There's the like freak out sort of model which I think a lot of people love. Which has a corollary of push everything on to the deadline and then just do it in the crunch time. And then you feel like you've made a lot of progress. Yeah. Hi, I'm Tiffia.
Hi, I'm Kahran. And this is Thinking on Thinking. Okay, I think we should do the first one. Which is the what is confidence and doubt and where do you need to be for success? I think the side of it that I was thinking more about was like how something we were talking about a little while ago that like you that in thinking about where you need to be for success, you can think about in terms of like what sort of blocks do you need.
And then how can you assemble those sort of blocks. And I think that kind of like additive way of thinking about it is really just it's like a nice sort of model, because it helps you not they helped you feel like you're making progress even when you're often not like making visible sort of progress. If that makes sense. What does the more these are? That's a good question.
There's the like freak out sort of model. Which I think a lot of people. Which has a corollary of push everything on the deadline and then just do it in the crunch time. And then you feel like you've made a lot of progress. Yeah.
Well, I think a lot of people don't. They go after it head on. Right. I think that's maybe the more typical sort of model. It's like, like, oh, you know, I want to be a singer, let's say right and I'd like to perform like in front of people and you know perform in a way that I'm, you know, singing. And so you're going to go out and say, okay, you know, what do I like the things you need to be us like obviously you need to be a good singer. You should get like exposure to the space right now be kind of just going into it head on right whereas like you if you if you take a step back for maybe like okay you know like what are the components of the good singer well you need to be good at negotiation you need to be good at being able to make people understand what you are good at. You need to be like, like good at articulation of your talents and being able to figure out like what does it mean to be in the right place at the right time. And those are all kind of separate skills that you think about it in that way, then it's it's less.
I don't know it could be less overwhelming but also can help see transferability in the skills that may or may not be as apparent when you kind of are looking at it as a conglomerate as part of this big thing that you want. This is interesting because like, very honestly, I have always thought about it like assembling different skills and how they would be connected like the easiest way would be. You know when you want to get back like if you ask somebody I want to get better at writing people would say just read a lot more and like critically analyze and like read out of the genres that you've never written read outside of your interest and like read the classics and see how things have changed over time like try to understand it. And I think there is like this weird sort of our brain is good at pattern recognition and we can do it in ways that we can't cognitively sort of like consciously sort of pinpoint.
I think that like I've always had an understanding of it in a weird way like when I first started doing design, I also somehow understood that I also need an understanding of psychology. Very few people at least like you know 10 years ago very few people are directly talking about the impact of psychology on design. But there is a direct impact of course how people behave and when you want them to do certain things those are very closely related. But that's why I asked what are other ways because at least from my perspective, you have to think about in an ecosystem format in your head. Like in your head you are constructing an ecosystem of knowledge and somehow you're going to get to the other side of oh now I have enough data to solve this problem.
I don't know. I don't know if that even relates to the initial question. No, I think it does. I mean, it's not I'm sure. I'm not sure if it would be that helpful, because it's maybe I should ask a question to make it something more helpful. So what would you how do you feel like like what does one do to to get if you are not like it as has happened to me many times right like you know like I'm looking at a problem and I'm not sure right like I didn't have that moment which you kind of had with design where like oh the right thing for me to do now is to learn psychology right like how do you when you're not sure then what do you do. I mean I guess. Okay, how would I do it if I want to now go and learn something right. So for example, these days I'm like trying to write more, which means that I'm like trying to read a lot more.
That is like a side effect like this year I have read way more than I think I have ever read in like in terms of speed. Compared to ever before in my life and I think that like that's just a side effect of having a right flow. So I should be reading it. It's just natural. Right. If I were to, for example, if I were to try to learn a new language, I would do things which are like going to help me build vocabulary. Like boring just for capital people and stuff.
But I would also like try to immerse myself in like media from that culture even if I don't understand it just getting a hand or for kids. This is what the rhythm of the language sounds like. This is how people interact with each other. It doesn't directly like so for example, if I was trying to learn Arabic, watching a lot of Arabic shows is not going to improve my Arabic vocabulary. I don't know if I have sent this to you, but like I was listening to an interesting episode of 20,000 words recently where they were talking about the windows audio landscape and especially like the work that they did in windows 7.
And what they were trying to do is they so they had a recognition that because of all of the beeping and all of the noises that people are seeing from the devices, it's already becoming very psychologically disruptive and they didn't want it to be as destructive. So what they did was like they sort of collected, for example, hello greetings from a lot of different languages and they tried to see what is the intonation. How is hello, what are you doing? Here is something new. And in different languages, they just like sort of mapped out what was the pattern of it and then they used that sonic pattern as the melody. Interesting.
And somehow because of that the entire like and how we constructed it is like the entire language of how the like you know operating system is speaking to you all the different groups and measures and sounds. They form a collective, I guess like language. And in most cases people don't think about things in terms of we are constructing a language of patterns. They're all going to be related in some way to each other while they are distinct. The example they gave was if you're in a rainforest, you'll be able to distinctly figure out what sound is what without feeling alerted or disrupted by everything.
