> Furthermore, I don't want experience in that, because I recognize that I'm far better off focusing on my strengths than my weaknesses (something eschewed by the self-improvement crowd, but a well-demonstrated fact).
Exactly right. The self-help "guru" scene is based on very little fact (or should I say, based heavily on cherry-picked facts) and instead focuses on "mind over matter", e.g. if you just try harder you'll get it sooner or later (and be damned good!). Absolute snake oil.
> This whole thing stinks of confirmation bias to me.
That's all self-help has ever been: one guy says he has a process, a method, another guy agrees that the first guy was on to something, but he has a slightly different remix that maximizes its effect. Rarely is this stuff based on actual research or science.
Further, I don't really think pg's point was that you can somehow follow a guide to resourcefulness and become resourceful, rather he was making an observation about the quality of "resourcefulness" in some founders, i.e. the founders that ended up being most capable and noting that such people who have said aptitude need but a word to get going. I don't dispute that; I have no experience with it. But I do dispute the notion that you can come up with some method that will make me magically better and base it on nothing but conjecture and confirmation bias.
Edit: Consider this, after ten-thousand hours of practice you might master some craft: but the implication isn't that I can sit idly at my computer, hitting the keys here and there and then after some set amount of time I've magically mastered it. No. Mastery only comes after countless hours, days, weeks, months, years, even decades of passionate and careful dedication; no guide is going to make you suddenly better at something you lacked talent in without significant investment. And well, once you're investing passion and time, what do you need some guide for?
There's an awful lot of people dissing self-help. But it's always vague. What specific books/authors/phenomena/trends/memes/etc within self-help is it that you have a problem with?
Personally, I think self-help and self-improvement are great things. If there is something you want to do, something that has value to you, or if you are unhappy because of something, you should absolutely pursue improvement in that area, even if you have no natural proclivity.
The problem is that there is too much thinking along the lines of, "weaknesses are flaws which must be fixed." Personally, while I think it's a good idea to be aware of weaknesses and know how to accommodate them, it's better to focus energy on areas of strength than to expend it trying to 'fix' weaknesses.
(BTW I'm not saying this is necessarily what the blog post was about, though I do think an awful lot of his stuff falls into this category)
That's interesting that you feel my blog is about addressing weaknesses. I'm generally not a fan of "fixing weaknesses" and more about "developing strengths". However, I do think that being afraid of something is different from generally being bad at it. Many people confuse the two because they are sometimes related.
When I was learning a new skill in gymnastics, I was bad at it and often scared of it. But that's because it was brand new. As I overcame my fear and figured out the skill, I got better. Sometimes I realized it was not worth learning, but that realization is decoupled with my fear of it.
The issue is that when building a startup (again where pg indicates being resourceful is valuable) you have to go beyond your areas of strength and do / learn things that you aren't good at. That doesn't mean you are "fixing weaknesses", it just means you have to go beyond your core strengths to get the job done. It also means being creative, flexible and persistent - the elements of resourcefulness.
Also, you define resourcefulness in a way that ignores the necessary domain knowledge. Without sufficient domain knowledge, an otherwise 'resourceful' person cannot appear as such.
if you just try harder you'll get it sooner or later (and be damned good!). Absolute snake oil.
I'm willing to say that, yes, if you focus on something long enough, you probably will make great strides toward competency in it. The 10,000 hour thing seems pretty valid. But the question, to me, is: why? The opportunity cost is quite high. Am I better off spending 500 hours focusing on learning to schmooze and network, or spending that 500 hours focusing on my technology skills and, notably, creating valuable product in that time? Improving a weakness for the sake of eliminating that weakness is what strikes me as snake oil. You're not invalidated simply because you're weak in an area, and often it's far more valuable simply to be aware of a weakness than it is to eliminate it.
Further, I don't really think pg's point was that you can somehow follow a guide to resourcefulness and become resourceful
I agree. My takeaway from pg's essay was that founders who are both technical and socially/schoozily/network-ily gifted will be more successful than those which are merely technically gifted. That was sort of a "no duh" for me, but perhaps there's an insight there that I'm not seeing.
It's valid if it's understood: it shouldn't be taken to mean, "Randomly press keys on a keyboard for ten-thousand hours and you'll produce masterful code" but rather "work passionately and carefully for ten-thousand hours, learn from the masters, seek to emulate and extend their genius, and after ten-thousand hours you might be getting somewhere".
Simply trying hard isn't enough. You have to be smart about how you try. That's what I was getting at with that.
I agree, the snake oil is selling this idea that you /must/ improve your weaknesses or you're invalidated.
On your last point: exactly. The takeaway is that it was a rather obvious point to make: people who are gifted in in a multivariate of disciplines will thrive; I doubt many will dispute that.
Exactly right. The self-help "guru" scene is based on very little fact (or should I say, based heavily on cherry-picked facts) and instead focuses on "mind over matter", e.g. if you just try harder you'll get it sooner or later (and be damned good!). Absolute snake oil.
> This whole thing stinks of confirmation bias to me.
That's all self-help has ever been: one guy says he has a process, a method, another guy agrees that the first guy was on to something, but he has a slightly different remix that maximizes its effect. Rarely is this stuff based on actual research or science.
Further, I don't really think pg's point was that you can somehow follow a guide to resourcefulness and become resourceful, rather he was making an observation about the quality of "resourcefulness" in some founders, i.e. the founders that ended up being most capable and noting that such people who have said aptitude need but a word to get going. I don't dispute that; I have no experience with it. But I do dispute the notion that you can come up with some method that will make me magically better and base it on nothing but conjecture and confirmation bias.
Edit: Consider this, after ten-thousand hours of practice you might master some craft: but the implication isn't that I can sit idly at my computer, hitting the keys here and there and then after some set amount of time I've magically mastered it. No. Mastery only comes after countless hours, days, weeks, months, years, even decades of passionate and careful dedication; no guide is going to make you suddenly better at something you lacked talent in without significant investment. And well, once you're investing passion and time, what do you need some guide for?