R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness

People don’t care as much as you think they do. So, why not be yourself?

I repeatedly think about how you think about other people and what they’re going to think about what you’re doing.

You realize when you do some thing that’s very public is it really nobody cares about it as much as you think that they will.

They are too worried about themselves.

They will look at it and do nothing. They will say that’s nice, and then go on with their the day.

It’s important to remember it’s OK to be yourself, because of the fact that everybody else is in there on their own little world.

Being afraid of what other people gonna say and think about you is wasted energy.

They don’t care as much as you think that they will.

Be yourself. And, love who you are.

After continuously doing research, and devoting majority of my life to scientific research, I still do not understand how to do it better today than I did a few years ago when I started.

Be the person that’s willing to get up and get going every day. Most people don’t really want to do that because it’s hard work. when you do that, people will laugh at you, and you will inevitably “feel” like an outsider.

You might be looking at me and thinking of this person is fortunate, he grew up in Canada and now he is a professor of Business in the United States. This is true. I don’t know much, and I might not represent you.

However, that doesn’t preclude everybody else from trying. It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, if you keep getting up and going, and you do that over a decade or more, good things will happen.

How much those good things would happen? That depends on many factors beyond your control.

And, if somebody steals everything at your year 10, you don’t let that get to you, you get back up and you do it again for another decade.

Anybody that’s willing to do that for a decade, and push forward and change as a human being, will go along way in life.

Keep trying.

Keep pushing forward.

You got this!

Keep leveling up.

It might seem what you’re doing is really boring and tedious, but you need to remember that to develop and grow do you have to keep doing those boring things every day.

I am not saying to devote your life to work, but I am saying to keep at it, one little task at a time.

Just like in video games, to level out you have to do a lot of tedious work. It sucks to keep shoveling or hammering, but that is how you make a difference.

However, the tedious work that you have to do is over many weeks months and even years. Most likely decades.

Don’t get discouraged with not seeing results immediately. You are most likely underestimating the time is it going to take.

You only see results after a long period of time where you can look back and say “I was there” at one point in my life and now “I am here.”

Don’t step. Keep leveling up!

The more I study strategy and economics, the more I realize that the idea of competition is getting people screwed up in the head. We need to start focusing on human traits of bonding and what one would consider ‘feminine’ traits. These more softer traits, like kindness, empathy, and being nurturing, are the drivers of competitive success because they bring us closer together with other humans.

You get up and you do it anyways, everyday.

One of the harder things that entrepreneurs and researchers have to deal with is that nothing happens until you make it happen yourself.

There’s nothing you can do other than just getting up and working at it.

Here is the thing. You only become good at it after you have worked at it for twenty years.

It is much like playing the piano. You suck at it at the beginning, but it takes twenty years of dedication to get good at it.

When you start you really don’t know what you’re doing, but you get a little better. You don’t “want” to put the work in, but it really is the only way to improve.

As you work at it longer, you still don’t know what you are doing. You still are bumbling around, but you have a better sense of “how to” bumble.

But, it still feels like a bumble and you still don’t ‘want’ to do it.

In other words, it does not get easier, just more tolerable.

There’s only so much you can do. Enjoy where you are in the moment.

There is substantial structure to #academic and #organizational life.

You might want to move up, or change your position, but in reality you’re part of a large network, matrix, or cellular structure. There’s only so much that you can move within a particular structure.

This used to make me upset. But, I am coming to terms with our positions given the resources that we have.

Consequently, you learn to enjoy who you are in the moment.

You learn your position within the particular #structure, acknowledge it, and keep persisting.

Moving up requires you to endlessly poke at the boundaries of where you are.

This does not happen overnight, and requires years of dedication.

Don’t give up because you are not there right this moment.

Your time will come with enough poking at the #barriers in life.

Rejection says a lot more about them, than about you. As non-famous academic, rejection has become my default. I am generally rejected from most things I apply to.

I used to internalize rejection a lot. I used to think that it was somehow my fault for the rejection, or I didn’t explain myself enough. “I” was the problem.

However, I’ve come to realize that moments where you feel rejected, or are you experienced a harsh rejection says a lot more about the person that is rejecting than about you.

Feeling rejected, such as being ghosted, a harsh letter, or not so nice comments is a reflection of what is going on in the other persons mind.

Consequently, I am trying to learn to be a kinder person so that rejection does not feel like rejection. It takes a lot more effort, but you can wake up and look yourself in the mirror. You often have to remind yourself that on the other side are real people with their own insecurities and doubts.

Spend the time to be helpful, rather than being the person to reject.

take a stand. It’s important to stand up and have courage to do the things that are right. Stand up when you say screw you to the rest of the world because you know what you’re doing is right, not because there is some performance aspect to it.

People do not care about the technical details. They care about feeling more human.

With new products and innovations, nobody cares about the technical details of what you’re trying to do. This is boring. They feel like they could figure it out themselves.

They care about feeling more human. They care about “why” you’re actually doing it.

Telling “your story” is your theory behind why you’re actually doing something. People care about the story.

The technical details are the empirics, and nobody cares about the empirics. Only the hardcore gearheads do.

They only care about the story behind while you’re trying to do some thing.