The myth of the lone genius is out, growth mindsets are in. Machines are better at intelligence, the real edge is authenticity, empathy, and understanding people. And people make mistakes.

The goal is not perfection; the mindset shift is we are taking a high number of shots on goal to score. Get your reps in, iterate, make mistakes and learn from them. Being good at something is the logical equivalent to not being bad at it. It’s knowing the mistakes you have made before, and not making them again.

I watched this movie recently where a war hero is stuck in a time loop. The day resets everyone he dies. He lives the same day over and over again, surviving further and further each day. It’s not about making it on your first try, it’s about getting a little further each day, making the mistake so the next day you know when to duck.

Take the ego out of it, you as a person cannot categorically do or not do something. It’s about if you want to put in the energy to get good at it. It’s about finding what you enjoy doing and doing it over and over again. Beginners’ luck is cheap, passion trumps all.

Things are only true for a short period of time. Eventually, every edge becomes obsolete. Reality is always changing and evolving, and we will constantly need to stay on our toes. Sitting back and deciding we have it made is a losing strategy. You need a little stress to lock in and build important new things. We will always be mortal creatures on the run, we will always be trying to run faster. Change will happen whether you accept it or not; the longer you sit around in denial the more it’s going to hurt when reality hits you.

Work is an infinite game that you should play if you want to. If AI makes it so that we all don’t have to work, that would be amazing; it’s a net positive that people won’t have to do things they don’t want to do. But some of us are natural born tinkers, we like building things. It’s fun to look at the novel thing and take it apart to understand it. We aren’t necessarily better than others and we aren’t entitled to all the spoils of war, but some of us will still want to build at the cutting edge. People who aren’t in it for the love of the game can drop out, go do something else they enjoy.

We have to stay grounded, because the first step to building something useful is finding a problem someone has and the first step to finding a problem someone has is understanding them. Builders are not the lone weird kid whittling away in the corner, we have to stay plugged into the zeitgeist and read the room.

The myth of the lone genius is out, growth mindsets are in. Machines are better at intelligence, the real edge is authenticity, empathy, and understanding people. And people make mistakes.

The goal is not perfection; the mindset shift is we are taking a high number of shots on goal to score. Get your reps in, iterate, make mistakes and learn from them. Being good at something is the logical equivalent to not being bad at it. It’s knowing the mistakes you have made before, and not making them again.

I watched this movie recently where a war hero is stuck in a time loop. The day resets everyone he dies. He lives the same day over and over again, surviving further and further each day. It’s not about making it on your first try, it’s about getting a little further each day, making the mistake so the next day you know when to duck.

Take the ego out of it, you as a person cannot categorically do or not do something. It’s about if you want to put in the energy to get good at it. It’s about finding what you enjoy doing and doing it over and over again. Beginners’ luck is cheap, passion trumps all.

Things are only true for a short period of time. Eventually, every edge becomes obsolete. Reality is always changing and evolving, and we will constantly need to stay on our toes. Sitting back and deciding we have it made is a losing strategy. You need a little stress to lock in and build important new things. We will always be mortal creatures on the run, we will always be trying to run faster. Change will happen whether you accept it or not; the longer you sit around in denial the more it’s going to hurt when reality hits you.

Work is an infinite game that you should play if you want to. If AI makes it so that we all don’t have to work, that would be amazing; it’s a net positive that people won’t have to do things they don’t want to do. But some of us are natural born tinkers, we like building things. It’s fun to look at the novel thing and take it apart to understand it. We aren’t necessarily better than others and we aren’t entitled to all the spoils of war, but some of us will still want to build at the cutting edge. People who aren’t in it for the love of the game can drop out, go do something else they enjoy.

We have to stay grounded, because the first step to building something useful is finding a problem someone has and the first step to finding a problem someone has is understanding them. Builders are not the lone weird kid whittling away in the corner, we have to stay plugged into the zeitgeist and read the room.