Doing what you love
I read an essay written by Paul Graham titled “How to do what you Love” His Bio can be found at:
http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html
Excellent guy, and I thank him for giving such a deep brainwave regarding something which we’re all scared to even think about! 😛
That being said, it took some time for me to complete reading the essay (it is a long one), but not to forget to mention, it gave a new insight on doing what you love, and how we’ve all been mislead all these years, & so deprived of strength to do anything different from what we’ve been doing all these days.
So, if you’ve read until here, great! I have made a little effort for people like me (who usually don’t like to read a BIG essay or a big blog post running several pages). Though I’d recommend you’ll to read that article, at-least once.
Eye-catchers:
“To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that’s pretty cool.”
You have to like what you do enough that the concept of “spare time” seems mistaken. Which is not to say you have to spend all your time working. You can only work so much before you get tired and start to screw up. Then you want to do something else—even something mindless. But you don’t regard this time as the prize and the time you spend working as the pain you endure to earn it.
Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.
Prestige is just fossilized inspiration. If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. So just do what you like, and let prestige take care of itself.
I think the best test is one Gino Lee taught me: to try to do things that would make your friends say wow. But it probably wouldn’t start to work properly till about age 22, because most people haven’t had a big enough sample to pick friends from before then.
Wonderful one, this really struck me:
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they’d do it even if they weren’t paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?
Here’s the link to the original article, in case you are interested to read further.
Startup lessons from Moneyball
Couple of days ago I was reading an article I stumbled upon and the author urged the readers to watch the movie “Moneyball” before continuing to read it.
I’ve watched the movie and although the movie by itself was good, it has certain “lessons” which are helpful not only when it comes to Baseball, but also in Running a startup. Yeah, there’s a relation! It’s not about baseball, its about data.
Here’s my pick from the list.
This post is more for my own reference. I need to read this over and over so I’m posting it in my blog.
1. He passes the eye candy test. He’s got the looks, he’s great at playing the part.
Recruiting your first team is not necessarily about passing the eye candy test. You need to choose people who can actually DO the job, rest is secondary. Get good at seeing talent where others don’t!
2. You’re not solving the problem. You’re not even looking at the problem.
Look at the problem, identify the source and set that right. Focus on that.
3. We’ve got to think differently.
Startups work under constraints, big, unfair constraints! You cannot beat your competitor who is well established and super-funded, you’ve got to think different keeping the budget constraints in mind.
4. First job in baseball? It’s my first job anywhere.
When Billy asks Peter if it was his first job in Baseball, he answers “It’s my first job anywhere.”
Don’t over-rate experience, all you need is hunger and talent. You’re looking for the future stars, because the current-stars aren’t affordable.
5. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins.
Think in terms of buying outcomes, not titles.
6. He really needs to accept this as life’s first occupation, a first career.
Commit to something, don’t move, make it your life’s first occupation.When it comes to making decisions, it’s either “yes” or “no” there’s nothing in-between! Don’t sit on a fence.
“If you sit on the fence too long, your genitals are going to hurt.” – from the original article.
7. Why do you like him? Because he gets on base.
Figure out what success looks like for a given role, omit other details.
10. Hey, anything worth doing is hard. And we’re gonna teach you.
Teach, motivate. You need to make sure you teach valuable lessons. Fill power in gaps found in your employees.
12. It’s day one of the first week. You can’t judge just yet.
Don’t judge your employees too early, it takes a little time to shine, patience!
But you need to judge them eventually.
14. Where on the field is the dollar I’m paying for soda?
Being penny-wise and pound foolish. Save on big things than the small things. It’s not about money but about inconvenience and the principle. Remember, deep down inside, people are human.
15. These are hard rules to explain to people. Why is that a problem, Pete?
When you are transforming something and making a massive change, not everyone is going to understand. Be right- and make the change happen.
16. I’m not paying you for the player you used to be, I’m paying you for the player you are right now.
Hard-hitting. If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?
17. We’re going to change the game.
Fix something you want to be fixed. It’s just that.
Though I was able to identify most of these while watching the movie, I had to re-read the post to make this article upto here.
I wasn’t quite sure as to how I’d relate the lessons to the startup-scenario. The author of the original article has done it brilliantly.
Original article was written by a co-founder of Hubspot:
bits and pieces 