Question. If you want to learn to swim, do you think you would learn faster by standing around the pool watching others swim or by jumping in?
Hopefully, you answered jumping in.
However, I can understand if you answered watching others. Sometimes, it is easy to feel the need to know everything before even beginning. Unfortunately, for anything more complicated than brewing a pot of coffee, knowing everything before getting started is utterly impossible, leaving you perpetually on the side of the pool.
Most of the things you pick up while trying not to drown.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
The Best Piece of Advice I Ever Received
Back in the Summer of 2012, I was an intern at Qualcomm's Boulder office. My internship was almost over, so I put some time on my calendar to go chat with some of Senior-Staff/Director level folks who had been around for a while, to get a feel for their experience throughout their years with the company.
One chat really stuck out in my mind. That chat was with my team lead, Tim. Tim was a Senior-Staff manager who had been around as long as, if not longer, than the Directors at the Boulder office.
During our chat, he seemed particularly animated about one decision that could have put him at a much higher level. Midway through his career at Qualcomm, he got approached to switch teams from his current team(the first team he led) to a brand new, promising yet experimental team.
He was comfortable with his current team, so he decided to stay there.
That new team now makes up the majority of the current business.
His piece of advice: "If given the choice, the comfortable choice is usually the wrong one."
One chat really stuck out in my mind. That chat was with my team lead, Tim. Tim was a Senior-Staff manager who had been around as long as, if not longer, than the Directors at the Boulder office.
During our chat, he seemed particularly animated about one decision that could have put him at a much higher level. Midway through his career at Qualcomm, he got approached to switch teams from his current team(the first team he led) to a brand new, promising yet experimental team.
He was comfortable with his current team, so he decided to stay there.
That new team now makes up the majority of the current business.
His piece of advice: "If given the choice, the comfortable choice is usually the wrong one."
Monday, April 28, 2014
Building Sh*t
The hardest part about building shit is getting started.
The second hardest part about building shit: finishing.
The second hardest part about building shit: finishing.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Perfect Practice
"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." - Vince Lombardi
Practice is easy.
Mindlessly going over the pentatonic scales, or copying examples from a programming book is practice.
Learning your favorite bands' songs or looking through open source projects is a little better, but, alas, still just practice.
Taking what you know and applying it to writing your own music or programming projects is getting really close. But its still just practice.
Now, take the result of the previous step, and show it to a mentor or a group of knowledgable people and have them critique it. Have a meaningful conversation with them as to why the various pieces don't fit, truly internalizing why it doesn't work(this will probably involve digging deeper into theory or programming language, or drawing from examples of other musicians or open source code), and hammer the jenky pieces until they are flawless.
Perfect practice is a bitch.
When I was younger, I never made it past playing mindless pentatonic scales and learning easy parts of songs.
I still have plenty of jenky pieces left in powerlifting, bodybuilding, and software development but at least I am hammering in the right pieces.
Practice is easy.
Mindlessly going over the pentatonic scales, or copying examples from a programming book is practice.
Learning your favorite bands' songs or looking through open source projects is a little better, but, alas, still just practice.
Taking what you know and applying it to writing your own music or programming projects is getting really close. But its still just practice.
Now, take the result of the previous step, and show it to a mentor or a group of knowledgable people and have them critique it. Have a meaningful conversation with them as to why the various pieces don't fit, truly internalizing why it doesn't work(this will probably involve digging deeper into theory or programming language, or drawing from examples of other musicians or open source code), and hammer the jenky pieces until they are flawless.
Perfect practice is a bitch.
When I was younger, I never made it past playing mindless pentatonic scales and learning easy parts of songs.
I still have plenty of jenky pieces left in powerlifting, bodybuilding, and software development but at least I am hammering in the right pieces.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Choices
Ham or bacon(or sausage or steak or ...)?
Vanilla or chocolate(or twix or chocolate waffle cone or ...)?
Apple or Samsung(or HTC or Sony or ...)?
Pre-med or Engineering(or Philosophy or Underwater Basket-weaving or ...)?
Our choices are seemingly endless, essentially paralyzing our decision making from sheer information overload.
I saw a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon Cooper demonstrated exactly this... and he only have to choose between 2 items: the Xbox One or the PS4. A tough decision indeed.
Fortunately, all that competition to be the best has created a vast surplus of things that are good enough. Any smart phone we get will be able to make calls, send world-class selfies, and run candy crush until our fingers bleed. Any car we purchase will get us from point a to point b, have decent gas mileage and probably not spontaneously combust.
We(I am definitely guilty of this!) all need to learn to take less time on decisions where good enough will suffice so we can spend time on making the choices that truly matter: what am I looking for in a partner, where do I want to live, what do I want to do for a career, and who do I want to spend my limited time with.