And they wanted to construct that kind of a thing. Interesting. Very simple. It's very simple sounding, but it's a way more complex to do because like you said, you don't feel like they're making progress. Well, so that that's actually where I'm so like it seems because you know the question we started was like was it was on the road to success right like how do you how do you where do you feel like you're getting there and so I'm curious about that particularly then right like so if you're if you're approaching something like how you were just describing how do you decide when you're successful. I mean, if you were to make bread.
Like 80% of the process it wouldn't seem like the bread is being made. There is no bread until the last 10 or 20%. You put it in the oven and like you know, at the last point you feel like oh now there is bread. I mean, I'm not sure but in that case you know I can look at you know the like what does bread look like at different stages right and I would know whether I'm like and it's it's happened to me that we're like sometimes I'm like oh this bread should not look like this at this stage. And it gives me worry about my eventual success. But what do you like how do you establish those kinds of checkpoints when you're kind of approaching more sort of. People like for example, I was I don't know the speed and whereas like being somebody said twice like how to spend time on your novel or something something about finding and they basically said that one third of the time will go and plot construction.
And this is like you haven't started writing you are just making plots and we're just figuring out the needs and maybe have like outlines of what the characters will be like what they will do. These are the locations we're doing some amount of work that of course a lot of it is so you can like you know maybe let's say writing a novel takes you. Two years for that means that for the first like you know almost eight months you're gonna feel like nothing is being made. I'm not doing anything and eight months is a reasonably long amount of time to stress yourself out. But one like the easiest way would be to look at somebody and be like oh this is how long it's going to take and also to not discredit pre production work in general.
And I feel like this is a problem with tech industry. We just don't respect pre production or post production. That's why like so many things are basically like they just fall apart very quickly if you just poke at it too hard. Interesting. Interesting. Of course there is like the danger of you haven't produced anything for too long and you don't want to fall in that trap.
At least like what helped me was just to do things like just to make smaller scope. Okay. It's harder to get to assess for example am I making progress in a game if I think that the timeline is going to be three years. Maybe I'm making progress maybe I'm not is this going to contribute to something. But if I know how to make a game in a month then I'll have a good idea.
Okay this is war the game making process is going to be like so then maybe I try to make something in six months and have a okay this is going to be expanded. You know this is for example why a lot of people don't just start with making future films. They make like shots which are like three minutes long and then they make like a 20 minute film not a 20 minute film they make a lot of those. But yeah at least like that's how I would think one could divide like. I also think that when I asked to think what am I using success for.
Is it fuel to keep me going forward or is it a metric for am I going in the right direction. Interesting. How do you think about it. I think thankfully I don't know if it is internal wiring or if it is somebody I personally feel like it's just okay am I moving in the right direction. I'm okay with dropping things in between if they don't align with these days I'm also okay with dropping things for a while and then coming back to it.
Once I know that I have the requisite skills it's a little bit like you know imagine if you wanted to learn a language and you're like I'm going to write an essay and then you realize okay. The essay that I want to write I don't know how for vocabulary I'm going to go learn the vocabulary and then I'm going to come back and write the essay that I want to write. It's a little bit at least like these days that's what it's like for me. I want to use like small markets of success I'm going in the right direction but not necessarily as the few the few this comes from am I doing a thing that I want to be doing. Because if I'm doing a thing that I'm motivated to do then I don't need another few.
Yeah. How do you feel about like how do you think about it. I think progress is very encouraging right and so that's why I was kind of asking you about where do you see progress or how do you see progress. I think I actually find sometimes that the eventual moment can be a little bit like. I don't know how to exactly say it but like almost not quite a let down but like something in that way.
Yeah. Right. And it's just I think because especially when you spend a lot of time into something like it's you know if you were you're spending let's say like I don't know 10% of your day or your week or something into bettering yourself in that way. And now if you feel like you've achieved that success now there's just there's you know there's 10% of your time that now is attributed and so that kind of sense of loss. I think can be a little bit.
I think that's just a little bit of a boring and and and just concerning right. Yeah. So I think that that so I agree with what you're saying that I think that that the focus on success can kind of lead to this. It just can lead to that empty feeling in some ways right where then you kind of are always chasing the next thing and more and more and more. Whereas I do think that.
The most important depression would be like you spend so long like you know caring for this thing spending planning and now it's our thing and it's just out there in the world and maybe you will spend energy more on it or maybe you didn't but like it's not the same relationship as before. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I think that's true. But I do think progress has an interesting kind of connection with being able to to achieve your goals. I think and I think we didn't define success when we started this by things successful on time is that right.
It's like what are you achieving the goals that you set out to achieve. Try pause to do agree with that notion. So I have like recently I have been thinking about this slightly differently. So you know how like when you are. I don't know.
Okay, so I probably don't have the right words for it and probably not in a space where I can articulate it very well. But if you were to look at like a web, you know, like you can represent a system like a web, any sort of organic system that an ecosystem could be a good example. So you can think about nodes, but you could also think about the bonds that are between the notes. Okay, should I say more words? Yeah.
