Interesting to know, what is your motivation in some long-term complex things (not code projects only)?
Excluding of course money (you didn't receive guaranteed regular payment for what you do, and might not receive it at all), and your boss/manager pressure (you are not working for someone).
"Why, Mr. Anderson?"
"Why, Mr. Anderson?"
"W̷i̷s̷h̷i̷n̷g o̷n a s̷t̷a̷r"
-
Bo Marchais
- User
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:03 am
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
I'm not motivated by money, but I do OK.
(Also, I spend a lot of time around entrepreneurs and programmers and business people who have done very well or faded away.)
The question is "Why?"
When I was a small kid, I wanted to do interesting things. I didn't want to be an astronaut, but instead I wanted to make rockets and spacesuits
and equipment like satellites. In 6th grade, I decided that I should buy stocks in toy companies - a very bad investment, but I learned how easy
it is to lose money. I lost everything... but being in 6th grade, with only a few shares there wasn't much to lose.
As a kid (maybe 8?) I started many small businesses (making and selling terrible perfumes to other kids, selling ice cream, etc) and starting clubs.
It got worse(?) as I got older, so I always picked something that sounded interesting and started learning about it and then found a way to work.
Computers were amazing, so of course I had to know all about that.
Eventually I started making friends in other countries and going to visit and working for them for free (or almost free) instead of regular vacations.
It's a lot of fun, especially if its for sales or some technical project. Way better than to book a tour, maybe you don't see as many sights but you
get to see what it's like to live and work somewhere. And it's nice for people to like your help. Sometimes it finally makes some money or leads to
an interesting job, but that's OK if it doesn't - it's the adventure that counts!
Now, over the years I have become immune to failure. I often keep going even when everyone else gives up... and there is usually a reward
at the end. Sometimes big, sometimes very very small, but if you take any problem and break it down into pieces, it can be done. The only thing
that can stop most people is themselves... but they don't know it. (I should point out that different rules apply to relationships and love)
Depression is often a problem for programmers. Vitamin D3 and Exercise are best. Your brain needs oxygen for optimal performance, and
you cannot get that sitting in a chair. Exercise makes you smarter. Exercise makes you faster. Exercise makes you better.
Maybe there are setbacks or circumstances or things in your life that suck the happiness from you.
Maybe you can't change them, or you think you can't change them...
Trust me, even 20 minutes of exercise will make it a little easier to cope.
Even if you weigh so much that you attract small satellites, or if you are often mistaken for a drinking straw, getting your blood pumping
every day (walk a mile, or run, it doesn't matter) lets your body fix things that are broken in your body and in your brain. You won't get
that from coffee or soft drinks or energy drinks, you will just trigger the *sensation* that you've been exercising. It's not the same thing,
and after 27, you will start accumulating damage from lack of exercise even if you have good genes and can't see it in the mirror.
Your worst enemy and also your most precious resource is time. If you worry about things and do nothing, you are stealing from yourself.
I find that a simple way to stay on top of the world is to simply write down what you need to do on a tablet before you go to sleep,
and put the date on it...then read it the next morning. And go back and look at what you wrote sometimes - it reveals a lot.
Most people worry and get motivated before they sleep, then forget everything the next morning and lose momentum.
The opposite of the movie "Groundhog Day".
* If you want to simply sell software you have written, anyone can do it. It can be terrible, and people will still buy it...but not many.
* If you make it good (no big errors, not too hard to guess how it should be used) you will sell more.
* If you make it great (by getting rid of problems as fast as they come up) you will sell a lot more, because people see progress.
* If you realize that 98% of all the people who complain about things (even things that seem trivial or stupid) are giving you
FREE product improvement instructions and providing FREE quality control testing and use cases. Big companies pay a lot of
money to get that information, because they know it's very very important to success.
* More so, if you take them seriously (even if it makes you angry sometimes), you will sell much, much more - because the
word will spread quickly that you care about your customers. This is hard in small companies where only 1 or 2 developers
carry the product on their backs, and sometimes they "burn out" and lose hundreds of thousands in potential revenue.
* Once you sell even 1 or 2 products a month, you MUST build a solid business process or you will lose money.
