Be Relentlessly Resourceful
paulgraham.com
Be Relentlessly Resourceful
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Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#2PG, I would be really interested in your experiences teaching people to relentlessly resourceful. How have you brought out resourcefulness in your startup founders?
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#3"Anyone who can muster their willpower for thirty seconds, can make a desperate effort to lift more weight than they usually could. But what if the weight that needs lifting is a truck? Then desperate efforts won't suffice; you'll have to do something out of the ordinary to succeed. You may have to do something that you weren't taught to do in school. Something that others aren't expecting you to do, and might not understand. You may have to go outside your comfortable routine, take on difficulties you don't have an existing mental program for handling, and bypass the System.
So then let us distinguish between the virtues 'make a desperate effort' and 'make an extraordinary effort'.
And I will even say: The second virtue is higher than the first."
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#4This is my favorite essay of yours so far.
I usually enjoy your ideas, but this one hit me like a freight train of: "Are you being resourceful enough?"
Sadly the answer is "not enough."
Fortunately I feel the right question has be found.
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#5I'm curious about contextual dependence in this...
For example, I can often be relentlessly resourceful in technical matters. If an approach doesn't work, then there's some other combination of code that may get us there, it just won't be as easy or elegant. But then we can usually simplify it after the fact to make it reasonably maintainable.
But when it comes to social matters, I'm far more likely to just give up than to keep pushing people or trying different approaches. A lot of that is simply because I know that code has no feelings: I won't be burning any bridges because I think that function definition deserves to die. But it's hard to tell when you've pushed a person too far, or when they'll get offended because you went behind their back, and if that'll bite you later.
Is there a way to apply resourcefulness in one situation to another, and basically "cross-train" to become more persistent in different domains?
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#6I'm curious about contextual dependence in this... For example, I can often be relentlessly resourceful in technical matters. If an approach doesn't work, then there's some other combination of code that may get us there, it just won't be as easy or elegant. But then we can usually simplify it after the fact to make it reasonably maintainable. But when it comes to social matters, I'm far more likely to just give up t…
> I'm far more likely to just give up than to keep pushing people or trying different approaches
That's how I feel about marketing and self-promotion
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#7I guess the (surprisingly) restrained reception to 'How to be an angel investor' forced pg to explicitly point out its key takeaway for founders and write a whole new essay for it. He just doesn't stop trying to do good - a different kind of relentless resourcefulness.
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#8This summary has struck me. I couldn't agree more about what it says and requires. Every day founders have to face the doubt inherent in what they are trying to accomplish.
But I think the hurdles are as much internal as they are external and the summary applies to both. Founders have to overcome the internal issues by being relentlessly resourceful as well as the external. "Why am I doing this?" is a question every founder is asking themselves daily because we are all sacrificing something to start our product.
Getting over the internal hurdles requires a great deal of resourcefulness merely to justify continuing the pursuit another day. "Should I quit now? Have I done everything I can to make this work?" "I can't quit yet because I haven't tried X."
You have to be resourceful to prove to yourself that you shouldn't quit just yet.
Relentless resourcefulness applies to internal factors as much as it does external factors because you have to be resourceful enough to provide yourself the impetus to continue, to keep sacrificing. "I can't quit this thing because I know there is a possibility that something I'm not thinking of will make it work. I have to find that thing."
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#9Very succinct definition of a very common lesson in getting ahead. I've heard it phrased before as "use anything you see and everything you've got to reach your goal," which has a nice ring to it, but "be relentlessly resourceful" is beautifully simple.
I like the mini-essays almost more than I like the larger essays. They feel like long footnotes. It's fun reading a long essay, then a few days later getting an extra supplement.
Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful
#10Isn't the antonym of hapless opportunistic (without its negative connotation)?