Absolutely.

I think about it in the same way I think about "American Idol": Simon Cowell became a notable figure simply because he was honest with people; he dared to tell people that they were wasting their time pursuing singing.

Right now, Gary and all of these other hustle porn types are Paula Abdul. And they'll keep telling people that all they need to do is work harder, up until the point that it becomes to professionally more lucrative for them to stop being Paula and start being Simon. When we get to that point, they'll flip in a second. And their fans will eat it the fuck up.

Well, not 'simply' for being honest, but for being (entertainingly) rude about it. You can be honest without being brutally honest, but it doesn't make such good TV I guess.

That depends on if you think people are naturally rational and without bias.

In reality, people often have to be forcibly dethroned from their views. Having a judge say no thanks will not have the appropriate effect.

The issue is emotional commitment, not accurate assessment.

You know that they intentionally put through and hyped up the worst singers, right? Like some kid who showed up for the first round on a lark was told "congrats you're great!! You're coming back for the next round when the judges are here," did the whole profiling/backstory thing like they'd do if you were a good singer, and intentionally set you up to fail in the worst way. Just so Simon can make a joke at your expense.

Tail dog wagging. They prominently feature terrible singers because Simon is brutally honest, not the other way around.

Whether or not the singers were hyped up for entertainment doesn't change the fact that they seriously auditioned, unless you think they tried out ironically for the lulz.

In the first case, rudeness can be helpful and in the second case it won't hurt their feelings. Seems like a fine choice to me.

What depends? on..what?! I don't understand.. (I really tried) uh.. I don't understand your last sentence either.

Assuming you meant 'But you have to be brutal to have the desired effect of getting through to the terrible singers, plain honesty - considerate, respectful honesty[0] wouldn't work', well, he didn't get through, did he. Instead they thought he must be just being rude deliberately and didn't mean what he said. He made it impossible for them to hear him. Mostly.

Anyway.. I was making another point, not that Simon became notable 'simply because he was honest' but because he was rude; whether it was effective (at getting terrible singers to realize they're terrible) is another thing.

[0] See the book Crucial Conversations, it's largely about how to be honest with people, in important situations people usually aren't, while being respectful and considerate.

Whether or not he is being rude depends on your interpretation of his intentions based on assumptions about how the performer will react.

Are you implying those people are auditioning ironically and know they are bad singers?

It does not seem rude to me to try and change the course of someone's life who is _drastically_ underperforming.

Is the definition of rude hurting someone's feelings? That doesn't follow the implication that rudeness shouldn't happen; sometimes people need their feelings hurt to inspire positive change.

Are you implying those people are auditioning ironically and know they are bad singers? - No. I have absolutely no idea why you ask that.

It does not seem rude to me to try and change the course of someone's life who is _drastically_ underperforming. - Leaving aside what underperforming could mean - so, if he means well, it's just not possible for Cowell to be rude, no matter what he says? I think that's just not what the word means to people (apart from you).

That doesn't follow the implication that rudeness shouldn't happen; - I can't parse that, sorry.

I read something recently along the lines of "People who brag about being 'brutally honest' are usually much more into the 'brutal' part than the rest of it."

Yeah, I've heard people talk like it's a huge virtue the way they go around being mean to people, 'daring' to speak their minds.

Yes. This exactly. Or, if not ability, then experience and wisdom. Or relevant skills. Or connections. Or discipline. None of which you can manifest by sheer force of will.

I always tell my Jr. Engineers that if you have to work THAT HARD to accomplish your daily tasks then you need to go back to school or go for a more newbie-friendly position.

>I always tell my Jr. Engineers that if you have to work THAT HARD to accomplish your daily tasks then you need to go back to school or go for a more newbie-friendly position.

I don't think that this is very productive thing to say to someone. If the Junior Engineer is still able to produce, why do you care how much they struggled with it? If a person truly wants to grow and then struggling on problems that are on the edge of their comfort zone sounds like the perfect way to do it.

If their abilities are effecting project timelines, quality, profitability, etc then I can understand having that conversation with them but I really don't see the harm in someone challenging themselves professionally.

I mean, yes there's nothing wrong with engineers struggling and pushing their skills and boundaries, it's how we grow and improve. But persistent struggling with daily tasks is indicative of a deeper problem. There might be missing knowledge, or the mistaken idea that programmers should be hard workers to be productive.

Using our tools of simplification, abstraction, automation and domain knowledge, it's critical to teach your juniors how to be optimistically lazy and do less. That's how we raise great engineers. Otherwise, we're just raising mid-level programmers who only know how to throw lots more code at their problem, and as I hope we all know by now, more code never results in fewer problems.

>Or discipline. None of which you can manifest by sheer force of will.

Having discipline is the same thing as having force of will.

Its interesting that you've been down voted. I'm not suggesting that you are correct or wrong, but I'd geniunely like to hear a philosopher or somesuch clever thinker talk at length on this topic - are they the same? are they different? is the ability to get through a difficult physical experience such as pain related to being able to work at a task you show no interest in for hours? Is it a single trait that you either have or don't, or do some people have remarkable discipline when it comes to office work and others are disciplined when it comes to gardening or cooking for hours with passion all day every day? Is it something that is geniunely in a person's character, or is it to do with other things (do people with discpline just get more sleep/have a better upbringing/have interesting work to do etc?)

I don't want to pass any judgement nor assume the answers to any of these questions - I'd like to see/hear/read discussion on it.

What hussle porn is selling most of all is agency. That you can get whatever it is you want through some actions you can take.

Which is true as long as one of your options is "want something else."

Hun. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound all that much different from The Secret.

Nor too different from Dale Carnegie.

I really like this interpretation, but to take it at face value would be to assume that other approaches do not offer actionable steps? or at the very least do not suggest that their steps actually work? Naturally it's correct that no matter what you do you don't always suceed, but does the fact that people eat this up suggest that for most people there are no actions they can take to be successful?

Not saying this isn't true sometimes, but I think it's far more rare that the reason someone isn't succeeding is their ability, but rather their circumstances.

But either way it doesn't change the fact that it is one's personal responsibility to chart a course through those circumstances.

It's great for people to get out of their comfort zones and try things that they weren't sure they could do, but sometimes you just have to aim for a target you can hit.

It's pretty well known that the most successful teams are often those that function well as a team, complementing and supporting each other, even if they lack superstars. They need people who fit into their "lesser" niches. Sometimes it's not about hustle, hustle, hustle. It's about execution, execution, execution. The small fish you caught tastes better than the big one that got away.