Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing

My notes

Updating identity

What if you didn't need money or attention?

What if you didn't need money or attention? Imagine that you are full of money and attention the same as you are full after a big meal and don't want to eat anymore. Imagine the release of daily bothering, the freedom of choice. You have everything, money, and people know you. Now you need to do something with your life because you get bored relaxing and doing just nothing. What would you do?

You don't have to be local

You don't have to be local, nor global. Suppose you care about your neighborhood, city, country and don't care about other people, the outsiders. Remember that there are people that care about everything global, borderless, that wants to be useful not just to their local place but to the whole world.

Your actions, not words, reveal your real values

If you only talk about going for an Erasmus but never did, you are fooling yourself. You don't really want to, because if you really would want to, you would do it anyway.

Keep earning your title, or it expires

If you were an entreprenur but now you are not, then stop fooling yourself that your success is assured. You have to keep earning it if you want to use it in the present tense; otherwise, you will fool yourself that by only taking you have it. Or, if you don't want to spend more time on it, you should release it and start talking about it in the past tense.

Why are you doing?

There is nothing wrong with pursuing money. It's terrible wanting to be rich and not pursuing it because people told you that you should not because it's stupid or makes no sense. Fulfilling your dreams changes your worldview. It releases your brain from thinking about it; as a result, you can spend time on other things that are consider being reserved for the upper class. When everyone dreams of starting a company but doesn't do so because they are afraid and you do so, you immediately change your worldview because you know how to run a company. You don't waste time on pointless conversations, wondering how it would be, because you know how it is. Here is how you climb the social hierarchy---achieve your naive dreams.

Some will always say you are wrong

People have different preferences in different parts of their lives. You have to know your preferences because always someone will tell you you are doing wrong. I know that I prefer working alone, in my cave, immersing myself in one task. Everything I do must be done with long-term financial or prestige reward. When you go against stereotype people gets confused.

Imitate we are imprefect mirrors

Copy what you like. You won't make perfect copy so no one else will notice that it's not your original thought. And you can not be sure that the thing you want to copy was not already copied. If you like some website design you should copy it but adjust it to your needs, fix some issues, this is how things evolves. Copy some game mechanic, copy some game design, and appy to new story, you will create something completely different and unique. "Stand on the shoulders of giants"

Character predict your future

People become what they prospect to become. If you acted as a leader, you will become leader. If you acted temperamental you will flame out. The disciplined ones will success.

But character isn't your destiny, nor your DNA. Character is the result of your little choices and little actions. How you do anything is how you do everything. It all matters. Your actions are under your control, so they

Fishes don't know they are in a water

Fishes don't know they are in a water. The same with us and our culture. We can't know how our culture influence us until we leave it, and look at it from different perspective. Only a fish that leave a water can perceive fact that there are other options and they are also doing well.

Singaporean people live with thier parents until thirty-five. For them it's unimaginable to leave the home at eighteen, it's rude to your parents of you do so.

There many things like that, so be careful want you make your axioms.

Are you present-focused or future-focused?

Some people are more present- and other future-focused. There is nothing wrong with them. The thing is to be able to juggle both attitudes. You want to be future focused when it comes to making fundamental decisions like going to school, or going to work, or what to do about your life. Also when you have to do some hard and repetitive work like exercises, it's better to focus on future self. Whereas when you finish your work, you may go crazy with present-focused because it will give you the joy of life. Life don't have to be about struggle all the time. In general present focused people are:

Future-focused people are:

Your time-focus is environmental because people who grow up in unstable places are more present-focused because imagining future is hard. People who grow up in cold climate are more future-focused because they have to prepare for a winter.

Your time-focus can change instantly. Meditation is all about present, that's why it's so hard for me.

Being in love or making art pushes you to present, being ambition pushes you to future.

When you become out of discipline, that means you lost your clear vision about your future, you have to sit and prepare your goals. If you feel disconnected, that means you are obsessed on your goals.

Relax for the same result

The difference between hurrying up vs doing something normally, really isn't that huge, usually at most 5%, while the experience is completely different. You can enjoy the ride, cursing down the street vs going as fast as possible. You will be at almost the same time, while the experience is much better when you are not stressed. Enjoy the process, not the end result. Sometimes the goal stop matter when you enjoy the process.

Disconnect

If you want to get a competitive edge, you got to disconnect. Disconnect from everything that is consuming your attention, energy.

You get no competitive edge from consuming the same stuff everyone is consuming. It's rare, now, to focus.

When you are unmotivated to do anything. Start doing the things that you would not do even when you are super motivated. The list of dull things that you always postpone. You can start with them, quickly you will feel much better, and feel like you are doing something important.

Notice how you picture your future projects. Do you see it as many tedious steps or one fun step? "You have to figure out a name, buy domain, create repo, decide on frontend technology, decide on backend technology, write a server, then tests, then integrate with paypal, stripe, then everything together. It's a lot of work."

