The Anatomy of Determination - The Diigo Meta page

• 22 Oct 09
  

  Ambika K

  entrepreneur

  • If you really love working on something,
    you don't need determination to drive you; it's what you'd do anyway.
    But most types of work have aspects one doesn't like, because most
    types of work consist of doing things for other people, and it's
    very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to
    align exactly with what you want to do.
    
    Indeed, if you want to create the most wealth,
    the way to do it is to focus more on their needs than your interests,
    and make up the difference with determination.
• 18 Sep 09
  

  Al Wong
  • In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly
    because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers
    an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination
    starts to look like talent.
  • Perhaps one reason people believe startup founders win by being
    smarter is that intelligence does matter more in technology startups
    than it used to in earlier types of companies
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • If determination is effectively
      the product of will and discipline, then you can become more
      determined by being more disciplined.
    • they overrate their achievements.
      But that gives them confidence to keep working, and their performance
      improves. Whereas someone clearer-eyed would see their initial
      incompetence for what it was, and perhaps be discouraged from
      continuing.
• 11 Sep 09
  

  junthima khamthonglang
• 10 Sep 09
  

  Johanna Eichhorn
• 09 Sep 09
  

  Paolo Vanali
• 

  Lynette Webb

  entrepreneurism

• 

  david waxman

  vitaband advice

• 

  m k

  lesenswert

• 

  tsuyoshi inoue

  Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline.

• 08 Sep 09
  

  Rajan Datta

  Paul Graham on the importance of determination on start-ups

  business psychology vc

• 07 Sep 09
  

  Julio B
• 06 Sep 09
  

  Dont Know How
• 

  Vincent Chan
  • We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is
    determination. At first we thought it might be intelligence.
  • Perhaps one reason people believe startup founders win by being
    smarter is that intelligence does matter more in technology startups
    than it used to in earlier types of companies.
  • 14 more annotations...
  • • But even in the highest of high tech
      industries, success still depends more on determination than brains.
    • The simplest form of determination is sheer willfulness. When you
      want something, you must have it, no matter what.
    • Being strong-willed is not enough, however. You also have to be
      hard on yourself. Someone who was strong-willed but self-indulgent
      would not be called determined. Determination implies your willfulness
      is balanced by discipline.
    • The more willful you are,
      the more disciplined you have to be.
    • The stronger your will, the
      less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself.
    • If determination is effectively
      the product of will and discipline, then you can become more
      determined by being more disciplined.
    • If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great
      things, this will probably increase the number of temptations around
      you.
    • Unless you become proportionally more disciplined, willfulness
      will then get the upper hand, and your achievement will revert to
      the mean.
    • There's one other major component of determination: ambition. If
      willfulness and discipline are what get you to your destination,
      ambition is how you choose it.
    • Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is
      mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives,
      then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers.
    • Probably most
      ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd
      get from ambitious peers, whatever their age.
    • how determination seems to work: it consists of
      willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition.
    • willfulness, discipline, and ambition are all concepts almost
      as complicated as determination.
    • how much you like the work.
      If you really love working on something,
      you don't need determination to drive you; it's what you'd do anyway.
      But most types of work have aspects one doesn't like, because most
      types of work consist of doing things for other people, and it's
      very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to
      align exactly with what you want to do.
• 

  Alex Ko
  • In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly
    because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers
    an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination
    starts to look like talent.
  • determination
    would not take you as far in math
  • 8 more annotations...
  • • success still depends more on determination than brains
    • The stronger your will, the
      less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself.
    • willful
      you are, the more dangerous it is to be undisciplined
    • alternate between doing great work and doing absolutely nothing
    • the dangers of indiscipline increase with
      temptation. Which means, interestingly, that determination tends
      to erode itself. If you're sufficiently determined to achieve great
      things, this will probably increase the number of temptations around
      you.
    • people whose willfulness is
      crushed down by excessive discipline, and who would achieve more
      if they weren't so hard on themselves
    • If you really love working on something,
      you don't need determination to drive you; it's what you'd do anyway
    • most
      types of work consist of doing things for other people, and it's
      very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to
      align exactly with what you want to do
• 

  Howard Dunlavy
• 

  IndexFHA
• 

  Takuya Homma
  • We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is
    determination. At first we thought it might be intelligence.
    Everyone likes to believe that's what makes startups succeed. It
    makes a better story that a company won because its founders were
    so smart. The PR people and reporters who spread such stories
    probably believe them themselves. But while it certainly helps to
    be smart, it's not the deciding factor. There are plenty of people
    as smart as Bill Gates who achieve nothing.
  • In most domains, talent is overrated compared to determination—partly
    because it makes a better story, partly because it gives onlookers
    an excuse for being lazy, and partly because after a while determination
    starts to look like talent.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • Another consequence of the melon seed model is that the more willful
      you are, the more dangerous it is to be undisciplined. There seem
      to be plenty of examples to confirm that. In some very energetic
      people's lives you see something like wing flutter, where they
      alternate between doing great work and doing absolutely nothing.
      Externally this would look a lot like bipolar disorder.
    • The melon seed model implies it's possible to be too disciplined.
      Is it? I think there probably are people whose willfulness is
      crushed down by excessive discipline, and who would achieve more
      if they weren't so hard on themselves. One reason the young sometimes
      succeed where the old fail is that they don't realize how incompetent
      they are. This lets them do a kind of deficit spending. When they
      first start working on something, they overrate their achievements.
      But that gives them confidence to keep working, and their performance
      improves. Whereas someone clearer-eyed would see their initial
      incompetence for what it was, and perhaps be discouraged from
      continuing.
    • And fortunately ambition seems to be quite malleable; there's a lot
      you can do to increase it. Most people don't know how ambitious
      to be, especially when they're young. They don't know what's hard,
      or what they're capable of. And this problem is exacerbated by
      having few peers. Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is
      mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives,
      then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you
      take people like this and put them together with other ambitious
      people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most
      ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd
      get from ambitious peers, whatever their age.
      [2]
• 

  Joel Liu

  Startup

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