Okay, so. So of course you can set up your checkpoints as this is a checkpoint and this is checkpoint and this is a checkpoint. Right. But you could also think about it as to go from this to this. So what do you need to have a like go from to go from now a to B a connector X needs to happen and you can just focus on the connector X.
So for example, once I have an understanding of what needs to happen in the story, then I will be able to write the first. Once I have an understanding of like so then the understanding becomes the central thing rather than writing out the plot. I see. Like again, I don't have very advanced understanding of this thing, but like I was just trying to think about how we are almost always able to incorporate data and like course correct. Right.
So the goal that we started out on was never like is really the goal that they end on. But there is something that happens that we are guiding like you know, towards and I feel like it's more of a sense of what does this connection need to be like and that's where I was thinking about it more in terms of an ecosystem. Because if you think about it like an ecosystem always will have this like you know, almost self balancing factor and like things move from one phase to another. When like those relationships are satisfied. So if there is an empty spot in the ecosystem something will move to take space off it. It's because the ecosystem is thinking more about like how things are related to each other.
The ecosystem is not thinking about anything but like basically the system is like working in a way where like it's balancing the relationships and other than like individual. The pressure of selection is on the individual means the pressure of selection is not on the relationships as much in a way. Interesting. It's an interesting notion. And of course like we have had a very hierarchical top down kind of language speaking of language we have had that kind of language for success for the longest time.
So I don't even know what vocabulary which is more about just understanding okay going from point A to point B with the choir and understanding of this thing and it will require changes in these five things. And that's what we are focused on like I don't even know what that would look like. But I don't mean that when most people are thinking about oh I want to be promoted they're not actually thinking about I want to be promoted. Like that end state of being the person who is promoted is not what they're looking for. They're looking for oh I will have more money then I will have more status.
People in office will respect me more like they have a bunch of other writers like which are about their relationships and their position in the world. It's not as much about like the promotion in itself but more about what it signifies about all the relationships and what they think of themselves. That's interesting. That's a great example because I was thinking about like you know something topical this time of year is like all the people are always choosing what school to go to. Right.
And then like that's a question that you like you know it's like a measure of success for a lot of people especially this year when it was so hard to get into school. Like I don't know do you know any of the stories. My brother has told me some stories because his nieces some of his nieces are applying this year and just like like you because there are so many kids from last year who deferred or didn't apply. And then there's this year and then they removed a lot of the standardized tests. So a lot especially a lot of the Louis University so the number of people the cost of the work to apply went down a lot.
So a number of applications went up so emission rates just plummeted you know you're talking single digits low single digits. So a lot of talented kids who didn't get into schools anywhere. Right. Especially if you just miscalculated as possible. Right.
So I need just interesting to think about some like some of those kinds of questions where you look at success and say oh you know I've been working towards this for so long. But I think thinking about it in the calculus you were saying which is like breaking up the thing well what is the thing that you're getting from it right. So I think that's actually maybe like you know seeing yourself in it as a certain type of athlete or seeing yourself in certain type of social situation or like you know there's certain types of opportunities that you're trying to look and open. But distilling out those kind of you know yes this is success and then trying to break into whether those components are where you were kind of saying more and more clearly like what is the ecosystem that is going to to make me feel successful. You can kind of like like break the components into that view.
It feels like it's a lot easier to understand kind of what we were talking about earlier. Like where do you make progress. Where can you feel like you're making progress because you're now just looking at one kind of one journey or one aspect of the journey there's many different components that are on their own separate journeys. I would carry out the thing that like there is a. I mean both of us are from prestigious colleges both of us have seen enough success in our careers.
So there's also a space of security that comes from you know like how a lot of times you hear oh money doesn't make you happy. And it's generally people who have money who are saying that money doesn't really make you happy. So I don't want to acknowledge that. It's probably not true for everybody to be able to define their own success. You need to have achieved a certain amount of success.
You know that the $70,000 study right now that like money makes you happier until you make $70,000 per year and then it plateaus. I think I have like I really remember but I don't. Yeah it's something around there 70 80,000 and then it got a bunch of publicity because this one CEO who's actually based in Seattle. This is a lot of money. I think I have like I really remember but I don't.
Yeah it's something around there 70 80,000 and then it got a bunch of publicity because this one CEO who's actually based in Seattle decided he was then going to pay every employee at his company that minimum amount. And has now become like this outspoken advocate for the fact that we should be paying people enough to. Oh yeah I remember he was the one person who wasn't making like 100 X of his employees. Yeah exactly. Interesting anyway, I think there might be something similar with success right that you need a certain level of just having been successful and then you start to kind of believe.
I don't know. So I just I thought of it when you said that because I wonder if there's a corollary with the kind of money thing that. Yeah, maybe we should prepare we can explore in a future week. Awesome. Good job.
Good job. This is fun. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of Thinking on Thinking. Our theme music is by Steve Gomes and you can find a link to it in the show notes.