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Follow boring advice

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Re: Follow boring advice

#61

Post by xupybd »

knuthsat wrote: post #54
throw1234651234 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I gained 25kg on a vegan diet through a span of 5 years. You just have to eat a bit more than comfortable but protein digestibility is a non-issue. Stuff that I ate - tofu, seitan, tempeh are very low processed soy/wheat products and can very quickly give you more than 200g of protein a day. For me, the biggest problem was meeting caloric needs. It's very hard to get to 3000kcal+ eating non-processed plants. PDCAAS,…

Don't things like rice and potatoes give you a quick path to high calories?

Re: Follow boring advice

#62

Post by opportune »

darkerside wrote: post #23

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.

As with many things the hard part isn't understanding how they work - most people, deep down, already know what actually works. It's hard because it requires working against the part of your brain that wants to conserve energy, eat energy-dense foods, and surf the web late at night. Everybody who hasn't already built good habits wants there to be an easy, secret way to get the results without the effort (and it is effort. Once you've been doing it for a while it's very easy. But I remember how hard it was to build up to that point).

The same applies for finances, dating/socialization, and business. Everybody knows to save/invest money (maybe not exactly how to invest), to not be afraid of failure, to ask questions and take initiative, to talk to users and make customers happy. Our simple animalistic brains don't like to do those things if we don't have to. It's uncomfortable for many people.

Re: Follow boring advice

#63

Post by baxtr »

tomhoward wrote: post #27

I've seen PG [1] say/write versions of this: "The Y Combinator founders who followed our advice succeeded. The ones who didn't, didn't." 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,…

Thanks for being so upfront and transparent. Very inspiring comment.

Re: Follow boring advice

#64

Post by cercatrova »

clambordan wrote: post #32
tomhoward wrote: post #27

I've seen PG [1] say/write versions of this: "The Y Combinator founders who followed our advice succeeded. The ones who didn't, didn't." 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,…

Am I supposed to know who PG is? PolterGeist?

> Am I supposed to know who PG is?

Yes, you are, if you're using the site he created (not to fault you for not knowing but often many HNers will reference Paul Graham by his initials so it's useful to know).

Re: Follow boring advice

#65

Post by cercatrova »

amelius wrote: post #2

Author should explain this: everyone can follow boring advice, so why aren't far more people successful?

Your premise is incorrect, therefore your question answers itself.

> everyone can follow boring advice

No, they can't. This article was written solely to show that fact, that most people actually _cannot_ follow boring advice; they often want the quick and easy way out. This leads to their downfall, or at least, lack of progress. As an inverse, if everyone could follow boring advice, this article would need not have been written at all.

Re: Follow boring advice

#66

Post by jokoon »

tomhoward wrote: post #27

I've seen PG [1] say/write versions of this: "The Y Combinator founders who followed our advice succeeded. The ones who didn't, didn't." 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,…

Reads like standard survivor bias

Re: Follow boring advice

#67

Post by Angostura »

tomhoward wrote: post #27

I've seen PG [1] say/write versions of this: "The Y Combinator founders who followed our advice succeeded. The ones who didn't, didn't." 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,…

Could someone expand on "Do things that don't scale." - that seems somewhat counterintuitive.

Re: Follow boring advice

#68

Post by redisman »

knuthsat wrote: post #54
throw1234651234 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I gained 25kg on a vegan diet through a span of 5 years. You just have to eat a bit more than comfortable but protein digestibility is a non-issue. Stuff that I ate - tofu, seitan, tempeh are very low processed soy/wheat products and can very quickly give you more than 200g of protein a day. For me, the biggest problem was meeting caloric needs. It's very hard to get to 3000kcal+ eating non-processed plants. PDCAAS,…

I find vegan protein powders to taste better than whey which is kind of gross to me. (I’m not a vegan). They usually have a blend of 5 or so protein sources to balance out the amino acids.

If you need more calories then fat is by far the easiest.

Re: Follow boring advice

#69

Post by cxr »

smoyer wrote: post #22

Nope ... there are a ton of 30-somethings writing "easy" advice like this and bemoaning the ignorance of their twenties. I'm a few decades older yet and can tell you that I'm still learning and integrating new ideas into my framework of how business (and the world in general) work. Creating a simple idea is easy but think about how many counter-examples there are to just this one rule (and you can find 100k more simp…

> 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.

This is definitely not true, whether the general form you led with, or in the specific minimum you mention.

Contradictions to this rule are so widespread that we have an aphorism for it. ("No good deed goes unpunished.")

Re: Follow boring advice

#70

Post by egypturnash »

tomhoward wrote: post #27

I've seen PG [1] say/write versions of this: "The Y Combinator founders who followed our advice succeeded. The ones who didn't, didn't." 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,…

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.

I thought you gave away 7% of your company for the big pile of VC money that YC hooks you up with, so you have a few years of runway to find an intersection between "an idea you had" and "an idea people are willing to collectively spend a lot of money on".

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