This year, let your resolutions look back

A Story Year-ending

With a new year around the corner, people make resolutions. At year-end, people also look back and reflect. It occurred to me that one can't be prepared for the new until at peace with the past. If you are chained to the past with heavy chain, you can't run forward.

In fiction writing, resolutions aren't about making a todo list for the future. Instead, resolutions wrap up the tensions and struggles the characters experienced throughout the narrative. Whatever disappointments or complications one suffered from, there's comfort and light at the end. That's what a resolution is - to make peace with the past.

With that in mind, I don't want to make plans for the future yet. I want to remember the past year in summary and reflect whether it means a beginning or an ending.

Resolutions

1. About this time last year picked up an online Python programming tutorial - since then I explored other materials (Udacity is awesome) and learned to program. 

• What I learned - I learned to program, which helped me appreciate technology in a different way, which helped me understand our Zeitgeist a bit differently. 
• I also learned that the really valuable skills relating to code may not even be coding. It might be problem-solving, learning to abstract, learning to manage complexity, and learning to create re-usable modules. 
• It taught me patience: you really can't get good overnight. All good things takes time.

2. During the last year and a half, I built a bunch of products with a friend with hopes of launching a business.

• What I learned - I suck at building stuff. But, it was fun and I got a lot better. Failure teaches you things about yourself (related post) as well as about a new craft. There's huge value to simply trying ... you'll suck in the beginning.

3. Read a whole bunch of stuff that I never read in business school or in my past life - Martin Seligman and Gretchen Rubin on Happiness, Thiel's essays (mind-blowing!), Paul Graham's articles, Andreesen's blogs, Noah Kagan's newsletters, Amy Hoy's Unicorn Free, Chris Gullibeau, Ferris's 4-hour book, etc.

• What I learned - there are lots of smart people, and the possibilities for making a living in the world are really endless. In the short-run, options may be limited (because of expenses), but if you can begin to think what your passions are longer-term, rich and rewarding life-career is within your grasp. It helps to be working with smart, successful people. But, usually, you have to become smart and successful yourself to attract those people. Catch-22.

4. Wrote some cool blog posts about my experiences across business and coding in SF.

• What I learned - I learned to communicate with readers. I'd spent a ton of my life sending email back and forth in a corporate cube. None of that stays with you. No one cares. But for the first time, I learned how to build an audience and a following; to communicate.

5. Became an author! Wrote my first e-book about Coding Bootcamps based on my insider-view experience of having worked for one and knowing bunch of people in the space.

• What I learned - You can productize just about anything. It doesn't have to be software.

6. I tried a coding project with someone.

• What I learned - You don't have to be an expert or have talent in the field (though it helps). The only talent you need is talent for action and energy. If you start, it is possible to bring others to contribute to the effort. It is the first requirement of team building.

7. Built meetup communities - Ruby Rookies and SF Product Management FastTrack (the latter with a friend, Ritu).

• What I learned - learned what it is like to start something from nothing, how to create resources, identifying and tapping into unmet need of anonymous others, and how that leads to a community of like-minded folks.

8. Family. My younger brother got married to a wonderful wife, and my parents' cat is adorable. 

• What I learned - We go through ups and downs. Friends sort of come and go ... and it's hard to know who is a friend until you fail. Those that are real stay with you. Family on the other hand is family. They love you and support you no matter what. They are more important than all the rest, so remember that.

What I learned - Cats are cute!

Sharing

This seems good enough place to stop. Everyone is busy, and I'm too old to keep making lists. Would love to hear from you - what your resolutions are; what you did and what you learned.

Happy New Year!

New Project

One of the things I decided to do for 2014 is to put up a new website with my own URL (since I had always used someone else's url - like this blogger.com blog). I'm going to do something constructive with it by getting non-technical MBAs more familiar with some of the tech stuff I'm playing with - sort of web101 for non-technical MBAs. It will go up on http://techproductmanager.com/. Would love your readership and support!

(If you enjoy these thoughts and would like to support my writing efforts promoting personal learning and understanding of technology, please consider supporting me through gittip.)

A rant. Do you, or don't you? Founder Institute. How to approach resources.

Okay, so this entry is a bit of a rant.  Topic: "Do you, or don't you?"  Or how do you know or decide what's next for you?  Or reflections on using resources.  Basically, you got in.  Now what?

Here's something I often don't hear ... "Congratulations!"  An acceptance letter from Founder Institute inviting me to join its Fall 2012 SV semester class.  And they are asking me to make up my mind by tomorrow - 9/18/12 [1].

Usually, it's the "I'm sorry" letter.  Like the one after our Y Combinator interview Summer '12.  'You're good, but no dice!'  (So it goes - learning to take rejections gracefully is part of the journey - enjoy it!)

This feels a lot like B-school apps a few years ago. Got into the Darden School, rejected by others.  Now what?  And I imagine this is a common dilemma shared by other (inexperienced) entrepreneurs.  You got something (a resource), but how do you know if it's worth your investment?  And we generally suck at answering these kinds of questions about how something will pan out based on today's decision.


