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I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

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Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#161
post #54

I have been a dreamer all my life. It took me until last year to figure this out, and only thanks to this community. Great. Dreaming is necessary but not sufficient for great accomplishments. Glad you're one of us. I hardly ever tried - and when I tried, I didn't persist. It has been my goal to start a business since ever I can remember. And yet I never really tried (until last year, which resulted in abysmal failure…

In 2007 i read a blog post similar to this.... here is an excerpt:

" It was in February this year that I decided to try and make triathlon my career. It was a leap into the unknown: I knew nothing about what it meant to be a professional athlete. Now, two months down the line, I am still climbing that steep learning curve. And believe me, it’s a long slow climb. But what made me take the plunge, give up my job and throw myself into a life of continuous physical pain and torture? It was a case of ‘now or never’. Having just turned dirty thirty, I was getting on a bit and knew that my shelf life, at least at Olympic distance racing, was limited. I had watched the elite women race at the World Champs in Lausanne last February. Could I be as good as them, if not better? Had I fulfilled my potential, or did I have more to give? Had I pushed my mind and body to the limit? If not, what were those limits? What stars was I capable of grabbing? Without giving it a shot I would never know. I never want to look back and say ‘what if’. "

So i said let me come back see how well this person does, will they be a success? Nobody knows. To find out here is the blog from the first post, http://www.chrissiewellington.org/blog/taking-the-plunge/

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#162
I'm 53 and I hardly feel like my life is over. At 30 you are just beginning. I am still a dreamer an I've always felt like I'm a winner. You need to have confidence in yourself. Remember - the key to success is not giving up.

Consider the story of Ely Calloway. He worked his way up the company ladder at a major textile firm. When he retired, he decided to plant a vinyard and started up a winery. Calloway is a suucessful vinyard and winery in Temecula California.

After starting the winery and as an avid golfer, Ely Calloway decided to make golf clubs (Big Bertha) and founded Calloway golf. Calloway golf is obviously a very successful company. This was his third career started well into retirement.

The moral of the story is that your life is far from over. In fact, you should expect to live a longer more productive life than you can dream possible at this point.

Be persistent. Be positive. Life is good. Be a winner.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#163
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck =) The longest journey begins with a single step.

You just quoted my favorite Chinese saying. For the record, 千里之行,始于足下

Not my favorite line from the Tao Te Ching, but a good one nonetheless. I think my actual favorite is the very first verse, where he explains that the entire book is a lie (in a sense). I love that so much.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#165
Just do it. Get started, make a move. Thinking and reading advice about it on HN won't get you anywhere without action. You are not a loser, but you've got to stop thinking and start doing. (I've been there, hence the tip)

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#166

I want to give you hope but to be blunt, if your 30 an not an established coder your not going to be. I started coding when I was 11 (dumb stuff of course, but actual coding), went to university and got a CS degree, now I'm in my late 30s and I have been coding for a good ~25 years, ~12 professionally (as in day job). You have to compete with people like me, people who enjoy coding, people who go to work then come ho…

I've been coding since age 14. I got my first real programming job at age 16 writing medical software. Sure, I wasn't as good as people twice my age... but $20/hour at age 16 in 1986 wasn't bad. You know what? I quit being amazed that other people could learn to code a long time ago. I've seen children, old people, blind people, and even almost illiterate people learn to code. There was always someone telling them it…

Your advice is rainbows, ponies and nice and all but he's not asking "should I start programming", hes asking more along the lines of "should I start a career in programming".

Two completely different paths, getting into this profession or any technical profession, where you just can't do it on a whim is going to be a challenge at any age.

I've been a senior developer for a long time, and I keep reading this bullshit on HN about "hey, no coding skills, start a internet startup!" and "I'm in marketing and I started a wordpress blog about hacking and now I'm an entrepreneur". You want to get into coding, listen to the real coders, PERIOD.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#167
post #54

I have been a dreamer all my life. It took me until last year to figure this out, and only thanks to this community. Great. Dreaming is necessary but not sufficient for great accomplishments. Glad you're one of us. I hardly ever tried - and when I tried, I didn't persist. It has been my goal to start a business since ever I can remember. And yet I never really tried (until last year, which resulted in abysmal failure…

I have similar desires to qisine (though younger and a bit better with pointers), and realise that I need a market myself, but can't find anything that I can do that people would be willing to pay for, or not find an already existing alternative.

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#168
post #54

I have been a dreamer all my life. It took me until last year to figure this out, and only thanks to this community. Great. Dreaming is necessary but not sufficient for great accomplishments. Glad you're one of us. I hardly ever tried - and when I tried, I didn't persist. It has been my goal to start a business since ever I can remember. And yet I never really tried (until last year, which resulted in abysmal failure…

Always a kind heart :)

Re: I'm a loser and I want to change that - now

#170
Oh wow, your first two sentences were so misleading. "I have been a dreamer all my life." I thought you meant DREAMER, as in undocumented immigrant. "It took me until last year to figure this out." You didn't know you were an illegal immigrant until last year? :P

Your post is pretty melodramatic, but I just want to reiterate that 30 is not too late at all. Plenty of people never come to the realization that you do way past their 30s and turn too late to others for help. I'm glad you realize that you can't accomplish things in a vacuum. (I'm 23, and I still am working on getting my Bachelor's, though most of my friends are in grad school by now. I don't feel like I'm less of a person because I didn't follow the "set schedule" of life, and you shouldn't either)

That being said, another good point that I'm sure has been made already is not to focus too much on being the absolute best in whatever field you try. So you could program for a million years and never be as good as so-and-so. So what?

No one usually starts out and suddenly she's a programming whiz. We all started somewhere, and just because you got stuck at pointers in C++ doesn't mean that you should just give up. No one has just breezed through all programming problems or concepts in the world like they're no big deal. Stop comparing yourself to an imaginary image of perfection and start doing things like the real person that you are.

My advice is to do one thing first: read. Learn! You seem like you have the drive to do a business, but perhaps not much of an idea of what kind of business. So read, or watch MOOC videos if that's how you learn best--really build a solid knowledge base of what it takes to run a business, what sorts of business ideas you'd be interested in, etc.

I think after dreaming and before doing, you should prepare, and that's a step that I feel might be lacking in others' steps-to-success plans for entrepreneurship.

After you've prepared, just (fking) do it. Don't be afraid to fail; failing is how we learn. Don't listen to naysayers who only believe that people can accomplish acts of genius or good in their youth--human history isn't built on the accomplishments of young prodigies alone. Instead, believe in yourself, because no one else will.

And as for luck, create your own!

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