jackywang

[jackywang]

Competition vs Collaboration

I always extend the first offer to collaborate and find synergies. But if you want to come at me, you best not miss, and you better be a hard worker, cuz, if it's you and me competing on a treadmill, it's either you get off first or I'll fucking die on it.

On the other hand, if we're collaborating, we'll support each other with integrity, positivity, and freedom. And keep other going for as long as we want, baby.

[jackywang]

Toxic Ownership

As I’ve worked with many people in my life, there are partnerships that worked well and some that failed miserably and caused a lot of stress and trauma. At this point, a reflection is warranted on some of the past experiences. Hopefully this will help myself with future collaborations with people to best decide what situations I want to be in vs situations to avoid or exit sooner than later.

I first learned about extreme ownership while working at Instagram and it helped me get the promotion I worked hard for, and since fell in love with the concept and applied it everywhere in my life. Later I learned that ownership is a tricky thing. Back in corporate world when employees have clear hierarchy and management structure, there usually isn’t a whole lot of power to fight over. You own your scope and maybe a bit more to be considered a good or great employee.

In a start up world or web3 world where there isn’t too much hard structure, power flows more freely. Anyone who is capable, has resources can spin up something or contribute to many different projects or organizations simultaneously and effectively to maximize their impact.

Individuals who take ownership are an extremely desired trait and hard to hire, they get things done, see a step further beyond what’s minimally needed, and see things through all the way to guarantee a desirable outcome or best effort.

Taking strong ownership can be an incredible way to build teams, projects, and start amazing initiatives to create huge impact. But when there are mixed motivations, ownership can also be what we might call “toxic ownership” here, a trojan horse for power struggles, unjust political gains, and forceful control over tangible/non-tangible assets, or relationships.

What are the differences?

When differentiating a healthy/toxic ownership, I think it comes down to the intention and methodologies of the ownership. Are people owning things in order to push them to fruition for a positive impact for others or are they taking ownership for their own selfish political gain or ego fulfillment? You can argue both are not mutually exclusive — as one manages and drives a project forward, the power and political/social capital comes as a byproduct and reward of their effort, and damn rightfully so.

I agree, but I think the root drive and methodologies plays a big role here. What is the root of the drive for ownership? Is it ego/thirst for power and accumulation of personal resources? Even if there is thirst for those things, is that so wrong? Isn’t that what drives humanity, all the great individuals before us forward to achieve great things for the world and be celebrated for them?

How can we tell the difference?

Negative patterns:

While it’s hard to decipher where the root of the drive is coming from, we can perhaps examine methodologies first. Because while the the root can be easily hidden, the methodologies often leaves some tracks for us to observe.

Are they sacrificing productive/well-intended contributors along the way for their own positional gain?

Do they get involved in zero-sum competition behavior? (competition is not a wrong, but are they playing with integrity? or just pushing others out because of either jealousy, fear, greed, or anxiety?)

Do they talk a ton of trash behind others’ backs rather than constructively try to solve a problem? (you can be guaranteed whoever secretly trashes others in front of you, also secretly trashes you in front of others).

When critical information becomes available, they do share it to relevant individuals in an reasonably transparent manner? or do they use that information to their advantage to control the situation first then only selectively disclose when necessary or for the sake of appearing “transparent”.

Anti-patterns:

I like to always give the benefit of the doubt and start with default trust. So when it’s hard and not great to take at face value all the negative signals without more context, it’s much more easier to build a case of trust and respect on positive signals.

In contrast to the above example,

when critical information becomes available, does someone voluntarily discloses them? Especially if the information is a disadvantage to their situation or power/control only because it is the right thing to do?

When someone observes their own methodologies and able to reflect deeply on their root drive, do they have the mindfulness to reflect, the self-awareness to observe, the vulnerability to admit weakness, courage to change, and integrity to do what’s right. I also find people the most admirable of all.

While you always want to leave benefit of doubt for the negative patterns you see, the positive patterns can really help you solidify trust in their ownership’s intention.

Why is it important to tell the difference?

It’s important to tell the difference because these information help us differentiate short term minded people playing finite games and long term minded people playing infinite games. I believe in the long term infinite games, the core will always show in due time. Something I tweeted about when I unintentionally started observing this

“I realized I generally respect 2 types of people the most: people who’ve done/doing something great the right way & people who are just honest and genuinely kind. Then I realized how much overlap there is between the 2 groups.”

[jackywang]

America's problem

America, at the core is rooted in individualism, hence the great capitalism that fuels the "American dream". To solve a collective problem will take a collective solution.

Take the pandemic - people in Taiwan collectively did what was best for the community with small sacrifices and enjoyed a covid free life for everyone for an entire year and counting. Bars, clubs and restaurant never shut down. In America, people cared for their individual rights and businesses ahead of public safety and everyone suffers worst-off collectively, spikes after spikes, easing restrictions pre-maturely one after another.

Same goes for racism. A collective problem can never be solved individually. When some people aren't safe, no one is safe. The only way to solve it is through communities collectively. Different community leaders need to come together to be heard and create incentives to matter at a national level.

The world, especially America works around incentives, not morals. If being ethical was profitable, everyone would do it.

