The importance of working on yourself cannot be understated - it’s a key part of what makes us so capable. This is an excerpt of a discussion I had with my girlfriend, Arista, on this topic. I hope this can showcase the collaboration with friends and family that goes on behind-the-scenes when developing new ideas to put on this blog. Hopefully this can inspire you to go out there, collaborate, and take on that challenge that you’ve always wanted to do, but avoided because it felt too daunting.

Alvin:

I found this guy, Jim Rohn, who gives some powerful speeches.

(unfortunately I can’t find the actual speeches - it’s all synthesized voice that sometimes gets the transcription wrong. But there’s some pretty useful wisdom in there)

For example: Learn to Work Harder on Yourself Than on Your Job - Jim Rohn

The two points that stuck out to me the most were:

  • You don’t have time to not work on yourself
    Because you can’t afford to not improve
  • Fear is a signpost that points to where you need to go
    If something scares you, it’s probably worth doing

Arista:

Looks interesting, I listened to part of the video you linked but didn’t finish it. I think he has some good points, essentially that your success in a job depends on your success as yourself and fixating on your job is kind of counterproductive. I agree with what he said about taking time every day to learn something, to exercise, and to self reflect, though I don’t think the “learn something” category has to be about reading self-help books (he publishes self-help books though so I know exactly why he’s saying that).

The “fear is a signpost” point is interesting, I might need to listen to the not summarized version to decide my opinion on it. Sometimes fear is pointing to something you need to work on, but I think just as equally fear is sometimes a sign that something is wrong. To give a somewhat contrived example, if I’m afraid to submit work to a boss because they regularly nitpick my good work and personally belittle me over it, that’s not a sign to keep going and that it’s worth doing more, it’s a sign that I should be leaving and finding a new job where I’m respected as a person.

Alvin:

[reply to first paragraph] If I think about it, both interpretations are correct. As a speaker, of course you’re going to want to spread your word more. It’s not even about the money, it’s about the concept. In some talk, he says “most successful people are willing to give advice if they know you’re serious.” Not everything is a zero-sum game. As a listener, reading books is something that the most successful business people do, and there’s a reason for that - you can’t afford to not be your best self. But we also live the same amount of time, so we can’t afford not be our best selves either.

[reply to second paragraph] Right, fear is not without reason. It’s up to you to figure out what that reason is, and whether to follow it. “The best startup ideas seem at first like bad ideas,” as Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator, said. On another note, your example about nitpicking is one of the motivating points of another one of his talks, Never tell people what you do. Don’t showcase too early, lest it get shut down before it is even able to sprout.

Arista:

[reply to first paragraph] For me personally, I’ve just found that self-help style books have very diminishing returns. Perhaps others get more out of the motivational aspect than I do, but my experience with that type of book has been that once you’ve read one, you’ve essentially read them all unless they’re focused on a very niche topic.

I will also say, and I think you’ll find this controversial, I don’t really have any more respect for the top successful business people than I do for the average person. Obviously many of them worked hard but I don’t really think they’re any more knowledgeable or put together than the average person? Or maybe slightly above the average person but not so much that they stand out. They know about their domain like everyone else does, but their domain is business not being a good, happy person. So I don’t see why I should give their words (about anything other than business) any more weight than anyone else’s.

[reply to second paragraph] Yeah that sounds about right.

Alvin:

I think the point is that you’re not supposed to see them as special. You shouldn’t listen to someone just because they have more money than you. But it’s worth considering the concepts they represent, and whether they apply to you or not. A self-help book’s concepts (disclaimer: I have never read a self-help book before - I’ve found blogs and videos more than enough for now) are kind of meaningless by themselves. It’s about thinking about how those concepts apply to you that it develops meaning. I realize it’s in the name: “self-help” means it’s the reader who discovers the insight that drives them forward - the book only guides the thought process.

Arista:

Okay I think we’re mostly in agreement here then. I think my main initial point was just that you shouldn’t limit yourself when it comes to “learn something to improve yourself every day” to just self-help style content if isn’t providing you enough value anymore. It’s fine to redirect that time to learn about anything interesting to you that enriches your life as long as you keep some additional self reflection in place.

Another thing that’s maybe interesting to consider is that a lot of this sort of motivational content emphasizes reading books, as opposed to videos, blogs, etc. I’m curious if you have any opinions on that as someone who (no offence intended) doesn’t really read books much.

Alvin:

[reply to first paragraph] Great point. There are many interesting aspects of human life to explore and learn from, and self-help is only a small slice of that pie.

[reply to second paragraph] I think it’s due to historical reasons. There’s a lot of wisdom out there, but pre-1980 it (mostly) only exists in text. I think there’s also an aspect of “going back to the fundamentals”: Videos can be a fast way to learn, but they can also skip over the nuance, the “tediousness,” that causes a reader to reflect, and therein derive meaning. I have a particular distrust of paid online courses because they give off this idea that you can pay someone to get wisdom for you, when in reality this couldn’t be further from the truth.

To be clear, I don’t have a problem with people getting paid for helping others - people need money to make a living. It’s more that, courses are never strictly necessary. With enough time, and maybe an infinite amount of intelligence, one can derive anything the world has to offer. Fortunately, the internet exists, so we don’t have to rederive everything from scratch. A course is supposed to try and distill the unfathomable size of the internet into “just the juicy bits.” But how can I figure out if this course will actually be useful, or is just here to take my money? And in the distilling process, what useful information, that the reader would want to know, was lost? Just like the self-help books, it’s the learner that develops their own intuition. Ultimately, my point is that people need to put in the work to really understand something, and a course isn’t going to solve that.