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Is “Just Get Started” Bad Advice?

Posted inEntrepreneurship5 Comments on Is “Just Get Started” Bad Advice?

My friend Cal Newport is a great guy who stimulates my brain. In his latest post, I’m guessing he has yours truly in mind when he writes:

Attend any talk given by an entrepreneur and you’ll hear some variation of the following:

    The most important thing you can do is to get started!

This advice has percolated from its origin in business self-help to the wider productivity blogging community. You’ve heard it before: Do you want to become a writer? Start writing! Do you want to become fit? Join a gym today! Do you want to become a big-time blogger? Start posting ASAP! If you don’t start, you’re weak! You’re afraid of success!

Cal goes on to say that he’s mainly arguing against the attitude where "every twinge of momentary enthusiasm is translated into action that consumes a non-trivial amount of time and attention." Cal says that instead of just leaping into action mode, we ought to contemplate our choices, analyze the situation, and "develop rigorous thresholds that any pursuit must overcome" before acting.

I agree to an extent that the very real benefits of planning and not acting can be lost among the "pro-action" hoopla. But the hoopla exists for a reason: many people talk about things they’d like to do but never get around to actually doing them. Cal, a doctoral student who has no problem executing on goals, naturally favors a more academic approach to the inaction problem (analyze, list options, pick best option, track success) rather than an experimental approach (jump into things as soon as possible, figure out if it’s worth it, back out if it’s not, etc). For some though, I think his wait-and-analyze approach might exacerbate paralysis — all smart people can create more detailed Excel spreadsheets instead of actually picking up the phone and take tangible steps in the desired direction.

In the end, the worthiness of the "just get started" advice depends on the task. Some tasks give feedback faster if undertaken right away in a small dose as opposed to analyzing it from afar. Take Cal’s examples: If you want to become a writer, sure you can talk to writers and study the profession, but is there a better way to understand whether writing girds your loins than actually putting pen to paper? If you want to become a big-time blogger, is there a better way to understand the blogosphere than to start a blog yourself? If fitness is your goal, what’s better than spending an hour a day in the gym for two weeks and seeing how you feel?

Starting a company is a much larger type of task and therefore more deserving of the kind of restraint Cal outlines. For the record, if someone tells me, "I want to start a company," I do say, "Get started!" But get started doesn’t mean taking out a $100,000 loan from Fat Vinnie, quitting your day job, and betting the family farm on your venture. Rather it means doing some preliminary research, maybe developing a prototype by night, and developing mini-experiments that can quickly give you a sense of the viability of the idea. Low risk actions.

Cal also says this on successful people:

They have built an exhaustive understanding of the relevant world, why some succeed and others don’t, and exactly what type of action is required. This takes time. Often it requires a long period of saturation, in which the person returns again and again to the world, meeting people and reading about it and trying little experiments to get a feel for its reality. This period will be at least a month. It might last years.

I’m frankly a little skeptical and would be interested in some specific examples. Did this saturation happen on the job or beforehand? Did they build an exhaustive understanding of the relevant world from afar, before getting started, or during? Most of the success stories I’ve been exposed to have been accidental and the person ended in place that was unexpected — for example, starting a business and then it becoming something totally different in the process of building it. Methodological, comprehensive saturation to the industry before jumping in? Not really.

Bottom Line: There are plenty of cases where not acting and analyzing options is preferable to jumping right in and getting started. It depends on the task (smaller tasks are good for immediate action) and the person (do you learn quickly from experimental feedback?).

Not Getting Boxed In as a Do-Gooder

Posted inBusiness7 Comments on Not Getting Boxed In as a Do-Gooder

In Switzerland I met a bright, ambitious young man who has spent a couple years in consulting and is now trying to figure out what to do next. He’s intrigued by the non-profit sector and social entrepreneurship. But he’s concerned that excessive non-profit time on his resume, while he’s still young and trying to establish credibility, will make it seem soft; in other words, he’s afraid of being pigeon-holed as a do-gooder.

It’s a fair concern and relates to what seems like a massive challenge in the non-profit world: how to recruit the best and brightest young people into a sector that generally pays less and (exceptions notwithstanding) is filled with lower caliber people than in the private sector.

