[extropy-chat] Personal effectiveness

[David Lubkin]

At 07:35 AM 11/24/2003 +0100, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote:

>But there is a better strategy imo: evidently you are one of those who start
>things, and not one of those who complete things. These are two very
>different personality types, and the world needs both. Why not just accept
>this and rely on others to complete the work that you start? In the example
>of the book, you write a short novel that someone else can expand into a
>book, then move to something else. If it is software, as Hal advices do a
>module, then put everything on Sourceforge so that others can work at it.

It is true that I am better at coming up with great ideas than with 
following through on them.  Not just psychologically but in skills.  In 
software, say, I am competent at coding, debugging, etc., but no more than 
that.  It's the design and vision stuff where I can walk on water.

I've often thought that I'd want to be surrounded by an infrastructure to 
take my ideas to fruition.  I bubble with commercially viable ideas fast 
enough to keep a few hundred people busy.  My father and grandfather were 
that way, and I'd guess more than a few extropians are also idea geysers.

My plan, which I think I shared here some time ago, is to bootstrap a 
software company.  First, do everything myself to get a first product out 
(I'm within a few weeks of this).  Then split my effort between marketing 
and writing successor products.  Minimum target is not to have to work for 
someone else any more.  As revenue increases, outsource the tasks I don't 
want to do.  Ideally, grow to the point that I have serious money to put 
into developments I want to help along, like asteroid mining.

This is, however, something that I've wanted for a long time, and I'm 
trying to understand and confront why it -- and life goals in other areas 
-- remains "in progress."  In part, delays have simply been because I have 
been a custodial single dad, and that comes first.  But she's now off in 
college, and it's a good time to examine what's been deferred and reprioritize.

Ironically, four generations in my family are going through the same 
process simultaneously of self-evaluation coincident to transition to a new 
phase in life.  My daughter is now a nominal adult, I'm mid-career with 
newly empty nest, my mother is semi-retiring from Physics Today after forty 
years, and her uncle is adapting to assisted living in his late nineties.

Of course, I also know many other people re-examining their lives and 
making dramatic changes.  I think it started consequent to the 9/11 attack 
for the outer world and with Sasha's death for us.  We talk blithely on 
this list of who's going to bring the guacamole for a party ten billion 
years hence, and that's fun, and may even happen.  But what if your life 
ends tomorrow?  What will you regret not having been or done?


-- David Lubkin.