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Author should explain this: everyone can follow boring advice, so why aren't far more people successful?
Humans are hard wired to look for quick fixes and shortcuts. That's why instead of eating less calories they jump on some new revolutionary diet or put their money into meme stock instead of just playing the index. Every one wants to be smarter then the average Joe.
My simple rule ... it never hurts you to help another human. Sometimes it also benefits you but at a minimum your reputation in your sphere of influence is positive.
Exercise regularly, drink water, don't eat too much, mostly plants, get lots of asleep, avoid drugs and alcohol.
Now that I do so well with all that advice, I can't quite remember why that all sounded so hard or "boring" before.
My favorite example of this is how to get stronger and healthier. There's no secret, and you actually don't have to do anything too extreme. Exercise regularly, drink water, don't eat too much, mostly plants, get lots of asleep, avoid drugs and alcohol. Now that I do so well with all that advice, I can't quite remember why that all sounded so hard or "boring" before.
2. Exercise regularly - what is regularly? What kind of exercise? You never had over-work injuries? Injuries from muscle / postural imbalances? Etc.
I concede that most of this advice is available for free, but unless you have a GOOD coach, you will get injured before you get results. Then there is plain doing too much.
Again, you can come back with "Well, I am just talking about not being obese" - in that case, yea, it's much simpler since you don't have to worry about getting enough protein and balancing that against becoming over-weight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because emotions rules. It doesn't matter that you know what you have to do, eat well, do exercise, how to prioritize, what's good for you and what's not. Unless you steer your emotions in the right direction, you won't be able to achieve anything, because resistance and stregth of will won't get you very far. And changing your emotions is really hard, because they're mostly formed in your youth, and doing so need a…
Everything is a feelings problem. This is a exaggeration of course, but I've been struck by just how many sticky problems have an emotional component. I have a tendency to ignore emotions in favor of (what seems to me like) the main content, but I limit myself when I do this. Enthusiasm, despair, excitement, fear - these are too powerful to ignore. But naming them and uncovering the deeper values they reveal helps me…
My solution to these feelings is to remind myself that my hobbies don't define me, whether I do them a little or a lot. And it's OK to save some unused stuff until a season when I can use them. (Assuming that's not too far off.,)
My favorite example of this is how to get stronger and healthier. There's no secret, and you actually don't have to do anything too extreme. Exercise regularly, drink water, don't eat too much, mostly plants, get lots of asleep, avoid drugs and alcohol. Now that I do so well with all that advice, I can't quite remember why that all sounded so hard or "boring" before.
1. Because you actually need protein to gain muscle mass, so there goes your "mostly plants" without a caveat about "vegetarian protein", which has its own set of problems. 2. Exercise regularly - what is regularly? What kind of exercise? You never had over-work injuries? Injuries from muscle / postural imbalances? Etc. I concede that most of this advice is available for free, but unless you have a GOOD coach, you wi…
If I can play with my kids (as in, actually run around on the playground), play sports at a casually competitive level, hike for several hours, and help my friends move heavy furniture, that enables a pretty full life. I don't think you'd disagree it's pretty simple to get there.
Besides, you can probably still gain a ton of functional strength while on a plant based diet anyway.
The advice is so simple, it's hard for a lot of outsiders to believe it's worth anything. "Make something people want." "Talk to your users." "Do things that don't scale." "Keep typing and avoid dying." People hear about this and ask "You gave away 7% of your company for that?" No, you give away 7% of your company to join a network of people showing you what it really looks like to do that.
My company got into the Winter 2009 batch of YC, the same batch as Airbnb. They weren't around for many of the dinners; they spent a lot of their time away from the Bay Area doing exactly those things that PG advised, mostly in NYC, where many of their most active users were. They just did that stuff, over and over, for several years. Now they have one of the most successful companies out of Silicon Valley in the last 15 years. (I saw PG tweet a couple of years ago that he'd recently dinner with them, and Brian would still write down PG's suggestions in a notebook.)
During that batch, I was flailing about trying to find some magical trick to make our company work. I remember one office-hours session with PG, excitedly telling him some buzzword-filled story I'd dreamed up about how our company could be a brilliant success. "Just make a good website" he replied.
It took me a while to work out how the Airbnb guys were able to follow the advice so effectively whilst we and so many others got stuck in the weeds, but looking back now it's pretty obvious. They were just very comfortable in their own skin. They didn't have ego issues around needing to seem like geniuses, needing validation all the time, fearing rejection or embarrassment. "Talk to your users" was easy, as they were sociable, likeable people who put on cool parties and who were naturally able to make everyone in their company feel welcome and valued, and everything else emerged out of that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything is a feelings problem. This is a exaggeration of course, but I've been struck by just how many sticky problems have an emotional component. I have a tendency to ignore emotions in favor of (what seems to me like) the main content, but I limit myself when I do this. Enthusiasm, despair, excitement, fear - these are too powerful to ignore. But naming them and uncovering the deeper values they reveal helps me…
> To get rid of that I never use involves confronting the fact that I'm not a person. It's painful to realize that I'm not who I wish I was. My solution to these feelings is to remind myself that my hobbies don't define me, whether I do them a little or a lot. And it's OK to save some unused stuff until a season when I can use them. (Assuming that's not too far off.,)
My favorite example of this is how to get stronger and healthier. There's no secret, and you actually don't have to do anything too extreme. Exercise regularly, drink water, don't eat too much, mostly plants, get lots of asleep, avoid drugs and alcohol. Now that I do so well with all that advice, I can't quite remember why that all sounded so hard or "boring" before.
1. Because you actually need protein to gain muscle mass, so there goes your "mostly plants" without a caveat about "vegetarian protein", which has its own set of problems. 2. Exercise regularly - what is regularly? What kind of exercise? You never had over-work injuries? Injuries from muscle / postural imbalances? Etc. I concede that most of this advice is available for free, but unless you have a GOOD coach, you wi…
There are impressive vegan athletes even if it's hard to say whether they built more or their muscle on a vegan diet or not.
That said, I agree with your message, getting stronger is not always easy.
Author should explain this: everyone can follow boring advice, so why aren't far more people successful?
Regardless the definition of success, we tend to consider it as being in the top <50%. So even if everyone was more succesful (regardless the metric) in today's standard, only the best ones would be said "successful".