From Nassim's Taleb's Black Swan, Part 2 - "You would expect our record of prediction to be horrible: the world is far, far more complicated than we think, which is not a problem, except when most of us don't know it."  So we suffer from the '(wo)man who knew too little' problem.  And I know this to be true of my life.  Now and then, I catch myself wondering if my life could be better optimized.  How come I can't seem to go in one direction - up and up?


Since no one knows the future, I'm going to frame this as using resources in life.  What is a resource?  In my case, it is that which will help (our company) grow, answer questions, get users, connect to mentors, etc.  So, the useful evaluation is to determine whether FI will be useful or not for (our company).  I'm going to think about it and discuss it with my co-founder.  As a starting point, I have a few hunches about major pluses and minuses.  But, the problem with hunches is that they are almost always wrong.  And what's really needed is a more empirical data to predict the outcome.  More to come.

Some concluding thoughts to a random rant:

1. Find/create resources.  FI is a resource.  If you don't apply or don't know about it, you don't have it.  Having a resource is the first step.  This mentality is key to creating your own luck in life.
2. Consider the goal.  Does the resource help you achieve your goal - whether it's power, knowledge, growth, peace, whatever.
3. Learn to reason with data.  Heuristics are easy, but unreliable.  What you want is data.  For example, I will look to FI alums to see how successful they have been ... an imperfect data point, but better than a hunch.
4. Action trumps reasoning.  Attend info events or talk to alums to get more data points.  And will FI help me be more active or simply be an academic exercise?  For startups, key is talk less, do more.

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[1] By the way, if you don't know this yet, you can always change dates or rules like this one.  If you want things to work for you in life, you need to learn to change the rules to benefit you.  One useful insight to keep in mind is that whoever comes up with a rule is just another human being.  Just like you.  You can talk to them, reason with them, ask them.

Thinking outside the sphere

Before there was management-speak about thinking outside the box (long before), there was a time when greatest thinkers on the planet debated whether the world was geocentric or heliocentric. Keenest among these, Kepler inherited Martian orbit data from Tycho, thinking he'd soon unlock the secret to planetary motion. Instead, in Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris relates how Kepler struggled to find an answer for eight years. Ferris also relates Kepler's reflections on his own mistakes (Ch. 6): "My first mistake was having assumed that the orbit on which planets move is a circle. This mistake showed itself to be all the more baneful in that it had been supported by the authority of all the philosophers, and especially as it was quite acceptable metaphysically." Kepler is talking about the fact that it was something of an accepted wisdom, an axiom almost, that man was at the center of the universe. No one really seriously challenged the notion for almost two thousand years since Aristotle.

Kepler apparently tested seventy circular orbits against Tycho's Mars data. Then, he imagined himself on Mars, and realized that earth's orbit would trace the same trajectory across the sky. There it was: earth revolves around the sun.

I don't think it's necessary to conclude anything based on this story. It's just a neat reminder that for the most part, we have no idea what we are talking about, and it takes an enormous effort and insight to rid ourselves of our ignorance.

Big Picture: What is Wealth?

Now, Darden finally sent notice of loan awards. No grant, max Stafford loans, rest in Graduate PLUS loans. Oh well, at least I am grateful that I have access to loans to attend school. Better than nothing.

The biggest remaining financial hurdle is to sell my house. It's already consumed much effort (re-paint and re-carpet) and it promises yet more headaches as the market is very soft in North Carolina. Sure, it's far more robust relative to sub-prime markets elsewhere in the country, but it's still soft. The lesson to draw here are clearly to start early, very early. Also, I think you need a good agent, which mine is not. Be sure to shop aggressively and interview agents more thoroughly (and more than one) before signing.

Anyway, something else came to my mind. In particular, I thought about what it means to worry about the world, and realized there is a world apart from the world we now inhabit. I attended church last Sunday, and there were many old folks who are frail and whose days seem numbered. To the eyes, that church appears to be dying. Later that day, I came across an article about prevalence of plastic surgery in Asian countries. I'm sure there are many social forces at play, but my initial thought was that there is something morally wrong about it. I realized that using another set of eyes, the old folks who worshiped on Sunday were healthy, while a society that drives its youth to the knife for looks must be in the throes of a spiritual death. So, I must also watch out. If I don't be careful, I'll be just as lost in irrelevance instead of waiting on the Lord. It would be reactionary to simply state that plastic surgery is wrong; it isn't. At the same time, there is something not right about people who are forced to feel ugly due to some arbitrary conception of beauty, or for people who feel they must look a certain way on account of their peers, or just because they believe they must appear more comely to obtain a job, etc. Then again, that's no different from American female preoccupation with breasts size, and so forth. All of which reminds me that we really live in twisted times.

What then is wealth? Luke relates a story about Peter washing the nets by Sea of Galilee after a night of no catch. Jesus then tells him to cast his nets to the deep waters. Peter obeyed and caught so many fish that he beckoned James and John to come out to help him. Both boats were sinking, so rich was the catch. Once on shore, Peter confessed "I am a sinner." Why did he say that? Because, he realized that there is a world apart from that which he inhabited. Thereafter, it was no longer important to catch fish - though he caught many that day. Jesus took these men to make them fishers of men. World apart. Maybe it's another way of saying there is a bigger picture. For all the material wealth of this world, for all the worries about loans and this or that, there is something more important out there. I hope I'll have the humility to cast my net in the deep water when Jesus tells me to.