Reflection of a Young Entrepreneur | Hacker News Reader

Reflection of a Young Entrepreneur

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7 pointsimkevingao3 comments

Aside: The part about cramming for tests and getting good grades as proof of being smart reminds me of a piece of research (that I can't recall) which found that kids learn more when they are praised for effort rather than praised for being smart. The kids that were praised for being smart tried to maintain appearances by not working too hard (as per the blog post) and subsequently did not improve as fast as the kids who were praised for effort.

On the comment of going from -3 to +3 without falling between +- standard deviations, my guess would be that you'd have to pass through that territory anyway, rather than a spectacular jump from one end to the next, seemingly overnight.

Well see, in my opinion being on the left of the -3 is somewhat a tradeoff. Of course there are plenty of within +- standard deviation folks who goes past the +3.

It's definitely not an overnight process, it's hard and difficult. Consists countless nights of unpraised hard work all just for a belief. There's no one there to give you a pat on the back. The journey gets really lonely.

As for the praised for effort, I definitely agree with that because usually people who work harder are those who achieve and improve faster because there is a learning curve and when a person learns a lot, he/she becomes a learning sponge and retain more info in less period of time. The best example I could think of is Michael Jordan.

God, this reminds me of me.

I was really smart at school and was used to being able to try hard and get As.

But with girls, I get Cs. And so I don't have relationships because I can't bear getting Cs.

And it's even worse being in tech, because when I have to compete with an office full of guys competing with me for the C, I'm only going to get an E if I'm lucky.

Sometimes the pain is so unbearable it kills all my motivation for days or weeks.

I wish I wasn't in tech. I wish I could be more normal.

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