Confirmed. This is exactly how the most exciting opportunities in my life have come about. It would be awesome to hear from someone who either doesn't get this or disagrees with it. It seems simple enough, but I bet there are quite a few people who don't get what they're doing wrong.
If you live in a social city, you may find yourself in a situation where you're doing more meeting and talking than actually working.
I know a few people that have put such emphasis on the importance of meeting with people and connecting people, that they never get any real work done!
Yes, the OP mentioned this: "(1) Do something" - but the problem is that contacting people and meeting up with them, and attending events, meetups, and even posting on HN - can all feel like you are doing something.
But sometimes you need to ask yourself if you're using all this people-meeting as a distraction from your real work.
Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
> Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
From my network marketing days, one phrase sticks out: "Never confuse productivity with activity".
I find your statement very interesting. I am convinced that people often focus on what is hard for them/what the lack/what they want more of. For example, my relatively poor artist friends who bounce from job to job (so much that being fired/quitting means nothing) and perpetually have no money but have lots of friends. Contrast that with my relatively successful developer friends who are so busy with projects that they have no time for friends. One more example - the most connected woman I know - very successful founder/CEO - her biggest accomplishment of the past 5 years is completing a 5k run. Because it is challenging for her physically.
Have you considered working in an environment where there is energy but you have no connections? Like a university library/cafeteria/commons (library access might be restricted - but sometimes if you pay, sometimes you can get a card as a resident) or a coffee shop in an area where they don't speak your native tongue primarily (Chinatown) or a random hotel lobby with a 3G/4G access point?
Great comment. Now, there are so many startup events in my city than never before but every time I struggle to go there. The key of meeting people is simple: you hope that you see/find somebody doing something which inspires you and brings new stuff to life. That's the pattern about how we try and learn new things (like children): you see somebody doing something and you say to yourself, hey I can do this too.
But back to your comment:
If I stay home and dive into a new topic it's always 100% more productive. I remember those days when I was learning Ruby at a Saturday night when my friends were heading to the same clubs they visited every weekend and I knew that they are wasting their time (usually you feel the opposite when a bunch of people you know meet/go out).
But the problem is that you usually need a trigger to get productive and just from surfing the web and reading Hacker News it's hard to get this trigger -- don't ask me why but getting active from just reading a blog post doesn't work (maybe there're just too many of them.)
So, at the end you need to have a good ratio of being productive and just being active/busy/meeting people.
A last thought: if I think back to all encounters on such startup events most stay superficial and lead nowhere. I got the most inspiration out of long-term relationships (coworkers).
Comments
Confirmed. This is exactly how the most exciting opportunities in my life have come about. It would be awesome to hear from someone who either doesn't get this or disagrees with it. It seems simple enough, but I bet there are quite a few people who don't get what they're doing wrong.
Here's my conditional disagreement:
If you live in a social city, you may find yourself in a situation where you're doing more meeting and talking than actually working.
I know a few people that have put such emphasis on the importance of meeting with people and connecting people, that they never get any real work done!
Yes, the OP mentioned this: "(1) Do something" - but the problem is that contacting people and meeting up with them, and attending events, meetups, and even posting on HN - can all feel like you are doing something.
But sometimes you need to ask yourself if you're using all this people-meeting as a distraction from your real work.
Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
> Too often, I find meeting people is easy. What's HARD is disconnecting, focusing, staying in, and working through the difficult obstacles to creating something valuable.
From my network marketing days, one phrase sticks out: "Never confuse productivity with activity".
I find your statement very interesting. I am convinced that people often focus on what is hard for them/what the lack/what they want more of. For example, my relatively poor artist friends who bounce from job to job (so much that being fired/quitting means nothing) and perpetually have no money but have lots of friends. Contrast that with my relatively successful developer friends who are so busy with projects that they have no time for friends. One more example - the most connected woman I know - very successful founder/CEO - her biggest accomplishment of the past 5 years is completing a 5k run. Because it is challenging for her physically.
Have you considered working in an environment where there is energy but you have no connections? Like a university library/cafeteria/commons (library access might be restricted - but sometimes if you pay, sometimes you can get a card as a resident) or a coffee shop in an area where they don't speak your native tongue primarily (Chinatown) or a random hotel lobby with a 3G/4G access point?
Great comment. Now, there are so many startup events in my city than never before but every time I struggle to go there. The key of meeting people is simple: you hope that you see/find somebody doing something which inspires you and brings new stuff to life. That's the pattern about how we try and learn new things (like children): you see somebody doing something and you say to yourself, hey I can do this too.
But back to your comment: If I stay home and dive into a new topic it's always 100% more productive. I remember those days when I was learning Ruby at a Saturday night when my friends were heading to the same clubs they visited every weekend and I knew that they are wasting their time (usually you feel the opposite when a bunch of people you know meet/go out). But the problem is that you usually need a trigger to get productive and just from surfing the web and reading Hacker News it's hard to get this trigger -- don't ask me why but getting active from just reading a blog post doesn't work (maybe there're just too many of them.) So, at the end you need to have a good ratio of being productive and just being active/busy/meeting people.
A last thought: if I think back to all encounters on such startup events most stay superficial and lead nowhere. I got the most inspiration out of long-term relationships (coworkers).