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“Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

capitalandgrowth.org

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Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#61

Post by logicchains »

aerophilic wrote: post #59

I am somewhat surprised and taken aback by the level of negative comments in the thread... However, I suspect that the article “touched a nerve”. In my experience, the “stronger the reaction” the more likely something is there (think Lean Startup). The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. That said, I will echo/slightly modify some of the positive comments I read: it isn’t about being “abnormal” in working…

>In my experience, the “stronger the reaction” the more likely something is there (think Lean Startup). The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Arguing that people have the power to significantly change their lives is a challenge to many people's egos. If they believe something like "I haven't achieved X, which I'd like to, but that's fine because it's out of my control", and somebody else comes along and says "actually it is in people's control", then their ego doesn't hear that as an uplifting statement of empowerment, instead it hears it as something negative, because acknowledging that X was achievable would require acknowledging that they had failed to achieve X.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#62

Post by wombatpm »

czbond wrote: post #46
thomk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your points here are exactly why I am no longer religious. Also, if you are easily offended, I'd skip the rest of this, I do not want to offend anyone, these are my opinions alone. If you worship any God, then you can never be as good as your God. You can never be #1 even after you die. The whole framework sets you up for a life of the inability to win. You are at BEST going to be #2 because you can never ever be #1.…

I respect your opinion - it's hard to put those out there. As a counter thought, would a 'hole' in the argument be that religion doesn't ask, require, or expect you to be #1. It just asks you to try to improve and to become a better person. How could G d expect you to be as good as "he/she/it/they"? G d would have created you, and designed your limitations. Why not separate G*d's expectations of you from your interpr…

Depends on your branch. Calvinism claimed there were only 1300 Elect who were guaranteed a place in heaven. Lot of effort spent trying to figure out your ranking

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#63

Post by goatherders »

I lived by most of these mantras for 20 years and when I turned 40 I decided it wasn't worth it. Literally on my birthday I said, "I'm going to stop acting like a jerk just to get things done, practice deeper empathy, smile more, and stop working 15 hours a day.

I can (and have) build a successful company without acting like there must be some maniacal focus that makes me abnormal.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#64

Post by artsyca »

goatherders wrote: post #63

I lived by most of these mantras for 20 years and when I turned 40 I decided it wasn't worth it. Literally on my birthday I said, "I'm going to stop acting like a jerk just to get things done, practice deeper empathy, smile more, and stop working 15 hours a day. I can (and have) build a successful company without acting like there must be some maniacal focus that makes me abnormal.

statistics are the most misunderstood of all the soft sciences

Normal literally means dead average and a lot of people use a lot of stereotypical behaviours to escape from that fat part of the 'normal' curve to varying degrees of success

Some are short term, some are longer term, some are violent some are empathetic -- it sounds like you broke away from normal even though you still see yourself as such but believe me there is no such thing as normal it's the worst of all worlds

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#65

Post by yowlingcat »

No, at a certain point, basketball resembles building and selling ecommerce products very little, and I don't know if it's doing you a favor for anyone to listen to you torture the analogy this way. This is a poor concept for a post. I think you would need to answer the question "Which sport, if any, involves an environment closest to ecommerce marketing."

In my opinion, a more suitable sport to draw comparisons from would be jai alai:

- Balls are flying dangerously fast (204 mph)

- Game has been known to cause fatalities when it hits players

- Unpredictable, colorful, sketchy and associated with gambling markets based on match results

Can you guess why I think this sport is more similar to e-commerce marketing than basketball?

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#66

Post by thomk »

gintery wrote: post #56
thomk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your points here are exactly why I am no longer religious. Also, if you are easily offended, I'd skip the rest of this, I do not want to offend anyone, these are my opinions alone. If you worship any God, then you can never be as good as your God. You can never be #1 even after you die. The whole framework sets you up for a life of the inability to win. You are at BEST going to be #2 because you can never ever be #1.…

Your whole post is extremely American. Why do you want to be #1 compared to anyone, let alone compared to God? You are no longer religious because your self-centric world-view is incompatible with believing anyone can be better than you, which includes God? I have trouble believing you are serious.

You completely missed my point. Here: God doesn't exist, I'm in competition with myself only, I can't control the outcome or anyone or anything at all including my emotions, only my individual behavior.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#67

Post by thomk »

orange8 wrote: post #54
thomk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that depends on your value system. If you define your own value system, you decide where you are. If you get a value system from someone or something else: they decide.

Please give me a quick concrete example. What is your value system, and how are you #1 in it?

Sure. For example: I value honesty and hard work. If I am honest and am working hard I am living with integrity.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#68

Post by edmundsauto »

goldenchrome wrote: post #20
chadlavi wrote: post #5

This reads like a very good example of how not to behave if you actually want to be happy

Happiness is highly overrated and I doubt it even exists as a constant state of being. People thrive on different amounts of stress and many people need a certain amount of stress to remain sane.

My understanding is that people have a pretty consistent "set point" of happiness that may vary, but generally returns to the set point. See research on lotto winners.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#69

Post by tamarind8 »

thomk wrote: post #67
orange8 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please give me a quick concrete example. What is your value system, and how are you #1 in it?

Sure. For example: I value honesty and hard work. If I am honest and am working hard I am living with integrity.

Thanks. Are you #1 in honesty? Are you #1 in hard work? From what I understand, you do not believe in a God because believing in one means you will never be #1 in honesty or #1 in hard work, and it is your goal to be #1 in them.

It's a strange way of looking at things, because you cannot really measure being the worlds most honest person, unless you meet and test all the 7 billion people alive today, and how exactly will that test be conducted? And since we're not restricting being #1 to human beings (God is not human), how about ants? I'd say an ant is more hardworking than any human being alive, so none of us will ever be #1 at hard work. Whats so wrong with being #2 at hard work? Or even #8888,888,888,000 at hard work? I doubt I am #1 in anything I value (independence, knowledge etc) but it does not matter at all. The opposite infact, seeing people better than me in things I value only inspires me to greater heights.

Re: “Become Abnormal”: traits to cultivate for top performance

#70

Post by bryanrasmussen »

adamsea wrote: post #29
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #6

who's a super successful normal person then? I nominate Henry Ford, for no particular reason. I sort of think people will find something abnormal about any super successful person, a great success implies greatness and strangeness beyond the success.

Off-topic, but ... Many normal people are super racist, so, Henry Ford does indeed qualify as a super-successful normal person. My meta-point, of course, is that while excellence and the desire to achieve it (along with a bit of glory) can be admirable, success in life - in living your life, a good life - is wildly different from the famous people - any of them - whom society presents as a "success." I'd rather be he…

I guess it was off-topic and hopefully that was why you got downvoted, and not because people didn't want to be reminded about Henry Ford's racism but who knows. Anyway I didn't downvote, have upvoted now to make up for it even though I'm kind of a judge people by the standards of their time type re Ford's morality. I'm sort of tired of people downvoting for what seem frivolous or personal reasons.
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