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Permission to Suck

kadavy.net

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Re: Permission to Suck

#21

Post by kadavy »

thenomad wrote: post #18

This is a well-worn piece of advice, but it's well-worn for a reason - because it's incredibly valuable. Observing a lot of my friends over a lot of years, I'm starting to suspect that the willingness to fail, and particularly to fail in public, is possibly the key differentiator for people who achieve impressive things. (I'm currently learning a new skill myself. I was sucking very badly, I'm now just sucking pretty…

> particularly to fail in public

This reminds me of when I learned to dance Salsa, and more recently, Tango.

It's a far more public failure than writing a blog post. Your body – the very thing that experiences the embarrassment of failure – is your instrument when dancing. To add insult to injury, you're failing in front of a never-ending stream of women.

But, thankfully, sucking is temporary and life is long.

EDIT: I'd like to add that life is much, much, better when you know how to dance.

Re: Permission to Suck

#22

Post by Swizec »

ebiester wrote: post #9

This is where my startup failed -- We made the decision to work in a new technology (then another!) but I was afraid of writing code I was less than proud of. I then proceeded to learn what I could of best practices, spending far too long experimenting with the language and far too little actually doing. In the end, we ended up with two half-baked infrastructures in two different languages and reached the trough of d…

A very relevant ZenPencils comic. Advice for beginners: http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginner...

The gist is that you get into something because you have a good taste for it, but for the first few years of doing it your taste is far ahead of your skill. The trick is to keep doing things anyway, knowing they will eventually catch up and surpass your taste.

Re: Permission to Suck

#23

Post by marquis »

Swizec wrote: post #22
ebiester wrote: post #9

This is where my startup failed -- We made the decision to work in a new technology (then another!) but I was afraid of writing code I was less than proud of. I then proceeded to learn what I could of best practices, spending far too long experimenting with the language and far too little actually doing. In the end, we ended up with two half-baked infrastructures in two different languages and reached the trough of d…

A very relevant ZenPencils comic. Advice for beginners: http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginner... The gist is that you get into something because you have a good taste for it, but for the first few years of doing it your taste is far ahead of your skill. The trick is to keep doing things anyway, knowing they will eventually catch up and surpass your taste.

The original Ira Glass version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ResTHKVxf4

Re: Permission to Suck

#24

Post by kadavy »

marquis wrote: post #23
Swizec wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very relevant ZenPencils comic. Advice for beginners: http://zenpencils.com/comic/90-ira-glass-advice-for-beginner... The gist is that you get into something because you have a good taste for it, but for the first few years of doing it your taste is far ahead of your skill. The trick is to keep doing things anyway, knowing they will eventually catch up and surpass your taste.

The original Ira Glass version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ResTHKVxf4

Love that Ira Glass video. Very relevant to this concept.

Re: Permission to Suck

#25

Post by jh3 »

batgaijin wrote: post #3

No! Meditation is not about thinking about nothing! It's about focusing on your breath. Think only about breathing. That sounds boring but manageable. 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible and stupid at the same time; people who do the disservice of saying that should be slapped. The point of meditation is to learn how to control your thoughts, specifically in being able to realize that your are choosing your cur…

> 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible

That's because it is impossible.

Re: Permission to Suck

#26

Post by thenomad »

kadavy wrote: post #21
thenomad wrote: post #18

This is a well-worn piece of advice, but it's well-worn for a reason - because it's incredibly valuable. Observing a lot of my friends over a lot of years, I'm starting to suspect that the willingness to fail, and particularly to fail in public, is possibly the key differentiator for people who achieve impressive things. (I'm currently learning a new skill myself. I was sucking very badly, I'm now just sucking pretty…

> particularly to fail in public This reminds me of when I learned to dance Salsa, and more recently, Tango. It's a far more public failure than writing a blog post. Your body – the very thing that experiences the embarrassment of failure – is your instrument when dancing. To add insult to injury, you're failing in front of a never-ending stream of women. But, thankfully, sucking is temporary and life is long. EDIT:…

Yes. I had a similar experience when I tried to learn to dance, some time ago. The "right, now go and dance freestyle with Random Attractive Woman #1" moment was particularly terrifying.

(I still can't dance very well.)

Re: Permission to Suck

#27

Post by ChuckMcM »

thenomad wrote: post #18

This is a well-worn piece of advice, but it's well-worn for a reason - because it's incredibly valuable. Observing a lot of my friends over a lot of years, I'm starting to suspect that the willingness to fail, and particularly to fail in public, is possibly the key differentiator for people who achieve impressive things. (I'm currently learning a new skill myself. I was sucking very badly, I'm now just sucking pretty…

The subtext of this message is to disassociate your sense of self from your abilities. There is a great quote in one of the "Little Bear" children's books that I would read to my kids when they were toddlers, Little Bear is explaining that he knows how to fly, but so far he has only mastered flying straight down.

It is hard to be 'Ok' with yourself not being able to do something you perceive as 'easy.' Or worse when someone you consider to be less talented than yourself is better at something than you, its hard to internalize that too. But all of these stem from the notion that your own value is determined by what you can do. That notion gets in the way of getting better at things.

Re: Permission to Suck

#28

Post by batgaijin »

mcphilip wrote: post #17
batgaijin wrote: post #3

No! Meditation is not about thinking about nothing! It's about focusing on your breath. Think only about breathing. That sounds boring but manageable. 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible and stupid at the same time; people who do the disservice of saying that should be slapped. The point of meditation is to learn how to control your thoughts, specifically in being able to realize that your are choosing your cur…

>That sounds boring but manageable. 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible and stupid at the same time; people who do the disservice of saying that should be slapped. Sounds like you could use some time meditating about your hostile attitude :) Seriously though, so much of eastern thought related to mediation involves paradoxes that a practitioner reflects on in order to grow. Think about nothing Observe your thou…

I am hostile because I put off seriously trying meditation for a long time in life simply because of how poorly it had been explained and how religions and hippies co-opted it.

Re: Permission to Suck

#29

Post by zobzu »

In a nutshell: humans learn, live, and eventually succeed via a simple try-fail-try-again process.

If you can't suck, you can't fail. If you can't fail, you can't learn, you can't progress.

In most corporate places, you're not allowed to fail. Most will refuse changes, even if it's for the better, because, it may suck. It may fail.

So yeah. If you wanna be great, you gotta suck.

Re: Permission to Suck

#30

Post by mcphilip »

batgaijin wrote: post #28
mcphilip wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That sounds boring but manageable. 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible and stupid at the same time; people who do the disservice of saying that should be slapped. Sounds like you could use some time meditating about your hostile attitude :) Seriously though, so much of eastern thought related to mediation involves paradoxes that a practitioner reflects on in order to grow. Think about nothing Observe your thou…

I am hostile because I put off seriously trying meditation for a long time in life simply because of how poorly it had been explained and how religions and hippies co-opted it.

Religion co-opted meditation? Now that's an interesting take... How then did meditation originate if not in the context of the religions that originally incorporated it?
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