elephantmt
In Human
10 posts
A documentation of things in the life of a guy with vague ideas.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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September 25, 21:02 PM - Reminders from The Playbook
You cannot resist the temptation to lists all of the quote directly or indirectly from the coaches, however it is wise to understand that each one of those empowers you differently;
“Risk is opportunities”,  “Hold fast and stay true“
“What is delayed, its not denied”, “The execution and the hard work and the preparation, you cant speed it up and nor slow it down, be persistent!”
“Struggle is a privilege”, “Finish your race“
“Growth takes place outside your comfort zone“
“Share your success and own the failures”
I hope you remember the reason you take the first step forward. We stumble, fall, discourage, rise above and fall again - always remember to move forward and move on. 
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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September 24, 09:55 AM - The Playbook
Watched Netflix’s newest docuseries “The Playbook”, where it gathers all remarkable and highly accomplished sport coaches from Football to Tennis, during my breakfast. I found it very insightful and, somewhat, a wake-up call on how I do things differently before and my principle in managing/leading team. 
Here are some key takeaways (rules) from Jose Mourinho’s;
Understand your audience (know your user)
If your are prepared for the worst, you are prepared (always be prepared)
Some rules are meant to be broken (be fearless and intentional)
Don’t coach the player, coach the team (Its not about you, its about the cause)
Lastly, there is one thing that is not highlighted from the docuseries, though is iterated frequently by Jose, is the meaning of team. Considering football’s nature of fast transfers and/or sacked, a coach journey is considerably a fast one, although Jose always managed to be (rationally) emotionally involved with each one of the teams, by creating that family or brotherhood like atmosphere. Something that is quite rare in the workforce, however if one choses to purse, it requires a big heart and sacrifices, in order to accomplish its big return.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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September 22, 08:34 AM - Goals == Effort + Time + Want?
Last night I realized, that I have been taking my 30 days off-the-grid for granted, it was supposed to be my ticket to the master degree I have been dreaming of for 2 years and been spoken to everyone I know that had asked me, “what will you do after this?”. I will always answer, “I will use the time to get a master degree”. Fast forward to (almost) end of September, I’m not even close.
Where did I go wrong?
It’s actually quite simple, I did not manage my time and focus well enough, there are plenty of times that I procrastinate and/or things I rather do than making the time to evaluate my progress. I even have failed to do that one essential thing before making the journey, which everyone I consulted with had already reminded me, to have a role model. 
Sometimes, I blame myself for being too easily distracted; by a call of friendship, needs of love, etc. Despite the truth that at the end of the day, when I extend my hand for those callings, I will still be on my own pushing through my preparation.
However I’m glad to realized these things now, before it got me off somewhere else and there will be no more time to make adjustments. So now I need to ask my self is the goal I’m pursuing is equal to 1) the effort I made, 2) time I spent, and 3) how bad I want/need it. At the moment, if you run it through Python, it would say False because those 3 is still less than the goal it self. Here are things that you should be doing to make the adjustment needed:
Seek a role model and follow their trail
Calculate the time needed on weekly basis to meet your timeline and thus achieve your goal
Say no! to the things that doesn’t even brings you joy (remember every time you decided to go out/do other things, it costs your preparation, why even bother)
I hope by next year you’ll find my notes, and realized your worth.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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September 05, 09:43 AM - I tried coaching
Recently I’ve been asked to help a friend of mine, who is a senior manager of a newly established start-up, coach his newly appointed operation junior manager [user] to be a leader. Based on his view, my 4 years experience in gojek as a journeyman, from a volunteer/intern to head of a function, would suit the job description. However, I have never tried actual coaching to external party, only to the ones within my team, so this will be the first time for both of us actually. But, opportunities like these doesn’t come that often, right?. I immediately asked, “when can I start?” 
The objectives are quite delicate, to bring improvements/modification onto his operational procedure and to ensure the user achieve those goals given, in that newly leadership position.
