7 ms·

In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep

In my admittedly still short life, I have started to notice something: you can broadly divide the world into two groups - those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it or find yourself unable to because banks won’t loan to you, you can’t be hired or it’s finally not financially viable, don’t do it and rest in peace knowing it was your decision/you tried. You don’t need an external reason like being too old or outside validation, you are old enough to make your own choice.

michaelcao 4y ago
Good advice. Thanks. I don't read self-help books. I believe in learning by practice
j3th9n 4y ago
This.
jrm4 4y ago
100%. There are so many things that you can read or theorize about for years, in depth -- that end up still being very different once you actually do them. Just gotta try stuff.
- overgrownzygote 4y ago
  Over-analyzing has always been a huge struggle of mine, and your comment reminded me of a few times in my life where actually doing things taught me something important: 1. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer through most of college. I took tons of law-related courses, did a few internships, and then realized I strongly disliked actually doing it once I got my first job in the field. Thankfully, I figured it out before going to law school. 2. I studied abroad in Kenya basically on a whim. I realized my penultimate semester of college that I’d managed to get all my graduation requirements done a semester early and somehow not noticed, and decided I’d take the last semester to have a little adventure. It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. 3. At the start of lockdown in 2020, I took CS50 basically because I was bored and a friend was doing it. I had never even considered studying CS before that point, and now here I am getting my ducks in a row to do an OSU post-bacc. I suppose the throughline here is that life is full of unknown unknowns, and unknown unknowns, by definition, aren’t something you can think about and factor into your decision-making process. Just like you said — sometimes you just gotta try stuff.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Weird and interesting parallels: I quite enjoyed law school, did a few internships and practiced for a few years before mostly realizing the same thing, and still I have no regrets because things turned out well. I took CS50 when it was probably very different (Brian Kernighan, the creator of C, teaching C) Roughly, I ended up as a Chair of a Masters in IT program. Not doing that part anymore, but still a full time non-tenure teaching professor. (What technically, as in according to the rules of academia, qualifies me for all this, is the law degree. Weird. I'll take it!
hesdeadjim 4y ago
Agree 100%. Either do it or dont’t, otherwise you’ll be wondering if it’s too late to change in another ten years. Anytime someone asks me how I made the leap to building startups the answer is pretty simple: failure doesn’t scare me that much, I have failed many times, but I’ve learned and don’t repeat (most) mistakes. That and I hate anyone telling me what to do. YMMV.
- luisfmh 4y ago
  Reminds me of the classic yoda quote "do or do not there is no try".
andrew_ 4y ago
The older I get the more I recognize that most of the people I've encountered, in one way or another, have a great lack of confidence and courage.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  Meh. You can be as confident as you like, if people won't take on staff as "juniors" who are older, then the whole process of retraining - wrt career change - has been a waste of time. I've never been involved in corporate HR, I'd want advice. Similarly, if I was doing a bungee jump for the first time I'd ask someone to check my harness ... (to spell it out, you seem to be berating someone for doing a reality check, as if reality [of the jobs market] were open to someone to define individually; ignorance and confidence can be easily confused)
  - ghost-towels 4y ago
    This is pretty much where I’m at. I’m mid 40s and been working in the marine industry for almost 30 years (yes I started that young). I’m going for a career change but I have zero experience in a corporate/modern office setting. I am also self taught. It will be a huge change, and I’m concerned that I may not be hireable. All that being said I’m still going for it as I’d like the rest of my working days actually helping society instead of old white dudes and their boats haha. I’m looking into security/osint.
    - happyopossum 4y ago
      > I’m looking into security/osint. If you can breathe, spell cybersecurity, and have decent grooming standards, you can get hired in security. The 3rd is technically optional... Get training, then take a crappy SOC level 1 analyst job to get exposure and experience - the hiring standards aren't a lot higher than your average call center at a lot of them, as we have a ~1.5M headcount gap in the industry. You will burn out or move up in 9-12 months just like all the other L1s, but you will either figure out it's not for you or you'll be able to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder.
    - 4y ago
toss1 4y ago
YES!! If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic. That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted). And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT. The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time. Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.". So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.). Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it.
- 4y ago
NikolaNovak 4y ago
I agree with some points of it. However, some people (loosely correlated with age but not strictly) have more unavoidable responsibilities than others. For a very prosaic example, a person without mortgage and kids, all other things equal will have inherently less responsibilities than one with mortgage and kids (while both still have options in principle). Empathy is a massive skill I've been learning late in life; reluctance to embark on a change may be a factor of internal confidence, external advice or validation, but also of specific circumstances that those of us being asked opinions may or may not fully share, understand, empathize with. I've been learning to ask follow-up questions before answering very broad inquiries for thoughts and advice: What's your situation, constraints, drive, interest, priorities, goals?
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  It doesn’t significantly change my advice and was actually already factored in my answer. Your obligations are your own. If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. It’s not about empathy. My point is that inherently there are no advices to be had on life choices. Just do what you want to do, decide to try or decide you don’t want to. There are no right and wrong general answers here. A bunch of strangers on the internet can’t give someone permission or an excuse.
  - Silverback_VII 4y ago
    >If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. In my personal experience the greatest challenge is always oneself and not external factors. So your advice to drop all self-help is wrong in my opinion. There are people who made it against all odds and their mindset may crave the necesseary pathways in your brain as well. I would even say that the more the odds are stacked against you the more you should try because there are few things as impressive.
    - Retric 4y ago
      I personally suspect more people are harmed by self help books etc than helped. Which circles back to the kind of advice I would give someone. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming reading advice is inherently beneficial but it needs to result in some net positive behaviors or it’s just wasting time, money, and mental effort.
david422 4y ago
> those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. Yea, I've realized that if I want to do something - some goal - if you don't literally _just do it_ then odds of it happening become slimmer and slimmer.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  To quote my old trainer, "the weight's not gonna lift itself."
anderspitman 4y ago
> drop Gladwell and self-help books The advice I like is "read them until they all sound the same".
tomthumb 4y ago
Words of wisdom! I have tweeted your first paragraph. Hope you don’t mind..
balaji1 4y ago
it is a good point to suggest to take more action. But to make significant progress, requires thinking thru the next 5-10 moves and committing to them and putting in consistent effort -- do any books discuss that? A change shouldn't be just hoping that you "end up at the right place at the right time" this time. That is rare.
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
Everywhere, no matter education, wealth or resources in general. DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. DOers are those we read about all the time. Sometimes they are great other times they are not but at least they did something to find out. You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone.
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  >DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. Especially if they are already rich. >DOers are those we read about all the time. Because nobody wants to hear about the DOer that failed and ruined his/her life. >You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone. And maybe they had a great family and their name will be remembered in the family for generations as the "founder" of the family. Almost a mythological figure.
rajeshp1986 4y ago
Great answer. I realized this pretty recently that I have been thinking a lot of doing things and never getting to it. I joined a startup and seeing every having the "do things" mentality made me realize this.

