Newsletter #54 - Values, Exits and Acting

Every now and then, serendipity strikes, and I start reading and updating my old notes.

My "Meditations": Problems, uncertainties, and mental models, which might or might not solve the problems and uncertainties.

Like Marcus Aurelius.

28 of February 2022, almost 2 years ago, I wrote a long story in my notes

I just read Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff (founder of Salesforce), and his V2MOM model.

I wrote down my Values, my Methods, my Obstacles.

And then I wrote a long braindump on why there was no chemistry between my new boss and myself.

And how I could adapt to it.

My solutions were interesting:

(1) Stay and try not to be frustrated. Being frustrated is a choice, so I can decide not to be frustrated.

(2) Stay and pretend to bo someone else: pretend to be a yes-man, do everything to come across as a star employee, be like a salesman, selling myself, look motivated, laugh when he laughs, give him compliments, ...

(3) Build a good relation with my new boss. For selfish reasons, because it would lead to less frustration within myself

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Number 2 is being an actor. When I tried this, it inevitably led to number 3, because it's difficult to disconnect my character from my personality.

Will Smith describes it as "method acting" in his biography: He prepared so much for his first movie role, that his wife didn't recognise him as Will anymore, but as the movie character.

I made sure I was always prepared for meetings with my boss, I made the long-term plans, I visualised myself being a consultant, I visualised myself being an actor pretending to be a star employee.

And it worked, it actually worked, we actually started to build trust.

And it taught me about playing a different role compared to who I am.

As a child we are taught to be ourselves.

I would recommend the opposite.

I think a child should learn to act, to explore different characters of himself, to play different roles and see how these roles work when you interact with other people.

I once read a story that's it's good for children to move at least once in their youth, because they can re-build their identity at least once.

I'm not sure if that's through, but it sounds like a good idea.

It made me think of doing amateur acting at a certain point, later in my life.

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Going back to the story, I quit my job four months later.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why it didn't work out.

And whether there was any solution possible.

In hindsight my Exit was absolutely the best solution.

But how do you decide when to push through, and when not.

When do you Exit, when do you Adapt?

The question still bothers me.

Maybe it's better to act too fast rather than too slow.

Bias to Action. Exit early.

I like to say that it was a Values problem. I value my time, I value fun, I value health. He valued none of these.

I mostly know I learned a lot about acting.

And that I don't regret the decision

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Indie Stuff Newsletter

I’m trying to launch a newsletter with relevant news for bootstrapped founders.

I want to share entertainment packaged as news.

But I don’t find the correct feeling yet

And it's not really a priority

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I do like checking Twitter

And Hacker News

And other tech news websites.

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The challenge is the lack of having 1-2 hours straight every day to actually write it.

Projects

The end of the year was busy with freelance work (and my coworking which shut down), feel free to have a look at:

1. ​AI image generator for children (work in progress)
2. ​Map of places where Remote Workers with Children can live (very much a Work In Progress)
3. Updated Flights for Flaneurs to my home base Phuket

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That's it!

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Happy Holidays

Happy 2024

After what I've seen what AI did in 2023,

I'm curious what 2024, 2025, ... will look like:

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Self-driving cars

Taxi-drones

Software developers going 100 times faster with AI

VR goggles everywhere (Apples VR is launching in 2024!)

3d printers? I feel it has been quiet in this area

Remote work, not sure what can change here expand that it expands

...

And what 2040, 2050, ... will look like

...

Tech is only accelerating

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