Because when the big waves (of sales) come, you might not be ready and they might just wash over you.
if closing sales becomes a burden, delegate it. If other aspects become a burden, delegate. You must try to design your
business process as efficiently as your very best code. It needs error handling. It needs documentation!
Most importantly - if you know your market is large and you spend 50% or more of your revenue on marketing and advertising,
you will become like Microsoft. Also, it's often good to have more expensive versions. Programmers often know nothing or
little about how business really works, so they all make the exact same mistakes in the exact same order. And it's always
been like this. Also, programmers can NEVER admit that they don't understand business because it's almost like admitting
you are not a good programmer. So they think, well, it can't be that hard... and then they do the same thing every other
programmer, inventor and engineer does: They learn by trial and error. Sometimes they are lucky, sometimes not.
Bill Gates had success not because he and Paul Allen were good programmers, but because Bill's dad was a VERY VERY
successful business lawyer, and Bill's mom knew politics and how to network. It's an interesting story. Most programmers
think their success was from programming and technical skill. It wasn't. I wanted to be like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak,
but it turns out that's not enough to be successful. Or rich.
Don't give up! If it doesn't work, start again. The important thing is to realize that failure is really just feedback.
You want as much feedback as possible, so you must expect to fail and fail often. Unsuccessful people stop at
the first failure...successful people think each failure is just a small speed bump.
PS: Don't depend on motivation. Motivation is like a drug, and programmers often can't work unless they're motivated.
Motivation isn't very reliable, and can be defeated easily by procrastination. It's dangerous to think in terms of being
motivated. Develop habits instead... if you can. The habits will stick long after your motivation has gone missing.
So today is a fresh start! make it happen!
(Also, I spend a lot of time around entrepreneurs and programmers and business people who have done very well or faded away.)
The question is "Why?"
When I was a small kid, I wanted to do interesting things. I didn't want to be an astronaut, but instead I wanted to make rockets and spacesuits
and equipment like satellites. In 6th grade, I decided that I should buy stocks in toy companies - a very bad investment, but I learned how easy
it is to lose money. I lost everything... but being in 6th grade, with only a few shares there wasn't much to lose.
As a kid (maybe 8?) I started many small businesses (making and selling terrible perfumes to other kids, selling ice cream, etc) and starting clubs.
It got worse(?) as I got older, so I always picked something that sounded interesting and started learning about it and then found a way to work.
Computers were amazing, so of course I had to know all about that.
Eventually I started making friends in other countries and going to visit and working for them for free (or almost free) instead of regular vacations.
It's a lot of fun, especially if its for sales or some technical project. Way better than to book a tour, maybe you don't see as many sights but you
get to see what it's like to live and work somewhere. And it's nice for people to like your help. Sometimes it finally makes some money or leads to
an interesting job, but that's OK if it doesn't - it's the adventure that counts!
Now, over the years I have become immune to failure. I often keep going even when everyone else gives up... and there is usually a reward
at the end. Sometimes big, sometimes very very small, but if you take any problem and break it down into pieces, it can be done. The only thing
that can stop most people is themselves... but they don't know it. (I should point out that different rules apply to relationships and love)
Depression is often a problem for programmers. Vitamin D3 and Exercise are best. Your brain needs oxygen for optimal performance, and
you cannot get that sitting in a chair. Exercise makes you smarter. Exercise makes you faster. Exercise makes you better.
Maybe there are setbacks or circumstances or things in your life that suck the happiness from you.
Maybe you can't change them, or you think you can't change them...
Trust me, even 20 minutes of exercise will make it a little easier to cope.
Even if you weigh so much that you attract small satellites, or if you are often mistaken for a drinking straw, getting your blood pumping
every day (walk a mile, or run, it doesn't matter) lets your body fix things that are broken in your body and in your brain. You won't get
that from coffee or soft drinks or energy drinks, you will just trigger the *sensation* that you've been exercising. It's not the same thing,
and after 27, you will start accumulating damage from lack of exercise even if you have good genes and can't see it in the mirror.
Your worst enemy and also your most precious resource is time. If you worry about things and do nothing, you are stealing from yourself.