michaelcao 4y ago

Good advice. Thanks. I don't read self-help books. I believe in learning by practice

j3th9n 4y ago

This.

jrm4 4y ago

100%. There are so many things that you can read or theorize about for years, in depth -- that end up still being very different once you actually do them. Just gotta try stuff.

overgrownzygote 4y ago
Over-analyzing has always been a huge struggle of mine, and your comment reminded me of a few times in my life where actually doing things taught me something important: 1. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer through most of college. I took tons of law-related courses, did a few internships, and then realized I strongly disliked actually doing it once I got my first job in the field. Thankfully, I figured it out before going to law school. 2. I studied abroad in Kenya basically on a whim. I realized my penultimate semester of college that I’d managed to get all my graduation requirements done a semester early and somehow not noticed, and decided I’d take the last semester to have a little adventure. It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. 3. At the start of lockdown in 2020, I took CS50 basically because I was bored and a friend was doing it. I had never even considered studying CS before that point, and now here I am getting my ducks in a row to do an OSU post-bacc. I suppose the throughline here is that life is full of unknown unknowns, and unknown unknowns, by definition, aren’t something you can think about and factor into your decision-making process. Just like you said — sometimes you just gotta try stuff.
- jrm4 4y ago
  Weird and interesting parallels: I quite enjoyed law school, did a few internships and practiced for a few years before mostly realizing the same thing, and still I have no regrets because things turned out well. I took CS50 when it was probably very different (Brian Kernighan, the creator of C, teaching C) Roughly, I ended up as a Chair of a Masters in IT program. Not doing that part anymore, but still a full time non-tenure teaching professor. (What technically, as in according to the rules of academia, qualifies me for all this, is the law degree. Weird. I'll take it!

hesdeadjim 4y ago

Agree 100%. Either do it or dont’t, otherwise you’ll be wondering if it’s too late to change in another ten years. Anytime someone asks me how I made the leap to building startups the answer is pretty simple: failure doesn’t scare me that much, I have failed many times, but I’ve learned and don’t repeat (most) mistakes. That and I hate anyone telling me what to do. YMMV.

luisfmh 4y ago
Reminds me of the classic yoda quote "do or do not there is no try".

