School sets you up for this mindset. I don't think many people realize that there is more to a life than achieving or being productive. It's all good if that's what you actually enjoy, but if it's making you miserable you are indeed wasting your life. Knowing this should shake you awake, knowing you are miserable because of what you are currently doing should provoke a change, not seek some way to work with your misery.
So much of the advice I see from YC (PG in this case, I know he isn't YC, but it's all cut from the same cloth) is about how to change your outer circumstances to accommodate inner impediments, such as Fear. They'll offer hacks or "mind games" to trick yourself into moving past the fear, as PG talks about here:
"But it's a bit strange that you have to play mind games with yourself to avoid being discouraged by lame-looking early efforts."
Unfortunately, I don't see anyone over there talking about conquering fear permanently, such that these issues fall away and what is left is boundless creativity.
One tool offered here is to "switch polarity", which means to take the other side of the argument. Fine, but real wisdom comes from transcending polarity.
Another tool offered is to tap into the motivation of curiosity. That's great as "early work" on the inner game, but there are much more robust ways to conquer fear when one looks at cutting edge work on consciousness evolution, such as Integral Dynamics, or studies Eastern traditions like Vajrayana or Zen.
I look forward to the day where YC elevates this discussion toward awakening themselves and their network to more transcendental tools.
You don't want to conquer fear entirely. Fear is an important signal. Physical fear keeps you out of danger; ego fear keeps you from wasting lots of time on fruitless things or doing things not in accord with your values.
You want to control fear. Put it in a little box so that it's a signal and not a dictator. Process it so that you're aware of what precisely is making you afraid and can rationally think of ways to mitigate that concern. Fear is a reason to be vigilant and aware, not a reason to freeze up and stop doing what you're doing.
Not the poster who you are replying to, but from the references he gave, I assume he was more or less saying the same as you.
In meditation what you want is to become aware of your feelings/emotions/sensations to a level where you can then very consciously choose what to do when something happens, instead of triggering a knee-jerk reaction.
I've found one way to conquer fear and develop perseverance is to just (gradually) go thru enough hard things and learn to be okay w/ discomfort.
I've never been as active as I wanted in my young years due to weak health, and recently started engaging in outdoor activities I always wanted to do (long-distance hiking, climbing, scuba diving), mostly because I don't enjoy hitting the gym and looking at a wall, but I didn't anticipate the benefit it would have in my psyche.
Now, when faced w/ hardships of life or random sources of stressors, I can relate back to some past experience and think "hey, I did that crazy thing, of course I can handle this other thing here". I don't know if this psychological phenomena has a name, I would only describe as "developing thick skin". I think it also happens naturally to individuals who had a hard upbringing and are hard working nonetheless. Maybe there's some idea to explore here.
Yes, this! I start my days by jumping into an unheated swimming pool (or stepping into an ice-cold shower, when the pool's covered for the coldest months), and one of the main reasons / benefits is the self-mastery involved. "No, I don't want to do this. Yes, I can do it anyway, and start my day with a small victory."
I've been (mostly) quietly working on this for several years, after my initially-promising YC (W09) startup failed to take off, having been afflicted by what I realised on deep reflection was mostly fear, egotism and self-sabotage.
Like you I think the concept has huge potential, and I've found some modalities that you haven't mentioned but that I've found particularly powerful, and could be more broadly beneficial for founders and creators generally.
Feel free to hit me up (email in profile, or in Bookface) if you want to connect and discuss further. (Offer is open to anyone else interested too.)
You are right, there is huge potential in broader knowledge and practice of "consciousness practice".
Wim Hof has been making the rounds on HN lately. His latest book just came out, and I would recommend anyone who is looking for a super straightforward and practical way of systematically facing and overcoming fear, to check out either the book or just download the Wim Hof method app to do the breathing and the cold showers. You really don't need to "believe" anything, just need to try out the basic exercises and see what you feel, then decide if it's something that you want to keep doing or not.
This is exactly the type of thing we can explore that pays dividends in ways that has a halo effect over everything in our life, not just our startup performance. Thanks for mentioning!
> One tool offered here is to "switch polarity", which means to take the other side of the argument. Fine, but real wisdom comes from transcending polarity.
I suggest real transcendence of polarity comes from holding both sides of the argument in your mind at the same time until they merge, and spending some time really understanding the other side than the one you're attracted to is a route there.
> Unfortunately, I don't see anyone over there talking about conquering fear permanently, such that these issues fall away and what is left is boundless creativity.
Constant reinforcement made by little, constant and almost predictable successes. Read the psychological literature on self confidence (but skip bloggers and influencers)
In the end I think the best we can reasonable wish for, anywhere, is non-demented. Everything else is up to entropy, the whims of organized crime, and the pressures of evolution and information.
Are young women better leaders than old women? Than young men? Old men? Is it truly causation? What prompted you to make this association? Any other countries make the list that don't have young women leaders?
Gender and age probably do matter in lots of things. Usually when I hear it brought up, it's either to grind an axe, an act of defense, or a hidden agenda. Almost universally lacking objective truth seeking.
