The suburbs around San Francisco don’t really count, in my opinion. I also live in one with a Michelin star restaurant and plenty going on, but I still struggle to participate in a lot of it with a toddler. It’s a far cry from the Texas suburbs I grew up in that more closely resemble the description above.
From what I hear, time begins to return as they reach some amount of independence around 4-5. If you have more than 1, that’s a pretty big window.
That said, my daughter is incredible, and the issue isn’t that I don’t have any time. It’s that I choose spend as much of it with her as I possibly can.
Strong disagree, I did sales (I would like to think successfully) for a long time as someone who struggled with depression and anxiety, there's far more to it than just having a fake smile plastered on; people like those who can empathize with them, understand their needs, etc. and sometimes a no-bs straightforward approach talking pros and cons directly instead of a fake used-car salesmanesque over the top approach is far more effective.
I did non-commission sales for a while as well, and made no effort to appear more happy than I was. People appreciated my candor and knowledge, rather than being won over by my charm. I sold a lot of stuff, and there was even a time that a customer found out I wasn't in that day and decided to come back another day instead of dealing with anyone else, even knowing there were no commissions.
My proof that I did well at it was that management constantly told me I need to upsell more and tried to scare me into it, but at no point did they ever actually move to take me off the sales floor. They knew I did really well, even without their extra BS items to push.
The most successful salesperson I know has a pretty flat affect but knows her product super well and is excellent at needs analysis. There’s definitely a lot more to sales than glad handing people with a smile.
I was a successful retail and enterprise salesperson earlier in my career. I also suffer from lifelong depression.
I did not fake "happy happy joy joy," but I also did not allow self absorption to inject my mood into my business. My model is that sales is a career that involves having structured communications.
That was a lifesaver for me when feeling depressed, because I could focus on the structure of what needed to be accomplished rather than the unstructured touchy-feely business of "getting along with people."
I suggest that "YMMV." Salespeople are not all the same, and some break preconceptions and stereotypes hard while being successful at what they do.
“There’s no functional purpose for wearing a watch anymore.”
This could not be further from the truth. If anything, the advent of tech watches has made it even more clear to me how valuable a watch that runs forever and never needs to be removed is. To have certainty that 24/7/365, I can look down and immediately know what time it is has been tremendously helpful, and the design of that watch is incredibly important to that end.
I wear a dive watch with a nato strap, because it’s light, durable, and comfortable enough to have completely disappeared years ago. It never comes off.
I disagree with most of this video. He uses incredibly minimalist high heels as an example of counter-minimalism, presumably asserting that they should be flats, which ignores the entire purpose of heels. Heels are a tool used to achieve a certain posture, appearance, and an associated response. They’re designed to do a job, as are the basketball shoes he keeps showing, which are functionally reinforced in certain areas, but otherwise fairly minimalist too.
I saw an employee at a hardware store yesterday with a full sized iPhone strapped to his wrist like a watch. It's just such a convenient place for information that people are going to keep using it, whether we design products for that or not. I bet that people keep using virtual watches on their wrists in AR.
And Fallout's PipBoy is pretty much a smartphone strapped to the wrist, just with a bulkiness and physical interface that seemed realistic when the first game released in 1997
He's saying it's dishonest according to the principle that the materials used to build something should not be hidden or made to look like other materials. I think it's a bad example, because, as he admits, it's art and not design, but his next example about Dieter Rams wearing plastic glasses made to look like tortoise shell is more persuasive.
I think his point is that each of the "principles" is one side of a coin, and that Dieter Rams might be famous for one side of each coin, but he deals in both sides, because the preference for one over the other is not absolute. It's a fair point.
Design is not only about how things look. In most cases, design is about function as well, so you need to actually use the thing to have a clue whether it's a good design. The most aesthetically pleasing design is completely useless if it inhibits the users' ability to do what they want. I'll take something without any aesthetic qualities if its easier to use
He's saying that heels and basketball shoes are great because they do not adhere to minimalism. If they strictly adhered to just doing their job they would be less decorative than they are. We want these objects to also be expressive, and so we design them to be so. He's suggesting this expression is good, and shouldn't be constrained by an adherence to minimalistic design.
