<i>> The way Lancelot motivates himself to get past self-doubt in combat is not to care whether he lives or dies.<p>As Ariely says: Lancelot fights better than anyone else because he found a way to bring the stress of the situation to zero. If he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, nothing rides on his performance. He doesn’t worry about living past the end of the fight, so nothing clouds his mind and affects his abilities — he is pure concentration and skill.</i><p>This is "somewhat" similar to what Steve Jobs said in his commencement speech at Stanford:<p><i>> Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.</i><p>Atwood closes with: "concentrate on the daily routine of doing what you enjoy, what you believe in, what you find intrinsically satisfying." What this fails to take into take into consideration is that unless you are focusing on the "right" things, this pattern can be more harmful. On most days I just want to meditate, catch up with family, exercise and perhaps hang out on the beach or travel to exotic places. I don't currently find work intrinsically satisfying (a majority of the working population don't find their work intrinsically motivating).<p>This is also bad advice if you are depressed. It just doesn't work then. Most days you want to sleep in, stay within your space, and think about darker stuff. Completely unrelated but the reason many people fail to quit smoking or quit eating unhealthy things is not because they don't know that these habits are bad for them but because in that moment, they are unable separate their desire from what they should be doing for the long term betterment of themselves.<p>I'm assuming that the author is primarily writing this post for programmers/computer scientists and how they can focus on increasing their skills in their chose field, but this post is generic enough that I though my comment may be relevant enough to add to the discussion.
How about we start paying attention to how we describe men? That quote was really unnecessary:<p>"They (women) aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards"<p>which suggests men are mainly successful because they are those things.<p>I recently heard (in a finance lecture, but still) that 3% of men are psychopaths, and 1% of women. So yes, more men are psychopaths, but neither gender is off the hook, and the majority of people actually aren't psychopaths.
I've realised that I have a tendency to fall into this trap when I find I'm working <i>for</i> someone, rather than <i>with</i> someone. It seems that distinction is important to me (subconsciously). It seems to come about when I start thinking 'just keep them happy and off my back' vs 'just do the right thing'. Thankfully, I've only been pulled into this thinking twice in my career.
With all due respect to women, the notion that<p>"They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so."<p>suggests either a very limited acquaintance with women, or an unduly extensive experience with bad male behavior.
Side note: Ariely's Coursera course has just started for the second time - <a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/course/behavioralecon</a><p>There is still time to jump in.<p>I highly recommend it.
> They [women] aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.<p>Why not, instead of selectively adopting this behavior when convenient, instead work to create systemic disincentives for it, if not across the business world, then at least in one's own little corner of it?
Anyone interested in learning about human perseverance would do well to spend a couple hours reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.<p>It's short. It's accessible. There is also a noticeable absence of Richard Gere.<p>“In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.”<p>The trick is that our naked existence is all we ever have. Learning to deal with this fact, to accept and and even rely on this fundamental truth, is the first step towards developing a real purpose in life. This is the kind of thing that will get you out of bed each day.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/080701429X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0...</a>
I honestly want to hope this article is an intentional bait, because otherwise choosing this moment to drop a blatantly sexist article seems strange, and based on my past experience out of character for Atwood.
There are at least a quintillion ways to fail at different levels of strategic mistakes, with a few paths out by getting the big things right and making the best of change and uncertainty.