Tips on People

• “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” –Albert Einstein
• “I am the way I am, I look the way I look, I am my age.” –Mrs. Eugene McCarthy, in How to talk with Practically Anybody about Practically Anything (links to Archive.org's OpenLibrary site, which lets you read/“check out” the book for free! Awesome…)
• Any manager worth their salt will give a hardworking person the space to innovate and improve (even up to working at home / varying their schedule and working conditions, etc.). They will get 40 hours in, and a much more productive 40 hours at that!
• Don't judge the state of people by their absolute facial expressions. Talk with them over time and see how it varies and how well it correlates to their actual mood.
• Ask for and look for the positive things / improvements before criticizing incumbent method.
• The anti-smartphone video linked to by Victoria Ingebretsen was “Look Up” (below). I think the guy at the end who asked the girl that happened to walk by for directions needed to get more active with his looking. He got really really lucky?!?
  • YouTube Link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY
• Fake vs real…Liam Payne from One Direction, YouTube Link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNKUSa6kdX4

<summary from talking with Terry / brother Nick >

• Don't want to draw attention to myself. I want to be humble, and I think I secretly enjoy being? “awesome”/self-comfortable enough to not have to wear nice clothes.
• Laziness, don't want to have to think about what I am going to wear
• Also, isn't clothing just decoration for the real stuff, inside? It's stupid to spend more than minimum time on the decoration than the actual foundational stuff…

Glenn's opinion is that, if there's a not 50-50% percentage of women in engineering, for example, maybe it's not because there's a big bad explicit conspiracy against women? What justification do they have for the 50% figure?

Use your phone as an IP camera and view it on a mobile laptop

• Probably need to turn on Wifi hotspot, hopefully the software on android will handle it.

• Could they be improved by having a “holodeck” that keeps notes visually that everyone can see so working memory isn't taxed.
  • Or just keep local notes of stuff in your head so you can listen fully to other person.

One of the downsides of random asks of “May I sit next to you?” is that if you aren't as interested in talking with them afterwards, you have to awkwardly walk past them later on your way to talk with someone else. How to “fix” this?

Make friends at work

• Scrum more than it's cracked up to be Quora, but original intent of stand-up on original author here
• High Output Managmement (Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel)

The point of standups isn't to take notes, it's to solve problems!

• Might not be totally accurate. Probably need to know some degree of progress??
• We've had good meetings generally. Helpful to have an upbeat person to lead the mood, but not necessary.
• Post from Hacker News was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12177717. She sold it well: “Zynga did it way better, and I loved to read the status reports!”
• MAKE A LIST OF GUIDING STATEMENTS AND POST IT VISIBLY SO WE ARE REMINDED OFTEN.

• Some good tips at Socially Curious and Curiously Social
• A different social space than parents or mentoree or mentoring. Friends are generally the same age and have the same social questions but different spheres of interests maybe (or maybe the same).
• C.S. Lewis has some ideas on them in The Four Loves (and a study guide(s) on the Foundation website)

• When you disagree with how someone is doing things, a helpful question might be “what goals / dreams do you have for XYZ?” and try and mutually join your understandings and think outside the box!
  • Don't disagree with them on the petty details of building a car incorrectly. Realize you both want to get from point A to B efficiently, and agree on the fundamental assumptions, limitations, and theory/principles first! You might even come up with an airplane along the way. Same for politics.
  • Alex said that this was something Ayn Rand came up with / promoted. Where was this?
• In one sense, music is a way long way ahead of words and language for communicating emotion. Not sure why :)
  • That's probably why movie soundtracks are written the way that they are. Even a moving picture with words can't describe the emotion that's going on inside their heads!
  • Adagio for Strings: Its reception was generally positive, with Alexander J. Morin writing that Adagio for Strings is “full of pathos and cathartic passion” and that it “rarely leaves a dry eye.”
    • Pathos…ohh…ok.
    • YouTube Link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KylMqxLzNGo
• Noel Piper post!!!! (John Piper's wife). She is actually very studious in reading
• Socratic questioning is a great way to open yourself up to other ways of thinking about the same thing. But, if you don't ask with love, it comes across as “I don't think you are capable of thinking at all” and is an insult. Rather, try to fully understand what the person does and doesn't know, and preface your questioning with “I'm trying to figure out what is best in my situation”.
  • Truthfully, I don't trust people yet to know how important something is relative to other things <esp. in my life>, and I'm trying to get some good questions to get me to that point.
• Bad conversation:

Fitness Lady: You should stretch twice a day!
Uninformed Dude: Why?
FL: Because it's good for you!
UD: Why is it good for me?
FL: You feel good!
UD: No I don't! It hurts and is pointless!
FL: Try exercising beforehand, then it'll burn and feel really good!
UD: Uhhh, so you want me to exercise twice a day so I feel horrible the next day? Are you in your right mind? I'm better off feeling awesome killing aliens on the computer!
FL: You make no sense!
UD: *You* make no sense!
FL: Humph. Well I can't help you then! Enjoy your couch surfing life buddy!
UD: I'd rather have fun than be buff like dumb jocks! Sayonara!

