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Entrepreneurs: Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You (feint.me)
17 points by feint on Jan 17, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



But whats more incredible about this is the change in attitude it has brought about. I’m starting to see through the irrational fears that I have (and everyone else does too) and doors are starting to get opened left and right.

Well said!

We are bound to the patterns we create in our own life. Everything we know and do we fit into systems, so that we can understand and process the information we've got. The problem with this is that while these patterns help us they simultaneously limit us, so that if we are not consciously aware of those patterns we find it hard to escape them.

Look at anybody who's made anything worthwhile and you'll notice that they always made it by consciously looking at what limited them and defying those limits. I just read a series of interviews with Stanley Kubrick, the legendary director of 2001 and The Shining; one thing that emerged every time he talked about film was that there was no extraordinary leap of genius that led to his masterpieces. He simply made sure to look at what he was limiting himself to and then, time and time again, do things that forced him into new areas.

This isn't just advice for entrepreneurs. It's advice for anybody who wants to truly appreciate what life's capable of, experience the truly sublime moments that make all the other moments worth it. (But I guess the difference is that entrepreneurs, and all makers, really, are striving to create new things which will help other people break out of their own patterns. And what a joyful career that is!)


"But trust me on the sunscreen."


Still getting started, something that I had always "ignored" (not necessarily scared me) was using my own day-job money to hire someone. I always figured, "make a logo? Sure, I can do that." As an aspiring hacker, I was always certain I could learn that skill enough to do something productive.

Then I hit a brickwall in my current project. I found a problem that I could not overcome with internet savvy-ness. The only solution I could come up with was to try and hire someone to do it.

Needless to say--and saving the learnings from my experience into a different post--it was a great experience, almost addictive. I just set up a contract with one of the online freelance websites, and waited for the end result to come in.


Okay.

# rm -rf /




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