[HN Gopher] What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Book Summary
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What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Book Summary
Author : mooreds
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-02-28 15:18 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jamesclear.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jamesclear.com)
| paulpauper wrote:
| What about people who are successful because they are jerks or in
| spite of that.
| localhost wrote:
| I'd like to talk about the format that James uses for his book
| summary. What do others here think about this format? It's simple
| and to the point.
|
| As I think through some recent books that I've listened to as
| audiobooks, I'd really like to generate a summary like this for
| each one of them so that I can help the material settle into my
| brain a bit better. The challenge is usually the places where I'm
| listening (driving, running, riding) and capturing notes in those
| places can be hard. I've recently experimented with using Apple
| Watch Reminders to take notes - have others tried this as well?
| mmcdermott wrote:
| I tend to use the phone to keep plain text notes that I upload.
| I'll listen for a chunk, pause, and type out a few bullet
| points. It doesn't tend to be based on time, but when I feel
| like I've hit a point where I have something to summarize. The
| clumsy touchscreen keyboard is almost a help as it forces me to
| be more concise than I would need to be on a keyboard.
|
| Admittedly, this wouldn't work as well when driving (I
| generally do it while exercising or lounging). The goal is to
| take these plain text notes and add them to my TiddlyWiki,
| where I have entries for each book.
| infini8 wrote:
| There are a few good apps like Airr and Snipd for podcasts
| which integrate well with Readwise. KOreader on my kindle now
| also connects with Readwise. Still on the search for something
| that can transcribe from audiobooks though.
|
| My current method is to bookmark any interesting parts in
| Prologue, my audiobook app of choice. And then find the
| relevant part on the epub version on KOreader-> highlight it ->
| sync with Readwise -> Obsidian
|
| Long winded but works.
| randomsilence wrote:
| >Behavioral problems, not technical skills, are what separate the
| great from the near great.
|
| True for those with technical skills. There are also the ones
| with social skills that haven't honed their technical skills.
|
| Is there a complementary list of technical skills for those who
| can handle the behavioral problems?
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I think this book is aimed at people who have already advanced
| in an organization. Basically you need the skills and
| credentials to make it to a low level manager for the advice to
| apply to you. In tech, this is typically a CS degree,
| internships, and good references. It's hard to sweet talk your
| way past byzantine HR requirements at most large companies.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| In my experience, if you have an inside reference and manager
| who wants to hire/promote you, HR requirements can almost
| _always_ be waived.
| pinephoneguy wrote:
| The older I get the more I realize that after you get to about
| average intelligence, it's control over emotions that matters
| far more than intelligence or technical knowledge if you're not
| working completely alone. That, I think, is why the stereotypes
| about software developers in the 80s don't seem to apply to
| modern software developers (why they're more sociable, why they
| make way more money, etc.) Now it's all about interfaces and
| community with a little bit of technical work where before it
| was mostly just you and the computer.
| j_walter wrote:
| This book was given to me by the president of my company when I
| was promoted to management. It's a great book and like most of
| these types of books not all of the information applies, but it
| does a good job of explaining how to do a better job in a
| leadership role.
|
| This book along with the following are good for any managers in a
| technical role: Checklist Manifesto, Team of Teams, Influence:
| Science and Practice, The New Rational Manager
| tmountain wrote:
| To add to the list, I just finished Radical Candor, and I found
| it pretty good.
| umeshunni wrote:
| How do you get through books like these, especially if you're
| not a fast reader / native speaker?
|
| I find that they have a core theme that could be explained in
| a few pages, but somehow they try to fill 200+ pages with the
| concept with examples, anecodotes and such.
|
| Is it usually worth reading through the entire book or is
| there a 'life hack' to reading them faster?
| j_walter wrote:
| I would say you just need to develop a habit of pushing
| through. Set a goal to read a few pages a day either during
| lunch (or cut it a few minutes short) or before you go to
| bed.
|
| Sometimes those examples can hit close to home with a
| certain situation that you have seen in the past or may
| encounter in the future. I do skim them if they don't
| really connect to me, but it's worth at least reading the
| first few sentences of each.
