Makoism (blog) posts

I've been reading some bunches of Makoism posts and I've been liking both 1) His periodic/weekly coffee posts with links to interesting articles, as well as 2) His own posts. The content has felt growth-oriented and honest about technology. I was starting to flood Whats Up with his posts, so I'm branching out to a new note instead.

personal board of directors

have a personal board of directors. I like the idea of having a list of people in your mind who you turn to when facing important (or less important too) life decisions.

fixed growth

https://makoism.com/the_fixed_growth/

• "how often forward progress is tempered by you, your environment, and your mindset."
• TODO: watch Tedx talk "How to murder your mediocrity" (20 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjfJSfR7QUk
  • though, mako notes down a quote - "Having a growth mindset means that YOU ARE NOT STATIC. you can learn new skills you can become a better person" - and I don't think I need to be told this... I like to believe I am a pretty growth-oriented person already and so obviously don't believe that my state of being / personal fulfillment / etc is fixed/unchanging. But I bet I could find some nuggets of useful sentiment in the video / rest of this article. Or maybe I'm wrong and I reallllly need these thoughts.
• Another Tedx talk: "The power of yet" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic
  • "You're not yet there. But you will be, you can be; just keep going"
    • Now this is good. I feel like I need to hear this sometimes, especially when working on a skill. One example is piano -- progress learning is slow sometimes, but it really does accumulate, and I see myself getting better and better. It's important to trust that if you keep working at something, you will get to where you're looking to get.
    • I feel there's more than just skill acquisition to this, though. Like more life stuff. Like thinking about a phase of life that seems far away, maybe feels unreachable, but you have to trust that you'll get there eventually when the time is right.
    • (Not sure I caught this quote in the actual video. Maybe it's in there though. Taken from Mako's post.)
  • "Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet, they were gripped in the tyranny of now."
  • Talks a lot about students - better to reward "process" rather than "intelligence". i.e. praise someone when they try hard, when they care, when they show improvement, rather than just praising a good grade on a test.
  • When you push yourself to learn something challenging, your neurons form new/stronger connections. Discusses this one potential reason why certain students struggle, if they don't realize this. I can imagine that there could be people who don't realize that the way to improve is to push yourself past your comfort zone.
    • It maybe sounds obvious... But it's a good reminder that to improve in any area, you need to push yourself and put effort in. The more you do so, the more you'll improve. (Of course, there's a balance to be found. I wouldn't encourage overdoing it just for its own sake. It should align with one's goals.)
• "Finding your tribe... who believe in learning and improvement... will ultimately challenge your thinking with new possibilities... and help you think differently about things you hold as fixed truths."
  • External input is so valuable. You can only get so far in your own mind. The voices/thoughts/insights of others can really change things, either giving you new ideas or validating ones you're unsure about (or also shooting down bad ideas/mindsets).
• "The freedom of low expectations" -- i guess the idea is, for certain things, you don't need strict goals, but just see where things go