The Worst Interview Question

Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

And expecting a concrete answer.

If you are able to give a tangible answer to that question, chances are you aren't stretching yourself.

The only good answer to that question is doing something you're passionate about, making a legitimate impact on the world and absolutely crushing it. However, it is impossible to know what your passions will be that far down the road, and with the way things are going, chances are that it doesn't even exist today.

Just think about 10 years ago... what a funny idea this Mark Zuckerberg guy has with this little thing called The Facebook, Blackberry is crushing it but what the hell is this Android and iPhone thing you speak of, and this is me looking like someone who will never diet, pick up a weight or do cardio of any sorts.

So if you hear that question, go ahead and give them the old jedi hand wave and a "This is not the question you are looking for."

Success: is it in the Middle or the Extremes?

What separates a great wait staff from a great menu?

A great wait staff should consistently execute at a very high level, but there should be no surprises. An amazing customer experience is defined more by the lack of things going wrong than by anything truly exceptional happening; get my order right, be knowledgable, be on top of the drinks, smile a little bit and don't spill on my lap and we will be all good.

While the execution of a great menu should be very consistent, the items themselves are an entirely different story. In order for a menu to be truly exceptional, you better accept the fact that some people will thoroughly hate it... everybody leaves McDonalds content with the food.

The secret to success in the weightroom? Get there consistently and make yourself a little bit better than you were last time... it's not about getting there once a month and destroying yourself that one time.

How do people look pretty damn good all year round? They have a great idea of how much they are eating and don't sweat a little chocolate or beer... they don't alternate super strict(depending on your goals, some periods of super strictness may be called for) and binging days.

The mark of a truly shitty live band? Everybody leaving saying it was pretty good. I want to see a band lay everything on the line, that means I should leave with my jaw on the floor... either because it is the most epic thing I have ever seen or because it was utterly attrocious.

In a presidential race among a unanimously liked candidate and 2 candidates despised by half the country and adored by the other half, the unanimously liked candidate will lose every time.

Finding where success exists in a situation doesn't guarantee success, but missing where it exists guarantees failure.

Hustle

The internet is a wonderful thing, particularly in its ability to lower the barrier of entry for many things, particularly retail and education.

Just over a decade ago,  if someone wanted to start a retail clothing business, they would need money for the physical space of the store, inventory, and potentially a warehouse. Now, they can get up and running with Shopify in a matter of minutes and start with minimal(if any) inventory.

Higher education is another thing that the internet is beginning to revolutionize(but still has an insane amount of room for growth). While I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the University of Illinois, I felt like most of the truly meaningful learning I did was done outside the classroom. Many online(some are physical as well, but the internet as allowed them to reach their potential students) micro-colleges and trade schools are popping up such as Designation(started by my good friend, Kevin), Bloc and G-school to remove all of the fluff from the university experience, at a greatly reduced cost.

However, now that money is removed as a barrier of entry, the winners in society are no longer going to come from affluent families... your ability to out-hustle is going to be the determining factor in success in life.

While I know it may sound hypocritical posting about ass-in-chair syndrome and then today posting about the hustlers coming out on top in life, what I am trying to point out is that it is not just the quantity of time put into hustling, but the quality; when I said I just put in 3-5 hours, that is just time put into uninterrupted development related tasks, that doesn't include time put into design work, reading(for the sake of intellectual stimulation, not for the facade of doing), writing, cooking and training, all of which are skills I am also working on bettering.

If you don't have the life you want, you can no longer blame it on your upbringing, as anyone has the ability to hustle.

Read Things You Disagree With

Many of us are guilty of reading things which only confirm biases that we previously held. It is very easy to do so because knowing that others agree with what you think is a rather uplifting experience.

However, just living in Boulder, Colorado is uplifting enough; so I expect (some of) the books I read to provide more than just a fuzzy feeling, I want them to push me intellectually.

The best way to do that is to start reading things that disagree with ideas that I currently believe to be true, both things I have good reason to believe as well as things I hold as dogma.

The 4-Hour Workweek and Walden were the first 2 books I read that challenged the beliefs of what I held as societal dogma: buy insanely large homes and materialistic possessions that we don't really need, work insanely long hours to pay for those things, and then buy even more shit that we don't need to compensate for the depression of working long hours.

In contrast, Nassim Nicolas Taleb's The Black Swan is a very heavy read(well so is Walden) that challenges many deeply seated scientific beliefs, all of which have plenty of evidence in their favor, or,  in some cases, simply lack of evidence against(which Taleb repeatedly points out is not evidence for).

One argument in particular really challenged my beliefs(and one which I had plenty of evidence to support) is his disagreement with the globalization of economies, large size of banks and the internet. As an engineer, efficiency is usually what I am trying to optimize, and there is no arguing against the massive efficiency and price reduction that can be gained through globalization of the economy. However, Taleb points out that when it fails, the massive coupling will ripple through the entire system, as opposed to being isolated in the location that it originated.

Do I still think the internet and global economy are amazing? Yes.

I just hope they don't fail in my lifetime. 

Ass-In-Chair Syndrome

I hava a confession... I used to consider myself a workaholic, and wear it around like a badge of honor.

In college, you could frequently find me in the lab or the library on a Friday night.

The weirdest part was that I actually enjoyed being on my high horse of feeling like I was doing things that others weren't.

Slowly though, I started noticing a few people here and there were getting the same output as me, while spending significantly less time doing so.

So, I decided to fire myself.

Now, instead of pulling marathon working sessions. I typically put in a daily 3-5 hour sprint, or however long I feel like I can fully immerse myself in a topic without letting my mind wander off.

And I am getting just as much, if not more, accomplished.

Now that I think about it, I wasn't really a workaholic, I just suffered from a giant case of ass-in-chair-syndrome.

Dual Faces of Anonymity

"My idea, XYZ, would be so much more successful... I just need to figure out how to let everybody know about it." - Many, many, many people

Everybody and every idea starts out as anonymous to all but a handful of people, but, unfortunately many people want to rush through this phase.

I have always been slightly perplexed by that... seeing as the beginning is always wrought with failures and fuck-ups. Just as babies fall down over and over while they are beginning to walk, companies are bound to face analogous pitfalls in the beginning of their life. I would much rather face those growing pains in the comfort of my anonymous living room(which is why I am completely ok having all of 2 readers), than in the shining limelight of Hollywood Boulevard.

This face of anonymity brings out the best in people, it allows them to grow organically without fear of being eating alive.

The other face of anonymity consists of people and actions that are voluntarily anonymous... think of the many internet trolls on the faceless internet forums. Now think about the decrease in trolling, bad advice, malicious activity or even crooked politics, if those people couldn't hide behind a username and had to operate with complete transparency, if all of that dirt would follow them around for the world to see.

This face of anonymity brings out the worst in people, it allows people to manipulate others without fear of repercussion.

First 500 Pound Bench Press

In the 1950s, Doug Hepburn became the first man to bench press 500 pounds. The bench press, in its current manifestation, had been around for about half a century up until that point, but up until Doug came around, nobody had even benched 400, let alone 500.

Nowadays, many people bench 500, and Eric Spoto now holds the raw bench press record at 722 pounds, but the trend remains the same... many people theorize that some milestone is not possible, until the first person breaks through that milestone, and in come the wave of people to follow.

Innovation occurs the same way, many people have ideas, but think it is impossible or too difficult to bring into fruition, but flood gates of copycats open up as soon as the original is released.

If you have an idea(or want to be the first 750 pound bencher), go for it, because even if you don't believe it can be done, you better believe someone else will.