maverickJ

It's what I like to call finding the audience for your work. The author of the post as you rightly pointed out built an audience from the Ruby world.

This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... is one of the best on this topic.

Thanks for being open. Let's assume you have the right products to make it easier. Have you considered finding the right audience for your work?

You failures so far might just be that the right audience for your work has not yet been found?

This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... might help you.

Interesting comment. How do you capture value if I may ask? This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care... Uses Nikola Tesla ad an expample of not depending on your technical skills alone

It's also important that one understands the career game. Especially early on. See this https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/early-career-tactics... for example

In this dynamic world, one need to constantly assess their career.

How would you go about choosing that one project?

Interesting article. The author has made an interesting conclusion and provided interesting premises to support it.

In my opinion, it depends on what your career goal is and what you want out of life.

If you are in a position where you use a technology you don't like or work on projects you don't enjoy, a side project on the weekends can be a way of addressing the gap. Not everyone has the chance of joining a great company.

It also depends on what country or continent you reside in. It appears that in American culture, side projects are actively encouraged; A couple of silicon valley companies have come out of side projects.

A different argument can also be made that doing multiple side projects would not make you a better programmer. Our culture tends to focus on quantitative factors for improving skills rather than qualitative factors. What if rather than doing side projects, one changes ones attitude in their current job? An excellent article on qualitative factors on excellence can be found in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/what-is-excellence

Muddled.

Writing puts thoughts to paper. Muffled thoughts don't make good sentences. A collection of sentences makes a paragraph. Therefore, muffled thoughts can't make a paragraph.

Where am I going with the above: By writing, we find out if our thoughts are muffled or not. This means that writing is like a mirror to our thoughts.

Now there is a difference between writing for personal use and writing for the public. I think everyone should write for personal use. Examples of writing for personal use are

1. Journalling.

2. Self Reflection.

3. Project analysis.

When it comes to writing for public consumption, it's a different thing all together. You would want to have a topic or interest area you want to write about. It also takes much more time than you can imagine.

I started writing recently for the public and the process has been rewarding. I have learnt alot about myself. You can check out my newsletter at https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/

Sleep is incredibly important for forming new connections in the brain. I just want to add another aspect of learning; The importance of focus.

I will start by saying: "Do not engage the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once; especially things that have no relation to one another"

A couple of questions that can help for solve the above issue are:

1.How many subjects am I currently learning intensely?

2.Do these subjects have any relation to each other?

3.Why am I currently learning the subjects?

4.Have I truly made progress in any of the subjects?

By following the four questions above, you get a sense of what you really need to learn at a particular time.

This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... goes in-depth into the why and how of learning.

There are other tools that can contribute to a good life. Some of these tools are 1. Journalling. 2. Daily self reflection. 3. Some form of physical activity.

You can find out more on how to improve the mind in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/three-actionable-ins...

Levine's articles are very educational and interesting at the same time.

He uses a style that sometimes takes an obscure and bland topic to become very interesting; Thereby making the reader interested in the topic.

That he has done this consistently over a period shows the mettle of the man.

Reading through his early career background leaves clues to his current success. It reminds me of how Jamie Dimon went about his early career in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/early-career-tactics...

I can't wait to see what he writes about once he comes back from paternity leave.

1.Do a postmortem on every project that you undertake.

2.Go through existing projects and see if you can structure them differently and the benefits changing the structure will provide.

3.Buy and read The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge https://amzn.to/30IKxdZ . It is one of the best books on systems thinking.

4.It takes time to build the systems thinking muscle so be patient with yourself.

JamesClear is fantastic. You might like https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/

If you like to get practical ideas to apply to your life from the field of business,finance, psychology and science, the newsletter from leveragethoughts is great. The link is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com

Some of the top articles in leverage thoughts are: 1. Why you have to show your work to the right audience https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you...

2. Why a technical person should not just pin their career on their technical skills alone https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...

3.How leveraging ideas from others can be a superpowerhttps://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/originality-is-not-t...

4. How to accelerate your career https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/early-career-tactics...

5. What Nikola Tesla can teach us regarding our first job https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/take-the-role-and-pr...

There are early career nuggets that one can take from Dimon despite him being born into wealth. 1. Seek mentorship: One might not be able to call an exec at a top company but you might be able to use the career services at ones university 2. Seek opportunities to learn early in ones career.

Interesting. We might see an increase in the amount of wrongly reported data as a result of the global lockdown. One can only wonder what the consequences of data underreporting might be?

This reminds me of the below event which you can read the full story at https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/making-investment-de...

In 1976, the UK government, led by James Callaghan of the Labour, borrowed the sum of $3.9 billion from the International Monetary Fund. The granting of the loan was based on the condition that government fiscal deficit be slashed as a percentage of GDP.

A couple of years later, the chancellor of the exchequer at the time of the IMF loan said this below.