Of course it did not took off right away as I failed to find common grounds with him by enforcing my “how I do things before, that works” to his routine, instead of understanding his position and view. Which causes a small friction during my first 3 sessions. Things like doubts, reluctance and misunderstandings emerges easily. Then, I come to the realization that I need to change my approach.
So on my 4th session, I decided to focus on him and how he approach his deliverable, instead of the deliverable it self [as expected from my employer] which covers;
Understanding "How to identify problem”
Understanding “How to determine measurable output”
Self-identification: Needs to pursue improvement and changes
Self-identification: Journey to actualized leadership
The shift immediately sparks an excitement in him, I can tell from his expression, he then became more opened and keep himself open-minded with the flow of questions given. From this point on, I learned the essence of improvement, is to understand the actual situation from the user (or field of production) point of view by plunging into his thoughts - in addition, putting aside everything I know is right in the past. I managed to achieve this, by creating a safe ecosystem where the user can express his/her thoughts and/or experiences, without fear being judged, and be open with his/her own results - losses and wins.
Lastly, I too realized, that the following exercise might also be useful for every encounters with human beings. Noted on that.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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August 11, 11:40 AM - Building Principles
An effective way to react and/or evolve, personally and professionally, is to document/understand your change in emotions/thoughts (personal growth) and applied principles/values (professional growth).
Ray Dalio in his book mentioned, “Good principles are effective ways of dealing with reality”, and a good follow-up, “Look to the patterns of those things that affect you in order to understand the cause-effect relationships that drive the and to learn principles for dealing with them effectively.”
1. Embrace reality and deal with it; Be hyper-realist - understanding, accepting and working with reality - being totally grounded in reality, will help us chose our dreams wisely and then achieve them. Thus rendered into reality, with the following excerpt “Over time I learned that getting more out of life wasn’t just a matter of working harder at it. It was much more a matter of working effectively, because working effectively could increase my capacity by hundred of times.”
Dreams + Reality + Determination = A successful life
Truth = An accurate understanding of reality
Be open minded and transparent (In receiving feedback and/or communication in [any] relationships)
Learn how reality (things) works from nature -> top down (universal laws of things) & bottom up (cases, codes and or laws - thus compiled in making sense of the particular universal laws)
Seeing things from the top down is the best way to understand ourselves and the laws of reality, consolidated with a bottom-up perspectives (at each individual case) helps Us lines up the fact and increase our accuracy to our theories in understanding laws that we expect to govern it.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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August 26, 01:27 PM - Evolution (Principles by Ray Dalio)
“...constant drive toward learning and improvement makes getting better innately enjoyable and getting better fast exhilarating...for most people success is struggling and evolving as effectively as possible.”
As he wrote in the same chapter;
It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful. 
“...most people instinctually avoid pain...- and especially true when people confront the harsh reality of their own imperfections.”
Then it hits me, I realized looking back through times, there are plenty of occasions I choose to sway with the pain and instead of getting through them. Well, its not too late to start, as how Haemin Sunim puts it in his book, “Life isn’t a hundred-meter race against your friends, but a lifelong marathon against yourself.”
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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August 07, 3:24 PM - On Principles by Ray Dalio
“I saw that to do exceptionally well you have to push your limits and that, if you push your limits, you will crash and it will hurt a lot. You will think you have failed-but that won’t be true unless you give up. Believe it or not, your pain will fade and you will have many other opportunities ahead of you, though you might not see them at the time. The most important thing you can do is to gather the lessons these failures provide and gain humility and radical open-mindedness in order to increase your chances of success. Then you press on.”
“The most painful lesson that was repeatedly hammered home is that you can never be sure of anything: There are always risks out there that can hurt you badly, even in the seemingly safest bets, so it’s always best to assume you’re missing something.”
“...our higher-level thinking makes us unique among species, it can also make us uniquely confused...In contrast with animals, most people struggle to reconcile their emotions and their instinct...with their reasoning...This struggle causes people to confuse what they want to be true with what actually is true.”
