in the 5+ years I worked for my ex-boss Dinesh, he constantly, casually-yet-intensely would ask me about my goals & desired outcomes

"what do you want to get out of this?"

"how will you measure your progress?"

"what's the next step?"

"what's the limiting factor?"
I've since internalized that stuff so thoroughly, and found it so useful, that I now almost struggle to remember what it was like *before* I installed Dinesh's instrumental thinking module into my mental suite

(I do have old journal entries I can read to simulate it)
the wack thing is, once you internalize this, or a version of this, you look at the world in a completely different way than people who haven't internalized this. and you look around and you see that very few people really internalize this. you can get whiplash from the contrast
1. lots of people don't know what they want, don't really try very hard to figure out what they want, don't really believe it's possible, if they try they aren't very systematic about it, or they try too hard and agonize about it unproductively, many ways to fail on this front
2. suppose you don't fail too hard on (1)- you have some sense of what you want, cool. lots of people then aren't very persistent about translating this into manageable projects and actions. some might come up with a big grand plan that's insurmountable, like "write epic novel"
3. suppose you did ok with (2)! people will always find ways to fail 😂 they're like, ok, "become good writer, by writing a lot, write some tweets everyday, a blogpost every week" – pretty good... but then they struggle with managing their psychology/emotions and get jaded
managing your psychology is basically THE HARD PROBLEM in LIFE. (h/t Ben Horowitz's the hard thing about hard things)

everything else is pressing buttons and pulling levers. a novel is one word after another. a marathon is one foot in front of the other. but how to keep going?
to keep going you have to know your motivations. you have to know your WHY. WHY are you doing this? what is it all FOR? it helps to examine your own life to see what are the things you've cared about in the past. ask your friends & family what got you passionate riled up the most
because we are each a bundle of competing motivations, competing interests, there's a whole game of thrones going on inside your head every day (ppl are diff, YMMV). in a way you are like the boss of your brain. or maybe not even THE boss, but like, the SVP of your brain or sth
so like, a lot of people are shitty managers of their own brains. i'm sorry its true. it's not even really your fault, you weren't taught better. this species is a fractal of shitty management all the way up and down.

and all the cliches of bad managers apply internally as well
"my manager doesn't listen to me, keeps making promises of me he can't keep, drives me too hard, never gives me a break, doesn't praise me when I DO get things done, infinitely critical, is somehow both paranoid and clueless, is no help at all, keeps increasing my workload..."
here's an old transcript from 2015 – the central metaphor here is a self-parenting rather than a self-managering one, but it's basically the same idea

(I've made a ton of progress in general, but I actually still don't do daily reviews... going to change that)
:'-)

this was after I handled THE most difficult, painful conflict in my personal life, in part with skills I learned from him

he has my loyalty for life
master thread of most of the times i've talked about him

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More from @visakanv

11 Jun
sometimes i read people's criticisms of the internet and it strikes me as criticizing New York because you went to Time Square and it was all garish and loud and full of tourists and pushy salespeople, 1 out of 5 stars
just because there's this, Image
doesn't mean there isn't this ImageImageImage
Read 8 tweets
11 Jun
ok I’ll bite: what is the best cocktail?
alright friends welcome to VV's cocktail bar, on your left you have our popular hot favorites and on the right you have the more obscure choices

might have missed a couple here and there but who's counting eh ImageImage
our top hits are the Negroni (17), the Old Fashioned (14), the Sazerac (10) and the Margarita (8) ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
10 Jun
an interesting attempted snub I’ve seen of people who make a living outside traditional jobs is that they are trying to get away with doing less work

if it were truly less work, why do most people do traditional jobs? 🤔
In my experience talking with dozens of artists, entrepreneurs, streamers, etc, I’ve found Borges to be correct: a poet never rests. He is working even when he is dreaming. It is *continuous* work. That’s how we choose to live. Practically all of us walked away from simpler jobs
If you think being an artist or creator is easier than working a job where there’s an existing structure for you to plug into, I highly recommend that you try it yourself for a year and report your findings
Read 6 tweets
10 Jun
if you're currently a couch potato, and you intend to run a marathon, it's not arrogant to say "I will run a marathon in 2 years" if you then go on to actually do it
it gets a little messier if you end up taking 2.5 years to do it, but personally I'd still respect it
I think this might be a sort of scissor / cleaving point. 🤔

some people think this makes you a fraud for making an overly precise claim in the first place, others think you captured the spirit of your intent and that's what counts. I'm in the latter group
Read 4 tweets
10 Jun
there’s a point in several private conversations I’ve had with people where they ask me what my deal is, and when I tell them I want to encourage more people to take better care of each other in an informal way, they look at me expectantly waiting for a punchline
they wanna hear how I’m going to monetize it, or turn it into some kind of club or cult or empire, and I’m like no I don’t want any of those things, I mostly just want a better public commons

and it takes them a long time to process that I’m serious
if it helps, I want what these guys wanted
Read 6 tweets
9 Jun
🇲🇽
I'm not entirely sure how I got here
juan snow 💀
Read 6 tweets

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