‘If we had had the right figures, we would never have needed to go for the loan”

That’s right!! The decision to borrow money from the IMF was based on wrong data. The public borrowing figures which prompted the UK government to seek IMF loan in 1976 were subsequently revised downwards sometime in the future.

I think it's first important to know what you're studying and how many subjects you're studying. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... will help you out on this

It's incredibly common to find smart people trying to engage their mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once. Therefore it's important that one narrows their focus.

Once the above is done, you need create a schedule to do deep work. The schedule should be frequent and consistent.

Deep work is achieved when you're in the state of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a great book called Flow:The Psychology of Happiness which you can find at https://amzn.to/2F4QR80

You also need to ensure that you have the right environment to do deep work. What a right environment is a bit subjective. What's important is that your environment does not have anything competing for your attention.

Interesting thread and article. In life, doing good work is never enough. One also has to show good work to the appropriate audience.

Nikola Tesla, one the smartest men in the 20th centir toilednin obscurity until he spoke at the America Institute of Electricians event in 1888.

This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... explains the whole idea of showing your work to the right people

1. The power of asking the right questions. For example, if you find yourself doing learning a bunch of difficult things at the same time, the following questions can help you/ a.How many subjects am I currently learning intensely? b.Do these subjects have any relation to each other? c.Why am I currently learning the subjects? d.Have I truly made progress in any of the subjects?

To find out more about questions, this article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... is fantastic.

2. The power of writing. Writing puts thoughts to paper. When you write, the structure of your thoughts becomes more visible. It can tell you if you think properly or not. By writing, your thoughts process becomes more refined. Writing is a feedback loop to your thoughts.

3. How to build relationships. We humans are social creatures. We are quite inter dependent. To navigate through life, we will need to co-operation of others. The book https://amzn.to/3mYvmqo how to win friends and influence others is incredibly good.

4. How to show our work. You can create the best invention in computer science but if it does the right audience do not know about it, the invention languishes in obscurity. This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you... is one of the best at explaining it.

5. Financial literacy. This is incredibly important. A lot of us go through life without understanding how the financial system works. This leads to us making sub optimal financial choices. I find the book The Richest Man in Babylon https://amzn.to/3mVczMI great at introducing a financial mindset. Financial literacy is also important;Especially for technical people. The life of Nikola Tesla is an example of this https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...

I am plugging in my newsletter https://leveragethoughts.substack.com which has made the front page a couple of times recently.

Why should you read it? You should read it if you're interested in learning about ideas from finance, business,science and technology that can be applied. I also write about ideas and concept that I originated.

Who am I? I am a software engineer who loves learning about all things business, psychology and science. I also built a small startup in Europe with my close friend while I was in university.

Some of the themes I have touched on are: 1. The price you pay for your first major project https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/paying-a-premium-on-... 2. Why it sometimes pays to leverage ideas that have worked https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/originality-is-not-t... 3. The importance of showing your work to the right audience https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/cracking-the-who-you...

Great question. It's very important to not depend on just your technical skills.

Make sure you read this article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-hinge-your-care...

There is a huge power in networks. Networks introduce you to nodes that might have the capacity to action next steps for your work.

Interesting question. I believe that mottos can change the fortune of both institutions and people.

A motto when internalised can be very powerful. It becomes something you do;Something you are.

Some of my favourite are: Sapere aude and Acta non verba.

An excerpt from a blog https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/mottos-ideals-and-su...

" In 1662, The Royal Society, which was formed in 1660, was given a royal charter by Charles II. Its motto is Nillius in Verba which means take nobody’s word for it in English. This motto was intentionally chosen; At this time in the west, the objective of most educational institutions objectives was to pass on knowledge from ancient Greece. But here we had the Royal Society, at that time, choose a motto which means that evidence is the cornerstone of its existence. Evidence requires repeatable experiments in science. This was not the norm in the mid 17th century."

I write about ideas inspired from business,engineering and finance. I also share original thoughts of mine.

The goal is to enable my readers leverage these ideas for practical applications.

I currently release once a week on Sundays at 9am BST.

My newsletter is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/

Check it out and please subscribe. It's growing and exciting.

I wrote a post arguing on why one must not rely solely on their technical skills developed doing a STEM degree to make a living. One must also add financial education to their arsenal.

Looking forward to having a healthy conversation in the comments section

This was an interesting article. It sometimes pays to leverage an old experience and integrate it into a present one.

The article below talks about a similar concept albeit from a business perspective https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/originality-is-not-t...

Exactly

Start and finish Django for Professionals book.

Thank you. Please share it with your friends and family that might enjoy it.

Checked out your substack. Well done.

I started a substack one month ago after a couple of friends asked me to share my ideas and insights. I read a lot of books and have a wide interest across business, finance, technology and personal development. This has enabled me create content so far.

For the time being, marketing my blog has been through friends and family members.

I also get views straight from google. I think the title of a post sometimes brings more organic views from google.

For me right now, my goal is to output great content to the world. Great content comes from an intersection of reading a lot, observing the world and interacting with the world.

If anyone is interested, check it out. https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/