This takes me back to the weirdness of my post-college years: so much pressure to show that I know what I'm doing but no actual work or life experience to draw from. The transition thinking success is good grade to realizing that real success is figuring out what the questions are and how much effort I should put into answering them.
I definitely relate to the crux of the article though:
> I realized getting to a point where you reap the benefits from what you’re hoping to learn requires you to do it yourself and fail. A lot.
I also had to work hard to shift from the fixed mindset: "I'm smart therefore I need to be good at this. If I'm not good at this, then I'm dumb" to "I'm going to put the effort it and give myself the grace that learning takes a long time". Almost nobody is smart enough to get it right away, and truly, nobody starts out knowing everything.
I learned this most clearly from running, where I had no expectations to live up to, no "I should". I put in the work for years, and ran faster and further than I ever thought I would. I'm never ashamed to say "today was a crappy run" or "I didn't do very well, better sleep it off". Then why was I afraid to say "I don't get this complex idea yet, I better spend some time reading it 12 more times until it starts making sense"?
I'm working through something similar right now. I like your thought about shifting away from the fixed mindset. I'm also realizing a lot of this, maybe all of this, comes down to identity and ego.
I'm taking an evening class right now in computer science at a local university. Without mincing words, I am getting my ass kicked by it. Absolutely handed to me. It's proofs-based, and I don't have much of a background in this (even during my time in college back in the day, I didn't take these types of courses).
I'm getting stuck all the time, finding it hard to understand the lectures, and then avoiding studying altogether because it's not "clicking" for me. But if I'm being honest, what I'm doing above all is avoiding studying because of how painful it feels, and how much of my own identity as a "smart" person comes into question. I've never really had trouble with coursework, and would even say a lot of it came naturally to me, so from that I built up a little castle wall of an identity wherein I'm a "smart person who learns things easily."
Yet here I am unable to learn this easily at all. I'm discovering that I need to tweak my mindset and keep my identity smaller. Why do I have to be a smart person? Why can't I just be a person who wants to learn something that he's finding challenging? Is it helping me to belittle myself by telling myself that I "should" understand this quickly? Or is it just leading me to running away from the whole thing altogether, thereby worsening the situation?
Sorry for the rant / writeup. I'm processing all of this in real-time myself, and trying to get myself back to studying...
It seems these days everybody is determined to call themselves an entrepreneur.
Alan Sugar was right when he told off a contestant on The Apprentice UK for doing it - it's not meant to be something you call yourself, it's something others call you as a means of recognising your success if you've earned it. Pity that doesn't appear to be the dominant viewpoint.
It's also noticeable how the vast majority of well-known people are described on Wikipedia as either an entrepreneur or a businessperson. The rationale is sometimes as simple as "their management team sells merchandise with their name and image"! I've read that it's a very deliberate attempt by their marketing people, who push their ideas via Wikipedia etc, to give them more credibility than they supposedly get from things like sports or acting, by jumping on this fashion.
Part of it is marketing, but part of it has to do with changes in how Americans think about making money.
Young Americans can see the direction in which the wind is blowing. They believe less and less in the idea of a "comfortable middle class lifestyle with a steady career" and more and more in the idea that you have to be some some kind of entrepreneur or hustler if you want to have hope for a decent living and a decent amount of personal freedom in the current system, given economic trends and trends in AI.
I think this is also part of the reason why socialism has returned as a viable force in American politics. The alternative to becoming an entrepreneur or hustler in the current system is to change the current system.
> it's something others call you as a means of recognising your success if you've earned it. Pity that doesn't appear to be the dominant viewpoint.
That's just human psychology being dumb again. Just make multiple social media accounts and use one to make posts and have the other ones come along to call the first a great entrepreneur. Won't magically make you Warren Buffett but if it gets people to buy the product the first one is selling so you can pay for food/rent so you don't starve, who cares?
One time at a pub I had started casually talking to a dude sitting next to me. I had just been there reading a novel, we had some small back and forth. One of my strategies of encouraging conversation is being interested in the other person, so I asked "so, what do you do?"
