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Find Your People

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Re: Find Your People

#41

Post by svilen_dobrev »

dejavu :) Here something i told my mentees 4 years ago:

searching for answers.. does not make life interesting.

search questions.. then You become interesting.

and inconvenient. To the answer-manufacturers. (whole industries and institutions are dealing with only that)

which.. by itself.. IS interesting.

Most people are either answers - pretty boring - or not even answers.. only nondescript. banal.

incredibly predictable and.. like nylon bag, you see through it but cannot get through.

Search for people-questions.

Search.

----

Maybe it can help someone else too..

Re: Find Your People

#42

Post by ariztocray »

Underrated impact of good networking is that it increases the expectations you have for yourself and the potential you ascribe to yourself.

My first job after finishing college was in a factory. After many more years of drifting, I finally had the dumb luck to start encountering people doing intellectually engaging things and actually making good money.

When I started surrounding myself with those individuals, I started realizing I was underselling my capabilities. And I started having higher expectations of what I wanted to achieve in specific domains.

I am definitely not successful by the standards of the corporate world, but I've superseded what my prospects should have been based on my track record in my 20's. And almost all of that started by rubbing shoulders with people in stages of life that I never considered before.

Re: Find Your People

#43

Post by kayge »

apsurd wrote: post #3

Good speech. It makes me think of why the rich get richer though. More access to more types of people earlier and throughout one's life. The best thing to give kids is access to a very wide—as wide as they can stomach—orientation of all there is in the world. It's not curation, it's not "the best". it's volume and contrasts. I debate my friends about private school. they have kids, I don't yet. Private school is actu…

As someone who wishes they could realistically afford private school for their kids (public school leaves a lot to be desired for 'gifted' kids these days), I think you've got good points but I land on the other side. Using some of your quotes: private school is "a narrow lens", but that lens likely includes a high percentage of the "rich get richer" network. I think my ideal would be private school to help find a better match for my kids' brainpower (2 of them anyway, tbd on #3 :D) and make some good high-value connections, but still make a conscious effort to encourage them to interact with a wider variety of people (through travel, public sports teams, community service, etc.)

Re: Find Your People

#44

Post by jimbokun »

game_the0ry wrote: post #23
wagwang wrote: post #15

Kids not feeling like they have agency is a huge problem in the asian community which likes to put their kids on steel tracks with 0 wiggle room, this speech resonated with me big time

As a south asian person, I could not agree more. The irony is that my parents were immigrant entrepreneurs and my grandparents were also entrepreneurs on both sides. Yet my parents pushed me towards medical school or a stable job at the least. I think this was for a couple reasons: 1. Asian parents express their insecurities through their children. They wanted a stable and high income (which maps to "doctor") so they…

Not Asian or South Asian. I'm sure what you're saying is true.

But having parents that are not involved enough to push their kids towards anything in particular is a much bigger challenge to over come.

If you have a degree from a prestigious university and the network that comes along with it, pivoting towards start ups or something more creative or entrepreneurial is a lot easier than if you never went to college at all or didn't finish high school.

Re: Find Your People

#45

Post by ketzo »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #20
softfalcon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree with you, as a person who went to a middle-of-the-road public school. I will point out though, anecdotally, my spouse went to the highest tier of public school in our city. She has a good balance of "seeing the world for what it is" while also having an edge of being personally networked to a ton of folks who are rich, well-connected, and capable. I look at the friend groups I built when I was a kid, a…

I went to a poverty level school, my partner went to one of the most elite schools in the US. My friends are also stuck in poverty or the lower-middle-class while my partner's friends seem quite conventionally successful. But several of my partner's friends are quite frustrated with their career choices. They feel like they were hemmed into high-prestige careers. A lot of them are not particularly successful in their…

It’s certainly true that there are real downsides to both ends of the spectrum — but all things being equal I’d rather be wiping my tears with hundred dollar bills than tissues

Re: Find Your People

#46

Post by ketzo »

gen220 wrote: post #16
apsurd wrote: post #3

Good speech. It makes me think of why the rich get richer though. More access to more types of people earlier and throughout one's life. The best thing to give kids is access to a very wide—as wide as they can stomach—orientation of all there is in the world. It's not curation, it's not "the best". it's volume and contrasts. I debate my friends about private school. they have kids, I don't yet. Private school is actu…

Having thought about this a good amount and collected anecdotes over the years... I think the prioritization order should be (1) live in a location in which the parents feel their most authentic/happy/self-actualized selves, (2) send your children to the most geographically proximate school where they won't be (overly-)bullied for their identity (inclusive of class) one way or another. Relative school quality (perfor…

I think this is an excellent comment. Not enough people talk about living near other parents in this way, and you’re right that it’s a massive difference-maker.