I also dislike the current US president, but IMO calling him out and then promoting the idea that young women are best just polarizes people... In fact if I was a Trump 50-center that's exactly what I would do to try and alienate as many people as I could under the guise of a "lefty socialist".
Sure, the sample size on female leaders is very small. But what about the sample size of female bosses ? Are female bosses significantly better than male bosses ?
I'm surprised that you think that being in middle or upper management is the same as running a business. Do you have anything to support that equivalence?
Agreed on Warren, and I'd love to see President AOC someday. The only reason male leaders have been bastards since time immemorial is because, as you rightly point out, they were mostly men. Most good leaders have also been men. I agree women should be given fair opportunity at leadership though.
The Finnish PM's party got 18% of the vote in the last election. She didn't stand for election, she was appointed and her party has 13% popularity right now.
So literally 13% popularity (party) and unelected.
She had 3 years of experience in federal politics before being promoted (not elected) leader of a nation.
She also has a gushing Goop-like Instagram full of gorgeous pictures of her and her boy at exotic destinations, 'thinspo' shots, glam shots.
She doesn't have any intellectual, academic, or otherwise rigorous credentials.
She's also easily the most attractive person in Finnish politics.
So the real question is - how do intelligent people interpret those who are utterly unqualified and illegitimate in almost every way, who are obviously popular at least due to their visual social media profile and nothing more ... to be 'leaders of integrity, capability, and virtue'?
And of course, arbitrarily picking two leaders from some group (ie female) as somehow evidence of something?
This the exactly the same thing as Trump, just the other side of the coin. It's anti-intellectual & I don't think we want this in politics or real political discussion.
There might be some interesting 'gender' argument somewhere there, but this is not it.
It's interesting that in the study they described, performed on blindfolded people, that their descriptions have similarities to the DMT experience:
>>> One subject, a 29-year-old woman, saw a green face with big eyes when she was standing in front of where she knew there was a mirror—though she couldn’t see it. Another 24-year-old man, by the end of the second day, was having difficulty walking because of all the hallucinations that appeared to be in his way. He reported seeing "mounds of pebbles, or small stones...and between them was running a small stream of water." By the end of the study, he reported seeing "ornate buildings of white-green marble" and "cartoon-like figures."
"Thus the discovery of these new properties of the atmosphere not only opened up the possibility of transmitting, without wires, energy in large amounts, but, what was still more significant, it afforded the certitude that energy could be transmitted in this manner economically. In this new system it matters little--in fact, almost nothing – whether the transmission is effected at a distance of a few miles or of a few thousand miles."
I wonder what the side-effects would be of setting up a standing wave between Earth and the ionosphere that was so strong it could power toasters and hair dryers. In that alternate reality, there would not be very many metal-frame buildings...
There's a difference between being a dreamer and a wizard. Tesla never succeeded in demonstrating efficient long-distance wireless power transmission, and apparently didn't understand the physics which prevent it.
I had a similar experience. I was a burnt out YC startup founder in SF with a wife and kids whose life I was missing, and everything felt off track. I started working with a life coach, left my startup in the capable hands of my co-founders and moved to Raleigh. I soon thereafter had my first psylocibin experience. There were a bunch things shifting in me, but this experience blew my mind open and I haven't been the same since. (Much for the better, of course!)
During that first trip, in a few hours I went from seeing the universe as a mechanistic, "matter is all there is", reality, to directly experiencing that there is so much more. Since then I've gone much deeper down that path and I'm so very thankful for this beautiful medicine for opening my eyes and heart!
I’d love to understand how much of a role psychedelics in the creation of Apple’s story arc. Does anyone have information about where this has been discussed? Thanks!
It might be useful to understand early Apple Inc -- as an Apple II company, then secondly as a Macintosh company. The former was very 'California' with health and folksy undertones, but later came money-at-a-large-scale and waves of corporate hires that enabled the corporate side. So you have the California folksy (plus yes, psychedelics/art/education core) base in Phase I, adding large, expensive structure and people who were professionals at doing that, in Phase II. The fuels of market success add to the constant growth, yet the California core is still in the fabric of the culture -- that was the Macintosh era. In Phase II, 'creatives' now have modern cubicles to work with computers -- HyperCard, typography and desktop publishing, awareness of the media business (LA) and some interaction with LA, but definitely print itself, worldwide. The printed word had a significance that is hard to explain if you only know a post-Internet world. So Apple was in education, print, media, and also (they thought) business.
You might ask similarly, what was the role of psychedelics in Hollywood? of course it was there, but to be a business, you had the business people, who were not-at-all about expanded consciousness, but competitive and territorially aggressive, ego-driven, etc. Same but different at corporate Phase II Apple. By the time of the Macintosh, a feeling of Big Corporation was in the air already, and the tie-dye was not often worn on the outside. Steve must have taken psychedelics, but was way too arrogant, aggressive and lets say it, dangerous (he was at NeXT in Fremont by then). Steve personally traded tie-dye for scary and intimidating black luxury cars early on. So how do you categorize that ?
Jobs did speak up about his LSD use at some points, but I think he probably transcended that and followed the practices outlined in one of his favorite books: "Autobiography of a Yogi", which I'd highly recommend to anyone interested in consciousness.
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.” Steve Jobs
