Sometimes, you need to take risks in order to win.
I can clearly recall times when I took some unorthodox solutions. With a few I won, with some I lost, with many it didn’t matter.
But I sure remembered the feedback I got by taking those solutions better than if I had always taken the middle path.
„A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John Augustus Shedd
„În spatele invidiei stă dorul față de părțile neglijate din tine pe care ceilalți au ales să le onoreze în viețile lor.” – Monica-Daniela Găitănaru.
(Approximate translation: behind envy is the deep desire for the parts neglected, within you, that others have chosen to honor in their lives)
Do you know why you shouldn’t envy anyone?
Because if someone does something good, they grow the world.
Instead of fighting on which part of the pie is yours, you should focus on the bigger pie.
And that’s why the pie is better – it grows bigger.
You need life experience, to have something to write about. Once you have it, it’s not that hard to write.
You need real feedback from your clients, to know what they need, to deeply understand them. Once you know this, it’s not hard to write.
You need to go out in order to understand the client.
Finally, you need to live your life, to see and hear the grass growing, so that you can better experience it.
All experiences matter in order to be a better person.
Getting data is hard. Once you have this, writing is easy.
This happened to me at least two different times when talking with people whose job is listening (therapists, coaches): when I told them I have an issue with eating chocolate, it’s fine not to eat any, but once I take a piece it is very hard for me to restrain my urges to eat a lot of it, they tended to see this as an issue to be fixed. An optimal, normal, logical, solution is the middle path – eat some chocolate, but don’t exaggerate with this.
My middle ground solution is different – eat some cocoa milk with or without honey.
But that prejudice, that not eating any sweets, chocolate included, is a wrong solution, is, in my opinion, wrong.
To me, it’s perfectly fine not to eat any chocolate at all.
No sugar, no sweets, no sweetness, no sweetener.
The only upside of eating sweets is a state of instant happiness, while the upsides of not eating sweets are much more (eating healthy, losing weight, not eating things just for pleasure).
If you look at pictures of desktops of top marketers (27 Pictures of Desks – Top Marketers Share Tips for Cameras, Mics, Lights and Hamsters | Orbit Media Studios), what you might notice is:
Upgrade your user, not your product. Don’t build better cameras — build better photographers. — Kathy Sierra
Generally, myself included, we tend to forget that whenever we sell products and services we should aim for an experience, a feeling, an emotion.
Don’t focus on the brain, the mind, the intelligence.
Look for the emotion, the feeling, how can you build a relation, how you can make people feel something.
A positive experience, if possible. :)
An online store should, thus, focus not only on the technical and logical characteristics of a product – product specifications, value, price.
There’s an emotional part, also, design, beauty, trust, community, security, engagement, recurrence, empathy.
People need emotions.
(about people) „We are not things!” (Mad Max, 2015).
Also,
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Via Valentin Radu, Omniconvert, at GPeC.
I liked this article (10 things to be rich in other than money | FIRE Your Own Way), about things which you can have, which can be more important than money.
I’ll comment on them a bit.
1. Time – if you have a good time with people you enjoy, or you spend time doing things you love, money may not matter as much.
2. Knowledge – this might bring you some money, but only if you have the ability to connect things.
3. Experiences – these will make you remember life even more.
4. Friendships – family, romantic reltionships, friends, strangers – they all matter for a good life.
5. Enjoyment – you need to savor the moment, gratify yourself.
6. Health – what good are money, if you can’t enjoy the?
7. Gratitude – be thankful, it will make you feel good.
8. Passion – you need to be passionate about life.
9. A positive attitude – you need to think positive about life.
10. Humour – enjoy life, it’s funny.
I’d add to the list a sense of purpose.
Great article! (10 things to be rich in other than money | FIRE Your Own Way).
Regarding „Always do your best…?”, I think you should never consider you did your best.
You should aim for doing things the right way, you should aim for perfection.
If perfection means doing things 80%, that’s fine. If it means just scratching the surface, doing 10%, it’s OK also.
But, once the task has been done, if you look back at what you did and say „Hey, I’ve done my best”, you’ll never wish to grow.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
I don’t think I did anything perfect. I did get some things right, but perfect – no. There’s always room for more.
Why do I say „you can do everything even better!”?
Because there are multiple aspects of any activity.
A product, a service, an entity – everything has multiple aspects on which it can be improved. I don’t think I consider that anything’s perfect in this world.
How about Optimism and Trust vs. Pessimism and Mistrust?
First, some quotes:
Progress happens when people learn something new. And they learn the most, as a group, when stuff breaks and gets painful.
So the reasonable optimist expects the world to break all the time. But they know – as a matter of faith – that if they can survive the day-to-day fractures they’ll capture the up-and-to-the-right arc over time.
Seeing a situation from all angles is always preferable, adds Laslett, saying: “Any strength overplayed becomes a weakness: that is to say, blind optimism is never good.”
But a little optimism does go a long way.
(via How ‘optimism bias’ shapes our decisions and futures – BBC Worklife)
All good investing comes down to surviving an inevitable chain of short-term setbacks and disappointments in order to enjoy long-term progress and compounding.
Save like a pessimist, investing like an optimist.
(via Save Like A Pessimist, Invest Like An Optimist · Collaborative Fund)
But introverts have unique personality traits that can empower them to be exceptional leaders if properly leveraged.
There’s a quote by Gala Galaction (a writer/priest) I like a lot (from „Lângă apa Vodislavei”):
Turcul se învoi ușor cu toți, până la Iordache, crezu fiecăruia și primi și mai jos decât ceruse.
(Adapted translation – The Turk easily agreed with everyone, up to Iordache, believed everyone’s story and accepted to receive even smaller amounts of money than he asked.)
(This last quote shows pity, in my opinion.)
A quote by Nicolae Steinhardt:
Se cuvine să înțelegem că orice am face și oricât ne-am strădui, tot supărăm. Singura soluție e resemnarea. Ce putem face? Să tăcem, să tăcem. Să nu facem răul, și nici binele cu sila. Dar și trecând, tăcând, tot nemulțumim. Odată pentru totdeauna se cade să ne băgăm bine în minte: deranjăm doar pentru că suntem prezenți. Și să nu ne oprim aici: mai trebuie să recunoaștem că și ei ne deranjează pe noi! Gând înfiorător: Căci nu suntem mai buni ca ceilalți, tot în aceeași oală ne aflăm și fierbem înăbușit.
(Adapted translation – We should understand that no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try, we are still upsetting others. The only solution is resignation. What can we do? Let’s shut up, let’s shut up. Let us not do evil, nor do good by force. But even by our passing, silent, we are still upsetting others. Once and for all, it is important to keep in mind: we bother even because we are present. And let’s not stop here: we must also admit that others bother us too! Creepy thought: Because we are not better than the others, we are in the same boiling pot and we are also boiling and suffocating.)
Now, let’s get down to business.
I like the Macs running Apple M1 system on a chip (SoC).
„The M1 was welcomed with very positive reviews and recorded industry-leading performance and efficiency in popular benchmarks (GeekBench 5, Cinebench R23).” (Apple M1 – Wikipedia)
I like the fact that it’s considered to be a fast and good value for the price.
I thought of waiting for a new generation of Apple M1, and buying either a Mac Mini or iMac 24″/27″.
After reading some reviews, viewing some videos (rational: M1 iMac Review: Ultra Thin Design Choice! – YouTube or emotional: New Apple iMac 2021 Unboxing & First Look! (Green) – YouTube), and thinking more about it, I decided I will stick to PC + Windows 10, and postpone switching to a Mac indefinitely.
Below, my thought process.