3 ms·

The best advice I can offer is to stop thinking of learning you made a mistake as an attack on you personally and start thinking of it as an opportunity to lear

by oblib 5y ago

The best advice I can offer is to stop thinking of learning you made a mistake as an attack on you personally and start thinking of it as an opportunity to learn. Here's a true story to demonstrate that... Years ago when I was young an older, wiser, man told me "You can learn something from everyone" after listening to me complain about someone who "didn't know shit about what I was doing but constantly pestered me with their advice". My first reaction was to think the old guy was wrong because I'd met a lot of dumbasses by then. But after pondering that for a few days it occurred to me that if he was right I'd missed out on a lot of opportunities to learn and the only way I could prove him wrong was to look for what I could learn from everyone I met, and I hadn't been doing that. The very next day that guy who I'd been complaining about came over again and started giving me advice while I was working and one bit of the advice he gave me that day made me a shit ton of money for a lot of years.

kazinator 5y ago
But did that idea make Mr. Dumbass a shit ton of money too, or just you? And if not, was it really his idea.
- oblib 5y ago
  He wasn't really a dumbass, he was annoying because he loved to jabber and would interrupt me when I was busy. And I was young and cocky. But since you asked I'll tell you. At the time I did modifications on vehicles (Ford Econoline Vans) for Q4 and Q5 quadriplegics to drive. I'd cut out and lower the floors and cut off the metal roof and put a fiberglass shell on it, like a camper or shuttle bus has. I'd been doing that since a was 14 year old kid with my father who was a custom car builder and I took over my father's business doing that when I was 20 years old. So, I made a "roll cage" the way my father made it out of rectangular steel tube because those fiberglass tops are pretty unsafe without them. And that's what I was working on when he offered his advice, which was to have a mutual friend who built race cars make those for me the same way he made his race car roll cages, out of round steel tube bent with an hydraulic tube bender. The guy who made the bent tubes for me could to that in a fraction of the time it took me to cut and bend and weld that rectangular steel tube. I still had to design and install those reinforcements but it cost much less to have them prefabbed and took far less time to install them and I got paid the same and the design was stronger. By that time I had done many favors for that guy who recommended that because he owned a race car, a "Figure Eight" car, that I donated many hours of my time to keep him racing. So, yeah, all things considered he was compensated quite well because I sent him work too. We both did good.

by oblib 5y ago

kazinator 5y ago

But did that idea make Mr. Dumbass a shit ton of money too, or just you? And if not, was it really his idea.

oblib 5y ago
He wasn't really a dumbass, he was annoying because he loved to jabber and would interrupt me when I was busy. And I was young and cocky. But since you asked I'll tell you. At the time I did modifications on vehicles (Ford Econoline Vans) for Q4 and Q5 quadriplegics to drive. I'd cut out and lower the floors and cut off the metal roof and put a fiberglass shell on it, like a camper or shuttle bus has. I'd been doing that since a was 14 year old kid with my father who was a custom car builder and I took over my father's business doing that when I was 20 years old. So, I made a "roll cage" the way my father made it out of rectangular steel tube because those fiberglass tops are pretty unsafe without them. And that's what I was working on when he offered his advice, which was to have a mutual friend who built race cars make those for me the same way he made his race car roll cages, out of round steel tube bent with an hydraulic tube bender. The guy who made the bent tubes for me could to that in a fraction of the time it took me to cut and bend and weld that rectangular steel tube. I still had to design and install those reinforcements but it cost much less to have them prefabbed and took far less time to install them and I got paid the same and the design was stronger. By that time I had done many favors for that guy who recommended that because he owned a race car, a "Figure Eight" car, that I donated many hours of my time to keep him racing. So, yeah, all things considered he was compensated quite well because I sent him work too. We both did good.