I hear you, but my point is the broad definition of shoe = “thing that protects your feet” shouldn’t be applied to either, anymore than “thing used to drive other things into things” should be applied equally to hammers, sledgehammers, mallets, and fence post drivers.
Yeah, they all do that, but they all do it in different ways and for different reasons and are adorned to match the specific outcomes they’re after, not just as superfluous ornamentation.
Look closer at the high-tops he shows (https://cdn.flightclub.com/TEMPLATE/152035/1.jpg). They are reinforced around the ankle, heels, and toes, because that’s where they are most stressed by a basketball player. They have vents, so the players feet don’t get too hot. Those are necessary design elements. The only thing that could be simplified, and still do the job as well, is the color scheme and Nike logo.
That’s why they’re timeless, which is exactly what Rams was saying. If you shift the category from shoe to running shoe, or ballet shoe, the essential elements shift, and the ideal design shifts with them.
Their investment in Tesla alone would be more than enough evidence, if they got in near their IPO.
Throw in an investment in Apple when everyone started switching to Mac circa 2006 (I told everyone who would listen to buy it, but I was a college freshman, so no one listened, but it was so obvious), and you got a stew going.
It didn’t take anything fancy to crush the market if you started 20 years ago and were dialed into tech.
> Their investment in Tesla alone would be more than enough evidence, if they got in near their IPO.
No it wouldn't. Sample size of one is not proof of consistently beating anything. If I showed you a winning lottery ticket, would you consider that as "more than enough evidence" of me consistently beating the lottery?
Pretty impressive to have foreseen, as a college freshman in 2006, the proliferation of broadband mobile internet and the development of mobile devices capable of taking high quality photos and video, mapping services, video calls, health tracking, and other functions that would obviate and consolidate multiple industries.
I was a teenager in 2006 and still understood mobile devices with fast internet connectivity with photos, videos, mapping services, and video calls were going to be a big thing soon, as to a tech nerd like me it was already partially a reality. By that time I already had Google Maps on my phone, was uploading photos to web services through MMS gateways, was browsing the web with Opera Mini, had my email on my device, and streaming internet radio to Bluetooth wireless headphones. It seemed obvious to me that these devices would get faster over time and that the cameras would get better, as I had already seen the progress from the earlier 320x240 cameras to >1MP cameras on phones, mobile data speeds increasing from GPRS speeds to 3G, and WiFi both becoming more common and jumping from 11Mbps to 54Mbps within just a few years. I had seen the greyscale and slow Palm IIx device my dad used to carry turn into the color Blackberry with constant network connectivity happen within a few years, it seemed obvious these devices' functionality would continue to rapidly grow and move into all kinds of markets.
In 2006 I don't know that I would have thought Apple would have dominated the market as much as it has, but the iPhone hadn't been announced yet nor would it have 3G for another year after that. In 2007 I got my first phone with a front-facing VGA camera which could do video calls over 3G networks, before the iPhone had native apps or 3G.
> In 2006 I don't know that I would have thought Apple would have dominated the market as much as it has,
But that is the most important point. The rest is trivial, but knowing which organization will be able to capitalize on it is the only relevant fact if you are trying to optimize for a return.
In 2006, the mobile network owners seemed in prime position to use their monopoly to squeeze everyone else, as well as Blackberry completely dominating the ecosystem.
In 2006, I do not know what kind of evidence a person would have had to KNOW apple, alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook would be where they are relative to ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile/Blackberry.
I agree, the challenge is seeing that it would be Apple that saw the gains moreso than 3Com, Nokia, LG, and others. There were tons of companies which were obvious plays at the time, several of which no longer exist.
