I haven’t been posting as regularly the past ~2 months or so—was out of the country for a month, and was busy with some things. Just to quickly add this gem I found today by Seth Godin. Coding, programming, developing, writing software, or whatever you want to call it, is creative work. And real artists ship. Ship it, damn it!
I think I found myself feeling guilty on at least 2 counts from watching this short video. Check it out!
“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”
From “Personal Renewal” by John Gardner, posted on PBS. It’s a long post, but full of gems:
“We tend to think of youth and the active middle years as the years of commitment. As you get a little older, you’re told you’ve earned the right to think about yourself. But that’s a deadly prescription! People of every age need commitments beyond the self, need the meaning that commitments provide. Self-preoccupation is a prison, as every self-absorbed person finally knows. Commitments to larger purposes can get you out of prison.
Another significant ingredient in motivation is one’s attitude toward the future. Optimism is unfashionable today, particularly among intellectuals. Everyone makes fun of it. Someone said “Pessimists got that way by financing optimists.” But I am not pessimistic and I advise you not to be. As the fellow said, “I’d be a pessimist but it would never work.”
I can tell you that for renewal, a tough-minded optimism is best. The future is not shaped by people who don’t really believe in the future. Men and women of vitality have always been prepared to bet their futures, even their lives, on ventures of unknown outcome. If they had all looked before they leaped, we would still be crouched in caves sketching animal pictures on the wall,”
“You’ve known such people — feeling secretly defeated, maybe somewhat sour and cynical, or perhaps just vaguely dispirited. Or maybe they just ran so hard for so long that somewhere along the line they forgot what it was they were running for [...] Life is hard. Just to keep on keeping on is sometimes an act of courage.”
“We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by growing older, by suffering, by loving, by bearing with the things we can’t change, by taking risks.”Â
“The distance is measured the same way no matter which where you look at it from, top-down or bottom-up. The distance between success and failure, is that tiny. You just don’t know it. The guys who have been complete and utter failures at their startups, could have been just 3 days away from being superstars. they just didn’t know it, that they could have just dug in and walked one more mile, and made it.”
— Shai Agassi, at his talk at Stanford titled “The Physics of Startups“
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
— Theodore Roosevelt, from a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910
[...] These are the July results of a hardworking internet entrepreneur, think 16-20 hours days, including weekends…it’s all about how bad you want it, f$%^ the 4-hour work week you fat lazy American slobs, working hard, and honestly, is the path to righteousness and fulfillment
I admire Tim’s transparency, drive, and laser-sharp focus on execution. He’s also willing to admit mistakes and he is on a benevolent mission to shine the light towards the dark corners in the industry he picked.
And here’s a vid clip of his interview with Wallstrip from some time ago. I’m long on Tim Sykes.
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