He got very upset with me about that question. He went on about how everyone around here is so focused on their work and not living life (this was in a very corporate office tower part of town, so...yeah). Everyone only cares about what you produce, not with how you live. It turns out he had also been laid off earlier that day as well. We discussed this a good bit, and in the end had a good night hanging out at the bar. I never met him again, but I think about that conversation often.
That interaction made me decide not to ask that question going forward. These days, instead of asking "what do you do?", I ask things like "what keeps you busy in life?" Because ultimately that's closer to what I'm really wondering.
True, I've always thought it's unfortunate that so many people define themselves by their job and expect everyone else to do the same. It works for some but absolutely not for all, and ideally speaking it shouldn't be our default means of labelling others.
What I learned spending a lifetime making the world a little bit worse for everyone else for fun and profit.
-----
Their entire mindset seems to be, "how can I take advantage of other people making mistakes to make a few dollars here and there? and how can I induce them to make even more mistakes in my realm of influence so it is even easier to profit from them?"
This is why he is always chasing the latest fad—"dropshipping massage guns, rug tufting, rainbow-loom bracelets, you name it"—people who follow fads are less likely to do their research and more likely to click buy on the overpriced TikTok ad. AI just empowers him to do more of this.
The only skill he seems to work on is his "taking advantage of others" skill. It's astounding that he got to this age without knowing even the basics of programming... and he only learned those basics once it became relevant to taking advantage of others. Rather than trying to create something new, or create a better version of something old, he just wants to disrupt efficient commerce so he can skim off the top.
I'm sure he makes a ton of money doing this. I wish that weren't possible.
> I feel that tutorials and informative reading are always good starting points for getting down the basics of a skill.
And for seeing what’s possible with a skill. But this can be very overwhelming as well. When you watch the masters doing what looks really easy and after that start with your first steps - and fail - it’s way more discouraging than starting without having seen this and being proud of small achievements.
I don't know if people hate it, but I don't use it because it is overpriced (you need the $50 pro subscription to do more than tinker) and it had multiple CVEs this year. There are also a lot of n8n "influencers" on YouTube, but that is not n8n's fault.
I think it is fine for prototyping if someone prefers a GUI.
n8n has been around a lot longer than LLMs and, as explained in the article, can be a useful substrate for your LLMs to write custom tools with (for those uncomfortable with the terminal or wanting lots of API integrations)
It's nice to see the kids having the same sorts of discoveries the olds had once upon a time. Specifics change, but we're just stupid humans spinning around the sun together
I just assumed it came out of Indian English, and kept spreading as more and more people like to use the word “software” as a synonym for “app” or “program”.
In my house, software will always be an uncountable noun.
This is a joke, right? It's horribly written, and full of financebro bullshit. I feel like I'm back in law school talking to the business majors who couldn't get a good job and used law as a fallback.
I commend him for trying to learn new skills. no one needs to know this shit. It's not instagram.
This takes me back to the weirdness of my post-college years: so much pressure to show that I know what I'm doing but no actual work or life experience to draw from. The transition thinking success is good grade to realizing that real success is figuring out what the questions are and how much effort I should put into answering them.
I definitely relate to the crux of the article though:
> I realized getting to a point where you reap the benefits from what you’re hoping to learn requires you to do it yourself and fail. A lot.
I also had to work hard to shift from the fixed mindset: "I'm smart therefore I need to be good at this. If I'm not good at this, then I'm dumb" to "I'm going to put the effort it and give myself the grace that learning takes a long time". Almost nobody is smart enough to get it right away, and truly, nobody starts out knowing everything.
I learned this most clearly from running, where I had no expectations to live up to, no "I should". I put in the work for years, and ran faster and further than I ever thought I would. I'm never ashamed to say "today was a crappy run" or "I didn't do very well, better sleep it off". Then why was I afraid to say "I don't get this complex idea yet, I better spend some time reading it 12 more times until it starts making sense"?
I'm working through something similar right now. I like your thought about shifting away from the fixed mindset. I'm also realizing a lot of this, maybe all of this, comes down to identity and ego.
I'm taking an evening class right now in computer science at a local university. Without mincing words, I am getting my ass kicked by it. Absolutely handed to me. It's proofs-based, and I don't have much of a background in this (even during my time in college back in the day, I didn't take these types of courses).
