Because it's October and it's also a Friday after a hard week, I'm a bit contemplative rather than my usual feisty, so here's a kind of unusual question: what's the hardest lesson life has taught you?
Hard work is more important to success than knowledge and intelligence. Hard work put into acquiring knowledge and training intelligence, doesn't get you very far unless you apply even more hard work to every job.
work, work, work. You'd think you'd get to relax a bit after stuffing your head full of knowledge.
Mind-set, resilience, knowledge, continuous improvement, integrity, courage, love, leadership, character, reflection, wisdom, dignity, compassion, empathy to name a few are key but a life without “self-respect” is a life without meaning and purpose.
Yes! I think a lot of our problems come from lack of self-respect that we mask with so much crap like arrogance and stubbornness. Both self-destructive in the end.
Both worth writing down in bold, thank you! The first I only learned recently, kind of gradually, and the second I hadn't given much thought because I never in my life expected loyalty... until I had it and came to appreciate it.
1) Knowing the right people is far more important than anything else. Seems obvious until you actually see it in action--if that makes any sense.
2) Competition is for losers. People are far too fixated on "honest work" and "competition" when my greatest successes have been from playing an unfair game. Real power is often made off the back of unfair or even play. Don't take this a license to be stupid.
They so do but I find it extremely unfair that while turds eventually break down and disappear, morons somehow find a way to remain at the top for longer than is healthy for anyone.
It has always amazed me how people well over the age of innocence claim they trust this or that politician. Trusting a politician is like trusting the weather forecast. You endure them for a while and then replace them.
Finding a cause big enough for oneself may take up 55 years of searching. Mine happened in 1999 when I realized the importance of global broad band and Internet access.
“Blizzard of One”
27 Jun 03 | Author Doug Moe
Originally published by The Capital Times – see article here.
LAST WEEK, Steve Heins, 58, was in Madison lobbying state government as part of his duties with the Orion Lighting & Energies Services company of Plymouth.
Heins took time out to visit a bookstore and buy a copy of a hot new book, “Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner,” by Washington Post reporter Alec Klein.
“It’s a great read,” Heins was saying Thursday. The book is selling well and getting good reviews, but it’s also possible that Heins is a bit biased. After all, he’s in the book, in a small but key role, telling anyone who would listen — including the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, which did listen — what was wrong with the original AOL Time Warner merger plan.
“AOL and Time Warner had just messed with the wrong guy,” is how Klein writes it in “Stealing Time.” Klein describes Heins as “a sleeping giant.”
Originally from Oshkosh, this self-described “aging flower child” spent eight years in the restaurant business in Madison in the 1980s. Heins then spent seven years on Wall Street working for an investment banking firm before coming back to Oshkosh as marketing director for NorthNet, a small Internet service provider.
Heins was working for NorthNet when plans for the AOL Time Warner merger were announced. He paid particular attention to the part of the announcement pledging that Time Warner’s cable network — second largest in the United States — would be available to other Internet service providers beyond AOL. Heins knew enough about the Internet-cable potential that UW cable guru Barry Orton invited him on some panel discussions of the issue.
As Klein writes in his new book: “Heins, like many other Internet providers, wanted to get access to Time Warner’s cable lines. They were faster than telephone lines. Cable represented the future of the Internet, offering a more robust delivery system.”
In March 2000, Heins drove from Oshkosh to the nearest Time Warner office, in Appleton. He told the receptionist he was there to take Mr. Case and Mr. Levin up on their kind offer of access to Time Warner cable lines. The receptionist gave Heins the bum’s rush, barely accepting his business card. “Have someone call me,” Heins said. No one did.
Not for nothing was Heins a marketing director. He began to contact consumer advocate groups in Washington along with reporters who were covering the proposed AOL Time Warner merger. One of them was Alec Klein of the Washington Post. “I was his Deep Throat for about six months,” Heins said. His message: Case and Levin are not being truthful about open access in this merger.
Meanwhile, Heins had contacted Time Warner’s mother ship in Connecticut, and received an application for access to the cable lines. In exchange for use of the cable lines Time Warner was asking 75 percent of an Internet service provider’s subscriber fee revenue and 25 percent of any other revenue. So much for “open access.”
