There Is No Shortcut

There Is No Shortcut

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Survivalism

It’s all about "survivalism".

We all try to make conscious decisions based on the amount of knowledge that we have on the current world. Whether religious reaction, an atheist reaction, a fear-based reaction, a compassionate reaction, we are all trying to make the best decision to survive or thrive. Generally, it boils down to; how can this decision (or lack of) will hurt us the less in the short term? The cumulative short term decisions that we make every day then equate what we were able to achieve.

Few people amongst us are able to ignore short term pains and simply move along without regard of the complications. They just move forward. These people are either wonderfully accomplished humans or psychopaths. You can easily recognize them. They create new exciting content every day. They have lives stamped with their names only – no one else’s. They see opportunities beyond most and are able to bet on it. In short, they crush it.

My theory is that they depend on those daily actions to move forward.



Here is a question; Can we use "survivalism" to improve our current life?

Situation: For example, an unmotivated person who lives in a comfortable manner without much effort. There is no short-term motivation for him to actually make any considerable effort to advance in life. That person has a lot of potential to achieve great things. He knows that he is not working hard enough and wants to do more but lacks the fire.

Hypothesis: We are capable of motivating someone to do more by psychologically linking his survival with the development of an ambitious project. Through mental conditioning, redirecting short-term thinking to what will happen if no effort is done immediately; we can create a mental environment that would force him to start creating.

The problem that I see here is, is the induced motivation internal or external? This is important since we know that internal motivation is a much more powerful tool than relying on outside forces to achieve something. Does the motivation rely on the fear of nothing happening and losing this secure setting or it is based on self-achievement? Fear is a poor servant. Valuing "the self" is a better yardstick. But it cannot be that bad. I really think that these wonderful people that are "crushing it" need to use "survivalism" to get things done though not at a superficial level but as something completely ingrained from potentially frequent negative reinforcements (i.e. being in a difficult life position, poverty, being told young that you will amount to nothing and contradicting the establishment, etc…)

What about the rest of us? I do not have a clear answer if ever there is one. What I immediately think for a solution to help us use survivalism as a tool, is to frequently reflect (intrinsic) on the idea of failure if no action is done.
"What you see is what you get" so making reminders (external) of those potential painful moments and you will most likely avoid them.


But that is just a theory.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Success Has Patterns


I love geeks. Geeks or nerds have a special way of viewing the world. They are extremely focused on a particular subject and can run you through the history, motivations and reasoning behind the subject of their interest. I will listen to anyone with a deep passion for anything since true spirit shows when someone is fired up. Within passion, this is where real connections are made.

This links to gaming, which is something I enjoy during down time. Most games you probably ever heard of (called AAA/triple A games) are usually created by a massive team (+1000 employees for Grand Theft Auto V) and a whole lot of budget. 
On the flip side, there are creators that are small team of sometime 1 or 2 to create games to are widely popular such as Minecraft
Today, I'd like to introduce you to one of those "geeks". Edmund McMillen is the game designer and creator of the platform games "Super Meat Boy" (+1,000,000 units sold) and the dark religious themed called the "Binding of Isaac" (+2,000,000 units sold). 

Edmund McMillen

In the really interesting  interview below (1h36 worth), Edmund takes you through his history, his last 10 years (10K anyone? :), hard work, his failures and many other life lessons. You might have no interest in gaming or game developments, but if you listen to the story, you'll see patterns that are present to all very successful people that had big breakthroughs.

Video Notes : 

4:42 - School and education
13:48 - Failing school and taking what he needed from college - beginning his journey and building on what he learned non-stop
17:05 - His first big project and how he met his partner
23:02 - Big challenges and stress in the project 
31:50 - Common first project mistakes
33:00 - Money is not an objective
34:18 - Starting too big and the work that you have done that no one will ever see
37:42 - Love what you do
1h04 - Passion project (really interesting segment on his most popular game and culminating his experience and staying true to himself)
1h12 - Postpartum depression after the end of a project
1h19 - Dealing with critics/haters and using them as motivation
1h27 - how is discovered his passion through a mentor
1h28 - 10K !!!!
 


Cheers!

 

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Week 8-12 : Workload Increases and Windows 8 Cooperation

The last few weeks have been good. Sorry for the lack of updates - been busy as you'll understand below.

Suddenly, things are lining up and the work starts accumulating,  And when I say accumulating, it's piling up. On top of it, my computer decided to stop cooperating. When I say stop cooperating, I mean it just went full on disco strobe on me - see video below.


Life has it's quirky way to throw shit at you when the timing is wrong. It's not like I had photos to retouch and emails to answer with multiple clients and supplier...nooooo, absolutely not. 

But I'm not here to complain to say that I'll fight back life! Even if you throw as much crap as you want (please don't if you don't mind) I'll bat it back even harder. Living a life of freedom and fulfilling work is a bliss and I wish it for you.

P.S. : I'm glad to say that I fixed my computer. Thank God for Windows 8....