Or, you say, I will create the website, backend and with new technologies, I will learn so much, it will be fun.

The former is telling you that you don't really want to do it. The latter tells you that you are excited about it.

There are always more than one option

Great insight comes from opening your mind to many options.

Beware of advice

Because most of them will be biased. Some people give you the lottery numbers and say "try these, they worked for me" But he is basing that in his surrounding,s not yours.

Underdog opinion, in their context. Someone giving advice doesn't want to say what's been said too much already. He is basing it on his surrounding,s not yours. So if everyone around him is quitting their jobs, his advice to you will be to keep the job.

They may be on a completely different level of their carrier. They have already been saying yes to everything, they are tired, they know how much work it takes. So they will suggest saying only hell yeah or no, which may be harmful.

Ultimately, only you know what to do

Don't be a donkey. Decide on doing one thing and keep doing it, you can be really good at something if you practice it for 10years. I'm programming for 6 years and I already assume myself being an expert. The next thing will be much faster because I don't start from position zero.

Assume you are below average

That way you admit that you are still a student, therefore you are still learning. You let yourself make mistakes, thinks you do after not reserved to doing only great things(which results in doing nothing at all).

Love being wrong

Because it's the only time we learn. Whenever someone says "you are right" you learn nothing new. But whatever someone convinces you about being wrong, it opens your mind to new possibilities, new options you may never think of before. You learn. It's hard to do it because it cracks your confidence, it fuels fears, it makes you lost. But when you accept it, you become humble, you start learning, you become more emphatic. It's better to think that you've got it all figured out.

The excitement of pursuing a goal, and void in having it achieved

What is exciting in goals is not having them achieved, but the path of pursuing them. Don't believe that once you achieve them your life will be much better. What makes your life better is the change of attitude.

Obvious to you, amazing to others

Reading, listening, watching someone else work, you may think "Amazing, so thoughtful, I will never be as inventive as that" Everybody's ideas seem obvious to them. So maybe what's obvious to me is amazing to someone else? Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?

What is worth doing?

Happy, Smart, and Useful

There are three things to consider when making life-size decisions:

Smart and useful (but not happy)

This is the stereotype of the strict parent who says, "You will go to the best school, get perfect grades, get a degree in law or medicine, and make lots of money". They want to make not only your life easier but also theirs. You won't need their help in case of a problem.

Smart and useful isn't bad, it's rational, like a machine. But happiness is the oil. Without it, the friction kills the engine.

Happy and Smart (but not useful)

This is the stereotype of the "lifestyle design" or self-help addict: always learning, always improving, and obsessively focused on how to be happy and create the perfect life.

They look for passive income instead of focusing on doing something that is really valuable to others.

Happy and smart isn't bad. The self-focus feels great at first. But you can't actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Ultimately you must be lifted by those around you.

Happy and useful (but not smart)

This is a stereotype of charity volunteers. After getting expensive universities degree, they spend years lying to exotic impoverished places to dig wells and thatch roofs.

But if graduate's time could be worth $200 per hour, yet they're doing work that locals could do better for $10 per hour (and without airfare and hotels), then actually they are doing disservice to others.

In this same category are people who stay at the same jobs for life without improvement, and the musicians who always perform at the local venues but never make good recordings.

Happy and useful isn't bad. These people are doing good for the world, so it's hard to find fault. They have great intentions but lame strategies — wasted effort and unused potentials.

Just happy

This is the parable of the Mexican fisherman, and you will be very unrewarded if you serve only yourself, not others.

So? Everytime you feel unsatisfied, make sure that you are doing on intersection of these three.

How to do what you love and make money?

The happiest people:

This is a balance between stability and adventure, centaury and uncertainty, money and expression.

If you have too much stability you get bored, if you don't have much stability you panic.

Each half of your life become the remedy for the other. You get stable income, but then you push yourself creatively, whitewashing your vulnerable art to the public. Feel the frustration of rejection and apathy. But then you get back to the warm, stable job.

Your job is for others. Your art is for yourself. You don't have to please the marketplace. You don't have to put ads. You don't have to compromise your art or value based on others' opinion.

Don't try to make your job your whole life. Don't try to make your art your sole income.

You don’t need confidence, just contribution

Years ago I was so confident and so naive. I was sure I was right and everyone was wrong.

But then I was learning until I felt like an absolute idiot. By then I was paralysed, unable to create anything new.

Eventually, these thoughts helped:

I’m glad my own confidence is gone because I thought I was right, and maybe even great, but not anymore.

Let pedestrians define the walkways

As time goes on, we get smarter. We learn more about ourselves or our customers – what we or they really want. Therefore we are at our dumbest at the beginning and our smartest at the end.

So when should you make decisions? When you have the most information, when you are at your smartest: as late as possible.

Resist the urge to decide in advance. Realize that now, in the beginning, is when you know the least.

