Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?
After reading a recent post here with "best advice" from 13 prominent business people, I was underwhelmed. Now I know why. I'd rather hear from you guys than from them.
My father came from a working class family. On that day, he had already been going to night school for three years, and would continue for another four years before getting a degree in computer science (this was before the days of easy, short degree programs for adults with jobs). He wore a shirt and tie every day to his job but still looked like the kind of guy who wore coveralls to work.
He slumped. His hair, thick glasses, and briefcase were dotted with rain. He closed the apartment door, looked at me, and said, "Never become an expert in something you don't like -- because then people will want you to do it ALL THE TIME."
He was a lot happier after he got his degree, in part because I think there were more and better choices of things to become good at. (The money was better, too).
I automatically thought of a mentor for best advice when the real answer was many years before.
I too have many fond memories of waiting for my father to come home. His best advice was never said explicitly, but implied every single day of my childhood, "You can do anything you want, if you apply yourself and work hard enough." I still lean on that advice every day.
Thanks for reminding me that Mark Twain was right:
"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."
Instead he told me the following story about Sam Walton, the founder of a somewhat successful retail venture.
A newly hired executive had made a multi-million dollar mistake and he too was summoned to the corner office. Before Sam could get a word in, the executive said "Save the lecture and just fire me."
Sam studied the young executive for a few moments and replied "Fire you? I just invested millions of dollars in your education - you don't even get to resign".
Like Sam Walton's freshly minted executive, I learned an important lesson that day. Mistakes, even those of the multi-million dollar variety, are inevitable. What is of utmost importance is that we learn the lessons taught.
(Only later did I fully grasp that small mistakes are actually desirable).
The best advice that I ever received was from my father. He is one of the hardest working men I have ever met (construction) and never seems to complain no matter how tough things or life can get. This bit of advice may have been given to him at one point, but not too long ago he said to me, "Don't ever feel like you are missing out on something. There will always be another party".
While this advice is somewhat simplistic on the surface, it really has given me the ability to put life and the choices I make into perspective. It is easy to put your future on the back burner and get caught up in the feeling that it's a necessity to go out all the time (I am in college if that put things into perspective). I am gifted with the uncanny ability to rationalize to myself that the poor decision I am about to make is the somehow the appropriate one at the time(/sarcasm). Opportunities sometimes only come once in a lifetime and how we handle those situations is often the true determinant of our character.
Sometimes it is hard to stay in and direct my time and efforts into my current side project. Hopefully there will be many parties (celebratory I would like to think ;) ) to make up for the time that I am spending to make an impact and reach success outside of the norm. Sometimes I laugh at some of the comments people around me make, believing as though they can spend 6 out of 7 days a week drunk and then magically be granted a seven figure salary as the CEO of some organization right out of college. The other day someone I am unfortunate enough to know said to the people in a class "In ten years, you will all be working for me!". Well, I sure hope that in ten years I am not the katsup man in the McDonald's assembly line.
I am actually excited to submit an Ask YC question of my own in the next day or so because I really feel like I could use some direction on after college decisions. Cheers!
My first business mentor said it a little differently:
"Perception is everything until they buy!"
edit: looks like 8 people so far noticed that they are guilty and don't intend to change anything.
I'm pretty sure what the downmodders are reacting against is the absoluteness of your moralism. Personally, I'm not offended by it. I'm flabbergasted by it.
Edit: this just reminded me of one of the best pieces of advice I ever received: Judge not, lest ye be judged. How's that for swinging back on topic?
They could do better, but don't, that's practically the definition of immoral. They value the wrong things, again, that's practically the definition of immoral. What am I wrong about? That some of the best things ever made are better than football?
guilty of having immoral values. they ought to find better things fun, but instead are wasting their lives.
There are no single accepted set of moral values so the term has no inherent meaning. Where some groups say your thoughts are a moral choice it's far more common to say it's your actions that are moral in nature. Of those groups that feel your thoughts are important most feel doing good works is not a moral imperative let alone creating beauty in the world.
So you are basically suggesting a world view without support. And thus you are just defining your terms and not presenting an argument supported by fact. This prevents a DH6 as there is no central point that could be refuted. You are not presenting an argument as much as presenting an unsupported opinion which falls under the same category as gibberish and is not refutable.
PS: "If you really want a DH6..." present an argument supported by facts.
PS No one wants a DH0 reply. And they shouldn't be upvoted.
