8 ms·

Am I being pretentious or unfair for wondering what on earth this blog or author is about? I don't find this specific post terrible, but I'm the type who prefe

• PonyGumbo 16y ago
  >Am I being pretentious or unfair for wondering what on earth this blog or author is about? It's apparently about "Strategy, Philosophy, Self-Discipline, Science. Victory."
  • monochromatic 16y ago
    In a word: winning.
    • allwein 16y ago
      Oh...my...God... Sebastian Marshall is Charlie Sheen!
    • spitfire 16y ago
      fangs dripping with tiger blood!
      • zacharycohn 16y ago
        Less Reddit on HackerNews please.
  • numeromancer 16y ago
    Strategy for what? Philosophy of what? Self-Discipline in what art? Science to discover what? Victory over what?
    • mkramlich 16y ago
      over winning, duh! -- C. Sheen
• deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  • chollida1 16y ago
    Just a note, when a site implements nested comments, using @<user> is unnecessary as it's clear who you are responding to.
    • webwright 16y ago
      Heh-- Related: When a site implements upvote and downvote capability, an "I agree" comment is pollution.
      • finnomenon 16y ago
        not everyone can downvote.
    • deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
      • dasil003 16y ago
        They are infinitely nested comments. You can reply to directly to any comment, and the members here will not be confused by the reordering of sibling comments, trust me.
        • barrkel 16y ago
          This subthread is horribly meta, but I found it interesting that theklub's account is actually older than yours.
  • rue 16y ago
    Sorry to be meta, but the @ is pretty much implied when you're replying to their post. Can we agree not to do it?
• hasenj 16y ago
  It doesn't matter. The guy reflects a mentality that I like. I pretty much feel the same way he does about "needing" money. I can't say it made me successful, but it certainly makes me have some respect for myself.
• webwright 16y ago
  +1 If you're going to speak with authority, you want to establish some sort of credibility and the About page here fails to do that. I think the author has a great handle on aspirational "made-for-hackernews" linkbait but I'm not sure I want to read strategy advice from someone who has no obvious history of implementing strategy.
• camdykeman 16y ago
  Yeah the lack of credentials is troubling. Still, the anecdotes were interesting--the author's change in pay just by asking I found pretty entertaining. Again though, it would be nice to actually know that the author is "successful". These anecdotes lose some credibility if hes living out of a one-bedroom basement apartment at the time of writing.
  • netmau5 16y ago
    Credentials don't mean too terribly much unless you're looking at a star who has hit multiple home runs. Sure, their advice is great because you know there is some well-earned experience in it, but that doesn't automatically make everyone else useless. I don't like separating people between winners and losers. There is so much valuable insight to gain from people who haven't succeeded yet and those who have flat-out failed, if you only listen to winners, you're only getting part of the story. My friend works at a bar so I go in there twice a week for lunch. I've been going for years so I've gotten to know most of the staff. When I ask them what their plans are for the future, no one says to be the best waiter around. These people get looked at as waiters, but that is not how they view themselves. They are in-transit, they are on their way. When I look at someone like Sebastian, I see someone who is articulate, intelligent, and genuinely helpful to people around him. I like those qualities and that makes me at least willing to check out what he has to say. Other people have different priorities and that is fair. But I'd rather look at the person rather than just the body of work because behind every great success is someone who was a nobody, perhaps even your waiter.
    • _delirium 16y ago
      > if you only listen to winners, you're only getting part of the story You also often don't get quite the right story, since not everything a successful person says about their own success is accurate. Sometimes there's a bit of self-mythologizing, but even without active attempts to mislead, sometimes people just aren't that good at analyzing the causes of even their own success. They're usually interesting to listen to, but people who are good observers can also be interesting to listen to.
• oldstrangers 16y ago
  This is just one of those cheap, direction-less advice blogs that hopes to get a book deal. "My goals for the short term are to get back to doing productive freelancing work for good people while finishing up my first book."
  • todayiamme 16y ago
    I don't think that's fair to the author. It's an ad hominem that shouldn't have any place whatsoever on HN. At least this guy is out there sticking out his neck and taking a chance. I might disagree with what he has to say (I usually do), but I have no right to judge him either way and I think that neither do you. Every serious writer wants a book deal. If he makes a "direction-less advice blog" to do it and manages to write decent stuff once in a while then more power to him. What I'm trying to say is that argue with him on the basis of content and where he's wrong instead of taking pot shots at him. It's healthier and a saner way, because both of you might just learn something out of this. Take care,
    • burgerbrain 16y ago
      "This is just one of those cheap, direction-less advice blogs that hopes to get a book deal" That is a stab at the content, not the author.
      • albedoa 16y ago
        Right, it's a stab at the contents of and motivation behind the blog, not the guy who created and maintains it. Come on.
    • oldstrangers 16y ago
      I may have been a little harsh, but I'm not sure how I could take anyone's advice seriously if I knew ultimately they just wanted me to pay attention long enough to sell me something. If this guy helps people, then awesome. However, the practice of bookblogmarketing still sucks.
