Random Musings

What then is this missing link for innovative creativity and accelerated success? Musk, some of the most brilliant minds of all-time — Aristotle, Euclid, Thomas Edison, Feynman and Nikola Tesla — use this missing link for accelerated learning, solving difficult problems and creating great work in their lifetime. This missing link has little to do with how hard they work. It has everything to do with how they  think. In layman’s terms, first principles thinking is basically the practice of actively questioning every assumption you think you  ‘know’  about a given problem or scenario — and then creating new knowledge and solutions from scratch. Almost like a newborn baby. On the flip side, reasoning by analogy is building knowledge and solving problems based on prior assumptions, beliefs and widely held ‘best practices’ approved by majority of people. STEP 1: Identify and define your current assumptions STEP 2: Breakdown the problem into its fundamental ...

"This practice of defining my personal brand has not just let me fully showcase the work I do as an engineer, it’s helped me cultivate and figure out who I want to be to the world." Personal branding is more than self promotion from Neha Batra Source: https://builttoadapt.io/why-a-personal-brand-is-necessary-for-todays-developer-f0f18bfaa033 http://www.thestartupofyou.com/

http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/transprac.htm

In honor of renowned author  Stephen Covey, who died this morning at age 79  , a short version from  his all-time best-selling book   "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" , which sold 20 million copies.  The short version, highly recommend you buy his book: 1) Be Proactive As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. We have the independent will to make our own choices and decisions, and the responsibility ("the ability to respond") to make the right choices. You have the freedom to choose your own fate and path, so having the independent will, imagination and self-awareness to make the right move makes you a proactive, and not a reactive, person. 2) Begin With The End In Mind Mental visualization is extremely important. Covey says that all things are created twice: first, the mental conceptualization and visualization and a second physical, actual creation. Becoming your own creator means to plan and visualize what you're going to do and ...

"When You Want to Be Really, Truly Happy When it comes to motivation, all roads don’t actually lead to Rome. Not all goals give you the life filled with satisfaction and well-being that we’re all looking for, even if you achieve them. Most people assume that, when it comes to happiness, being successful is all that matters. In truth, there are boatloads of very successful, very unhappy people all around us. That’s because they have successfully pursued goals that don’t actually fulfill their basic needs as human beings – the needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy. Remember that we satisfy our need for relatedness by choosing goals that are about creating and nurturing relationships with others, while we satisfy our need for competence by pursuing goals that focus on personal growth. Your sense of autonomy will be enhanced every time you pursue a goal that you choose, because it speaks to something about you – your interests, your abilities, or...

" Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on." " No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed." "Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don't reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience." " The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect -- so...

Read a great post on the importance of now.. and could not stop copying verbatim *********************** This week Mr.Brown focused on "Do it Now ". People who have dreams are seekers of informtation to help them unlock a better life for themselves. People that Do It Now have 4 common characteristics. 1. Give it your ALL. Have a mindset of being involved and engaged in life. Have a mindset of living a life of contribution and achievement. Don't wait on the sidelines for the perfect time. The time is now to get engaged into your passion and calling. Have energy, humor, fun, and thought behind your "ALL". 2. Reinvent yourself. Use your talents in many different ways. If you tired, stressed and disengaged in your current focus, stop and reinvent yoursellf. Successful people reinvent themselves several times in their lives. Make a committment and have the courage to reinvent yourself. Add life to your years rather than years to your life. 3. Expand your Relations...

An interesting read of what it takes to become a "genius" ... simple practice and hard work!! and this picture an ability to make the right "connections" Novice Mind Expert Mind Genius Mind Some interesting quotes.. "Success doesn't have much to do with talent. It's almost always a product of hard work and the culture of which we live our lives." - Malcolm Gladwell "Perspective is the key to genius." " A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. " Galileo's words -- "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Insights are often so simple, so obviously true once you see them. But we are often blinded by our fixations, our hubris , our limited frames of reference -- our narrow perspectives -- which prevent us from seeing" " You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in ...

Deliberate practice and GRIT are what matters in the end in any endaveour!!.. More on grit from a nice post . "Why were some kids better at drilling themselves with note cards? What explained this variation in hours devoted to deliberate practice? After analyzing the data, Duckworth discovered the importance of a psychological trait known as grit. In previous papers, Duckworth has demonstrated that grit can be reliably measured with a short survey that measures consistency of passions (e.g., ‘‘I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest’’) and consistency of effort (e.g., ‘‘Setbacks don’t discourage me’’) over time using a 5-point scale. Not surprisingly, those with grit are more single-minded about their goals – they tend to get obsessed with certain activities – and also more likely to persist in the face of struggle and failure. Woody Allen famously declared that “Eighty percent of success is showing up”. Grit is what allows you...

Nice tips on being lucky... I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune: Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell - a reason to consider a decision carefully. Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety. Lucky people tend to see the positive side of ...

A story from a startup CEO that failed... and some advice "You'll hear a lot about why company A won and company B lost in any market, and in my experience, a lot of the theories thrown about -- even or especially by the participants -- are utter crap. A domain name doesn't win you a market; launching second or fifth or tenth doesn't lose you a market. You can't blame your competitors or your board or the lack of or excess of investment. Focus on what really matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win." http://blog.precipice.org/why-wesabe-lost-to-mint

In the debate of NATURE vs NURTURE this post is a nice addition. Few interesting titbits... " it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Will Durant*, commenting on Aristotle, pointed out that the philosopher had it exactly right 2000 years ago: " We are what we repeatedly do ." "For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it's not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we're willing to work — something he calls " deliberate practice ." Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice as the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain." http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/08/six_keys_to.html