5 ms·

Personally I am very surprised you think some of these held up: pos mental attitude, writing things down, value of mba, and - most especially - almost anyone ca

by edw519 4y ago

Personally I am very surprised you think some of these held up: pos mental attitude, writing things down, value of mba, and - most especially - almost anyone can do anything. OK then please allow me to give you a recent example of ALL 4 OF THESE that made my (Fortune 50) employer hundreds of millions of dollars in real profits... I built specialized supply chain software that did what nothing else (including SAP and JDA) could do. It supported 10,000 daily orders in 240 warehouses. Our Big 4 Accounting Idiots spent 9 months and $2 million to conclude that it could not be done. I knew better because my users knew better. (I had already earned my own worthless MBA and had worked as an employee for the same Big 4 firm years prior and knew their weaknesses, which were not hard to spot.) 3 different divisions could not agree on anything. I just pulled them together in the same room at corporate headquarters until they got to know each other and hammered out a good design. I built the prototype in 6 weeks because I knew I could. I got buy-in from the people that mattered because it's what they wanted in the first place. 12 offshore programmers built production ready software in less than a year. Everyone else had given up on them and their giant firm because of previous failures but I knew better. I never met any of them, in person or online (because of the time zone difference). Everything was written down. That's the only way this could have been done. The 20 items I presented in my original post are solid gold. Not because of me. But because I learned from brilliant mentors. Personally I am very surprised that you are are very surprised. The tech only takes us so far. I was lucky to have mentors who taught me the soft stuff too. Their advice changed my life much more than any tech advice. Hope this helps. :-)

club_tropical 4y ago
Appreciate the example. We remain drawing different conclusions from it, but this further explanation will benefit many readers, so thank you.
- Nomentatus 4y ago
  Thank you for your politesse. Human language is a crude tool. There are always tradeoffs with the words we choose. "Anyone can do Anything" is a good mnemonic (the alliteration really helps) which takes away any excuses (not a bad thing, in my case.) Still, it does sacrifice literal truth. There are no four-year-olds in the NFL, for example. "If you think you can't do something, you can't." Is another way I've heard the same thought expressed. Maybe even more semantically respectable would be "Almost everyone who decides they can't do something, is wrong." The native american expression is one I like a lot: "If you don't know how to do something, that's because you don't want it enough."
  - club_tropical 4y ago
    This still assumes a level of human equality that is belied in reality. Most people that are living good and healthy lives do not do so as a result of basic aptitude + wanting + grinding (1) it out. They are more like a particular type of seed that moved about different soils until it found one it could flourish in. Anyone can do anything-ism implies that a watermelon seed can flourish in a rice field if it “wants enough”. (1) grinding is a particular type of experience that deserves explanation. It is not merely working at something- it is the subjective personal experience of the work. I can code for an hour and be psychologically rejuvenated by it and my cousin could feel like she was in a prison for months. You will never grind your way to a satisfactory life; grinding is a symptom that you need to change the “soil” and that the “want” you have was memed into you and is unsuitable for you.
    - Nomentatus 4y ago
      I"m over 65, I don't think you'll ever get to a truly satisfactory life without some grinding at self-introspection. Meditation is nothing if not a very deliberate grind. You can grind badly and not get a result from meditation, but you can't get a good result from meditation without grinding. A lot. Otherwise, I think we are agreeing, neither I nor the guy I'm in effect defending think that soils (privilege, fer instance) don't matter, or that humans aren't unequal. Four-year-old blocking not equal to 24-year-old blocking. I think I covered that. There are sometimes advantages in not being fully literal, which is lucky because language cannot but be vague (it's just a matter of degree.) Hence the tradeoffs, impressing the message firmly matters because the temptation to give ourselves excuses is difficult to fully elide.

by edw519 4y ago

club_tropical 4y ago

Appreciate the example. We remain drawing different conclusions from it, but this further explanation will benefit many readers, so thank you.

Nomentatus 4y ago
Thank you for your politesse. Human language is a crude tool. There are always tradeoffs with the words we choose. "Anyone can do Anything" is a good mnemonic (the alliteration really helps) which takes away any excuses (not a bad thing, in my case.) Still, it does sacrifice literal truth. There are no four-year-olds in the NFL, for example. "If you think you can't do something, you can't." Is another way I've heard the same thought expressed. Maybe even more semantically respectable would be "Almost everyone who decides they can't do something, is wrong." The native american expression is one I like a lot: "If you don't know how to do something, that's because you don't want it enough."
- club_tropical 4y ago
  This still assumes a level of human equality that is belied in reality. Most people that are living good and healthy lives do not do so as a result of basic aptitude + wanting + grinding (1) it out. They are more like a particular type of seed that moved about different soils until it found one it could flourish in. Anyone can do anything-ism implies that a watermelon seed can flourish in a rice field if it “wants enough”. (1) grinding is a particular type of experience that deserves explanation. It is not merely working at something- it is the subjective personal experience of the work. I can code for an hour and be psychologically rejuvenated by it and my cousin could feel like she was in a prison for months. You will never grind your way to a satisfactory life; grinding is a symptom that you need to change the “soil” and that the “want” you have was memed into you and is unsuitable for you.
  - Nomentatus 4y ago
    I"m over 65, I don't think you'll ever get to a truly satisfactory life without some grinding at self-introspection. Meditation is nothing if not a very deliberate grind. You can grind badly and not get a result from meditation, but you can't get a good result from meditation without grinding. A lot. Otherwise, I think we are agreeing, neither I nor the guy I'm in effect defending think that soils (privilege, fer instance) don't matter, or that humans aren't unequal. Four-year-old blocking not equal to 24-year-old blocking. I think I covered that. There are sometimes advantages in not being fully literal, which is lucky because language cannot but be vague (it's just a matter of degree.) Hence the tradeoffs, impressing the message firmly matters because the temptation to give ourselves excuses is difficult to fully elide.