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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August 02, 12:41 PM - On Elon Musk
I recently put an attempt to fathom into the life of Elon Musk, from his auto-biographical book, written by Ashlee Vance (whom, has made a complicated series of events, into a simple story-telling). 
One of the learning I got, that might be a good study case, it’s on his business strategy (which also supported by his rather effective and decisive leadership style) during Tesla’s 2010 - 2012 development, additionally to the company’s initial IPO’s ($200 million), he managed to ensure that Tesla also received an extra bucks from Daimler (Mercedes-Benz, acquire 10 percent stakes for $50 million) securing a 4,000 Tesla battery packs order for their Smart cars unit, and from Toyota partnership (2,5 percent stakes for $50 million, in parallel to Tesla’s purchase over the NUMMI factory for $42 million - prior to Model S massive production) and helped them develop Toyota Rav4 electric cars. The essence of it, shows that Elon’s vision of pushing all of the company’s product to be built in-house, expands the capacity and capability of each companies (Tesla and SpaceX) to monetize each aspects and thus increase their revenue streams.
However, the study case aside, his monumental take away is the importance of always being the first one to deliver.
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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July 07, 03.56 PM - Why do you go forward?
Life is a freedom, but people tends to get caught up with other’s view or standard of accomplishment (that “should” or “shouldn’t”, statements), thus we fell into routines that doesn’t serve purpose in life.
Life is a freedom, although we might fail along the way serving a purpose, however failing to what? fail in finding that purpose, or fail to continue with a dissatisfaction? No one ever did guarantee an overnight success.
Life is a freedom, but dissatisfaction is inevitable, it’s either we have a lower standard or, the path to that standard is as high as the moon goes. So, now what do you want in life?
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elephantmt · 4 years ago
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June 26, 10.35 AM - How to re-build your ownself?
Visited an old friend, upon his new house, a newlyweds and has a dog they both named “Chewy” in reference to Star Wars.
I, in the other hand, is in survival mode of 2020′s waves of corporate and promising start-ups downturn - a young Padawan seeking for meaning and guidance from a Jedi master, to deepen the Tech industries for the following future. A brief context to my journey, I have been a believer of an idea, started as volunteer to a start-up in the informal sector and work through the trenches to be among great Jedi. 
In the crossroads of two important milestones, time and recognition, its either making the time I have been delaying to pursue my dream in taking a master degree in Technology, or working for a worldly recognized top Tech company. I fear of making to what might be a hazy and blurry path, so I asked that Man, “What should I choose? and what are my missing fundamentals?”, and so he emphasized one thing before anything else,
“I cannot make your decision, its your privilege to do so”.
Then, he continued, building the context. A journey of understanding the fundamentals is to acknowledge at least two things in life; 
It’s as wonderful a book revealing great things gradually, in narrative that only one need to specialized delivering it in ways that can sets you apart from commoners
And, try seeing it as an RPG (Role-playing games; i.e Skyrim, World of Warcraft, etc.)
At first, I was definitely baffled, however the elaboration of his metaphorical philosophy is truly simple that it somehow makes sense as he turns the table with a question, 
“With all the money in the world, what would you do? put aside worry of safety net and going broke, what would you want to do?”
It took awhile for me to grasp his question, so as I wouldn’t want to sounded stupid and shallow - in respect of his time. Then, I answered and confidently, “I definitely will make my own thing!”, as I figure what else if not that, right?. It turns out his intention was to acknowledge, if I was already figured out my end goal, and so I felt lost at that moment. Because, I realized, I have not found it. 
Yes, I have set a of “whats”, “hows” and “whens” in my plan, however at the end of the day even if I choose either master degree or work positions, I can’t make sense of its usefulness. But his justification, somehow cured that feeling of insignificant. 
“It’s okay, both of us are alike, we started from vague ideas, and commit to push through”.
