patio11 comments on Hacker News:
I think "Repeating close variations on your usual theme unlocks far more value than you'd expect given minimal novelty value" is a surprising result. I utterly buy it.
The advice I give which has produced the single biggest deltas in outcomes is "Charge more." It is so simple that I could literally print it on T-shirts and wear it to any event which discusses pricing. People know it is my catchphrase and sometimes I get knowing laughter when I say it...
... and then a few minutes later they've agreed to try charging more, despite having an accurate model which suggests "Hah, I bet when we ask Patrick about our new pricing he is going to ask us what it is, think about it for less than five seconds, and then suggest charging more." They knew what I'd say before I even got in the room, but even the tiniest marginal connection to their own pricing grid / customers / data pushes them to actually try it.
These are great points about how passive people are. Their low initiative is immoral! (It's making their lives worse, and morality is about how to live well.)
patio11 omits criticism or judgement. He doesn't point out that people are mistaken to be this way and should change. He focuses on how to deal with people as they are – keep repeating himself to people who already know what he's going to say, but are irrational.
I think it's important to state there's a problem here. Passive people can't be expected to figure that out on their own! But some would wish to improve if they realized they had a problem. Not everyone realizes they could try to change, rather than just taking their approach to life for granted.
Guys, you should try to get better at connecting general concepts to your own situation. You should put effort into doing that. That's something you can improve at. You don't have to just sit around and wait for one of the world's few active people to tell you (which usually doesn't happen). You can try to figure things out yourself and try to get better at using and applying principles.
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