| laserlight wrote:
| Audiobooks. Listen to them at faster speeds.
| lemax wrote:
| I feel no shame sifting through non-fiction books. There is
| nothing wrong with not reading cover to cover. I tend to
| skip chapters or long anecdotes for concepts I have already
| absorbed, and I sometimes also apply speed reading
| principles (usually the first and last sentence of a
| paragraph are most significant, and the body of the
| paragraph provides supporting evidence).
|
| We don't owe any book our time. I am very selective about
| what I choose to expose myself to, and I gravitate toward
| only novel information. I'll slow down when I don't
| understand something, and speed up 5x or entirely skip the
| fluff/fodder or non-new info.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| "Create a To-Stop list rather than a To-Do list."
|
| _This_ is what _I_ need to do. One of my biggest weaknesses is
| saying "yes" to help with things that I really don't want to do
| or don't have time to do.
| criddell wrote:
| You can see more books that James has summarized here:
|
| https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries
| derbOac wrote:
| A lot of this is good advice that I wish I had been told earlier,
| but like a lot of this sort of thing, there are at least two
| critical problems.
|
| First, a lot of this is in the abstract and the difficult part is
| how it gets applied in any given situation. For example, there's
| a lot in it about "successful people maintain a belief in
| control" but then also a lot about "being able to shift goals is
| important." Those aren't mutually exclusive, but they can often
| be in practice, and that conflict of choices is where the true
| difficulty is.
|
| Second, these sorts of things often have nothing to say about
| goals or values. That is, it assumes there's some "success"
| that's implicitly known and agreed to. For example, profit, or
| holding a certain position or something of that sort. That's all
| well and good if you are on board with that being your goal, but
| what happens when your ultimate goal comes into question? What if
| you get to a certain point and realize that progressing further
| conflicts with your ethical values? What if you realize that
| you're on a track that doesn't appeal to you for whatever reason?
| I think these types of questions are often the most tricky ones.
|
| I'm not saying this sort of text isn't useful -- on the contrary,
| I would have liked to read this long ago. But often times the
| sorts of dilemmas people face are one thing dressed up as
| another.
| izzygonzalez wrote:
| Regarding control, viewing goals as outcomes that I can
| influence is changing my life.
|
| An objective is "Be the greatest programmer of all time". The
| outputs are things like, "Find and read the top 3 most
| important books on programming." Those can then be broken down
| further until they are actionable. I find control in the
| difference between an objective and an output.
|
| A nice habit I can recommend from the article is keeping a
| notebook of people you want to thank. I keep the notebook so I
| don't get distracted and don't forget if I remember someone
| suddenly.
|
| If you do engage in that habit, the idea of output/objective is
| important to keep in mind. Some people don't respond to
| gratitude well, or at all. That's not the point though, that's
| focusing on the outcome which you can only influence not
| control. You can control the action of writing a note of
| gratitude to someone you care about. Imagine how nice it feels
| to receive an unexpected thank you note.
| bmhin wrote:
| > First, a lot of this is in the abstract and the difficult
| part is how it gets applied in any given situation.
|
| A lot of these "genre" of books tend to fall into this camp for
| me. They feel like trying to hold onto sand: sure in the
| initial moment you have it grasped, but it just as quickly
| falls away and there's nothing really there to hold onto.
|
| A classic example is one from this list, "Delusional self-
| confidence causes you to resist change". If you drill into
| this, it seems like non-delusional self-confidence is what lets
| you enact control and not simply let life happen to you. In the
| other case, delusional self-confidence means you are refusing
| to accept reality and the changes you can't effect. It might be
| then reformed to "Rational self-confidence causes you to accept
| change".
|
| What is the take away then? Seems like it's "Don't be
| delusional / be rational". Which, sure, but that is basically
| inapplicable and a near truism. If you knew you were in either
| camp you don't need any of this advice. "Know when you're being
| rational and when you're being delusional" feels like the
| general place a lot of stuff like this reduces down to in the
| end.
|
| I do like the simple compliment / feedback accepting with a
| "Thank you" one as it's fairly easy to actually do. You will
| get thrown occasionally when someone wants to dig after the
| fact however.
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