I find that a simple way to stay on top of the world is to simply write down what you need to do on a tablet before you go to sleep,
and put the date on it...then read it the next morning. And go back and look at what you wrote sometimes - it reveals a lot.
Most people worry and get motivated before they sleep, then forget everything the next morning and lose momentum.
The opposite of the movie "Groundhog Day".
* If you want to simply sell software you have written, anyone can do it. It can be terrible, and people will still buy it...but not many.
* If you make it good (no big errors, not too hard to guess how it should be used) you will sell more.
* If you make it great (by getting rid of problems as fast as they come up) you will sell a lot more, because people see progress.
* If you realize that 98% of all the people who complain about things (even things that seem trivial or stupid) are giving you
FREE product improvement instructions and providing FREE quality control testing and use cases. Big companies pay a lot of
money to get that information, because they know it's very very important to success.
* More so, if you take them seriously (even if it makes you angry sometimes), you will sell much, much more - because the
word will spread quickly that you care about your customers. This is hard in small companies where only 1 or 2 developers
carry the product on their backs, and sometimes they "burn out" and lose hundreds of thousands in potential revenue.
* Once you sell even 1 or 2 products a month, you MUST build a solid business process or you will lose money.
Because when the big waves (of sales) come, you might not be ready and they might just wash over you.
if closing sales becomes a burden, delegate it. If other aspects become a burden, delegate. You must try to design your
business process as efficiently as your very best code. It needs error handling. It needs documentation!
Most importantly - if you know your market is large and you spend 50% or more of your revenue on marketing and advertising,
you will become like Microsoft. Also, it's often good to have more expensive versions. Programmers often know nothing or
little about how business really works, so they all make the exact same mistakes in the exact same order. And it's always
been like this. Also, programmers can NEVER admit that they don't understand business because it's almost like admitting
you are not a good programmer. So they think, well, it can't be that hard... and then they do the same thing every other
programmer, inventor and engineer does: They learn by trial and error. Sometimes they are lucky, sometimes not.
Bill Gates had success not because he and Paul Allen were good programmers, but because Bill's dad was a VERY VERY
successful business lawyer, and Bill's mom knew politics and how to network. It's an interesting story. Most programmers
think their success was from programming and technical skill. It wasn't. I wanted to be like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak,
but it turns out that's not enough to be successful. Or rich.
Don't give up! If it doesn't work, start again. The important thing is to realize that failure is really just feedback.
You want as much feedback as possible, so you must expect to fail and fail often. Unsuccessful people stop at
the first failure...successful people think each failure is just a small speed bump.
PS: Don't depend on motivation. Motivation is like a drug, and programmers often can't work unless they're motivated.
Motivation isn't very reliable, and can be defeated easily by procrastination. It's dangerous to think in terms of being
motivated. Develop habits instead... if you can. The habits will stick long after your motivation has gone missing.
So today is a fresh start! make it happen!
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
Nice read, Bo. Thanks!
Reminded me about when I secretly sold all my MatchBox toy cars collection in school, for 1 German Mark each.
That was also round about 8 years old. Big troubles when my mother and stepfather noticed it. Danilo, the troublemaker...
Reminded me about when I secretly sold all my MatchBox toy cars collection in school, for 1 German Mark each.
That was also round about 8 years old. Big troubles when my mother and stepfather noticed it. Danilo, the troublemaker...
-
Bo Marchais
- User
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:03 am
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
My ice cream story is very funny. one day I stole ice cream from my mother and sold it to kids for more than the price in a shop... they needed to get permission to go to the store, but I was right there. I took the money earned and bought more ice cream from the store (it was on sale), and it just multiplied. The other kids always had money for some reason... probably "borrowed" from their parents. And there were a LOT of kids.
My mother caught me because I had hidden many new containers of ice cream in the freezer and she found them.
I also had cones and syrups in my bedroom, and things to put on them. She thought it was funny, and didn't know I was really making money. She wasn't mad, but the managers of our housing stopped me after maybe 3 weeks because people were driving in to see my "store" and the neighbors were concerned.
I used the money to buy stocks (only 2 or 3 shares each), and take girls on dates... to a real ice cream shop!
