I loved this story! The only parts that need a little work were: 1. His background, because he didn't just go from zero to book writer, 2. How in the heck Nick Gauthier decided to co-write with him on a topic Chris previously knew nothing about, 3. Usually "I'm awesome!" is just asking for a humility check... but I think that the point is that you can be awesome.
How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
11–20 of 118 posts
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#12I think you're patting yourself on the back too much. I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs. Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms. A few years later, she founded a safehou…
She does sound like an incredible person, but what are we supposed to do with that information? Does it mean we should not try and do anything, given there is always someone out there who has a 'better' (for very wide definitions of 'better') story? I don't write this to be snarky, and I used to think in a similar way myself, but this is not a good way to see the world.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#13Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…
This was also recently mentioned by YouTuber "CharlieIsSoCoolLike", who's taken to putting videos online every day for a week to overcome his perfectionism, but who's also been following the technique for a much longer time to keep himself learning.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#14This doesn't work for me. I've tried several times, but I just can't make it stick.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#15I think you're patting yourself on the back too much. I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs. Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms. A few years later, she founded a safehou…
She does sound like an incredible person, but what are we supposed to do with that information? Does it mean we should not try and do anything, given there is always someone out there who has a 'better' (for very wide definitions of 'better') story? I don't write this to be snarky, and I used to think in a similar way myself, but this is not a good way to see the world.
Here's what I took away from the story: there are incredibly humble people who have overcome incredible hardships and went on to help and heal others.
A lot of the "accomplishments" I read on HN like raising VC money or blogging for a year straight is weaksauce in comparison.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#16This is fantastic. Another method to "tricking yourself into being awesome" (also called learning ) is to jump right in and start working on a project. Like the author, you'll come up with loads of questions that need answering, and if your project is going to be successful, those questions must be answered. Otherwise your project/startup will die. Personal experience: this is exactly how I learned Ruby on Rails as a…
I think the difference is that some of us need a little more structure. By providing a method and a repetitive activity, by the 21st day or so (3 weeks they say), it will become habit. After that point, making a point of solving problems for a particular purpose everyday will be much easier, and you'll be making more progress.
A few stories to illustrate:
1. I had a few friends that made it a point to learn a new technology every day of the month and blog about it. In the end, the friends had learned quite a bit, and even though they only had cursory knowledge of the subject, the structure allowed them to succeed at their goal to have a more general knowledge in their discipline.
2. I have another friend that started writing an application with the point for it to be the central product of a great new startup. This friend is not only intelligent, but very capable in the whole stack, self-organized, and I would have expected him to succeed. However, he lost interest in the end before go-live. there were competitors, and I think he lost the vision that he had in the beginning. He could still finish the product, but now he has another job. I credit this to lack of structure, which is not his fault; I've gotten no where near as far as he did on a myriad of ideas for products.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#17Though I respect the process and the efforts behind this, "How to write books with a superficial understanding of what you're talking about" would be more appropriate.
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#18Chris - congrats man. I've been silently stalking your "chain", and also came across your posts frequently when I was writing Planscope and was frantically Googling for Backbone help.
The thing I like best is that you now have a time capsule for your professional life. You can look back and see exactly where you came from and where you went, which is more than most of us can say. I have a hard time remembering what I was doing a month ago!
Keep it up, and I look forward to seeing what technology or library you tackle next!
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#19I think you're patting yourself on the back too much. I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs. Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms. A few years later, she founded a safehou…
What is wrong with you?
Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome
#20Someone here submitted site for the same thing. http://sein-cal.co.cc/
What I have done is taken a printout of the same and marked on it everyday.