Teach for America has done a brilliant job at generating some caché around its jobs. My understanding is this is due to their ultimate effectiveness in the classroom (but since this is not enough by itself) it’s also due to their selectivity and how they brand this selectivity. However they do it, they have made it sexy for its young workforce to say they are a teacher for TFA at a cocktail party.

I can’t think of another non-profit which in so short a period of time has established itself as an elite, selective organization which will only hire the best.

All companies would do good to learn from TFA’s remarkable positioning / branding job.

“Those Sound Like Surface-to-Air Missiles”

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My traveling companion made this comment after hearing howler monkeys scream after the crazy-loud thunder roared in Rincon de Vieja Park. The thunder here in Costa Rica is unbelievably loud — like bombs exploding.

Those Late Night Dorm Conversations!

Posted inSchool / Education19 Comments on Those Late Night Dorm Conversations!

I am in awe of the romanticization of higher education in America, mainly by its alumni who are probably rationalizing an extraordinary sunk cost of money and time but also from the media (especially those pesky soft focus, all-anecdotes higher ed stories put out monthly by the New York Times which pander to its well-to-do readers with teenage sons and daughters). We hear that going to a fine college in America represents the opportunity for unblemished intellectual pursuit. The one opportunity to pursue the life of the mind with no other distractions or obligations!

Or: The late night dorm conversations about the meaning of life! This — late night dorm conversations —  may be the most overrated thing ever. Slightly inebriated 18, 19, 20, or 21 year-olds (that includes me!) musing on the Big Questions with no preparation or structure is an absolute train-wreck. Yet these situations continue to get mythologized as formative intellectual or social moments that are not to be missed.

Based on my own experiences and those of my friends (who attend every college you’ve heard of and many good colleges you likely haven’t heard of), I think people vastly overstate the existence of an unadulterated intellectual life for undergraduates in the academy. Look to the plagues of multiculturalism and political correctness (anti-intellectual currents if there ever were ones) or simply the fact that drinking / drugs, obsession with grades, and power plays in pursuit of golden internships are the primary points of interest for most 20 year-olds at even the best institutions.

This doesn’t mean college is worthless. In fact, I think college offers many benefits to undergrads, such as the networking opportunities or just the fun factor of four years of summer camp. But a truly enriching intellectual experience of the sort that’s often "remembered" by alumni or celebrated by the media — those early moments where a worldview started to form, a love for books that was cultivated — this seems less likely, unless you’re a student at Reed, University of Chicago, Swarthmore, and perhaps a couple other places whose cultures do seem to take the life of the mind seriously. In general, I think a minority of students at good colleges leave infected with a love for ideas and a majority leave with knowledge that they will probably have to un-learn later in life.

I’d rather have our colleges either be more explicitly vocational — ie, be in the business of transferring practical career skills and not talk themselves silly with phrases like "teaching our students how to think" — or actually cut the bullshit / distractions and emphasize liberal arts for liberal arts’ sake alone. Floating somewhere in the middle, as most liberal arts schools do now, appeals on the surface for those like me who don’t want the suffocating seriousness of a University of Chicago nor the mechanics skills of a vocational institute, but ultimately the ever-elusive ‘happy medium" as currently practiced doesn’t offer enough of either to seem worthwhile.

Moments Thus Far That Have Stuck w/ Me

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Some memorable moments so far:

  • Lathering my feet and legs in bug spray (97% DEET!) before going to bed, to prevent being ravaged by the endless bugs here.
  • The grandmother at my hostfamily addressing me, “Muchacho” and handing me some clean clothes. It was sweet.
  • Grandmother asks, “Le gusta chilli?” I hear “chilli” and think of the American dish (beans, means, tomatoes, mixed together, tasty). Apparently chilli in Spanish means “spicy” / peppers, which I hate. She gives me peppers to put on my food; since I said I “love” chilli I oblige and put a bit on the side of my plate, and move it aside when she’s not looking.
  • I tried to tell a girl “her laugh is distinctive” – I think it came out, “your smile is beautiful.” Oops.
  • Lying on beach, on beach lounge chair, to the left and right were palm trees, straight up was a big blue sky. iPod in my ears. Then, suddenly, a perfect V formation of birds flies across the sky. Magical. I’ve never seen anything like it.