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Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

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Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#321

Post by wing-_-nuts »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

This is why you take money off the table and put it into index funds.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#322

Post by throw1234651234 »

suction wrote: post #150
hyperman1 wrote: post #128

I had the chance to work with a few people I'd consider genius level. While I'm pretty smart myself, they all have something I don't always have: The ability to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. For example, we were walking trough a hallway. On a wall is an old, damaged, ugly map of my country, half covered with graffiti. I'd walked past it almost every day for half a year. He checks it out, and…

Well, having already made enough money to always be able to just say "you know what, I'm out" whenever you feel like it is necessary to be happy in any situation and interested in everything. Anyone who's not "secure for life" and has to keep the salaries coming in will have to deal with bad people, bad decisions, bad culture, etc. and become unhappy. I've sort of dabbled in that situation: I made and lost a fortune…

It's more than that - it's also coming in to work and knowing you are better than 90% of the people there at a leisurely pace. There is a huge difference between coming in and working 16 hours just not to seem stupid and working 4 hours and being considered indispensable. Has NOTHING to do with some idealistic outlook perspective.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#323

Post by baby »

civilized wrote: post #224
arius wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depression, like your sports analogy, is not only rooted in genetics but also in the environment. While you can act on your environment, you can't act on genetics for now. Focusing on what is in one's reach is the only thing one can do. Being certain that the cause is out of our control (while true for parts of it) is in itself something fueling depression.

Meh... you're teaching depressed people to focus on changing things to improve their environment. Maybe some of them can't and the best thing for them to do is accept it, even if it is a substantial drain on their productivity and life quality. Indeed there are some therapeutic approaches that do exactly this (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Obsessing over an intractable problem as if it can be improved can make…

He’s actually talking about stoicism, which is to accept what you can’t change.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#324

Post by datavirtue »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #267
allisdust wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soon to be launched on leet code : Coaching sessions on how to convey (fake) happiness effectively. How do the authors separate out the causation part? May be the top performers are happy because they are performing well? Will they retain their happiness if lets say, they are thrown in something with stack ranking like Amazon. How about something like on calls? How happy are they going to be if their nights are conti…

Work Units whose happiness is below 3.0 must attend mandatory 6:30 AM Joy Sessions.

GE...is that you?

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#326

Post by cableshaft »

zrail wrote: post #292
arbuge wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to join a Society of Likeminded Nerds to talk about it. >> I would be honored to apply for membership at your Society if and when you ever start it. I'd argue this already exists. We're on it right now...

I think HN overlaps a lot with what I imagine from OP's description. I personally would want more content along the lines of showing what random projects people are working on and far less focus on the companies that a particular VC firm happens to back.

> I personally would want more content along the lines of showing what random projects people are working on

YES. Anyone know of a good place for this?

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#327

Post by czbond »

tekacs wrote: post #274
danielovichdk wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just have to reply to this, so I can find your comment in my own comments. We'll put and I am trying to love like this for myself. Thx

You can also click on the timestamp of the HN comment (e.g. ‘1 hour ago’) and then click ‘favorite’. That will save the comment (publicly) to your profile. Looking at your profile it doesn’t look like you have any favorites saved yet, so maybe you’re not familiar with that feature?

I'm not OP - but didn't know about "favorite" and thanks!

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#328

Post by k8sToGo »

testcase_delta wrote: post #277
hit8run wrote: post #230

I don't know about you but I for sure don't want do be a top performer in a job. I disrespect the societal applause you get as a good cog in an enterprise. Build my own stuff and be my own boss makes me happier but then reality hits in and all the cracks in our society begin to show. Seriously. I WANT to be happy. But how can one be happy in a world like this? EDIT: Maybe I'm not in a good mood today but right now I…

I think Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now made a compelling case that the world now has basically never been better. You'd be crazy to wish be born in to any other time period. I find that comforting. There's good reasons to be glad you weren't born in the past, and the same reasons to be hopeful for the future. Perhaps that's not comforting if you're suffering. But if the cause of your suffering is that you thi…

> You'd be crazy to wish be born in to any other time period.

I feel like this is way too general. It really depends on as who you would have been born...

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#329

Post by lazide »

datavirtue wrote: post #312
xwdv wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw a wife and two kids into that mix and let’s see what happens to your side projects.

Yeah, it goes from 16 hours a day to MAYBE 16 hours a week.

Or -16 hrs a week (made up by borrowing from sleep or other necessary time), which just isn’t sustainable.

Re: Top Performers Have a Superpower: Happiness

#330

Post by czbond »

datavirtue wrote: post #312
xwdv wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw a wife and two kids into that mix and let’s see what happens to your side projects.

Yeah, it goes from 16 hours a day to MAYBE 16 hours a week.

I have a lot of experience pushing forward stuff with wife / kids. One must learn to delegate. Yes you can do "programming whatever", but you don't have the time. If you believe in the project, allocate.... $100,$500,$1k a month for a few months (whatever is your threshold) and outsource! It doesn't need to be in "expensive React with microservices".... you can do v1 in Laravel and a purchased template. (as example).

If one does not feel comfortable paying someone to do some of the work - it is a key tell the project may not be worth continuing. Momentum is key as projects natural state is "trending towards death"

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