

Ask News.YC: How hard was it to learn to be a self-starter? - brlewis

From http://paulgraham.com/sfp.html: "I could see that from how the founders' attitudes <i>changed</i> during the summer. Most were emerging from twenty or so years of being told what to do. They seemed a little surprised at having total freedom. But they grew into it really quickly; some of these guys now seem about four inches taller (metaphorically) than they did at the beginning of the summer."<p>I've been sending my kids to a private Montessori school where they learn to be self-starters.  I'm concerned that next year I may have to send them to public school.  For those of you who spent 20 years being told what to do, how hard was it to transition to self-starter mode?
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jhancock
I'm 40 and still learning to be a self-finisher ;) I think this why start-ups
need co-founders.

There seems to be some correlation between people who are natural self-
starters having problems finishing things. I think the opposite is true as
well, people who are naturally good at finishing things seem tooften have a
harder time of "thinking outside the box", which is often a predicate to
starting something.

So, when I say natural, do I mean you're born slanted one way or does it
happen in early childhood development? My son is close to 4 now. He goes to a
school with some similarities to the Montessori program (I'm in Shanghai, my
son's specialty school is dramatic arts focused and tries to get him to
express himself well). I have some of the same concerns about raising children
as you express. I think the whole self-starter behavior is learned and can be
sown at an early age. I think the "finishing things" behavior is also best to
be sown in early. But school isn't the only and maybe not the best source of
learning...

I'm a lifetime entrepreneur. Why? Its what I experienced...my father ran his
own businesses. Every time I would see him (he didn't raise me full time) he
had some business. His father was a lifetime entrepreneur. My mother's father
was a highly successful lifetime self-made-businessman. I think these male
role models in my childhood directed me more than any school did.

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lux
I spent my whole education in public school, but I also had a sort of "counter
example" from my dad who has been self-employed since I can remember. Almost
instinctively, I opted for self-employment even while still in high school.

I think the examples and alternatives are the most important thing. I find it
hard to believe that it was just in my nature that I'm more independent than
many others, as many would like to believe esp. from what they've been told
their whole lives. I feel strongly it's something that can be learned, and as
long as that spirit is encouraged I imagine your kids will be fine. By the
sound of it, you're already aware and active in teaching this spirit, so you
probably have nothing to worry about :)

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raheemm
I quit my job 6 months ago to do my own thing and its been a hard transition.
The basics get me all the time - waking up early; going to bed before
midnight; surfing the net; putting together daily task lists, etc. A few
things that are working for me are:

1\. I hired a really good business coach.

2\. I have big goals that are very short term - like 2-3 months. So my "big"
goal now is to close the year at a certain revenue level.

3\. Although I work from home, I try to have 1-2 very, very packed days that
involve outside the home stuff related to my work.

The struggle continues though and I went to private schools from kindergarten
to college.

~~~
teej
Where did you look for your business coach?

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raheemm
I got lucky - I found him while networking - I was not really looking for a
coach, but he helped me find new business so often that I decided to work with
him professionally.

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sanj
Bruce, I spent all of my years in the (Canadian) public education system.

The trick is to be supportive, as my parents were, of not letting the school
get in the way of what the kids want to do.

My kid is on his way to a mastodon tusk excavation this weekend. Crazy.

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rjett
Sadly, some people will never make the transition, but for me, reality hit
when I committed to start my startup directly out of college. Once you've
jumped in with both feet, you learn quite quickly how to be a self-starter.
You learn that to get things done, you need to teach yourself the fine art of
time management and to keep up with those around you, you need to have an
intellectual curiosity which drives you to learn and innovate on a daily
basis.

~~~
lux
Absolutely. Jumping in (and having no safety net!) really does work. Nothing
makes you succeed like necessity, kinda like a survival instinct I suppose.
The key is finding the right set of influences that will increase the odds, in
his case for his kids, of them taking a real leap.

This is why I like some of the ideas behind John Taylor Gatto's writing,
especially about how kids need to have enough freedom and independence to
challenge themselves, as opposed to being challenged from an authority. I
think that's a crucial step in a kid, whether they realize it or not, jumping
into something head first and seeing if they can swim so to speak.

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nextmoveone
Ive always had a f-u attitude. I never listened to the teachers at school. It
started in middle school, I realized my grandfather owned his own business and
was his own boss. In high school I slept in class except when an assignment
was due, i skipped class and came to school wasted.

At that point, I started reading books (I was about 15), my first was rich dad
poor dad (which had no real substance besides widening my prospective). Then I
started reading real estate books, then 'business' books, automotive books,
medical books, biographies, books on philosophy & finally programming books
(where ie settled for now). Along with that I started making friends with the
'smart' & 'creative' kids at school, which led to meeting 'rich' &
'successful' people and being able to observe, what I thought, were their
strong and weak points.

