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Be Relentlessly Resourceful

paulgraham.com

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Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#61

Post by jimmyjim »

froo wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me: Why don't you just do x? Founders: Could we really do x? Me: Sure, why not? Can't hurt to try. How hard can it be to do at least version 1 of x? Founders: Ok [dubiously] we'll try it. A few days later: Founders: Pg, check out this demo of x. It was a lot harder than we expected, but we just got it working. While we were working on it, we thought "what if we did y..."

One of my alltime favourite quotes that I think is relevant is: "I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination" - Walt Disney Also, perhaps this one might work too, also by Walt. "Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secr…

I would say constancy is more important that confidence. It's simply dull, constant practice that gets you to be perfect in a certain skill, not confidence (and I'm speaking with experience as a hard sciences student). Advice from business-people is inapplicable to us science students most of the time.

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#62

Post by Rod »

ajju wrote: post #59
Rod wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no accounting for taste, so I won't discuss whether the comment was humorous or not. However, I respectfully disagree that I have offended the original poster. Please allow me to explain: As an engineer, I appreciate the original poster's resourcefulness and can-do attitude. Getting things done with minimum means is something admirable. However, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to claim that anyone who reads th…

To me, the insulting nature of your comment stemmed not from the economic status of Nigeria as a poor country (or the skin color of its residents) but the fact that you were jokingly implying the OP was involved in something illegal. A joke about a Russian entrepreneur selling vodka, for example, would not be insulting, just trite. Which, quality of content wise, is equally bad.

Makes sense. I had never thought of it from that POV. I can't take back what I wrote, though. Personally, if someone made a joke implying that I was doing something illegal, I would not be offended at all (unless I was, in fact, doing something illegal), but it seems not everyone's skin is as thick as mine. Cheers.

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#63

Post by lionhearted »

chris11 wrote: post #15
Eliezer wrote: post #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 un…

You mentioned on your blog that you tested out of your bachelor's degree. So what's your experience getting your degree from a non-traditional university? You seem somewhat of an autodidact, so did you find that the coursework was an acceptable study plan, or did you end up supplementing the coursework to learn the material? The school you mentioned seems to be credible, it even has a couple engineering technology pr…

I Clepped basically an entire year of university. Higher education serves two purposes: Learning, and credentialing. And there's certainly faster ways to learn - so that leaves you with the credential. The cheaper and faster you can get it if you want that one, the faster you can get out into the world and do cool things.

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#65

Post by ericb »

mrbuwch wrote: post #33
pg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me: Why don't you just do x? Founders: Could we really do x? Me: Sure, why not? Can't hurt to try. How hard can it be to do at least version 1 of x? Founders: Ok [dubiously] we'll try it. A few days later: Founders: Pg, check out this demo of x. It was a lot harder than we expected, but we just got it working. While we were working on it, we thought "what if we did y..."

It sounds like you're saying that these particular founders don't have confidence in their ability to do x and are pleasantly surprised when, after a little push, they achieve it (even if it did turn out to be harder than they thought). From achieving x, they uncover the virgin territory of y. So: is gaining greater confidence in one's ability to achieve stuff part of becoming relentlessly resourceful?

Y Combinator probably makes up the 6% on the confidence boost associated with being selected, alone. Makes it hard to compare unselected/selected companies, I imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#66

Post by plieb »

Being relentlessly resourceful is the ONLY way to get things done in large companies. The external restrictions in a large company are much harder to overcome than in a small business. They are institutionalized.

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#68

Post by qaexl »

jimmyjim wrote: post #61
froo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my alltime favourite quotes that I think is relevant is: "I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination" - Walt Disney Also, perhaps this one might work too, also by Walt. "Somehow I can't believe that there are any heights that can't be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secr…

I would say constancy is more important that confidence. It's simply dull, constant practice that gets you to be perfect in a certain skill, not confidence (and I'm speaking with experience as a hard sciences student). Advice from business-people is inapplicable to us science students most of the time.

The times when I made the most improvement in a particular skill comes from not-dull, constant practice. Hard, yes, repetitive, yes, but never dull. If your attention wanders while you are practicing, you're not getting the most out of the practice.

Lacking confidence tends to distract as much as over-confidence. The person practicing stops paying attention to what he is practicing.

I'd say, transfer of learning (taking advice from one context and figuring out how to apply it in a different context)is a form of resourcefulness. (Though I'm more of the opinion that resourcefulness applies to both internal and external obstacles).

Re: Be Relentlessly Resourceful

#69

Post by qaexl »

gruseom wrote: post #17
nostrademons wrote: post #5

I'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…

YMMV, but I've found that in interpersonal situations the kind of resourcefulness that pays off the most is actually internally directed. If I give closer attention to my own reactions, I start to see what I'm doing to create or maintain a problem. That gives me new choices I didn't have before. I can stop doing those things or I can add something new, whereas it's hard to directly change what others are doing. I've…

Yeah, this has happened in my experience too. Changing my own actions as a way to affect change is easier than changing someone else's actions. This is both in the social domain and actually physically affecting someone (e.g. sparring). In chess or Go or any other strategy games, this would be "initiative".

I've also found something similar to that opposite-emotion reaction with other people. I think it has a lot to do with the parts of our brain responsible for mirroring other people and empathy. For example, changing an internal state often reflects in the non-verbal cues that affects someone else subconsciously.

There are old (50+ years old) leadership manuals that points this and other things out.

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