16 Mar 2009
I have a question. Do you ever feel like the following statement?
I've been so busy doing everything, that I haven't done anything.
I feel like that sometimes. Especially lately. At least I am making some visible progress on my ‘Secret Project’.
Sadly, compared to my little side project, work has been absolutely boring. Certainly I’m busy at work, but the work isn’t as fulfulling as my side project. Part of that is due to the fact that there won’t be any merit increases at work this year, but we are still going through the annual review process.
I am starting to understand that there is a more fundamental draw to running your own business that until now I have overlooked. It comes down to Effort vs. Reward. This has really been driven home this year, due to the lack of merit increases at work.
No matter how hard I have worked this year (Effort), and I have worked very hard; it won’t have any impact on my paycheck or other benefits (Reward). Now don’t get me wrong, I love my job. At somepoint though you have to ask yourself why should I give 150% effort, if I end up with the same rewards as everyone else who is putting in (and I’ll be generous here) an 90% effort (there are certainly exceptions. Lots of people here work very hard, but the majority don’t seem to fall into that category)?
Now, back to running your own business. If you run your own business the more work you put into it, potentially the more you get back out of it. You control your own destiny. There are reasons that so many people who run their own businesses work 60+ hours a week. What are those reasons? It doesn’t always feel like work. They know that if they put in another 20 hours of effort, that they have the potential to get 50% more reward.
Again, I’m not advocating a 60 hour work week. I am advocating the fulfillment that comes from a 1:1 relationship between Effort & Reward.
A lot of this reflection has been coming from the books that I’ve been reading lately. I talked a little about What Would Google Do? in my last post. More recently I have been reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
|
|
Amazon.com Review
Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."
Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
It explains how a lot of success comes from circumstance and good fortune, but how even with those things the most fundamental part of success is good old fashioned hard work. Of course after reading this though, I started seeing how my good old fashioned hard work wasn’t doing me any good as it was currently being applied.
I recommend that everyone should read at least one book like this one every year. It can help you see things in a different way. It isn’t a self help book, but it will challenge your outlook on the world.
I also think that books like these are great to listen to as Audio books. Learn while you do the dishes, change the cat litter, drive to work, shop for groceries. Learn all of the time. Then curl up with a paper book to read for fun.
Sometimes I’ll put on a book while I’m playing video games. Learn, and have fun; all at the same time.
02 Mar 2009
Wow, I missed a whole month there. What happened?
Not a whole lot really. Mostly just work, and exhaustion, and tiredness… oh, and cleaning. Our apartment is sparklingly clean (if you excuse that pile of dishes from yesterday).
Work is going well. I’m still employed. That’s what we call a good thing around these parts. Hundreds and hundreds of game developers and probably thousands of software engineers have been let go over the last month. Even a few of my friends have been let go from various companies.
If however you were looking to start a company, now is the time to hire. There are a lot of great individuals available on the market. Probably some terrible ones as well, but lots of variety to choose from.
Other than that I’ve been reading, okay you caught me, listening to some books on CD. Mostly about getting out of debt, money management and business. Not what I would generally consider to be interesting reading, but they are relevant.
One of the books is What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis.
I won’t lie, this book started off very slowly. After a couple of hours of introduction it started to hit on some interesting topics though. I’ll paraphrase some of the key ideas here:
- Free is a business model.
- Find out what business you are really in?
- The community is the content.
- The community is the brand.
This book, which Holly brought home from the library for me, at complete random as far as I can tell; has inspired me to try something; in fact three things, which then spawned a fourth. More on this will follow in the future. I still have some things to sort out and secure before I talk too much about it.
I highly recommend the book if you want to get a better understanding of how the web really works. How companies that charge nothing make millions and even billions. How being free helps to reduce competition. Only people who really love and/or believe in what they do will do it for free. So unless someone is equally passionate, skilled, and lucky tries to do what you do, no one can swoop in and undercut you.
It is also a great book at teaching you how to see the world around you differently.
No doubt you have noticed that I have added Ads to my blog. This is sort of an experiment. Plus it is a process of education by doing. I wanted to learn how people go about getting Ads on their sites, and exactly how it works on both ends. I want to see how smart the Ad system is at picking items that are relevant to my posts.
This is just how I learn. I can read, listen, and watch to learn, but I don’t retain it all for very long unless I have actually done something with it.
This will be a long, slow education. Certainly I’ll be missing the prime window for what I have in mind, but it will come around again. Probably not all of the ideas I have will be developed, but is great to have them floating around helping to refine current ideas and spawn new ones.
29 Jan 2009
The commute has returned to normal, but so far I haven’t. I have still being trying to stick with the routine of leaving the house before 7am so that I can get to work by 7:30am. Getting to work that early means that I can leave at 4pm (which hasn’t actually happened yet).
I find that when I get in early and I have 2-3 hours to work without interruptions that I get a lot more done. Plus, even though I’m there for the same amount of time, or sometimes more; it all flies by pretty quickly. The morning has this way of just zipping by, while afternoons tend to drag on.