I'm getting stuck all the time, finding it hard to understand the lectures, and then avoiding studying altogether because it's not "clicking" for me. But if I'm being honest, what I'm doing above all is avoiding studying because of how painful it feels, and how much of my own identity as a "smart" person comes into question. I've never really had trouble with coursework, and would even say a lot of it came naturally to me, so from that I built up a little castle wall of an identity wherein I'm a "smart person who learns things easily."
Yet here I am unable to learn this easily at all. I'm discovering that I need to tweak my mindset and keep my identity smaller. Why do I have to be a smart person? Why can't I just be a person who wants to learn something that he's finding challenging? Is it helping me to belittle myself by telling myself that I "should" understand this quickly? Or is it just leading me to running away from the whole thing altogether, thereby worsening the situation?
Sorry for the rant / writeup. I'm processing all of this in real-time myself, and trying to get myself back to studying...
>"I'm smart therefore I need to be good at this. If I'm not good at this, then I'm dumb"
This reminds me of the meme "If I can't get this barbell off my chest, I'm gay and my whole family dies"
Which got me more gains than any other time in my life
You are over-complicating things; you can be gay without a barbell on your chest.
I honestly don’t understand how that specific thought was motivating for you but I guess whatever works…
So stay hungry, stay foolish?
The sense of having lots of knowledge but no real confidence in my abilities caused me much anxiety after graduating college.
> six months of being stupid on purpose
Those are rookie numbers.
I've been doing that for 40 years
A true master of their craft. You can't see it, but I'm bowing right now.
You make it look effortless!
> I’ve been an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember
Yeah, ok… Not for me.
It seems these days everybody is determined to call themselves an entrepreneur.
Alan Sugar was right when he told off a contestant on The Apprentice UK for doing it - it's not meant to be something you call yourself, it's something others call you as a means of recognising your success if you've earned it. Pity that doesn't appear to be the dominant viewpoint.
It's also noticeable how the vast majority of well-known people are described on Wikipedia as either an entrepreneur or a businessperson. The rationale is sometimes as simple as "their management team sells merchandise with their name and image"! I've read that it's a very deliberate attempt by their marketing people, who push their ideas via Wikipedia etc, to give them more credibility than they supposedly get from things like sports or acting, by jumping on this fashion.
Part of it is marketing, but part of it has to do with changes in how Americans think about making money.
Young Americans can see the direction in which the wind is blowing. They believe less and less in the idea of a "comfortable middle class lifestyle with a steady career" and more and more in the idea that you have to be some some kind of entrepreneur or hustler if you want to have hope for a decent living and a decent amount of personal freedom in the current system, given economic trends and trends in AI.
I think this is also part of the reason why socialism has returned as a viable force in American politics. The alternative to becoming an entrepreneur or hustler in the current system is to change the current system.
As a young(er) American I can relate to this sentiment. Either hit big or hope the whole thing comes down trying.
Is "the whole thing" referring to the "current system"or something else? Asking out of curiosity, as I am sadly not a younger American.
> it's something others call you as a means of recognising your success if you've earned it. Pity that doesn't appear to be the dominant viewpoint.
That's just human psychology being dumb again. Just make multiple social media accounts and use one to make posts and have the other ones come along to call the first a great entrepreneur. Won't magically make you Warren Buffett but if it gets people to buy the product the first one is selling so you can pay for food/rent so you don't starve, who cares?
Maybe the investors who you are potentially defrauding, or the FTC which regulates deceptive business practices?
Cool when asked what I do I’ll say I’m an unemployed code monkey instead.
One time at a pub I had started casually talking to a dude sitting next to me. I had just been there reading a novel, we had some small back and forth. One of my strategies of encouraging conversation is being interested in the other person, so I asked "so, what do you do?"
He got very upset with me about that question. He went on about how everyone around here is so focused on their work and not living life (this was in a very corporate office tower part of town, so...yeah). Everyone only cares about what you produce, not with how you live. It turns out he had also been laid off earlier that day as well. We discussed this a good bit, and in the end had a good night hanging out at the bar. I never met him again, but I think about that conversation often.
That interaction made me decide not to ask that question going forward. These days, instead of asking "what do you do?", I ask things like "what keeps you busy in life?" Because ultimately that's closer to what I'm really wondering.