I feel that 'self-starting' comes from awareness that you can do whatever you
want and become successful. How you reach this awareness, I'm not sure (my
path was basically family, books, new people).

disclosure: i am on my mobile, so my grammar and spelling may be more off than
usual.

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lsemel
I went to public school but in the meantime taught myself computer
programming, drawing, photography, and other subjects I was interested in. And
I've worked for myself ever since graduating from college. So I'd say that
attending a public school does not preclude becoming a self-starter.

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charlesju
I am in this exact position (graduating college in 8 weeks), so I guess I'll
give this answer a shot.

I think that you need to encourage you child to find activities where he/she
can learn how to learn by himself/herself. For me, that was debate. We had no
coach, we had no teachers, it was just a bunch of kids and books, taking on
the best teams in the nation. Or perhaps the Robotics club, or some sort of
community service outlet, these are all great activities that build great
people and self-starting skills.

You can also encourage him/her to figure out much earlier what his/her
passions are, if he's/she's young enough, perhaps get him/her to read books on
different professions and encourage him/her to learn about them by
himself/herself.

As the internet becomes more pervasive, it has become a lot easier to learn
online and off, but at the end of the day, I think that being a self-starter
requires a lot of support from friends and family and the drive and passion to
get what is important. So even by asking this board, you children should be in
good hands.

PS. I went to public school, and it was an awesome experience.

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jaytee_clone
I don't think you can truely learn to be a self-starters. Being a self-starter
myself, I have friends who just don't have the drive to do it themselves, even
after knowing/seeing that it's the only way to get things done. Thus I'm
convinced that this drive is mostly genetic. Plus, isn't the definition of a
self-starter someone who accomplishes things on his own without prior
instruction? Then being a self-starter is independent of the amount of
instructions. If anything I'd throw my kids in public school to make them
better self-starters, because self-starters have to learn to keep that drive
going even when the mainstream population are followers.

That is not to say you can't learn the trades of being a self-starters, such
as discipline, progress logging, mini-goal management, lauch-then-iterate,
etc. But that comes with experience. I won't even attempt to teach these
things to kids under 12.

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callmeed
I'm a terrible task manager and (though I've never been diagnosed) am quite
attention deficit. But, I've learned that I'd rather force myself to get good
at those things than have to take orders from someone.

Paul Allen's book helped me a lot. Having a business partner that is a natural
self-started helps a lot too.

You also have to learn your limits. For example, no matter how hard I try, I
_know_ that I can't work well at home. I get too distracted and I'm not
productive. So, I don't even try. I've always had an office.

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helveticaman
I learned to be a self-starter from a friend who was apparently born that way.

You don't have to pay for Montessori for your kids to be self-starters. There
have to be other ways to go about this. In addition, I think you're focusing
too much on one aspect of their lives. What about integrity? What about
determination? What about curiosity? What about attention to detail? Humility?
Passion? Ambition? There are too many desirable traits to focus too much on a
single one.

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brlewis
Other traits are desirable, but I asked about this one here because I thought
people might have firsthand experience overcoming problems with it, and also
because it's the trait most threatened by quitting Montessori.

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thomasmallen
In respect to being a "self-starter," I believe that schooling doesn't matter.
You just need creativity and discipline. And good for you for sending them to
public school; some here may think I'm off my rocker, but I think that public
schools are a superior learning environment (for social skills, pragmatism,
etc.).

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mannylee1
To be honest. It took a lot of hard work.

I have learned HTML, CSS, PHP, Unix and other technologies from scratch for
the past four years and still have a lot to learn. As long as you have the
passion for learning you will be a successful "self starter".

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travisjeffery
Let your kids do what they want to do.

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aaronjerling
if you did that, obese kids would be the norm, school (if kids went at all)
would end up teaching the finer points of getting to the next level of
supermario. Kids need guidance, but also a forum for innovation.

~~~
peterb
i think you missed the subtlety of travisjeffery's post. the montessori method
of teaching is all about "Let your kids do what they want to do.". most young
children have a natural "i'm full" signal that prevents obesity (any parent
knows this). most kids are naturally curious. many of our greatest historical
thinkers did not attend school and had lots of "do what you want" time. the
"let kids do what they want" works surprisingly well when they have
opportunities to explore and good role models.

my only other addition to the travisjefferies post is "and allow children to
fail". too often we don't allow children to learn from their failures. this is
part of being a "self starter". you don't fear failure because it has happened
so many times though personal experimentation that you have an intrinsic
understanding that "it's no big deal, i'll eventually figure it out".

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bradgessler
You don't "learn", "teach", or "transition" into "self-starter" mode; its
something you're born with.

