4 ms·

Less Everything - Taking Risks

25 points by auston 17y ago

msluyter 17y ago
Lots of selective memory and faulty reasoning here. Take his first example: "Took art classes in high school instead of working out with the football team. I design for a living now." It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice you might make, but consider the alternative. Had he chosen football instead of art he might be looking back thankfully that the decision lead him down the path to becoming an NFL star, or sports announcer, or whatever. Similarly, the folks who took risks, ignored the common wisdom, and failed miserably may not be writing blog posts extolling risk taking and ignoring the common wisdom. IMHO there's no sound generalization to make about risk. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not, and plenty depends on our attitude towards it.
- arnorhs 17y ago
  "It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice" It's not only easy, the brain is probably very eager to do this all the time, so that we'll feel the last 5,10,20,50 years of our life wasn't a complete waste of time
  - msluyter 17y ago
    Yes. The book Stumbling on Happiness discusses this a lot, and I highly recommend it.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I posit that people who can't convince themselves that most of their life decisions, no matter how arbitrary, turned out good in the end are depressed.
    - lessallan 17y ago
      Scott that's an really interesting perspective.
- ewjordan 17y ago
  Had he chosen football instead of art he might be looking back thankfully that the decision lead him down the path to becoming an NFL star, or sports announcer, or whatever. The likelihood of football leading directly to a career path (rather than through connections obtained while playing) is far lower than the similar probability for art, though - there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that directly use art skills, whereas the number of football jobs is far lower (even if we include high school coaching in the equation). In that sense, doing art is really the "safe" option, at least compared to playing football. It only feels less safe because in high school playing football is a lot more respected than doing art.
  - techiferous 17y ago
    One reason that hindsight makes us feel good about our past decisions is that we change the rules of the game when we look back. Sure, the likelihood of football leading directly to a career path is far lower than art, but if the football choice was made, he may look back and say, "I'm so glad I chose not to get into the career rat race and follow my football dreams instead..."
  - Retric 17y ago
    If he had played football in high school he could have met a life long friend. Or gotten a free ride to an OK collage. Or simply had a lot of fun at the time. Looking only at the positive outcomes it's easy to look back on arbitrary choices and think you made the correct one because there are many outcomes that could be considered positive. Heck he could have become injured and still think it was a good choice, because he learned he was not invincible at a young age and focused on living a healthy life.
  - jonnycoder 17y ago
    I chose to work out and play h.s. football. I'm a developer at Intel, so maybe I learned a lot of discipline playing football? Or maybe I'm more inclined to do corporate work... "It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice"
    - lessallan 17y ago
- jlees 17y ago
  There's also something about the type of risk taken here. Taking art over football isn't exactly a major risk. It's a choice, and perhaps one that went against the prevailing wind, but it seems to me more like this guy is advocating 'do what you want'/'follow your gut instinct no matter what people say', rather than 'take risks' per se. I'm totally all for doing what feels right, but you gotta admit, sometimes people are looking at you funny because the decision you're making is a bad one.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  Are there good resources for tales of failure? It's easy to find books and articles on people who made it, but not so for the losers.
- j_baker 17y ago
  "IMHO there's no sound generalization to make about risk." Sure there is: if you never take them, you'll be mediocre. Conversely, you can't be good without taking risks. Of course, it's stupid to claim that you should always take risks. For instance, I feel that playing Russian Roulette won't make you great. In fact, I'd say it's downright stupid.
arnorhs 17y ago
Is he asking for our approval of him buying that Lincoln Continental? And why is that risky? Might not be dead-center-mainstream.. but a lot of people still buy old cars like that. Maybe people around him feel strangely about it since it might be out of character? I don't know, has the author owned any other old vehicles? Sorry if I'm being too critical here
- briancooley 17y ago
  I think he was just using it as a nice lede. And he had a picture.
  - lessallan 17y ago
    It's about breaking the trends. The classic car is just an example of what most people DON'T do. Most people think the safe choice is to purchase a vehicle with a warranty because they know what they're getting into.
Mongoose 17y ago
More of an interesting anecdote than evidence of a trend. Between name-dropping Seth Godin and mentioning how he eschewed football, this comes off as a linkbait appeal to the internet design crowd.
jksmith 17y ago
You can take risks with anything that you want to explore your limits with, be it with a business decision or a sport. I've absorbed a fairly substantial amount of risk financially with ventures, and that's actually a thrilling thing. I think the seed of that though came from the times I stepped out on the field knowing I was about to risk some serious injury because of some particular circumstances, then managing to scrape by on the thinnest margin.
jonnycoder 17y ago
His examples seem to be more about making choices than risks. I choose not to buy a new Prius because it's an insane waste of money compared to the used car I bought at 20k miles. I also felt my choice was better for the environment (30mpg highway on a used car, compared to 50mpg new car). His choice to buy that old car is a wise one, it will probably maintain value, while his expenses/maintenance will be lower on a car that's simpler to work on or buy parts for.
BigCanOfTuna 17y ago
How much of a risk is it to not follow a career that you don't like (he's says he wasn't passionate about football in his comments)? I'd say that was the appropriate decision, not risky. "5. Put in every dime I owned into Less Everything so Steve and I could change our piece of the internet." OK, maybe, but answer the following questions and then we can ascertain the amount of risk taken: 1. approximately how much money? 2. how old were you? 3. did you have a mortgage 4. were you married at the time 5. did you have children? I applaud his success, but we’re not really talking “Sell your parent’s farm for a 1 in a million chance” level of risk here, are we?

