Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#11

Post by techer » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:41 AM UTC

I do this in many forms. Has been very beneficial and some truly sweet responses.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#12

Post by dijit » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

This is wholesome.

It's so easy to give negative feedback and feels like it'll be taken as "creepy" or with some other intention to give positive feedback.

FWIW I've been making a concerted effort to give out much more positive feedback, since I had a psychiatrist who said "it takes roughly 9x the positivity to offset 1x of negativity" (or something to that effect), "So make sure when you feel something positive that you let people know, it's very important" and honestly just being brave enough to give that kind of positive feedback is enough.

I can tell you _for sure_ that it's appreciated, and you should definitely not have any inhibitions if it's well intentioned.

In fact, this post has inspired me to increase the scope of my positive feedback, so, thank you. :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#13

Post by srik » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:49 AM UTC

I do this on thanksgiving every year - just reach out to some inspiring artists in areas within my interests but don’t know personally. I do include a P.S. no reply expected; I just want to convey my thanks and appreciation but not accidentally guilt trip them into replying. That part might just be my insecurity though.

I’ve been trying to work on writing to more people every year as it can be quite intimidating sometimes, writing to those you admire, but the pretext of thanksgiving helps overcome that.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#14

Post by rswskg » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

Yes. I often get very embarrassed responses from developers if I do it in real life, pretty good responses if I do it via twitter. I've been trying a similar thing with musicians and it seems to go much better when I do it in person

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#15

Post by konradb » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:52 AM UTC

I have done this with musicians whose albums I have enjoyed, and I've gone into depth about what I specifically enjoyed and why. I have also received a 100% reply rate which I found completely unexpected.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#16

Post by bionsystem » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

dijit wrote: post #12

This is wholesome. It's so easy to give negative feedback and feels like it'll be taken as "creepy" or with some other intention to give positive feedback. FWIW I've been making a concerted effort to give out much more positive feedback, since I had a psychiatrist who said "it takes roughly 9x the positivity to offset 1x of negativity" (or something to that effect), "So make sure when you feel something positive that…

> It's so easy to give negative feedback and feels like it'll be taken as "creepy" or with some other intention to give positive feedback.

Amazing, I've never thought about it that way, but it's very accurate.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#17

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:12 AM UTC

I have, but not to people I didn't know personally. I was very fortunate to know and work with people in school and early career who were extremely supportive, and I didn't realize just how important it was at the time.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#18

Post by secretsinger » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

If you feel like a wierdo while doing this, you can take some comfort in the fact that it is endorsed by one of the most reputable psychologists in the world (Seligman) and that is has been empirically validated as increasing happiness and reducing depression (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16045394)

I agree it can feel like a strange thing to do, but in my personal experience the effects are amazing, not only on the person you write to, but also on yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#19

Post by dvfurlong » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:23 AM UTC

Yeah I reached out to the author of Murderous Maths once as his books had been impactful to me as a child. I got a nice response :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you ever contact people who have had a positive impact on you?

#20

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Jan 20, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

Yes I do. I've made it a point to review periodically and to personally thank the people that have had a positive impact on my life rather than to wait until I'm at their funeral or I find out they've passed on.

I've also credited them in some of my writings:

https://jacquesmattheij.com/your-own-company-you-can-do-it/

Realizing that you need other people to get ahead and that some people will take a chance on you when nobody else will is a good start in paying it forward. It will prepare you for the day when you can take a chance on someone. And some of those will work out, and some won't. I'm happy to say that on the whole more than half of those cases worked out very well indeed.

Worth noting is that not all feedback was positive, I received one very weird response that I can't really square with my recollection of the past but then again, a lot of time has passed and who knows the state of mind the recipient was in. I certainly don't hold it against them.