I was not old enough to own stocks, but the broker took my money anyway. He knew a fool at first sight!
That was my first lesson in how the world truly works. There would be many more...
My mother caught me because I had hidden many new containers of ice cream in the freezer and she found them.
I also had cones and syrups in my bedroom, and things to put on them. She thought it was funny, and didn't know I was really making money. She wasn't mad, but the managers of our housing stopped me after maybe 3 weeks because people were driving in to see my "store" and the neighbors were concerned.
I used the money to buy stocks (only 2 or 3 shares each), and take girls on dates... to a real ice cream shop!
I was not old enough to own stocks, but the broker took my money anyway. He knew a fool at first sight!
That was my first lesson in how the world truly works.
There would be many more...
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
Really nice text Bo Marchais, thanks for the hint 
I dont have usefull stuff to say like that. I just try to have fun.
Every finished milestone makes me smile. Progress makes me
smile. So even when i have to do stuff that doesn't make fun,
i think about the finished work and that makes me smile.
But Bo Marchais is completely right, just motivation doesn't work.
I get distracted very easily when i work on stuff that is not much fun,
then i avoid phone/ internet as much as i can. To much thinking about
different thinks is also bad, so i force me to think only about
stuff that is relevant now, and not later. Sounds easier as it is.
MFG PMV
I dont have usefull stuff to say like that. I just try to have fun.
Every finished milestone makes me smile. Progress makes me
smile. So even when i have to do stuff that doesn't make fun,
i think about the finished work and that makes me smile.
But Bo Marchais is completely right, just motivation doesn't work.
I get distracted very easily when i work on stuff that is not much fun,
then i avoid phone/ internet as much as i can. To much thinking about
different thinks is also bad, so i force me to think only about
stuff that is relevant now, and not later. Sounds easier as it is.
MFG PMV
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
To make stuff that I want.
Stuff that no one else cares about or has thought about.
Stuff that no one else cares about or has thought about.
Keep it BASIC.
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
It's passion that drives you. You need to want it, you need to want to achieve/reach a goal,
that's why you split-up big things into smaller goals. And then, step by step... uh baby!
that's why you split-up big things into smaller goals. And then, step by step... uh baby!
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
Thanks for interesting replies (especially Bo Marchais, really nice explained text with many right thoughts :) )
The human motivation question follows me for many years, but I still cannot formulate some single "theory of everything" for it :) Really it is very huge area with a lot of factors, triggering both on how brain works at low-level and "user" level, human relations/psychology and so on. Also humans just are so individual in many minor traits and genotype, thus makes lot of things and thoughts subjective.
I'm not sure it is possible to find some universal clue allowing to be "always young and doing things so well" (maybe somewhere in future some nice AI will be able to do that by analyzing lot of peoples, but I guess it rather resolve such question by some kind of gene engineering or brain implants ^^) but it is anyway interesting from time to time to think on it.
What about motivation on practice, I don't have some common solutions too.
I think to keep attention on something for a many days or month or years, you surely need to make you believe that what you doing is so much important as [valuable part of] your life, and then it works and you almost having no thoughts to retreat or fail.
That looks for me as essential part.
However, it only helps to not give up, but won't keep productivity high and trace other nuances.
Also there is such parameter as "attention span" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_span) . It matters, but doesn't bother productivity or motivation itself - I think it rather belongs to "quality" or "abilities".
Generally, need to hack yourself. Find "inner harmony" and all such stuff, and keep raising self-control :3
But that's all common words, I don't know yet some exact algorithms working for many people.
Well, some chemicals should ^^ but also didn't experimented with them yet
The human motivation question follows me for many years, but I still cannot formulate some single "theory of everything" for it :) Really it is very huge area with a lot of factors, triggering both on how brain works at low-level and "user" level, human relations/psychology and so on. Also humans just are so individual in many minor traits and genotype, thus makes lot of things and thoughts subjective.
I'm not sure it is possible to find some universal clue allowing to be "always young and doing things so well" (maybe somewhere in future some nice AI will be able to do that by analyzing lot of peoples, but I guess it rather resolve such question by some kind of gene engineering or brain implants ^^) but it is anyway interesting from time to time to think on it.
