It totally is. What I probably didn't make clear is that our long term approach with Nickler had me doubting what success looked like, the path, and how we defined it. I had to stop making it a tangible thing to keep from going insane.
I think I probably blast this shit out to help manage the voices, and talk my way through it, thanks for reading!
On skim, I do not see any hard definition of the "outstanding success" you envisioned for Nickler. If you never defined it, you cannot achieve it or know if you have. What gets measured gets done but, also, you need a measurable goal to know when you are done.
So I think what you had in your van were easily achieved and easily measured or recognized goals. Things get harder to see when the goal is larger and seems nebulous. You need to make it tangible somehow.
Well put. Over the last few months we've come to a conclusion that we'll measure the product's success through the ability to earn a customer referral (stolen from Ecquire's Paul DeJoe). Prviously, it's been 'get fucking launched', and 'build a UI that doesn't make me want to punch my screen'.
Well, it does not sound like a very big picture goal, unless you are leaving something out. Without a big picture goal, "outstanding" success seems very unlikely.
One thing that helps me when I'm doing hard things is to keep in mind that the difficulty I'm experiencing is one of the things keeping everyone else out.
Thus, if it's happiness, success has no root at all in the objective reality, but is completely subjective... What is quite a hard thing to say, but sounds completely logical.
And yeah, I'm removing the subject's brain from my definition of "objective reality". If I don't do that, "subjective" would be meaningless.
Counter-example: what if you're a happy slave? Would you consider that success? Slaves are Submissive, the lowest level of Presence. Their achieving happiness doesn't count for much.
What if you're a happy servant? Or a happy minion? Already you can see this is more challenging, more ambitious, and more worthy of the appellation of 'success'.
Now, everyone's conception of success will look different but it's obvious that Presence has something to do with it. Let's take Psychopaths as a reductive example.
Con men and shills can be successful, but they're rather pathetic compared to, say, a Lord of War. Seen the movie? Now that guy was a huge success.
Fostering wars across the planet, responsible for millions of deaths and uncountable destruction while snorting cocaine off of strippers' tits. What more could a Psychopath ask for?
I would tell you what more a Psychopath could ask for except there's no doubt many psychopaths reading this and I don't want to give any of them ideas.
Unfortunately according to my American friends' colloquial definition of "success" it is simply $$$.
Yup money. "She became very successful" = "She made lots of money". Sometimes I am a jackass and ask stupid questions, "well what if she is unhappy, is she still successful?". And people look at me like I am from Mars ;-)
I just kind of struck me as strange. I grew up with it meaning something like "lucky", "fortunate", could be things like kid is doing well in school, found the person of their dreams to marry, it wasn't a direct euphemism for got a pile of money. But now it kind of is.
Do I personally agree or disagree? Well don't certainly use the word that way, and unless I am felling snarky I won't bother dissecting its meaning or messing with it.
You brag too much in that post and come off as somewhat douchey, but reflective and intelligent. Also, you're one of the better writers that I've read (and I've written professionally) and that's not an easy skill for most to master, so kudos on that.
Also, it looks like Nickler is solving a real (and unsexy) problem. So, respect.
What I found most interesting about this was the the concept of success changed over time. Success seems to be deeply personal and is perhaps a reflection of a deeply personal fear.
In our society the fear of not having enough money seems to be very prevalent thus often success is tied directly to the concept of having enough money because it is a fear a lot of people share.
In this light perhaps the path to success is just a way of working through our fears.
The interesting question then becomes what does success look like to the person who no longer has any fears. Perhaps then success is motivated by compassion?
No, no it's not compassion. Not unless compassion is your Core Value. But as Core Values are individual, it would only be your conception of success.
If compassion isn't your core value then it's a concept close to 'altruism' which is the lowest Presence level of Good. That is, Altruism = Submissive Good.
And maybe for you rising up to the bottom of the barrel of Good people is "success" but I rather think success is when you've reached the other end of the Presence scale and you're a god.
This discussion could get very technical very, very quickly. In fact, it's already gone far beyond your vocabulary in mental theory and your ability to grasp the concepts. I doubt you even know what a god is.
You've done the equivalent of asking "what does well-designed software look like?" and answering your question with "could it have something to do with assignment operators?" To which I respond "Um, yeah, no."
Mr. Foreman, who stared down financial collapse as an adult despite a troubled, impoverished childhood, said he knew real wealth when he saw it. “If you’re confident, you’re wealthy,” he says. “I’ve seen guys who work on a ship channel and they get to a certain point and they’re confident. You can look in their faces, they’re longshoremen, and they have this confidence about them...I’ve seen a lot of guys with millions and they don’t have any confidence,” he says. “So they’re not wealthy.”
Confidence is one aspect of Presence which is an aspect of Clarity which is Innate Power (though Clarity is the more accurate word). But Confidence is a LOW aspect of Presence. A higher aspect of it is Forcefulness. A still higher is Strength of Purpose.