25 points by auston 17y ago

Lots of selective memory and faulty reasoning here. Take his first example: "Took art classes in high school instead of working out with the football team. I design for a living now." It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice you might make, but consider the alternative. Had he chosen football instead of art he might be looking back thankfully that the decision lead him down the path to becoming an NFL star, or sports announcer, or whatever. Similarly, the folks who took risks, ignored the common wisdom, and failed miserably may not be writing blog posts extolling risk taking and ignoring the common wisdom. IMHO there's no sound generalization to make about risk. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not, and plenty depends on our attitude towards it.

arnorhs 17y ago
"It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice" It's not only easy, the brain is probably very eager to do this all the time, so that we'll feel the last 5,10,20,50 years of our life wasn't a complete waste of time
- msluyter 17y ago
  Yes. The book Stumbling on Happiness discusses this a lot, and I highly recommend it.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I posit that people who can't convince themselves that most of their life decisions, no matter how arbitrary, turned out good in the end are depressed.
  - lessallan 17y ago
    Scott that's an really interesting perspective.
ewjordan 17y ago
Had he chosen football instead of art he might be looking back thankfully that the decision lead him down the path to becoming an NFL star, or sports announcer, or whatever. The likelihood of football leading directly to a career path (rather than through connections obtained while playing) is far lower than the similar probability for art, though - there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that directly use art skills, whereas the number of football jobs is far lower (even if we include high school coaching in the equation). In that sense, doing art is really the "safe" option, at least compared to playing football. It only feels less safe because in high school playing football is a lot more respected than doing art.
- techiferous 17y ago
  One reason that hindsight makes us feel good about our past decisions is that we change the rules of the game when we look back. Sure, the likelihood of football leading directly to a career path is far lower than art, but if the football choice was made, he may look back and say, "I'm so glad I chose not to get into the career rat race and follow my football dreams instead..."
- Retric 17y ago
  If he had played football in high school he could have met a life long friend. Or gotten a free ride to an OK collage. Or simply had a lot of fun at the time. Looking only at the positive outcomes it's easy to look back on arbitrary choices and think you made the correct one because there are many outcomes that could be considered positive. Heck he could have become injured and still think it was a good choice, because he learned he was not invincible at a young age and focused on living a healthy life.
- jonnycoder 17y ago
  I chose to work out and play h.s. football. I'm a developer at Intel, so maybe I learned a lot of discipline playing football? Or maybe I'm more inclined to do corporate work... "It's easy to retroactively give a positive interpretation to any life choice"
  - lessallan 17y ago
jlees 17y ago
There's also something about the type of risk taken here. Taking art over football isn't exactly a major risk. It's a choice, and perhaps one that went against the prevailing wind, but it seems to me more like this guy is advocating 'do what you want'/'follow your gut instinct no matter what people say', rather than 'take risks' per se. I'm totally all for doing what feels right, but you gotta admit, sometimes people are looking at you funny because the decision you're making is a bad one.
jamesbritt 17y ago
Are there good resources for tales of failure? It's easy to find books and articles on people who made it, but not so for the losers.
j_baker 17y ago
"IMHO there's no sound generalization to make about risk." Sure there is: if you never take them, you'll be mediocre. Conversely, you can't be good without taking risks. Of course, it's stupid to claim that you should always take risks. For instance, I feel that playing Russian Roulette won't make you great. In fact, I'd say it's downright stupid.

arnorhs 17y ago

Is he asking for our approval of him buying that Lincoln Continental? And why is that risky? Might not be dead-center-mainstream.. but a lot of people still buy old cars like that. Maybe people around him feel strangely about it since it might be out of character? I don't know, has the author owned any other old vehicles? Sorry if I'm being too critical here

briancooley 17y ago
I think he was just using it as a nice lede. And he had a picture.
- lessallan 17y ago
  It's about breaking the trends. The classic car is just an example of what most people DON'T do. Most people think the safe choice is to purchase a vehicle with a warranty because they know what they're getting into.

Mongoose 17y ago

More of an interesting anecdote than evidence of a trend. Between name-dropping Seth Godin and mentioning how he eschewed football, this comes off as a linkbait appeal to the internet design crowd.

jksmith 17y ago

You can take risks with anything that you want to explore your limits with, be it with a business decision or a sport. I've absorbed a fairly substantial amount of risk financially with ventures, and that's actually a thrilling thing. I think the seed of that though came from the times I stepped out on the field knowing I was about to risk some serious injury because of some particular circumstances, then managing to scrape by on the thinnest margin.

jonnycoder 17y ago

His examples seem to be more about making choices than risks. I choose not to buy a new Prius because it's an insane waste of money compared to the used car I bought at 20k miles. I also felt my choice was better for the environment (30mpg highway on a used car, compared to 50mpg new car). His choice to buy that old car is a wise one, it will probably maintain value, while his expenses/maintenance will be lower on a car that's simpler to work on or buy parts for.

BigCanOfTuna 17y ago

How much of a risk is it to not follow a career that you don't like (he's says he wasn't passionate about football in his comments)? I'd say that was the appropriate decision, not risky. "5. Put in every dime I owned into Less Everything so Steve and I could change our piece of the internet." OK, maybe, but answer the following questions and then we can ascertain the amount of risk taken: 1. approximately how much money? 2. how old were you? 3. did you have a mortgage 4. were you married at the time 5. did you have children? I applaud his success, but we’re not really talking “Sell your parent’s farm for a 1 in a million chance” level of risk here, are we?