If Your Job’s Just a Job

Re:If Your Job’s Just a Job by RKlophaus on Sunday June 14, 2009 @06:22PM (#657641)

If anyone who read Four Hour Work Week came away feeling slightly dirty about Ferriss's route to success, I'd recommend reading "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin. Josh is the chess prodigy featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and later became a world champion in Tai Chi/Push Hands.

Where Ferriss finds ways to quickly exploit weaknesses in the system to win, Waitzkin wins by constantly analyzing _himself_ to find weaknesses and improving until he is truly the best at what he does.

Both books were good, and both strategies have their time and place, but "The Art of Learning" resonated with me a little more, and I suspect it might do the same with other folks here. It feels a little more "noble".

On a side note, I think "resourcefulness", the desirable trait in a startup founder, is probably a 50/50 split between the two: recognizing and exploiting weakness/opportunity, backed up by substance and hard work.

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Re:If Your Job’s Just a Job by alexyim on Sunday June 14, 2009 @06:38PM (#657658)

Funny, Ferriss also recommends The Art of Learning

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/05/25/the-multitas...

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Re:If Your Job’s Just a Job by GavinB on Sunday June 14, 2009 @07:43PM (#657713)

The best players play to win. http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

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Re:If Your Job’s Just a Job by iron_ball on Sunday June 14, 2009 @09:06PM (#657772)

That's exactly what I thought of when I read that. However, it's possible to find your own satisfaction in less ruthless codes... as long as you accept that others may do whatever the letter of the rules allows.

For instance, I play Gen, but accept that I must fight a lot of Ryus and Sagats.

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