Re: Find Your People

#47

Post by jimbokun »

criddell wrote: post #29
ketzo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the pure “networking” factor, the expectations/environment are a big deal too I went to private school and in hindsight it pretty obviously altered my life for the better — I was a smart but lazy kid, and being surrounded by people who were dead-set on going to Harvard, and by teachers who expected excellence, was a huge factor in making me actually try hard. If I was a smart lazy kid at a school where I h…

I don't know what the axes are for your trajectory plot, but some of the people I know who seem to really enjoy their lives are not high achievers if you measure by status or finances. It's hard to find things that all of them have in common. They all come from supportive, functioning families and all of them are artistic people working in technical fields and have high EQ. They are all very curious but not scattered…

> They all come from supportive, functioning families and all of them are artistic people working in technical fields and have high EQ. They are all very curious but not scattered or unfocused.

Seems like it wasn't too hard to find things all of them have in common.

Re: Find Your People

#48

Post by [deleted] »

jll29 wrote: post #40
jumploops wrote: post #38

As someone who has “reinvented” myself more than once (mostly due to school/job transfers), it seems what wasn’t said is equally if not more important. Rarely can you “find your people” without letting other people go. The unspoken truth in this article is that it’s just as important to be willing to let go of relationships that aren’t helping you grow. Easier said than done. Whether it’s the negative influence of a…

> or the mediocre advice of an overbearing parent For what it's worth, I teach my students not to listen to their parents, because while most parents want the best for their children, without doubt, their assumptions are typically outdated, and were probably already wrong when they were young.

[deleted]

Re: Find Your People

#49

Post by bluefirebrand »

softfalcon wrote: post #10
apsurd wrote: post #3

Good speech. It makes me think of why the rich get richer though. More access to more types of people earlier and throughout one's life. The best thing to give kids is access to a very wide—as wide as they can stomach—orientation of all there is in the world. It's not curation, it's not "the best". it's volume and contrasts. I debate my friends about private school. they have kids, I don't yet. Private school is actu…

I mostly agree with you, as a person who went to a middle-of-the-road public school. I will point out though, anecdotally, my spouse went to the highest tier of public school in our city. She has a good balance of "seeing the world for what it is" while also having an edge of being personally networked to a ton of folks who are rich, well-connected, and capable. I look at the friend groups I built when I was a kid, a…

> There is something to be said for ensuring your kids go to the best schools possible. Those early networks are pivotal in forming an above average life.

I think this might be more of an American thing tbh. Having early networks can help grease the wheels for an above average life maybe but it's not so straightforward.

Personally, I went to an average public high school, I went to a small university (~9k students), and I'm now one of the top 3% of earners in my country just shy of a decade after graduating

I didn't wind up keeping in touch with anyone I went to any of my schooling with, honestly. I had to move away from my hometown to find opportunities so those bonds faded

It hasn't been easy for sure, it would definitely help to have that embedded network from childhood, but I don't think that is a requirement

Being competent and working hard can get you a long way

Re: Find Your People

#50

Post by jll29 »

pc86 wrote: post #13
ryandrake wrote: post #5

I feel like I'm too thoroughly cynical and jaded to take the tropes in "graduation speeches" seriously. Bringing someone back in who graduated in a totally different time, to a totally different world, in a totally different competitive, political, and economic landscape, to ramble about what they did when they graduated seems kind of pointless. Is her (or anyone's) story from the 90s really useful for someone gradua…

> Ms. Livingston graduated around when I did. I can't think of anything that I (or she) did to launch a career, either pre- or post-graduation that would be applicable to someone graduating today. Really? Not a single thing? Not "work hard," or "be curious," or "be willing to fail or be wrong?" Those aren't genetic qualities, they can be taught and they can be learned. I don't know when you graduated but I've been wo…

> today are entering a dog eat dog capitalist slugfest where a lucky few winners take all.

If you believe that to be true, perhaps it might be worth trying to become one of the few lucky winners.

Or come on, learn some Python and take the second prize with a six digit salary in a corporation, private health insurance and benefits plan.

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