Holly & I have both started playing Fable II. I have to say, it is a great game. It is vastly improved version of the original. They seem to have gotten everything “right” this time around. I actually enjoy some of the mini games so much that it has slowed my progression through the game; and I can only see that as a good thing.
Somehow the game seems to magically cater to all types of gamers. You can earn experience the old fashioned way, by killing t hings; or you can buy it in the form of potions to power up. You just need to make some money, be it through a real estate empire, doing odd jobs or gambling.
I look forward to trying out the multiplayer again sometime. Last time I didn’t really enjoy it, but I was still figuring out how the game worked. I think this time around we could take on some bounty hunter work and really do some damage.
Now, on to a sweet, sweet tangent. I’ve been making the family style Haystacks quite often for the last little while; and I’ve really been enjoying them and the process. I had honestly forgotten just how tastey something so simple could be. They are quick and simple to make, and it is really nice to know what exactly is in the food your eating.
I tried to make a lower calorie version of them using Splenda, and wow, did that ever backfire. I wish I had pictures, but those who have made them know that they are a time sensitive monstrosity to wrk with. The splenda just sort of evaporated, apparently the bulk of Splenda is just a chemical filler. Instead of the mixture bubbling up to fill the pot half full, it instead made the pot about 1/15th full.
We are still working away at that failed batch. They’re not goood per se, bet they aren’t awful either. They are sort of what I imagine an unsweetened Eat-More chocolate bar would taste like.
Other than that not a lot has been going on. Lots of work. I’m working mornings and afternoons, and Holly is working afternoons and evenings; so we haven’t seen a lot of eachother lately.
We have been browsing the MLS listings for Eastern Canada. Seeing what is out there and thinking about the future. We have found a few places that we absolutely love. The job prospects aren’t so great for us out that way though. There are maybe four companies out there in my industry. One of the places we found that we liked would be absolutely ideal if I could work from home.
I really don’t know why in this age of computers more people can’t work from home.
I'm not antisocial. I just don't like people.
-The Foley-
19 Jan 2009
Long drives by yourself I have to think are inherently bad. You’re just stuck there; trapped in a metal box. Very quickly you find yourself running out of things to do.
Thus was my case this morning. You see, what appears to be a group of homeless people “accidentally” set one of our major bridges on fire this weekend. So now that bridge is closed. So now all of that traffic (80,000 cars a day), well, it has to go somewhere else.
I discovered this morning that all of that traffic has apparently decided to divert itself to my bridge. Unfortunately, my bridge is already pretty much at capacity.
So on this long drive I listened to an Audiobook for a while. A little over an hour. I listened to the radio for a bit. I flipped through a mapbook looking for an alternative route. Then, well then I was tired of those things and I ran out of things to do. At first I got frustrated, then I got calm, finally I got bored again.
I find it is always at these moments that I start asking myself, what do I really want to do?
That is both a fundamental and an epic question. We all ask ourselves that from time to time. Sometimes in the context of what do I want to watch on TV next? What do I want for supper? Once in a while though it is in that grander epic sense of “What do I want to do with my life?”
I know for certain, that sitting in a car for up to three hours a day travelling one way to work definitely isn’t it. So what is it? Good question.
I like a lot of things. I have a lot of interest. Most of them involve some form or other of data manipulation. I like to chart things and organize things. I like to write code that does useful stuff. Yes, stuff. I really can’t get much clearer than that.
In a perfect world I would be able to work from home completely on my own schedule.
On the flip side, in these times of economic turmoil; I am happy just to have a job. Almost 300 game developers in Vancouver alone have been let go in the last couple of weeks.
17 Jan 2009
Little by little, I’m getting used to being back at work. This Christmas was the longest break that I’ve had in a long, long time. It made me realize just how much I wish I could do my own thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, when it doesn’t consist of ten and twelve hour days; but it would be really nice to get to sleep in once in a while and work on something that is 100% what I want to do.
Little by little the year is progressing along. Is it really the third week of 2009 already? When did that happen? I guess it must have been sometime between the mountains of snow and the thick as smoke fog that has been plaguing us in the land of rain.
Driving home late every night in the fog is a harrowing journey.
Little by little, Holly and I are consuming every TV series created in both North America and the UK. At least the good ones. We currently have 62 TV series stored on an external hard drive and served up on demand to our entire network, including over the Xbox 360. Although, we’re almost out of space on that drive. 750GB just doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to.
Little by little I’m building a framework around some ideas in my head that I hope to write about. If there is ever time. Which of course there never is. People always say that if things are important to you that you just need to make time to do them. I guess that I just have way too many things that are important to me, because it is hard to eke out any extra time in my schedule to do things.
Little by little the economy is going to hell. You see, I finally forayed into the stock market, and it crashed. Just like that. Quite literally I bought my first few stocks, sold them a few days later, and then the market crashed the next day.
Other than that, things have been fairly nice and normal. Just the way I like it.