Oh, and Xbox One or PS4.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Labels
When can you label yourself a bodybuilder?
When can you label yourself a powerlifter?
When can you label yourself a surgeon?
Is it when you first start caring about what food you put in your mouth? How about when you really start caring, when you stress over every little detail?
Is it when you pick up your first weight? How about about when your lifts start reaching some arbitrarily large number?
Is it when you pick up your first biology book? How about your first day in med school?
No, in my opinion, none of those things will qualify you as a bodybuilder, powerlifter or surgeon. You don't earn those labels until you put yourself out on a limb, completely vulnerable.
You're not a bodybuilder until you step on stage, rocking the banana hammock for the whole world to see. No more hiding those last 5 pounds or touch-ups with instagram filters.
You're not a powerlifter until you suit up in the singlet, putting your lifts at the discretion of the 3 judges and lights. No more hiding that "parallel" squat, touch-and-go bench press and hitched deadlift.
And you're certainly not a surgeon until you operate on your first patient, accepting full responsibility that this is a real person's life on the line. No more hiding behind textbooks and cadavers.
As Ronnie Coleman is famous for saying, "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilda, but don't nobody wanna put on the banana hammock." Or something like that.
When can you label yourself a powerlifter?
When can you label yourself a surgeon?
Is it when you first start caring about what food you put in your mouth? How about when you really start caring, when you stress over every little detail?
Is it when you pick up your first weight? How about about when your lifts start reaching some arbitrarily large number?
Is it when you pick up your first biology book? How about your first day in med school?
No, in my opinion, none of those things will qualify you as a bodybuilder, powerlifter or surgeon. You don't earn those labels until you put yourself out on a limb, completely vulnerable.
You're not a bodybuilder until you step on stage, rocking the banana hammock for the whole world to see. No more hiding those last 5 pounds or touch-ups with instagram filters.
You're not a powerlifter until you suit up in the singlet, putting your lifts at the discretion of the 3 judges and lights. No more hiding that "parallel" squat, touch-and-go bench press and hitched deadlift.
And you're certainly not a surgeon until you operate on your first patient, accepting full responsibility that this is a real person's life on the line. No more hiding behind textbooks and cadavers.
As Ronnie Coleman is famous for saying, "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilda, but don't nobody wanna put on the banana hammock." Or something like that.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
The Badass Economy
Even though we already have our fair share of coined economies(Sharing Economy, Connection Economy, Thank You Economy, to name a few), I feel compelled to add another, because why not.
I dub it: The Badass Economy.
As a millennial, my main criteria when looking for a job is the degree of impact I will be able to make on the world, the amount of training available, and amount of challenge the job presents. Essentially, I am looking for a job where I will be more badass each day.
Obviously, employers are looking for only the most badass employers. The whole purpose of the interview process is to answer the question: is this person badass?
Companies even have formal badass ratings given to them by investment banks: their valuation.
Finally, consumers buy products for the sole purpose of becoming more badass. Those new clothes put a pep in our step, that new gaming machine renders pixels just a little faster, and obviously we all want to lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle without breaking a sweat.
Even beating a level in Candy Crush leaves us feeling just a tad more badass, it even compels us to tell our friends on Facebook exactly how badass we are. Speaking of Facebook, social networks even have more metrics to determine your badass rating: number of friends, followers, and they even allow the "influencers" to have their own fan pages and verified pages(obviously, they are so badass that people would want to pretend to be them).
Okay, maybe some of that was a stretch, but there are definitely worse goals than making ourselves and the world around us just a little more badass.
I dub it: The Badass Economy.
As a millennial, my main criteria when looking for a job is the degree of impact I will be able to make on the world, the amount of training available, and amount of challenge the job presents. Essentially, I am looking for a job where I will be more badass each day.
Obviously, employers are looking for only the most badass employers. The whole purpose of the interview process is to answer the question: is this person badass?
Companies even have formal badass ratings given to them by investment banks: their valuation.
Finally, consumers buy products for the sole purpose of becoming more badass. Those new clothes put a pep in our step, that new gaming machine renders pixels just a little faster, and obviously we all want to lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle without breaking a sweat.
Even beating a level in Candy Crush leaves us feeling just a tad more badass, it even compels us to tell our friends on Facebook exactly how badass we are. Speaking of Facebook, social networks even have more metrics to determine your badass rating: number of friends, followers, and they even allow the "influencers" to have their own fan pages and verified pages(obviously, they are so badass that people would want to pretend to be them).
Okay, maybe some of that was a stretch, but there are definitely worse goals than making ourselves and the world around us just a little more badass.
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