I'm not going to go into mental theory in the margins of this comment box. But you are confident when you have Clarity about what you want and also about how to get what you want.
It doesn't matter a lick how much money you have or how many muscles you have if you don't know how to apply these things to reality in order to get what you want.
Note that NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with Wealth OR Success. What Foreman is really saying is that wealth matters for jack shit next to confidence and that confidence is infinitely more precious, rare and valuable. Which is true.
Especially in the 20th century when out of 11 billion humans that lived, 90% topped out their Presence at Submissive, 9% topped out at Passive, and less than 1% were Assertive and above.
What Foreman called Confidence was probably Assertiveness. Of course, Assertiveness is only +1 on a scale running from -1 to +6. So really, rather pathetic. To me anyways.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 73.4 ms ] threadI think I probably blast this shit out to help manage the voices, and talk my way through it, thanks for reading!
For example as long as I can have support my wife and kids without them going hungry I believe I'm successful in what I do.
I think I just realized why Americans are so in love with freaking Buddhism. They want their spirituality downsized.
So I think what you had in your van were easily achieved and easily measured or recognized goals. Things get harder to see when the goal is larger and seems nebulous. You need to make it tangible somehow.
Best of luck.
Baby steps...
Take care.
And yeah, I'm removing the subject's brain from my definition of "objective reality". If I don't do that, "subjective" would be meaningless.
Counter-example: what if you're a happy slave? Would you consider that success? Slaves are Submissive, the lowest level of Presence. Their achieving happiness doesn't count for much.
What if you're a happy servant? Or a happy minion? Already you can see this is more challenging, more ambitious, and more worthy of the appellation of 'success'.
Now, everyone's conception of success will look different but it's obvious that Presence has something to do with it. Let's take Psychopaths as a reductive example.
Con men and shills can be successful, but they're rather pathetic compared to, say, a Lord of War. Seen the movie? Now that guy was a huge success.
Fostering wars across the planet, responsible for millions of deaths and uncountable destruction while snorting cocaine off of strippers' tits. What more could a Psychopath ask for?
I would tell you what more a Psychopath could ask for except there's no doubt many psychopaths reading this and I don't want to give any of them ideas.
Yup money. "She became very successful" = "She made lots of money". Sometimes I am a jackass and ask stupid questions, "well what if she is unhappy, is she still successful?". And people look at me like I am from Mars ;-)
Do I personally agree or disagree? Well don't certainly use the word that way, and unless I am felling snarky I won't bother dissecting its meaning or messing with it.
You brag too much in that post and come off as somewhat douchey, but reflective and intelligent. Also, you're one of the better writers that I've read (and I've written professionally) and that's not an easy skill for most to master, so kudos on that.
Also, it looks like Nickler is solving a real (and unsexy) problem. So, respect.
Thanks for the honesty and 'chin up', it's appreciated.
In our society the fear of not having enough money seems to be very prevalent thus often success is tied directly to the concept of having enough money because it is a fear a lot of people share.
In this light perhaps the path to success is just a way of working through our fears.
The interesting question then becomes what does success look like to the person who no longer has any fears. Perhaps then success is motivated by compassion?
If compassion isn't your core value then it's a concept close to 'altruism' which is the lowest Presence level of Good. That is, Altruism = Submissive Good.
And maybe for you rising up to the bottom of the barrel of Good people is "success" but I rather think success is when you've reached the other end of the Presence scale and you're a god.
This discussion could get very technical very, very quickly. In fact, it's already gone far beyond your vocabulary in mental theory and your ability to grasp the concepts. I doubt you even know what a god is.
You've done the equivalent of asking "what does well-designed software look like?" and answering your question with "could it have something to do with assignment operators?" To which I respond "Um, yeah, no."
Quote from George Foreman about longshoremen:
Mr. Foreman, who stared down financial collapse as an adult despite a troubled, impoverished childhood, said he knew real wealth when he saw it. “If you’re confident, you’re wealthy,” he says. “I’ve seen guys who work on a ship channel and they get to a certain point and they’re confident. You can look in their faces, they’re longshoremen, and they have this confidence about them...I’ve seen a lot of guys with millions and they don’t have any confidence,” he says. “So they’re not wealthy.”
I'm not going to go into mental theory in the margins of this comment box. But you are confident when you have Clarity about what you want and also about how to get what you want.
It doesn't matter a lick how much money you have or how many muscles you have if you don't know how to apply these things to reality in order to get what you want.
Note that NONE of this has ANYTHING to do with Wealth OR Success. What Foreman is really saying is that wealth matters for jack shit next to confidence and that confidence is infinitely more precious, rare and valuable. Which is true.
Especially in the 20th century when out of 11 billion humans that lived, 90% topped out their Presence at Submissive, 9% topped out at Passive, and less than 1% were Assertive and above.
What Foreman called Confidence was probably Assertiveness. Of course, Assertiveness is only +1 on a scale running from -1 to +6. So really, rather pathetic. To me anyways.