He explained, there are people at our age or few years above, already has a crystal clear idea on what they want to achieve at certain age, and there’s us, that follows our intuition. So, now we arrived to the fundamental and how to create the narrative. He went back to his simple metaphor, in explaining the fundamental, build yourself as how you want to play your game (referring to his idea of life as an RPG).
Here’s how to build yourself and play your game;
Know your “game” character
Acquire your tools
Surround yourself with the right people
Know your “game” character - Imagine starting your game with nothing - beside your commoner clothes, bare hands and decent shoes - then the narrator in box texts, explained, “your journey will defined who you want to be along the game; wizards, warrior or shaman. Here are their strengths and weaknesses”. 
Sounds familiar? Because it is, I remember a time (mid-way in my tenure) scrolling upon job openings at different start-ups and various role/responsibilities. Despite its complex, next-level and intimidating titles alongside complicated descriptions - it all downs to that...
Business guy/girl
Software engineer guy/girl
Data scientist guy/girl
Digital creative guy/girl
Does that means, we’re already and expected to be boxed according to those suits and put aside any functionality related to the other “characters”? Definitely not, he exclaimed. Imagine playing the Sims, one thing you might notice is their skills statistics, which is general from one character to the other, however you’ll ended up becoming a rocket scientist or a novel writer based on collective decisions, and still able to held any competence intertwining both worlds. So, in other words, we as an individual might have choose a particular area of specialty but has the freedom to go beyond written expectation. 
Which brings me to the other point;
Acquire your tools - At this point, I want you to imagine the different things of character skins, weapons and potions, that you bought to enhance your attack/defense. I assumed, you might have already reckoned how the metaphors transcend to our daily life as an individual - well, if not, look at plenty of Microsoft Work tools you have already managed to operate, and university Alma mater. Both, which tends to be a description of our compatibility and thus opens/closed the door to another opportunity.
Is there any limitation to that? Who am I to tell, but what I can say is that I know my own capacity to the amount of skills or badges (i.e certification, and degrees) I need to reach that dream, I still put together.
But you on the other hand, don’t hesitate and start earning that Italian cooking master certification or degrees in cognitive research, you’ve been postponing due to someone else’s justification of, “oh are you sure?”, or “wouldn’t it be a waste of time” statements. One thing for sure, this is your story and their existence is within your decision.
Surround yourself with the right people - As cliche as it might sounds, but we sometimes hate to admit that our 20′s is the product of our surroundings (friends, lovers, teachers, family and others) prior to our graduation. But there’s an analogy in a different side of the spectrum, which is any athlete before going pro, they will need to endure practicing with the professionals to work harder, faster and build the fundamentals accordingly, to reach at that levels thus stand among the greatest. We? may not yet be, but there’s still hope (and time) to recover.
I remember, I used to drink by myself in a bar to forget that I have failed a thing or two, and/or it has been rough week that I have been going through. Obviously none of them gave me clarity or meaning. Even though I have an idea, how I can strive from those moments, but all of my concepts seems doesn’t meet any output I was looking for. Am doing it wrong? is the idea fit my situation? have I put enough effort to it? It turns out, I was too naive by thinking that I can do all of the work by myself, or to create an innovation only from my way of thinking, and focus more on “I think” than other’s opinion or point of view. But, to be honest, I was afraid of asking, as it will attract questions I am not yet prepared for.
So he said, you’ve chosen a character to begin with so why not try play with the big players, and learn their moves, despite the early defeat. The idea is to have a role model, not to set a competition, because at the end of the day what you’re trying to get is “their thought process” more than anything else. That’s how you win your own game. Remember, that you’ve acknowledge your competence stats at the beginning, now increase those stats by playing along with someone that has.
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Chewy has began to annoyed and our cups needs a refill, we both put a pause and took Chewy inside to accompany my friend’s wive. And out of the nowhere, she asked, “Any plan of settling?”, as I still compiling a mental notes of my veranda conversation, I was not yet ready for that question. Let’s save them for later.
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