Heins wound up making several trips to Washington, meeting with staffers from the FCC and FTC. There was little doubt that the merger would go through, but it’s also undeniable that Heins’ lobbying, along with his prodding reporters to publicize consumer concerns, had an impact. At one point the FCC asked him: What would you do differently? Can you provide us a business plan that includes open access?
“I had it to them in two days,” Heins recalled. “Around Washington it is known as The NorthNet Manifesto.’ ” The eventual merger, the largest in U.S. history and approved in January 2001, required at least three competing Internet providers to have access to Time Warner cable, and set up a trustee to monitor it. Heins said, “When the FCC issued their approval and consent order, I was cited nine times. Microsoft was cited four times.”
Of course, not even Heins could have predicted that the merger would be the debacle it has become, with billions in losses, mass resignations and ongoing government investigations. But he knew enough. “AOL was ethically challenged,” he said Thursday. “I followed it like a religion from my little office in Oshkosh.”
Now that office is in Plymouth, though Heins gets to Madison once a week to talk to legislators. He’s thinking of writing his own memoir of his role in the AOL Time Warner merger. “I consider myself a blizzard of one,” Heins said. Not a bad book title, when you think about it.
Heard something Moe should know? Call 252-6446, write PO Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708, or e-mail dougmoe@madison.com.
Working smart is #1, working hard augments #1. Always be doing copious homework, interview successful people, ask questions, then ask them what question you should have asked.
Socrates said, ‘ Know thyself’ . Translation: Honesty starts by being honest with yourself. Ask yourself tough questions.
You don't deserve anything, if you don't have a job, get a job, whatever the job is, do your best even if you have to work your A$$ off and not get recognized. You don't owe your employer anything but your hard work, always be your own recruiter, never look back, don't overstay your welcome. When you get 3% raises year in and year out you will understand what I'm talking about. Bonus answer: Never work with an A$$Hole, even IF they are nice to you, they're still an A$$Hole!
That facts don’t convince anybody of anything. Changing people’s minds is all about listening and communication, and boy do we have a lot of work to do...
I still haven't learned this one. I cannot fathom how you can ignore facts with such ease when they are right there, staring you in the face and making dirty gestures. I can understand why people do it, though, and it's not an excuse, sorry. Okay, I'll never learn this one.
It's likely that life hasn't taught me any lesson fully. It's likely that, given time, I can still make even the worst mistakes that I have made in the past. It's enough to lose concentration, and who can say they are fully concentrated about all that matters, all of the time.
Leaving aside that point, with its uncertainty and relativity, :...
The lesson that society is almost completely made of somnambulists made me lose the sense of there being ground under my feet, but it wasn't the hardest.
The lesson that my parents do not care all that much about me was pretty hard, but wasn't the hardest.
The lesson that everyone that I held dear in childhood and youth is never going to listen to me as if I could have something really important / life-changing to say, ... that was harder.
The lesson that so much of my life was spent in believing I'm living a free, intelligent and meaningful life, while in fact it was highly constricted by 'necessities' that were completely made up in order to satisfy some other people's sick anxieties, : that's a prime candidate for the hardest lesson.
The hardest lessons life has dealt me is no matter how you may debate a problem most people will not believe you when they run on emotions as the facts will not matter. Listen, listen, and listen more, before you engage your mouth. many times the best thing to do is nothing.
I wish I could add something to this but there is nothing to add.
Don’t give up when your right but the world isn’t listening.
Being smart can be a curse and won't gift you success. Knowing too much is worse than knowing too little.
I cringe every time I think about the people who know how things work but are being ignored, sidelined or worse. This is a real tragedy.
Related:
Hard work is more important to success than knowledge and intelligence. Hard work put into acquiring knowledge and training intelligence, doesn't get you very far unless you apply even more hard work to every job.
work, work, work. You'd think you'd get to relax a bit after stuffing your head full of knowledge.
Agreed. "Hard work" can be a trope but it's surprising how little people know
I think there was a quote about this, about success being 2% talent and 98% hard work. I have to agree.
That only God, my dear, can love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair.
You can't live a lie. No matter how much you try, the truth always reveals itself.
Wise words, and painfully true.
Let's hope that some of our political leaders begin to figure that out as well!
