

Willpower is Not Enough - jasonshen
http://sebastianmarshall.com/on-willpower-and-why-its-not-enough

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Petrushka
Quite true, but what your post doesn't do enough to recognize is how much this
type of thinking has pervaded our culture, and the damage it is doing. The
current generation of up-and-coming workers (25 or so and below) have been
taught their entire lives that they were special, they were smart, and
interesting, and likeable, and that the only thing that was standing in their
way was going out and trying. If they did, they'd prevail...regardless of
whether they actually had the talent, not to mention the work ethic to put in
the hours of sweat and toil to develop that talent into actual skills and
learn to put them to good use. I'm a college student now, and the level of
assumption about what the world is going to do for us in the future, not us
for it, it for us, and the amount of entitlement is absolutely ridiculous. It
would be bad enough if these people thought willpower would be enough. They
don't even think they need that.

I worked for years in high school as a salesman at my local bike shop, and for
a while as well at a television production company, and I've seen multiple
people my age come and go from those jobs because they couldn't learn to alter
their perspective on how things should work (to no-experience them) to fit
with the way things do work.

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atomical
I've seen your posts rise to the top of HN many times. Who are you though?
What is your occupation? Do you have any connection to startups?

~~~
polyfractal
His about page [1] says "strategist, entrepreneur, technologist, avid reader
and writer, casual historian, cowboy scientist, and I like doing some
adventure and travel type stuff".

His LinkedIn [2] says "Real Estate, Project Management, Technology,
Philanthropy, Writing".

His youtube channel [3] is full of lectures about strategy.

Sooo..."life coach" mashed up with "strategy consultant" or something
equivalent? Of course, you could ask, "Does it matter what his credentials
are?"

[1] <http://sebastianmarshall.com/new-start-here>

[2] <http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=81632430>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/user/yousebastianmarshall>

~~~
atomical
> Of course, you could ask, "Does it matter what his credentials are?"

It definitely does. Credentials are how I block the reality distortion field
put up by a lot of enterprising individuals.

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dbecker
I don't think the willpower/training distinction is as clear as his post
suggests.

If I had more a much stronger desire/willpower than George St. Pierre to excel
at fighting, I would train harder than he did... and I would be a better
fighter. The man is great because he's trained hard, worked out, etc.

Willpower may not be enough to make you a success on 30 seconds notice. But
you can get better at almost anything over time by working at it.

~~~
jasonshen
Part of the problem with the St. Pierre comparison is that he's in the top 1%
of fighters worldwide. It's unlikely that even with far greater motivation you
could see dramatic gains over him as a fighter. There are also genetic factors
when it comes to physique that are out of either of your controls.

Though I do agree that you can get better at things over time - in fact I
advocate developing habits as a way of "improving" your ability to manage your
behavior and augment your willpower.

~~~
dbecker
The reason GSP is in the top 1% (more realistically the top 5 on earth) is
that he works so hard at it. Despite his natural gifts, he wouldn't be able to
compete at a high level without training... which he did because of his
willpower.

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MattRogish
"It's obvious that an insanely motivated, untrained person would lose in a
fight with George St-Pierre, the current Welterweight Champion of UFC. They
would get destroyed."

Strangely enough, that was the plot to a Friends episode with Jon Favreau:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMD-TWtY9lQ>

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mhartl
Jason: the link "how habits affect willpower" at the bottom of the post is
broken. Here's the diff:

    
    
        -    h<a href="lifehacker.com/...">ow habits...</a>
        +    <a href="http://lifehacker.com/...">how habits...</a>

