
How to Accomplish Big Things, Even When You Feel Small - rspivak
https://unstoppable.me/accomplish-big-things/
======
ambivalents
Has anyone else given up TV and noticed beneficial effects?

"I replaced all TV time with reading time. TV is full of stories of murder,
betrayal, and pain. It’s riveting, but it also messes with your mind. Once I
figured this out, I started going to the library every day instead of watching
TV."

This part resonated with me and I want to give it a shot. I default to TV when
I have nothing to do, but I recognize how passive and lazy it is. You
basically outsource your thinking for a couple hours a day. And I hadn't
thought about how the stories we watch might be subconsciously changing the
way we think.

~~~
madiathomas
I eliminated TV 4 years ago and noticed these benefits:

\- Finished 3 years qualification in record time \- Doubled my salary \-
Managed to complete 3 profitable side projects \- Improved my software
development skills tenfold \- and more...

In the process, I lost friends. I used to host 300+ people parties. I doubt I
can be able to bring together 20 people in one place for a party.

~~~
croh
I am sure that you can rely more in those 20 people than 300+.

~~~
madiathomas
That's the beauty of it. I am left with real friends, not those who were
hanging around me because I used to throw cool parties.

------
plinkplonk
How exactly does he make money? (sorry if I missed this in the article). As
far as I could make out he is some kind of productivity guru?

Great story, but the writing has a very new age, 'will a new reality into
existence' Tim Ferris productivity porn vibe to it, which makes me just a
little cautious.

EDIT: added after scribing the above:

Some Googling reveals:

"Over the last decade, Jon helped build three of the most popular blogs in the
world, Copy Blogger, KISSmetrics, and Boost Blog Traffic (now Smart Blogger).
Collectively, they have garnered over 200 million page views, earning over $50
million in revenue.

His main passion is Smart Blogger (fomerly Boost Blog Traffic) of which he is
founder and CEO."

He seems to make money from devising traffic increase strategies for blogs and
training courses for bloggers (at least that is what I could make out)

~~~
TomMckenny
>...Tim Ferris ...

The most regrettable thing about Tim Ferris is his popularity essentially
annihilated discoverability for a great science writer with essentially the
same name.

~~~
sizzle
Can you share a link please?

~~~
jsty
I'm guessing it's
[https://www.timothyferris.com/](https://www.timothyferris.com/)

------
codesushi42
Inspiring story for sure. But even if you pull the trigger and make all of the
needed sacrifices, you can still be a lifelong failure.

Hard work, an appetite for risk and resilience are required for success. But
they are in no way a guarantee.

Instead of taking an all or nothing mindset, you can choose to invest in
yourself over the long term. Financial investments, education. Maybe this
won't be enough to achieve your goals, and you'll still live with regret. And
maybe you'll die before you reap the benefits. Or maybe this will be enough
for you.

Who knows. The only certainty is death. Doing something is better than
nothing.

~~~
croh
It's not about success. In fact it is never about success. It is about finding
the process you love and if you die doing it, you will be still happy instead
regretting. Pull the trigger to get yourself on the process and stick to it.
Fast lifestyle of our generation has made it very difficult to figure out what
does success really mean to us as individual.

~~~
hhc
Great peace of advice. Thank you

------
starbugs
Great article! I admire him for not giving up and even becoming a successful
entrepreneur under these severe circumstances.

Yet, I'd like to post a warning here. Putting the metaphoric gun to your head,
as the article suggests, may sometimes be the only feasible option, but it can
also lead to psychological problems later on. Not everything works better with
force. In fact, there are things that require the opposite. It's easy to
unlearn that when you put yourself under constant force and pressure, and your
success becomes based on that solely.

~~~
rajlego
I feel like the gun to the head thing is a good way to get started on things,
which is what people struggle with the most. If you put a gun to your head
trying to learn or study something and you’re hating it you won’t get great
results, if you overcome your initial inertia against starting and find you
enjoy then I think depending on the enjoyment is likely better.

------
czbond
Anyone have tips on self imposing pressure? I perform extraordinary under
pressure. Literally, I become unstoppable. However, I have a bad habit of
rationalizing (almost in a Nietzsche way) that the pressure is artificial if
self induced, and it won't work. I can't pscyhe myself out.

~~~
mfrye0
It depends on your situation.

Part of mine is that I've had 3 bosses straight up steal money from me over
the years. So the fear/pain of getting screwed by another boss is greater than
the pain of starting a company.

Apart from that, I don't know about you, but I came to the realization of how
short life is awhile back. You have 70 or so years to do your thing, then
that's it. You're dead. For me at least, the pain of dying and not having done
anything with my life, is more than the short-term pain of working on your
dream.