Mind-set, resilience, knowledge, continuous improvement, integrity, courage, love, leadership, character, reflection, wisdom, dignity, compassion, empathy to name a few are key but a life without “self-respect” is a life without meaning and purpose.
Yes! I think a lot of our problems come from lack of self-respect that we mask with so much crap like arrogance and stubbornness. Both self-destructive in the end.
"Compliance and Silence enables Tyrants".
I've been joking recently that the EU should adopt Muse's "Compliance" as its new anthem.
I'll offer two lessons:
Death is always at hand, so make every day count.
Loyalty is a very rare commodity.
Both worth writing down in bold, thank you! The first I only learned recently, kind of gradually, and the second I hadn't given much thought because I never in my life expected loyalty... until I had it and came to appreciate it.
If you are not happy with who you are, how do you expect others to enjoy your company?
But gloomy-with-a-permanent-pout was so popular a look when I was a teen! :) I'm happy I learned that lesson, I'm a much better person for it.
Hard work is the only pathway to success.
Two others:
1) Knowing the right people is far more important than anything else. Seems obvious until you actually see it in action--if that makes any sense.
2) Competition is for losers. People are far too fixated on "honest work" and "competition" when my greatest successes have been from playing an unfair game. Real power is often made off the back of unfair or even play. Don't take this a license to be stupid.
Morons always float to the top, just like turds.
They so do but I find it extremely unfair that while turds eventually break down and disappear, morons somehow find a way to remain at the top for longer than is healthy for anyone.
Governments only care about getting re-elected. regardless of the cost.
It has always amazed me how people well over the age of innocence claim they trust this or that politician. Trusting a politician is like trusting the weather forecast. You endure them for a while and then replace them.
Finding a cause big enough for oneself may take up 55 years of searching. Mine happened in 1999 when I realized the importance of global broad band and Internet access.
“Blizzard of One”
27 Jun 03 | Author Doug Moe
Originally published by The Capital Times – see article here.
LAST WEEK, Steve Heins, 58, was in Madison lobbying state government as part of his duties with the Orion Lighting & Energies Services company of Plymouth.
Heins took time out to visit a bookstore and buy a copy of a hot new book, “Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner,” by Washington Post reporter Alec Klein.
“It’s a great read,” Heins was saying Thursday. The book is selling well and getting good reviews, but it’s also possible that Heins is a bit biased. After all, he’s in the book, in a small but key role, telling anyone who would listen — including the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, which did listen — what was wrong with the original AOL Time Warner merger plan.
“AOL and Time Warner had just messed with the wrong guy,” is how Klein writes it in “Stealing Time.” Klein describes Heins as “a sleeping giant.”
Originally from Oshkosh, this self-described “aging flower child” spent eight years in the restaurant business in Madison in the 1980s. Heins then spent seven years on Wall Street working for an investment banking firm before coming back to Oshkosh as marketing director for NorthNet, a small Internet service provider.
Heins was working for NorthNet when plans for the AOL Time Warner merger were announced. He paid particular attention to the part of the announcement pledging that Time Warner’s cable network — second largest in the United States — would be available to other Internet service providers beyond AOL. Heins knew enough about the Internet-cable potential that UW cable guru Barry Orton invited him on some panel discussions of the issue.
As Klein writes in his new book: “Heins, like many other Internet providers, wanted to get access to Time Warner’s cable lines. They were faster than telephone lines. Cable represented the future of the Internet, offering a more robust delivery system.”
In March 2000, Heins drove from Oshkosh to the nearest Time Warner office, in Appleton. He told the receptionist he was there to take Mr. Case and Mr. Levin up on their kind offer of access to Time Warner cable lines. The receptionist gave Heins the bum’s rush, barely accepting his business card. “Have someone call me,” Heins said. No one did.
Not for nothing was Heins a marketing director. He began to contact consumer advocate groups in Washington along with reporters who were covering the proposed AOL Time Warner merger. One of them was Alec Klein of the Washington Post. “I was his Deep Throat for about six months,” Heins said. His message: Case and Levin are not being truthful about open access in this merger.