PPS You aren't allowed to call someone's writing "gibberish" in a DH6, nor ought you write significant meta about what the person is or isn't doing, or does or doesn't "really want", or anything like that. Nor does it makes sense to imply you are going to give a DH6 reply and then, within it, say that it's not possible to give one.
Words or phrases only have meaning when there is a shared understanding of what they mean. GLARPF people who JAVARA understand this SLFARL VERORLRA when they SFLLKKLSA. You can't agree to that statement because it has no meaning but at the same time you can't disagree with it. If you define love as the sky and then say "the sky is love" there is no meaning to those words. Basically defining terms is semantically identical to gibberish. IMO, this is why people gave up on philosophy as a science.
PS: I don’t disagree with your original statement because it lacked meaning.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with deciding you don't want to devote enormous amounts of time and effort to something creative. For example, you can touch plenty of people's lives and have a tremendous positive impact on the world just by being there for your friends and family, something that devoting yourself to an intensely creative endeavor probably interferes with.
Don't get me wrong - entrepreneurs, authors, and other creative people are special people. That's why they are rewarded (sometimes) with praise, admiration, or money. But that most emphatically does not mean that they are better or more moral people than those who choose to live more ordinary lives.
But anyway, use whatever words you want, I've told you what I meant: living better, more fruitful lives with more learning and thinking. And people who could do that, but don't, are guilty of living badly, living below their abilities.
This is not just a matter of opinion or taste. For example, we are only able to communicate here because of scientific achievement; that is objectively more important than pokemon. And, for example, no one is perfect, so people who correct more of their mistakes end up better than those who don't. People who think and learn more are more able and effective at correcting their mistakes to improve themselves.
But is it a waste of talent for a good doctor to quit his job and pursue a less philanthropic effort? Yeah, that's probably valid.
Your post made a very aggressive move by defining "contributes little back to humanity" as immoral. It's not a bad definition, but it's very different from the common definition.
i certainly think people have a right to waste their lives. i will not stop them, forcibly. but i will verbally criticize that decision.
I'm certainly not one that prefering football or even pokemon is any kind of a poor choice. I happen to prefer programing. I prefer to stretch my mind instead of my physical or social limits. That is not to say that preferring to know what it takes to be a good corner back, and executing on that is immoral.
The first is from a YC founder. I don't remember who, but he said "Always say yes." I tried that out for a while, and it has worked pretty well. A lot of where I am in my life is because I just said yes when I normally would have shrugged it off.
The second is from an essay by paul graham. "When given two choices, always choose the harder one." This one has become a mantra I say over and over again to myself. It hasn't failed me yet.
And finally, from Steve Jobs: "Listen to your intuition. It tends to know where you're going better than you do."
I think if I mix those three pieces of advice, I'll have a pretty respectable life.
Ironically, another useful rule is "say no more often". It can help protect your sanity and your focus.
There are times when it's hard to know which of these excellent rules to apply. Perhaps the secret is to listen to your intuition. :)
Whenever I have been brave enough to go this route, I have been rewarded... either with an awesome prize or wisdom.
Now days I usually look for the harder option. It doesn't make sense all the time since you might just waste a lot of time but it makes a lot of sense if it will cause you to grow.
Good tip!
Stated slightly more poetically by Robert Frost:
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
:)
"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
The trouble is, I'm going to college, I am saying "no" an awful lot of the time, but I'm not brave enough to quit.
And eventually, partially because of the mirror-every-morning trick he talked about, I did quit.
And good advice from my wife: "get outside more and do some exercise". So time to switch off HN and go for a bike ride!
To this day I've taken his advice. He seemed like he knew what he was talking about.
"Just find what your passionate about and do that. Then you'll love life, you'll be in a great mood for your wife and kids. And you'll make plenty of money to get by."
Norm Nemrow, My Accounting Professor at BYU (My hero)
Edit: I don't think I wrote this exactly the way he said it -- he took an hour and a half to say what I tried to write here in just a couple paragraphs.
"Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right." ~ Ron Sutton
My other favorite quotes are at: http://melvinram.tadalist.com/lists/906581/public
* You can tell how badly you want [something] by observing your actions each day. Are they consistent with [attaining your goal]? ~ Brian Tracy
* Character is destiny. ~ Sigmund Freud
* Heaven and hell are a state of mind. ~ The Four Agreements
* We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. ~ Mother Teresa
* There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller
* After you go to the bathroom, you don't just stand there and look at what you just dropped in there for all night long. At some point you gotta flush it, man. ~ Kobe Bryant
* Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can't... either way you're right. ~ Ron Sutton at The SBRC
* There are some things you can do something about and some things you can't do anything about... don't worry bout stuff you can't do anything about. ~ Dunno
* Work Harder. Play Hardest. ~ Me
* Attraction is not a choice. ~ David DeAngelo
* Intelligence is defined by prediction. ~ Jeff Hawkins
* "Every beginning requires an ending, another revolution around the wheel of life. Death is not sad; the sad thing is that most people dont really live at all." ~ Dan Millman
* Magnify what's best. Focus on what's next. ~ Change How You See Everything book
* Focus attention on opportunities not problems, strengths not weaknesses and what can be done instead of what cant. ~ Change How You See Everything book
* A diamond is just a hunk of coal made good under pressure. ~ Rod Weckworth
* There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
-Paul Buchheit
There are lots of smart people around in here, but you are more likeley to meet the guy with the businness idea that just needs a developer, or the guy that worked for years, and has enough capital and connections to hire a bunch of code monkeys to implement stuff, than smart hackers getting together to do something. A lot of tech jobs around here are boring, (financial companies, enterprise stuff), and if you are young, it will be a great handicap on how VCs will treat you.
Boston is just too conservative to be fun.
It's from a coach from long ago, but it has served me well many times outside of running.
When I was about twelve, I was supposed to plant grass over what used to be our garden one day over summer vacation. My summer breaks were usually sprinkled with chores like this, and taking care of the house and my younger sister. This particular day, I didn't feel like doing any of it, so I hit the dirt with the rake a couple of times tossed the seed around, and went back to whatever it was I was doing.
My dad came home, and when he took a look at the garden he asked if I did it, I said yes, and he was obviously disappointed.
"You can't go through life doing half a job, because you'll just have to do it again"
Then he made me do it again the next day. Certainly the next day was much better (tilled by hand, seeded and covered with straw) but that really stuck with me.
- Dad
Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, then tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em.
When you create, stick to three C's: Clear, Concise, and Complete.
Just Start.
Focus
...from my first employer after he came in to work late once day from what must have been a crazy night out.
2. The less cash you spend the longer you have to make your dream possible. Spend cash in the right places. Like health insurance.
3. Never interrupt a good salesperson in the middle of their pitch, even if they are saying something incorrect. Tell them afterwards, and if it's important enough they can always call the customer/investor and clear it up.
4. Read contracts. A lot of the time they don't make sense. Sentences go on forever. Don't take that crap. Make a lawyer spell things out and simplify. Make sure you read and understand every detail, particularly investment agreements. These people are not your friends. They are not your parents. They are not looking out for your best interests. Your lawyer isn't either. Lawyers are just making sure you are not going to get sued and such. They are not looking out for your best business interests. Do not think because a lawyer says a contract is 'pretty good' that the lawyer has evaluated the business implications of it.
5. Don't listen to accountants when they say the word 'profit'. It's an illusion. It doesn't necessarily mean you made money. You could in fact have ended the year or month with less cash (and assets) than you had at the beginning, which sound to me like an unprofitable year or month, but they will take numbers from an accrued loss and add them up to make profit. This kind of profit isn't going to help you pay rent or hit payroll. And savy investors can read through it. Cash is all that matters. So when a suit* say 'cash is king', which is often their 'advice', what they really mean is focus on the cash flow, not the balance sheet.
*a 'suit' is someone who has started a few companies and is quite successful, but doesn't remember the early nitty gritty days of suffering and fear, so they like to say things like 'cash is king' to summarize all their mistakes of running out of cash.
6. Figure out how to make and read a cash flow and balance sheet. It's like a doctors chart for a business. If you have no revenue, and you have 'project' revenue in your cash flow chart, make 2 more. One with no projected revenue, and one with 1/3 what you projected. This tells you how long your company will survive in the worst case and most likely case scenario. Chances are your actual revenue will be 1/2 to 1/3 of what you expect it to be (in the beginning, with no history or trends, and a brand new product in a new market) The more prepared you are for this the more likely chance you'll have of surviving.
And, if your 100% right, you have better problems to solve than running out of money. :)
"Just find what your passionate about and do that. Then you'll love life, you'll be in a great mood for your wife and kids. And you'll make plenty of money to get by."
Norm Nemrow, My Accounting Professor at BYU (My hero)
Edit: I don't think I wrote this exactly the way he said it -- he took an hour and a half to say what I tried to write here in just a couple paragraphs.
Don't pick at it.
Never trust a naked bus driver.
- polonius, hamlet
It's not that the situation is bad, it's what you make of it.
"Never give people advice."
-Einstein