Uphills and Downhills; more thoughts from SXSW

I wanted to write a little bit more on my last entry, especially after some of the comments people left. One of the them reminded me of something I’d wrote to myself a few months ago, as I was just getting back into reading.

I learned that lesson in High School Cross Country and thought it was ridiculous. But as I’ve grown to see it as one of the greatest fungible truths I’ve ever known. When you practice restraint where it is easy to lose it and dedication where it is difficult to maintain it it, you gain instant advantage, both temporally and transcendentally. Of course, common sense seems to imply other wise–which is fine if you’re looking for common results.

I constantly struggled with the impulse for self-destruction. It is all too easy to get caught in the moment, to sprint down the hill, but that’s not an efficient, scalable strategy. It cannot be sustained, it’s not a life foundation. In a precarious or rare situation like the one I am in at Rudius–these dangers are real and tangible.

So when I find success or innovate or breakthrough, I struggle with how to distribute credit. It doesn’t matter if I was behind it, I feel more comfortable attributing credit to the writers I read, my mentors, my friends, or my girlfriend. On the shoulders of giants… I under to never understand people who thanked others when they clearly did all the work themselves. But now I see it’s an attempt to stay grounded–in a sense to maintain the mindset that generate the first success.

The last thing I ever want to be accused of is acting my age–it means I’ve sprinted where I should have pulled back. For this I am reluctant to declare much with certainty, regardless of how monumental a step may have been. In other words, by turning inwards and focusing, you capture and store the kinetic energy–literally turning it into potential for the future.

Like Robert says, I think you become how you see yourself. And you literally are how your enemies or clients see you. You tell yourself you’re strong, act strong and they see you as strong. They based their actions on that perception. Perceptions are just as important as reality. The key is to get inside their OODA Loop–assuming they’d ignore me as a timid teenager–>making myself appear an equal or even a superior–>driving them towards a course of action beneficial to myself and Rudius.

Again, this is a risky strategy in that I’m reaching into Pandora’s box to grab my social mask. But when pursued with congruous moderation and restraint, I neutralize the tantalizing danger of delusion. And honestly, there really isn’t much pretending going on. Rather I am compensating for various social tendencies to discount the young. In making this a conscious strategy it becomes an asset, not a source of folly.