I also didn't mention buying Bitcoin, which I did on credit.
People don't like hearing that the market can be beat because they don't like feeling inadequate. But it can be beat if you understand industries and physics and consumer sentiment. Bonus if you can read financials, but even some basic market indicators are good enough.
I wonder why people who tell me this do not have a driver, private jet, and a chef, even after telling it to me for over a decade. In the biggest bull market in history.
In fact, they all still go to work for someone else.
This is spot on. Everyone who is confident and correct in their ability to consistently beat the market for decades is obscenely wealthy. The math is really straightforward. Even a paltry initial investment will compound massively over the years if it has a high ROI.
Some people do have this ability and in fact have become very wealthy, but there are many orders of magnitude more people who think they have an edge but have just had a lucky run.
> People don't like hearing that the market can be beat because they don't like feeling inadequate.
I didn't dispute the fact that the market can be beaten. There's overwhelming evidence for that (e.g. Renaissance, Berkshire). I didn't even dispute your claim that you have beaten the market. I merely asked for some evidence to back up that claim. The fact that you responded without providing any evidence makes me think you actually haven't beaten the market consistently. Perhaps you have had one or two good bets that provided spectacular returns.
The book is a bit dated, but it really has some good nuggets in there. My biggest take-away is that people really only want to talk about themselves (and being genuinely interested is a great way to get them to talk).
There was a story in the book about a guy who went to a dinner party and sat next to some other lady and let her talk. When asked about the guy the next day, she said he was the most interesting person she ever met - and he never told her anything about himself, just let her talk about herself.
I had a similar experience. I spent a few years in a more social setting with normies (not tech folks). It wasn't this, but think of a gym trainer who works with people in small groups. That is, it isn't 1:1, but it's small and personal, and you see mostly the same folks regularly. It was super challenging for me, a tech nerd introvert who has a hard time carrying on a conversation. But I really am genuinely interested in people, and that really helped.
When I met someone, I'd always ask what they do or something like that. And no matter what someone says, I always have a question about some detail of their job that 1) I'm genuinely interested in and 2) no one ever would think to ask about. People just light up when you ask a question like that. There was a truck driver who came in, and I asked how the shifting works in a big rig (yes, there are you tube videos that will show you that, but talking to someone about it is more interesting). There was a nurse and I asked how she managed visiting a ton of patients over a shift. If a tech nerd came in, I had enough back ground to ask a technical question, not the typical boring stuff that other people ask. The key is to find something that I was interested in (easy for me) that related to a detail of their life. People love to talk about themselves. Don't pepper them with questions like it's an interrogation, just try to learn about them.
I once heard someone talking about me outside of the group about how "smart" I was because I could talk to anyone about anything. That's not true, I let them talk and I just learned about their life. It just gave the impression that I knew a lot (like the guy at the dinner party who was "interesting"). I'm no longer in that job anymore, but I still hang out with many of the clients as real friends now because of the connections we made.
I think the other part of this is to consciously not talk about yourself. Since you're a human, you will really want to talk about yourself (just like everyone you meet!) and if you don't curtail it you will talk too much and not let them talk. But if you think about not talking about yourself, you'll just let enough slip that it won't feel one-sided. That is, if it feels two-way to you, it's probably more one-way you talking to them too much. But if it feels like you're not contributing much, then it will feel like a real two-way conversation to someone else. This doesn't mean be awkwardly silent or avoid talking or answering any of their questions, that would come off as weird. Just try to feel like you're not saying much, it will feel like the right amount to the other person.
Sorry for the long post, I just identified with how you're feeling and I had a situation that turned it around for me, and I figured comment.
1) be genuinely interested in people
2) let them talk about about themselves
From what I hear, time begins to return as they reach some amount of independence around 4-5. If you have more than 1, that’s a pretty big window.
That said, my daughter is incredible, and the issue isn’t that I don’t have any time. It’s that I choose spend as much of it with her as I possibly can.