is something I struggle a lot with, and I haven't quite found the solution to that yet.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#66

Post by friendlybus »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #60
friendlybus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 actuall…

You can't escape judgement, as the parent post shows in his own judgement of other's risk taking behaviour. Some people think it's an 'impossible risk' some people thinks it gives life, a difference of values. The risk is a side thing. The focus is on creating what has value in my world view and somebody else's dream is not it.

I don't make any bones for or against a moral 'argument' in terms of other peoples lives, just a stalwart defense of my own and others like it. I don't think any boss gets far hobbling their employees in any capacity. I have a great respect for the work people do and getting in their way is a waste of everybody's time. For those that dream of a stable job I would encourage them to dream bigger, if they are focused on work and not on some social or personal journey in life.

If everybody was aiming at the same thing I did and valued the same things I did, then yeah they would be losers for copping out on what they want. But not everyone is me and I barely have an opinion beyond passing interest about people who live with different values and goals, but are happy to see them succeed. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#67

Post by SolaceQuantum »

Doxin wrote: post #64
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…

So I've seen this advice before and I do see it's value, but it doesn't quite work for me. I know that sucking when you're new at something is expected and merely a step towards the goal, but that doesn't stop me from still feeling inadequate. The knowing/feeling dichotomy is something I struggle a lot with, and I haven't quite found the solution to that yet.

IMO one of the super important things is not struggling with your feelings. Feeling inadequate is a natural process in sucking. It's a self-defense thing to keep your standing in the socially competitive atmosphere of human social dynamics. It's telling you that you look silly and you're taking a risk in doing this.

And that's okay! It's part of it. Comfort yourself with other things while you do the difficult thing of leaning new skills. That's sort of the whole process of self improvement.

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#68

Post by codeulike »

beachy wrote: post #35
codeulike wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its almost as if reality is really complex and pithy slogans are useless for anything other than grandstanding because each situation needs to be appraised on its own terms

Not totally useless, they help the less experienced understand what dimensions they should be thinking about: - fast vs slow - big investment vs little - strong customer service vs Google-like "for the masses" customer service - focus on customers vs focus on employees There are no silver bullets and no advice is always right. But just talking it over can be useful, as opposed to diving in without even thinking.

True

Re: Start before you think you’re ready

#69

Post by netmonk »

bsder wrote: post #46
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…

> 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. This strategy has an actual MBA term--it's called the "fast follower". Basically, the first guy proves the market and takes all the arrows. The second guy reaps the vast majority of the profit in the space. It's why semiconductor companies are so…

or hackaton, crowd sourcing....
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