      • 16y ago
• lionhearted 16y ago
  > Am I being pretentious or unfair for wondering what on earth this blog or author is about? Nah, that's a common enough reaction. Me, I dropped out of two high schools, was able to pick up an alternative high school diploma at age 16 or so anyways, got a near full ride scholarship to UMass Amherst at 17, left there at 19, have held down a variety of self-employed or owned gigs in contracting, project management, sales, marketing, logistics, and a whole variety of other things. Studied business at Boston University later, paid cash for everything. Lived, worked, or traveled through 40+ countries, been around Asia the last 15 months. My last work was in hospitality/tourism. I'll make at least $65,000 this year (just inked a $65,000 contract, but the cash isn't in the bank yet so no partying yet), maybe a lot more depending. > I'm the type who prefers the advice of people with a track record of success–or, at the very least, who have tried and humbly reflect on their failures. With details. That's totally fair. I've written hundreds of posts - did you go through any of them? I've written detailed guides on lots of stuff, lots of personal experiences. This is actually a tricky thing about writing, you never know which piece you write will be the first one someone sees. You write a heavily assertive one, someone thinks you're a jerk. You write an introspective one, someone thinks you're narcissistic. You talk about what you've done, people think you're bragging. You don't talk about what you've done, people think you're full of hot air. ...occupational hazard with writing, I guess. I don't take it personally :)
  • xiaoma 16y ago
    Could you maybe share some posts in which you've described your previous self-employed successes? Anything which gives readers an idea of how you went about creating a business would probably be of interest to HN readers. Even if it's only a moderately profitable life-style business, it would still give ideas to those who want to take the path less traveled.
    • lionhearted 16y ago
      Sure. Actually, I'd like to write on business more, but I find the quality of writing on business already is pretty high. I try to cover uncharted ground with my writing, but a lot of my stories are pretty straightforward and mundane. Like, I once hired a sales guy on salary with no commission. I recommend that you don't do that. He would work pretty hard, but after he got a sale then... nothing would happen for like a week or two, it's like he was "done" - or something. But anyways, that's commonly known and understood, writing about it is just reinventing the wheel. For sales people, pay them mostly on results if possible, not on base compensation. If you ever have anything specific I can help you with, drop me a line - I'm pretty open to people reaching out to me, much moreso than average I think. I take a lot of questions, spend a lot of time with people to lend a hand. I try to do that for entertainment time instead of surfing the net or playing games or watching tv - so if you ever have specific questions or I can help you, drop a line. If I have experience, I'll share it on what you're working on. If not, I can try to call some people I know and see if they know. So yeah, drop a line if there's specific questions and I can help.
• edw519 16y ago
  Am I being pretentious or unfair for wondering what on earth this blog or author is about? No. Perfectly reasonable question. lionhearted may or may not have a "track record of success", but he does have a track record here on hn. For every x weird posts, he has a real gem, something that no one else has mentioned that really gets you thinking. Also, he is more likely that almost any other poster to "push the envelope", bring up something that runs counter to the group think often found here. If he posts something I don't get in the first 3 sentences, I just hit the back button and decide to read him some other day. It's usually worth it. Some people, in order to hit a few home runs, have to strike out every once in a while too.
  • anamax 16y ago
    > Some people, in order to hit a few home runs, have to strike out every once in a while too. If someone never strikes out, they're not trying hard enough.
    • saturdayplace 16y ago
      J.K. Rowling once said, "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all. In which case, you fail by default." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck#t=9m11s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck#t=9m11s
  • MortenK 16y ago
    And even a faulty clock is right, two times a day.
• dave_sullivan 16y ago
  Sure, always consider the source. Then again, considering the content, I read: You don't make much money from ads on a blog, and you can often get more money out of a deal by asking for it. You don't have to be an SV baller to convince me of that.
• ww520 16y ago
  May be it's just me but I tend to value "authority/expert/background" less and judge the actual delivered content by itself. Trusting content by its "background" is just intellectually lazy. Question authority. That's part of critical thinking I've learned long time ago. Lionhearted (Sebastian) has delivered outstanding insights time and time again. Many thing he said has struck a chord with me. One of his best blogs was that it takes many ordinary writings to hit a gem piece. And he certainly practices that.
• mirkules 16y ago
  I was wondering the same thing. It's not to say I'm dismissive of Sebastian's thoughts -- this particular one actually kind of resonates with me -- but I do find that his posts lack perspective. Compared to Derek Sivers' posts, for example, Derek always presents his thoughts as lessons learned wrt CD Baby and ties them to some aspect of his business. In other words, I'm not saying Sebastian's content is necessarily bad (some of it is quite good), but I would like to see him focus on improving his writing style a bit.
• Keyframe 16y ago
  Look at it this way. We're all fonts on a screen. Shoot the message, not the messenger.
• bitwize 16y ago
  "What's my name? Fuck you, that's my name. You know why, mister? Because you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight; I drove an $80,000 BMW. That's my name."
  • callmeed 16y ago
    I don't follow ... which one of us is Alec Baldwin? I drive a Honda Element
    • bitwize 16y ago
      lionhearted is. Point being that when it comes to making money, no verifiable list of achievements with sources is necessary: the kind of car you drive (as a proxy for how much money you make) should be credentials enough. That's kind of the reality of the money world.
      • callmeed 16y ago
        When it comes to making money or writing about making money, having actually made money in the past seems like a perfectly reasonable requirement. Maybe he has, but I didn't see it. That was my point. Are you intimately familiar with lionheated's income/revenue? Are you with mine?