What about motivation on practice, I don't have some common solutions too.
I think to keep attention on something for a many days or month or years, you surely need to make you believe that what you doing is so much important as [valuable part of] your life, and then it works and you almost having no thoughts to retreat or fail.
That looks for me as essential part.
However, it only helps to not give up, but won't keep productivity high and trace other nuances.
Also there is such parameter as "attention span" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_span) . It matters, but doesn't bother productivity or motivation itself - I think it rather belongs to "quality" or "abilities".
Generally, need to hack yourself. Find "inner harmony" and all such stuff, and keep raising self-control :3
But that's all common words, I don't know yet some exact algorithms working for many people.
Well, some chemicals should ^^ but also didn't experimented with them yet
"W̷i̷s̷h̷i̷n̷g o̷n a s̷t̷a̷r"
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
Another motivation is to get the word out about real events in history.
Check out these decade old notes for 1976 about Jobs and Wozniak, contained on this page in the Internet's archive.
http://web.archive.org/web/200605140904 ... .htm#apple
To make things better often requires knowledge.
Check out these decade old notes for 1976 about Jobs and Wozniak, contained on this page in the Internet's archive.
http://web.archive.org/web/200605140904 ... .htm#apple
To make things better often requires knowledge.
Keep it BASIC.
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
In Jobs' case, that knowledge was intellectual freebooting.heartbone wrote:http://web.archive.org/web/200605140904 ... .htm#apple
To make things better often requires knowledge.
And he'd been doing it ever since.Bushnell pays Jobs $5,000; Jobs pays $350 to Wozniak, and took sole credit for Breakout.
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer: the first home computer with a 16bit processor, crammed into an 8bit architecture. Great hardware - Poor design - Wonderful BASIC engine. And it could talk too! Please visit my YouTube Channel
-
Bo Marchais
- User
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:03 am
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
Ah, yes... exploitation! I let my clients (and the folks who hire me) exploit me every day. I even give them discounts to encourage them to exploit me more.
I just wish I could do it faster, and more often. And I've "exploited" quite a few tech guys, but somehow they always end up making way more money than they did on their own. I've always admired Woz more than Jobs, and I never felt that gates/allen were the powerhouse behind microsoft... but as a rule: You need a greedy guy to make it big.
Here's the thing: In technology, symbiosis is king.
Your brain may be big, but it's still just your brain. And finding the right greedy/ambitious guy is hard, sometimes harder than finding a good programmer. In both cases, you need someone who believes...BELIEVES...in what you're doing, but won't just rip you off. This is really hard. You need someone who wants to see YOU do well, and who won't turn around and steal your options. It's not very common, but I can cite dozens of Business cases where the synergy happened - from the invention of photography to facebook.
I can't begin to tell you how many guys I know strangling multi-million dollar businesses (and earning less than 10% of what they could) because they TRUST NO ONE, and don't know how to get out of their own box. Even worse, there are many business guys who waste time learning technology because they don't trust (or can't afford) developers. Often they imagine that they will become good programmers, and waste many hours becoming fluent in something, only to give up because it took too long to learn the basics.
I've done this, and now I see it over and over in small business.
Everyone wants to proceed slowly, slowly, slowly. It's just human instinct, but time is always running out.
Technology has always been like this - and often, the guys who invent or build the tech or get something up and running get left behind, while the loud mouth braggarts who know how to beat the drum get rich. It's why founders so often sell out at the wrong stage or accidentally can't be in the right place at the right time so the product flounders. Or sell the company, only to see the buyer correct a few mistakes that the developers were too lazy to fix and then sell it again for 10x as much.
Is it just or in any way fair ? No. But it's life... and I've been on both sides of the equation often enough to know that there's a reason that business works in weird ways - it's actually quite logical, but we can only see a little of the big picture. Someone who knows more than you might not always have good intent, whereas most of us who believe in the philosophy of woz are ready to share and be open.
What makes us vulnerable is that we think we know a lot, when in reality we only know a few things (but very well).
Anyway, I learned a long time ago: If you have to choose between owning a smaller piece of pie (worth 1.5 million for your slice) or owning a whole pie (but worth less than $120K income a year), take the smaller piece of pie.