• Why is this conversation bad? Let me count the ways…
  1. Neither is communicating with the person of the other. They aren't listening to each others questions/sentences closely and don't really know each other to boot (so they can't speak with care, trying to add tidbits to the other person's worldview instead of ignoring it completely)
• Better conversation (albeit pretty one-sided still):

Fitness Lady: You should stretch twice a day!
Uninformed but Smart Dude: Ok, cool. What are some of the benefits of stretching?
FL: Hmmm, it helps you avoid muscle strain when doing intense activities and it further strains your muscles so that they heal properly. But, you shouldn't stretch without exercise, that's kind of pointless!
USD: Oh, weird! Wait, why is it pointless? 
FL: Your muscles aren't able to stretch to their full potential and break their connections. For some reason, exercising beforehand helps them. 
USD: Ok, interesting. I should read more on Wikipedia about it. But, how much exercise should I do?
FL: I like exercising all the time!
USD: Oh...wow, why is that?
FL: I feel great during and afterwards, even though I'm tired. Plus I have to for my job!
USD: Sounds helpful. But what if it isn't your job? I feel great doing other things too!
FL: Well, you have to take it seriously if you want any results! <she's the only one in the room with skinny pants and a tighter shirt> 
USD: ...
USD: <what's a good question here?> <Hopefully FL will try to answer> 
USD: <he's trying to get at the answer to: How much benefit will I get from exercising / stretching relative to other activities like playing video games or surfing>
FL: <she seems pretty clueless as to why people don't want to look all trim. Plus she hasn't really studied body exercise from a brain exerciser's perspective, she's only needed to know it body exercise from the fact that it keeps her employed and less looked down upon than fat people!>

• The smart dude is willingly taking all of the responsibility for being the uninformed one, and not even letting on a hint that Fitness Lady is uninformed as well. <It's not the right social setting for that, and is actually counter-productive to call her out on it.> <It's not his place to judge her>
• What is this clash of personality called? How does one be smart, realize it, and successfully navigate it in a way that is mutually beneficial?
  • He needs to determine how much she knows and doesn't know about things he cares about in an efficient manner. He will be loving her by assuming all the dumbness in the conversation, listening carefully to her responses, and asking “good” <define good…> follow-up questions. He doesn't need a download of all of physical fitness, but rather the summarizing statements and their abbreviated reasons that are important to him.
    • “I don't want your life story!” —→ This is exactly the opposite of what Newsong wants…I wonder why?
  • Feynman called it having open hands toward a conversation as opposed to closed hands.

• How is time “wasted” at meetings? (get some answers from ppl at Edwards)
• Maybe when we give presentations, you can give everyone access to the presentation slides natively and provide citation links to spots in a wiki where you show the plain-english reasoning behind your decision.
  • The meeting should be for asking important questions?
  • Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable
  • You should talk with the cross-disciplinary stakeholders while you're developing the project so that the big meeting is mostly review and final check-throughs. The big meeting is maybe to talk with people even outside of engineering and see how they view things.
  • A good metric of how correct you think you are is how big that linked page is. and that's what most VP's managers are looking for anyways. If they are able to comprehend the content, they will ask insightful questions and won't waste people's time. don't know for sure yet
• Randy Pausch on How to Work Successfully in a Group
  • Avoid conflict at all costs. When stress occurs and tempers flare, take a short break. Clear your heads, apologize, and take another stab at it. Apologize for upsetting your peers, even if you think someone else was primarily at fault; the goal is to work together, not start a legal battle over whose transgressions were worse. It takes two to have an argument, so be the peacemaker.
  • Cutting someone off is rude, and not worth whatever small time gain you might make.
• Very short, very “well put”

Reading through book. Interesting thoughts:

• Common in the US is to work on your weakest areas, overcome large obstacles, etc. Why not improve the things you are gifted at and enjoy the most?
  • Maybe shouldn't apply to TAG students at schools. Not sure.

Gifts are not focus or discipline. I would sort of agree with that, but also agree too.

gallupreport.pdf and Skip's theme response. He noticed that I didn't catch the main crux of what he was saying when he talked with me. Directions, mostly.

Strongly Describes Me	 	Neutral	 	Strongly Describes Me
				
I organize ... I analyze. //Same thing?!!//

I relate to others better when I find their weakness.		I can relate to others better when I know their goal

I like to listen, only when something good is being said. Otherwise, don't care.

I like to talk.		I like to think. //Both and//

When going gets tough, I can only trust myself. Can't trust others.....

I don't really want friends right now. I want good sources of information.

I have a bad sense of money. Generous, yet also thrifty.

I just don't think it's that important to give out praise...yet!

I enjoy philosophical discussions.		I enjoy goal-setting conferences.

I visualize the future.		I understand what caused the present circumstances.

Don't like athletic events!

Hat being controllled ... avoid feelings of emptiness!??!

I stengthen more than encourage.

Do I steal?!?! >-<

I seem to always have some discontentment with life.

It is easy for me to start new tasks.		My problem is getting projects finished. //Same thing??//

Want to switch projects often. 1 hour max for deep focus.

I prefer intellectual conversations ... I prefer sports?!?! (what about dance, other activiteis etc.)

love to read.		I like to figure out how things work. //Same thing//

My mind is always going .. I need to be physically active.

Lectures ... discussion groups //>.<//

never stop absorbing information.		I have a gift for simplifying complexities

5 hours alone thinking ...  meet with people. //Depends!//


I don't have Focus or Discipline talents :-|


**Deadlines are interesting motivators**. You basically can't trust yourself to get it done on time.

When the going gets hard, I really only trust myself right now. Maybe because I have few people that I actually trust around me.

Why the split of two? Some are neither, some are both for me.

• A vote for reading How to Win Friends and Influence People on Quora