True, I've always thought it's unfortunate that so many people define themselves by their job and expect everyone else to do the same. It works for some but absolutely not for all, and ideally speaking it shouldn't be our default means of labelling others.
At this point I look at everyone who self-identifies as an "entrepreneur" with the same suspicion as people who join MLM schemes.
A Venn diagram that is very nearly a circle.
Somehow I doubt it’s entirely written by a human
Maybe my writing style is just out of this world
It was written by an entrepreneur since the very early womb days.
Will take this chance to plug one of my favorite books - How I Became Stupid by Martin Page[0].
[0]https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/186837.How_I_Became_S...
Alternative title:
What I learned spending a lifetime making the world a little bit worse for everyone else for fun and profit.
-----
Their entire mindset seems to be, "how can I take advantage of other people making mistakes to make a few dollars here and there? and how can I induce them to make even more mistakes in my realm of influence so it is even easier to profit from them?"
This is why he is always chasing the latest fad—"dropshipping massage guns, rug tufting, rainbow-loom bracelets, you name it"—people who follow fads are less likely to do their research and more likely to click buy on the overpriced TikTok ad. AI just empowers him to do more of this.
The only skill he seems to work on is his "taking advantage of others" skill. It's astounding that he got to this age without knowing even the basics of programming... and he only learned those basics once it became relevant to taking advantage of others. Rather than trying to create something new, or create a better version of something old, he just wants to disrupt efficient commerce so he can skim off the top.
I'm sure he makes a ton of money doing this. I wish that weren't possible.
Bro is a professional leech. Dropshipping -> Private Healthcare -> Siphoning VC Dollars is a crazy pipeline.
The pull chord for dark/light mode is nice!
Right? I came back just to comment on it... haven't even read the article.
I got distracted by the shiny dangly thing and it took a little while to figure out it was a pull chain.
> I feel that tutorials and informative reading are always good starting points for getting down the basics of a skill.
And for seeing what’s possible with a skill. But this can be very overwhelming as well. When you watch the masters doing what looks really easy and after that start with your first steps - and fail - it’s way more discouraging than starting without having seen this and being proud of small achievements.
Can someone explain the n8n hate? I recently used it as part of a course and it helped connect some dots for me on what I'd been studying.
I don't know if people hate it, but I don't use it because it is overpriced (you need the $50 pro subscription to do more than tinker) and it had multiple CVEs this year. There are also a lot of n8n "influencers" on YouTube, but that is not n8n's fault.
I think it is fine for prototyping if someone prefers a GUI.
What is the purpose of it? Visual programming has failed since the 80's.
Why not just have GenAI create you a custom tool to perform the automation?
n8n has been around a lot longer than LLMs and, as explained in the article, can be a useful substrate for your LLMs to write custom tools with (for those uncomfortable with the terminal or wanting lots of API integrations)
How is n8n any different from the "Visual" tools from the 80's and 90's like Visual Smalltalk?
Yeah, but can he find a building skyline or the best time to buy and sell stock
It's nice to see the kids having the same sorts of discoveries the olds had once upon a time. Specifics change, but we're just stupid humans spinning around the sun together
Can't tell if this is n8n viral marketing
Dw its not, paying them for anything is a scam. Self host until death.
Why is paying them for anything a scam?
I think they call it "submarining"
Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMhwddNQSWQ
"Social media content factory" "[Automated] Ebay flipping"
What a vile, vile thing.
I hate to nitpick, but what is 'a software'? I see and hear the phrase being used on social media but folks I know in real life just say 'software'.
I build a software vs I build some software.
I just assumed it came out of Indian English, and kept spreading as more and more people like to use the word “software” as a synonym for “app” or “program”.
In my house, software will always be an uncountable noun.
Title reminded me of this: https://i.imgur.com/17qzK8h.jpg
This is a joke, right? It's horribly written, and full of financebro bullshit. I feel like I'm back in law school talking to the business majors who couldn't get a good job and used law as a fallback.
I commend him for trying to learn new skills. no one needs to know this shit. It's not instagram.
Well, the sloppening is real. Finance Bros really be burning tokens.