So I don't know man. I'd say it's more what do you want out of life vs self
imposing pressure.

~~~
sizzle
This is a profound and compelling perspective. Thanks for sharing, I have
quite a bit of things to rethink of in my spare time...

------
arikr
I thought this was going to be some typical blogspam type article, but I was
wrong.

I really enjoyed this piece - highly recommended.

------
epiphanitus
You know, I was thinking about the US founding fathers, and how people back
then accomplished so much when they were teenagers - teenagers! and it
occurred to me:

1\. No smartphones

2\. No internet

3\. No social media

4\. The news came maybe once a week (correct me if I'm wrong)

5\. No TV or movies

6\. If you wanted to be entertained, you would have to physically go somewhere

7\. Otherwise, you would have to create your own entertainment yourself - like
playing an instrument or writing something

~~~
freetobesmart
you forgot the big one. Especially when you talk about founding fathers

8\. No government. Government restricts and funnel much of what we do now.
Responsibilities ment freedom because there was no one to do it for you and no
one to tell you not to.

We need distractions because if we didnt have them there would be nothing for
us to do. America has created subsistence of mediocrity. No way to win or
lose. You dont get to have a say in your society because its not yours.

Remember to vote because this is the only chance you get to effect your
surroundings that the government allows without tons of red tape. And we know
that it really doesnt matter that much. Where's the border wall? What democrat
would really change wallstreet banking and think of the little people?

Government will be out of our way when we stop relying on politicians to act.
I dont care what side you are on. Our politicians are thin veils to give the
rich access to powers that the constitution would not normally grant.

~~~
epiphanitus
I personally would attribute most of our current standard of living to better
technology and better healthcare.

Besides, we live in an innovators paradise, where thanks to the cloud you can
build whatever you want for peanuts and there are VC's lining up to fund the
next big idea. Starting a business is not hard, it's staying in business
that's the hard part.

------
arandr0x
This guy makes several pretty clear references to needing his mom to do things
like take him to Mexico and turn pages of books for him.

Does anyone think _she_ thought "hey why don't I accomplish big things" or
"what do I need to sacrifice to get to where I want"? No? Was sitting in a
library turning pages of books for someone part of her life ambition plan?

Accomplishing big things sometimes is getting a lot of help from your family
and friends. They're not telling themselves Fight Club quotes as they're
lending you money, talking you off the ledge or making you your favorite
dinner every Sunday. They do it because it's the easiest thing in the world.

Maybe it's the most valuable too, even though no one, like, actually writes
about it.

------
war1025
Fight Club is such a great motivational story for the first half or so. And
then it goes completely off the rails.

I often credit my current position in life to watching Fight Club with a
friend when I was 16 and forming my views on the broader world and how I would
fit into it.

~~~
czbond
I'm curious - could you give an exmample of how it framed your thinking?

~~~
war1025
I guess the message I got from it sort of was that most of us live in boxes
that we've built around ourselves that aren't actually there.

"Working jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need" was a big one for me.

Also "You're not your job. You're not the car you drive. You're not the
contents of your wallet. You're not your f-ing khakis."

"First you have to give up. You have to know, not fear, that someday you're
going to die." and the Raymond K Hessel thing from the article. You only have
a limited amount of time and there's no point wasting it waiting for
"someday".

There's just a very real current of minimalism and intentionality underneath
the absurdity.

~~~
czbond
Great points - I'm going to have to re-watch it. It sounds right up my alley,
as I'm a bit too defiant and minimalistic. "You're a slave to the system,
working jobs that you hate for that sh!t you don't need" \- Papa Roach

------
ultrarunner
This was pretty intense. I often think that the world could use more of this
brand of intensity.

------
Ultcyber
I have a deep respect for him overcoming what looks like unovercomable
circumstances to achieve what he dreamed about.

Judging only the article however - what always lacks in my opinion in those
kind of motivational articles is an approach to achieving minor, everyday
goals. Not all of us have a desire to "threaten themselves with a gun" to
achieve a goal - sometimes we just want to do something but nor think about it
every second of our lives.

~~~
chrisa
For that, I highly recommend the book “Atomic Habits”. One of the major
takeaways is that every time you do something, you’re making a vote for the
type of person you want to be in the future. And from that mindset, if gives a
lot of advice about how to turn actions into habits.

~~~
CamelCaseName
The way I like to think about this is that every decision I make helps build
the brain I'd like to have. After all, each decision stimulates a certain
series of neural pathways. The more those pathways get used, the easier and
more accessible they become.

I still fail, a lot, but I try to keep the phrase, "build the brain you wish
you had" a lot. Which is really just synonymous with building habits, but
there's something more physical about influencing your brain.

------
pouta
Amazing story!

I had a student in one of my software engineering classes with a similar
disability, a few years after I dropped out I found he developed a VR game and
Playstation bought it!

Sometimes I wish I had the same willpower.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
_" Most people think it’s a tale of courage and persistence, a feel-good story
of a young man and his mom who overcame the odds, and I suppose it is, but
it’s also a testament to the astonishing, almost limitless power of having a
gun to your head."_

It's not about willpower.

------
handoflixue
"I refused to hang out with other disabled or impoverished people."

Uh... wow. I've got my complaints about disabled people being used as
Inspiration Porn, but throwing that in really makes it clear how much this
piece is an insult to the disability community.

Grats to him for being in a situation where his disability didn't get in the
way of what he's talented at, but not everyone is so lucky. And "avoid
minorities" is... really shitty advice, no matter how you phrase it. Why not
just focus on the groups he did join, instead?