Don't start a business until people are asking you to

I meet a lot of people who want to start a business. Some don't have an idea yet. It's like wanting to wear a bandage when you don't have a wound.

Most people have an idea but no customers. For them, I always say: "Don't start a business until people are asking you to".

  1. First, find real people whose problem you can solve. Make sure they are happy to pay you.
  2. Don't announce anything, don't choose a name. Don't make a website. Don't build a system. You need to be free to completely change or ditch your idea.
  3. Then get your first paying customers. Provide one-to-one service. Then you get another paying customer. Prove a real demand.
  4. Then as late as possible, you officially start your business.

Parenting: who is it really for?

I used to think that parenting is for my children. But then I realized that they are also for me.

Everything I want to teach him, is a practice for me. Every value I'm trying to convey is strengthenen my own.

Like most things we consider selfless, they benefit me as much as others.

Ok Milt, I'll start writing again

You may be the brightest thinker, but if you don't record your thoughts and publish them they will be gone once you die. If you value your thoughts, record them, and publish, so the part of you will transcend your lifespan.

Fixing faulty thinking

Unlearning

Things I learned in the past are now wrong. Times have changed.

Beliefs that used to be true are now false. They were based on old limitations that are now gone.

Ways that used to work don't work anymore. The old road collapsed. There is a tunnel through the mountain now. When the old map is wrong, we can't just draw a new line on it — we need to get a new map or we'll be following closed roads.

Sometimes the world is the same, but my situation has changed. What got me here won't get me there.

The solution is deliberate unlearning.

  1. Doubt what I know.
  2. Stop the habit of thinking I know it.
  3. Require current proof that it's still true today. Otherwise, let it go.

Where I had expertise before, I don't have now. People ask my advice on things I knew well years ago. It's tempting to think I still know the answer, but instead, I have to admit, "Sorry. I don't know."

It hurts to go from feeling like an expert to feeling like an idiot. But it's crucial to go through that pain or I'll never grow.

We want to see the world clearly and know what's what. But once we're past the first stage of wisdom, the next stage involves adapting to new changes.

We don't get wise just by adding and adding. We also have to subtract.

Smart people don't think others are stupid

There are no smart people and stupid people. This is labelling, and labelling is harmful, it brings no value. Instead, we can say there are people being smart or being stupid. You may do something stupid, but it doesn't mean you are stupid.

Being smart means thinking things through. It means, trying to find the real answer, not the easiest answer.

Being stupid means avoiding thinking by jumping to conclusions. Jumping to conclusions is like quitting the game. You lose by default.

This is why saying "I don't know" is usually smart — because it's refusing to jump to conclusions.

So when someone says. "They are so stupid" it means, they've stopped thinking. They say it because it's satisfying to jump to that conclusion.

So if you decide someone is stupid, it means you're not thinking. Which is not being smart. Therefore smart people don't think others are stupid.

The mirror: it's about you not them

You really learn only when you are surprised, if you are not surprised, then everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. So to get smarter you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives.

Pick a place that is most unlike what you know, and go.

Eventually you will realize that your beliefs were not correct — they were just the local culture of where you grew up. You are a product of an environment.

Learning the lesson, not the example

Don't focus on the example itself. Use it as a metaphor. And apply the lesson to my situation.

Think in examples. Life as a music. Human as a computer. Relationship as a business. Apply what works in one domain to the other. Extrapolate knowledge.

Projecting meaning

People seek for a meaning even at random things. Like song, made of random words, make sense to people. Painting made if random moves, makes sense. We like putting meaning on everything ever if there is no inherit meaning. We chose to project meaning into things. We like stories.

Goals shape the present, not the future

The purpose of goals is not to improve future. The future doesn't exist, it's in our imagination. All that exists is the present moment and what you do in it.

Judge a goal by how well it changes your actions in the present moment.

Seeking inspiration?

We believe that inspiration comes from consuming. We consume in hope that more ideas will come to our mind.

Nothing is truly inspiring unless you apply it to your work.

Inspiration is not receiving information. Inspiration is applying what you've received.

For every bit of information you take in, use it and amplify it by applying it to your work. Then you'll finally feel the inspiration you've been looking for.

Possible futures

Make a folder on your computer called "possible futures". For each big plan create a file and write down your research on it.

Then, once you finish some project you can look up and pick the best possible future.

If you think you haven't found your passion

It's dangerous to think in terms of "passion" and "purpose", because they sound like such huge overwhelming things.

Instead, notice what excites you and what scares you on a small moment-to-moment level.

Whatever scares you, go do it

Fear is just a form of excitement, and you should do what excites you.

Once you do something that scared you, you're not scared of it anymore.

Either on small level like that little nervious moment, when you are scared to talk to someone intimidating. Or that huge terrifying idea. Starting a business. Visiting a country. Quiting job. Dropping out college. Breaking up relationship.

Doing everything that scares you, you become fearless.

"Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety and risk. Make the growth choice a dozen times a day".