

How To Be Awesome - yarapavan
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/how-to-be-awesome/

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rwolf

      Think about this every day:
    
        "The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me." ~ Ayn Rand
    
      If you aren’t comfortable with this attitude, it’s hard to be awesome. Sorry. You can be good enough without being assertive, but to a large extent, being awesome requires that you initiate, take action, and chart your own course through the norms of mediocrity.
    

It may sound crazy, but I feel bad when getting what I want hurts other
people. Research into things like the Ultimatum Game paints the picture that
humans care about fairness as well as personal gain.

I stopped reading after the requirement that I subscribe to an antisocial and
amoral philosophy in order to be awesome. I'll find some other way.

~~~
nekopa
It is a real shame you stopped reading. I have no idea why you consider this
blog post "antisocial and amoral" can you please expand upon your reasoning?
(I really mean this sincerely as I have read through the post over and over,
but can't see why you paint it so. Is it because the quote is from Ayn Rand?)

Because your comment is first, I think a lot of people may not have read the
article/post, so I offer up what I took from the post that I think is relevant
to startups:

 __* Working your ass off, at least during specific seasons in life, is also a
prerequisite for being awesome. This goes at the top, because if you don’t
like hard work, good luck.

As mentioned, those first two are prerequisites. They also serve as filters,
because lots of people give up on self-determination and hard work. Assuming
you can stick with it, it gets easier from here on out.

Remember that your goal is to get things done and make other people look good.

Take initiative without taking control

Overdeliver in your personal relationships. Give more than you get.

From time to time, you’ll screw up. This is how you apologize: “I’m really
sorry. It was completely my fault. I hope you’ll forgive me, and here is how I
am addressing this in the future.”

Never be a critic without presenting an alternative. Remember that no statues
are erected to critics, and no one is remembered for shooting down other
people’s ideas __*

Though I do think some of his advice is simplistic at times, I feel that there
are quite a few good points he mentions.

As a side note, I find that it is always good to read something all the way
through before dismissing it for a couple of reasons, one being that sometimes
(especially on blogs it seems) people like to be confrontational in the
beginning to get your attention, and two, I think it is hard to make a
judgement on something you haven't read all the way through.