But most technical people like to be in full control, and they would rather hang onto the whole pie even when it's a dumb thing to do... and I'd been that guy so many times before I learned my lesson.
So: If I could find the next steve jobs and work for him, I'd do it in a heartbeat... because every time one of those guys has taken advantage of me, I've ended up far better off. Then again - this philosophy probably isn't for everyone. There's certainly something to be said for being your own boss, I think. It's just that 9 out of 10 times, your boss is an idiot.
I just wish I could do it faster, and more often. And I've "exploited" quite a few tech guys, but somehow they always end up making way more money than they did on their own. I've always admired Woz more than Jobs, and I never felt that gates/allen were the powerhouse behind microsoft... but as a rule: You need a greedy guy to make it big.
But at the time, Wozniak figured he was paid 3x more than he would have taken. Wozniak would not have gotten the job without Jobs, as he wasn't interested in becoming rich; he wanted to do things. No matter how you slice this, ultimately Jobs made things possible that Woz never could have. Was Jobs greedy? Yes! Could jobs have done it without Woz? No. But that goes both ways!Nolan Bushnell hired Steve Jobs to create Breakout, a PONG variant. Jobs joined with Steve Wozniak and designed the game in five days. Bushnell pays Jobs $5,000; Jobs pays $350 to Wozniak, and took sole credit for Breakout.
Here's the thing: In technology, symbiosis is king.
Your brain may be big, but it's still just your brain. And finding the right greedy/ambitious guy is hard, sometimes harder than finding a good programmer. In both cases, you need someone who believes...BELIEVES...in what you're doing, but won't just rip you off. This is really hard. You need someone who wants to see YOU do well, and who won't turn around and steal your options. It's not very common, but I can cite dozens of Business cases where the synergy happened - from the invention of photography to facebook.
I can't begin to tell you how many guys I know strangling multi-million dollar businesses (and earning less than 10% of what they could) because they TRUST NO ONE, and don't know how to get out of their own box. Even worse, there are many business guys who waste time learning technology because they don't trust (or can't afford) developers. Often they imagine that they will become good programmers, and waste many hours becoming fluent in something, only to give up because it took too long to learn the basics.
I've done this, and now I see it over and over in small business.
Everyone wants to proceed slowly, slowly, slowly. It's just human instinct, but time is always running out.
Technology has always been like this - and often, the guys who invent or build the tech or get something up and running get left behind, while the loud mouth braggarts who know how to beat the drum get rich. It's why founders so often sell out at the wrong stage or accidentally can't be in the right place at the right time so the product flounders. Or sell the company, only to see the buyer correct a few mistakes that the developers were too lazy to fix and then sell it again for 10x as much.
Is it just or in any way fair ? No. But it's life... and I've been on both sides of the equation often enough to know that there's a reason that business works in weird ways - it's actually quite logical, but we can only see a little of the big picture. Someone who knows more than you might not always have good intent, whereas most of us who believe in the philosophy of woz are ready to share and be open.
What makes us vulnerable is that we think we know a lot, when in reality we only know a few things (but very well).
Anyway, I learned a long time ago: If you have to choose between owning a smaller piece of pie (worth 1.5 million for your slice) or owning a whole pie (but worth less than $120K income a year), take the smaller piece of pie.
But most technical people like to be in full control, and they would rather hang onto the whole pie even when it's a dumb thing to do... and I'd been that guy so many times before I learned my lesson.
So: If I could find the next steve jobs and work for him, I'd do it in a heartbeat... because every time one of those guys has taken advantage of me, I've ended up far better off. Then again - this philosophy probably isn't for everyone. There's certainly something to be said for being your own boss, I think. It's just that 9 out of 10 times, your boss is an idiot.
Re: "Why, Mr. Anderson?"
@Bo Marchais, greatly thanks again for your experience and advices, I've already tried some of them and they really work.
Many of what you said is pretty simple, but it would take a lot more time before I could realize them for myself without your post ^^
Many of what you said is pretty simple, but it would take a lot more time before I could realize them for myself without your post ^^
"W̷i̷s̷h̷i̷n̷g o̷n a s̷t̷a̷r"