more confident, far-seeing, capable and prudent
“It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us, but with more of our strengths, and fewer of our weaknesses. More confident, farseeing, capable, and prudent. For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness.”
“Motivation is a strange word. It doesn’t mean what we think it means. We think it means we are fired up to do something. We think that it means we’re eager and passionate to make something happen. And we think that somehow we should be able to turn on that eagerness and turn on that passion, but we can’t. Because you can’t just turn on passion, you can’t just turn on the desire to execute a task. It just doesn’t work that way. And honestly that isn’t even what motivate means. Motivate doesn’t mean to yell and scream and encourage. No.”
“To motivate actually means to provide a motive, a reason why. To motivate someone is to explain to them why they are doing what they are doing. How it will help them, where it will take them, why they should continue to work and to struggle and to fight. And when you need motivation yourself, don’t look for someone to scream and yell, don’t look for someone else to give you motivation, look at yourself. Look at yourself and remind yourself why. Why you are doing what you are doing. Remind yourself that this struggle, this temporary pain, this fight that you’re in is what will make you stronger, and faster, and smarter and better. And then with that motivation go forward into the fray, into the storm, into the heat of the battle…Where victory is forged.”
Well Done
The reward for a job well done is more work
Coding is Sculpture; subtractive, not additive
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material”
Writing software is commonly viewed as an additive art form, where you decide how to compose material together and build “up” something, such as in pottery, painting, architecture, etc.
I would claim, actually, that while coding appears additive (you type and put lines of code where there was once a blank file), it is actually subtractive like sculpture. You are revealing the system within the block of marble.
You chisel away with every decision, which cut off chunks of possibility-space. You decide how to separate subdomains of a problem. You decide their relationships to each other. You refactor until you’re left with a work of art, lopping off confusion and misconceptions here and there.
Refactoring is chiseling away your own misconceptions to reveal the design
Perfection is possible, but it only lasts for an instant.
Perfection is possible, but it only lasts for an instant.
Circles of Control
At some point you realize…
In life there is almost nothing you control. Not even your own mind. This is extremely disconcerting at first. But then you realize…
You can influence almost everything. And this reality is what is most empowering.
You control nothing, yet influence everything.
Build, Maintain, Renovate, Demolish
The 4 activities you can apply to any investment like a structure (a house) or codebase.
Read MoreLarge objects at a great distance appear small
Leaders: If there exists a massive issue, you need to bring it closer if you expect people to solve it.
WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY
Perspective
“The hardest part about solving a problem is often just looking at it the right way”
A Challenge to Accept
“because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win”
Kennedy outlines four requirements of great goals.
They must:
Bring out the best in you, pushing you to your limits
Be one you are willing to take
Be one you cannot delay
Be one you want to win
Delete Parts and Processes
if a design is taking too long, the design is wrong
and therefore, the design must be modified
to accelerate progress. And one of the most fundamental errors made
in advanced development is to stick to a design
even when it is very complicated,
and to not strive to delete parts and processes.
-Elon Musk
IF
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”