Meanwhile, Heins had contacted Time Warner’s mother ship in Connecticut, and received an application for access to the cable lines. In exchange for use of the cable lines Time Warner was asking 75 percent of an Internet service provider’s subscriber fee revenue and 25 percent of any other revenue. So much for “open access.”
Heins wound up making several trips to Washington, meeting with staffers from the FCC and FTC. There was little doubt that the merger would go through, but it’s also undeniable that Heins’ lobbying, along with his prodding reporters to publicize consumer concerns, had an impact. At one point the FCC asked him: What would you do differently? Can you provide us a business plan that includes open access?
“I had it to them in two days,” Heins recalled. “Around Washington it is known as The NorthNet Manifesto.’ ” The eventual merger, the largest in U.S. history and approved in January 2001, required at least three competing Internet providers to have access to Time Warner cable, and set up a trustee to monitor it. Heins said, “When the FCC issued their approval and consent order, I was cited nine times. Microsoft was cited four times.”
Of course, not even Heins could have predicted that the merger would be the debacle it has become, with billions in losses, mass resignations and ongoing government investigations. But he knew enough. “AOL was ethically challenged,” he said Thursday. “I followed it like a religion from my little office in Oshkosh.”
Now that office is in Plymouth, though Heins gets to Madison once a week to talk to legislators. He’s thinking of writing his own memoir of his role in the AOL Time Warner merger. “I consider myself a blizzard of one,” Heins said. Not a bad book title, when you think about it.
Heard something Moe should know? Call 252-6446, write PO Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708, or e-mail dougmoe@madison.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 Capital Newspaper
Working smart is #1, working hard augments #1. Always be doing copious homework, interview successful people, ask questions, then ask them what question you should have asked.
Socrates said, ‘ Know thyself’ . Translation: Honesty starts by being honest with yourself. Ask yourself tough questions.
Justice comes in the next world. The legal system doles out punishment and money, 40% to the lawyers...
You don't deserve anything, if you don't have a job, get a job, whatever the job is, do your best even if you have to work your A$$ off and not get recognized. You don't owe your employer anything but your hard work, always be your own recruiter, never look back, don't overstay your welcome. When you get 3% raises year in and year out you will understand what I'm talking about. Bonus answer: Never work with an A$$Hole, even IF they are nice to you, they're still an A$$Hole!
That facts don’t convince anybody of anything. Changing people’s minds is all about listening and communication, and boy do we have a lot of work to do...
I still haven't learned this one. I cannot fathom how you can ignore facts with such ease when they are right there, staring you in the face and making dirty gestures. I can understand why people do it, though, and it's not an excuse, sorry. Okay, I'll never learn this one.
The hardest lesson life has taught me:
Let's see...
It's likely that life hasn't taught me any lesson fully. It's likely that, given time, I can still make even the worst mistakes that I have made in the past. It's enough to lose concentration, and who can say they are fully concentrated about all that matters, all of the time.
Leaving aside that point, with its uncertainty and relativity, :...
The lesson that society is almost completely made of somnambulists made me lose the sense of there being ground under my feet, but it wasn't the hardest.
The lesson that my parents do not care all that much about me was pretty hard, but wasn't the hardest.
The lesson that everyone that I held dear in childhood and youth is never going to listen to me as if I could have something really important / life-changing to say, ... that was harder.
The lesson that so much of my life was spent in believing I'm living a free, intelligent and meaningful life, while in fact it was highly constricted by 'necessities' that were completely made up in order to satisfy some other people's sick anxieties, : that's a prime candidate for the hardest lesson.
.
From Keith Urban's "Live to Love Another Day":
"But the long and short of it some things never last
And if that goes for the good
It must go for the bad."
Learn to wait out the bad times and delight in the good ones.
This very much covers my life philosophy if it can even be called that. Everything has an end, the bad as well as the good.
Some people want to be abused.
The hardest lessons life has dealt me is no matter how you may debate a problem most people will not believe you when they run on emotions as the facts will not matter. Listen, listen, and listen more, before you engage your mouth. many times the best thing to do is nothing.
You get more with sugar then you do with salt.
This one is indeed hard.
Don't lie, it will catch up with you.
A certain percentage of people will hate you for doing the right thing. Not sure what that percentage is-but it's not low.
No, it sadly isn't low.