andrew_ 4y ago

The older I get the more I recognize that most of the people I've encountered, in one way or another, have a great lack of confidence and courage.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
Meh. You can be as confident as you like, if people won't take on staff as "juniors" who are older, then the whole process of retraining - wrt career change - has been a waste of time. I've never been involved in corporate HR, I'd want advice. Similarly, if I was doing a bungee jump for the first time I'd ask someone to check my harness ... (to spell it out, you seem to be berating someone for doing a reality check, as if reality [of the jobs market] were open to someone to define individually; ignorance and confidence can be easily confused)
- ghost-towels 4y ago
  This is pretty much where I’m at. I’m mid 40s and been working in the marine industry for almost 30 years (yes I started that young). I’m going for a career change but I have zero experience in a corporate/modern office setting. I am also self taught. It will be a huge change, and I’m concerned that I may not be hireable. All that being said I’m still going for it as I’d like the rest of my working days actually helping society instead of old white dudes and their boats haha. I’m looking into security/osint.
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    > I’m looking into security/osint. If you can breathe, spell cybersecurity, and have decent grooming standards, you can get hired in security. The 3rd is technically optional... Get training, then take a crappy SOC level 1 analyst job to get exposure and experience - the hiring standards aren't a lot higher than your average call center at a lot of them, as we have a ~1.5M headcount gap in the industry. You will burn out or move up in 9-12 months just like all the other L1s, but you will either figure out it's not for you or you'll be able to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder.
  - 4y ago

toss1 4y ago

YES!! If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic. That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted). And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT. The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time. Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.". So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.). Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it.

4y ago

NikolaNovak 4y ago

I agree with some points of it. However, some people (loosely correlated with age but not strictly) have more unavoidable responsibilities than others. For a very prosaic example, a person without mortgage and kids, all other things equal will have inherently less responsibilities than one with mortgage and kids (while both still have options in principle). Empathy is a massive skill I've been learning late in life; reluctance to embark on a change may be a factor of internal confidence, external advice or validation, but also of specific circumstances that those of us being asked opinions may or may not fully share, understand, empathize with. I've been learning to ask follow-up questions before answering very broad inquiries for thoughts and advice: What's your situation, constraints, drive, interest, priorities, goals?

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
It doesn’t significantly change my advice and was actually already factored in my answer. Your obligations are your own. If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. It’s not about empathy. My point is that inherently there are no advices to be had on life choices. Just do what you want to do, decide to try or decide you don’t want to. There are no right and wrong general answers here. A bunch of strangers on the internet can’t give someone permission or an excuse.
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
  >If you can’t afford to change, that answers the question. In my personal experience the greatest challenge is always oneself and not external factors. So your advice to drop all self-help is wrong in my opinion. There are people who made it against all odds and their mindset may crave the necesseary pathways in your brain as well. I would even say that the more the odds are stacked against you the more you should try because there are few things as impressive.
  - Retric 4y ago
    I personally suspect more people are harmed by self help books etc than helped. Which circles back to the kind of advice I would give someone. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming reading advice is inherently beneficial but it needs to result in some net positive behaviors or it’s just wasting time, money, and mental effort.

david422 4y ago

> those who do things and those who keep wondering if they should have done things. Yea, I've realized that if I want to do something - some goal - if you don't literally _just do it_ then odds of it happening become slimmer and slimmer.

dehrmann 4y ago
To quote my old trainer, "the weight's not gonna lift itself."

anderspitman 4y ago

> drop Gladwell and self-help books The advice I like is "read them until they all sound the same".

tomthumb 4y ago

Words of wisdom! I have tweeted your first paragraph. Hope you don’t mind..

balaji1 4y ago

it is a good point to suggest to take more action. But to make significant progress, requires thinking thru the next 5-10 moves and committing to them and putting in consistent effort -- do any books discuss that? A change shouldn't be just hoping that you "end up at the right place at the right time" this time. That is rare.

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

Everywhere, no matter education, wealth or resources in general. DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. DOers are those we read about all the time. Sometimes they are great other times they are not but at least they did something to find out. You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone.

annyeonghada 4y ago
>DOers will always come out ahead. Not do it once but acting on your ideas regularly. Yes, some ideas will go wrong but at least you know the out come. Especially if they are already rich. >DOers are those we read about all the time. Because nobody wants to hear about the DOer that failed and ruined his/her life. >You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone. And maybe they had a great family and their name will be remembered in the family for generations as the "founder" of the family. Almost a mythological figure.

rajeshp1986 4y ago

Great answer. I realized this pretty recently that I have been thinking a lot of doing things and never getting to it. I joined a startup and seeing every having the "do things" mentality made me realize this.