How do we create incentives to solve this problem collectively? Uniting communities to become of national interest. That is hard because the people directly hurting are mainly minorities. And even if all minorities combined will still be a minority. Minorities will not become national interest no matter how morally sound it is. The interest and safety of minorities need to become majority opinion for it to become national interest, for there to be incentives to solve it collectively.

If we want to be part of this fight and win, we need help from the majority while uniting the minorities, it will take every individual collectively.

[jackywang]

Where am I going?

The feeling of lost in life happens to everyone inevitably. But honestly sometimes we don’t know where we’re going until we get there. Forest Gump had no idea where he was going, but he ended up playing ping pong in the Olympic and started a successful shrimp business. Knowing where you’re going is great but sometimes you gain clarity in motion

[jackywang]

Be kind to yourself

It’s not really about how you treat others, thats merely the reflection, at the root its how you treat yourself.

How you love & respect others is a natural result of how you love & respect yourself. Be kind to yourself and you will naturally have a kind personality

[jackywang]

Habits

Habits will only work if you create a world that makes them easy.

If you have a pinched water hose and you want more water to come out, you can either create more water pressure or straighten the hose. Which one do you think is easier?

Habits is treating the cause, not the symptom. If you have dirty habits, you will end up with a dirty room. You can spend an hour cleaning it, or change your dirty habits, and you’ll never have a dirty room

Habits also has compound interest, the most powerful thing in the world. If you become 1% better everyday you will be 37.8 times better every year

Habits will make or break you.

[jackywang]

Frequently & ruthlessly iterate on our priorities and habits

Our priorities are what we value at our core. Our habits are how we execute to produce outcomes aligned with our values - effectively and efficiently.

How we iterate on these is to decompose everything we do, into the “why” and the “how”. 

Look at the “why”, break it down and think is my reasoning valid or falsifiable? Do I believe in these values because I truly believe in them or could I possibly be deluded by society? Is there something that is of higher priority that is more long-term impactful?

Then look at the “how” and think what can I do to automate/conduce or improve execution leverage (lower effort & time vs higher impact), invest in fixed cost infrastructure(tools) and create positive feedback loops(reflections) in the process.

We cannot guarantee an outcome, but we can guarantee we do everything in our power to create the highest probability for the best outcomes

P.S. “Thinking Fast and Slow” is an amazing book you can read and learn about how what seems insignificant things can how significant impact on our behaviors driven by the subconscious mind

[jackywang]

Blogging - time machine for the mind and a high yield compound interest investment account

Something today reminded me of this blog that I started in 2010, 8 years ago. I started this blog mainly to just capture some interesting thoughts, to be honest, I don't remember exactly the reason. However, this blog has provided me with incredible value, like a time machine down my mind on demand. The further I go and the longer time span it covers (8 years so far), the more powerful this time machine is.

I read through all of my posts here at once and felt really nostalgic. This blog captured thoughts and ideas no way I would still remember today since college, and it's mind opening seeing what they were compared to what goes on in my head today. You might not feel the change at the moment, but when you read 8 years of blogging at once, you notice ideas that shifted, new perspective on my core values, you secretly envy the innocence and zeal you had for things you might be accustomed to now. Like the reflections of your first time traveling and visiting a different city. 

Also, the things that are changed and bounded by time, stories of you and your grandparents when they were alive, to the memoirs of their lives when they pass away. The realizations of how much your parents love you and how immature and rebellious you could be before then. The egotistic things you would say to yourself for motivation to work harder, that don’t apply to your mental models today. All of these changes are amazing for yourself to see as learnings and great reminders that nothing last forever.

On the other hand, surprisingly, you also realize how many things have NOT changed. The bests are seeing the beginning of an idea that you carried on and developed further into your core values today, such as first thoughts on romantic partners, compatibility, friendships, zen living in the moment, full ownership of your problems, peace, anti-materialism...etc. 

The things you started to believe in at an early age takes time to mature. Drawing them from narrow to breadth, shallow to deep of experiences that solidified and sharpened your core beliefs over time. Things take on another dimension when you have learnings from both breadth and depth. An epiphany is great when it sparks, but it takes years to make it a permanent mark. Perhaps the act of writing it down and looking back periodically helped with that as well. 

The more time that goes by in between looking back on my blog, the more compound value that adds to my future self. To see the pattern, the path of growth for yourself written down concretely is an invaluable resource and treasure for the rest of your life that will only get better. 

Hence I believe, blogging is not only a time machine for the mind but also a high yield compound interest investment account. The things you write here will only get better for you to consume as time goes by.

I’m really happy I have this blog. Even though the maintenance of it has been lacking in recent years, I promise to keep this going to the full extent of my capabilities for myself and anyone generously willing to give it their precious time.

A reminder for myself on — Why I blog

[jackywang]

Starry Night

There is a stark contrast to seeing a painting in pictures, then seeing it in real life, with your bare eyes.

The Starry Night has been my favorite painting for some time. I initially liked the for the impressionist look of a beautiful night sky. But after seeing it today in real life, it gave me a completely different interpretation.

When we get lost in a good view, instead of just thinking about what we literally see, say the mountains, starts, buildings, most of the time we have other thoughts and questions in our head simultaneously. The same view can never be enjoyed the same way by 2 different people because everyone’s has different thoughts and emotions when seeing it. One person could be thinking about his past, future and how everything have brought him to where he is today, while another can be thinking about how romantic and meaningful a view like this means to him or her seeing it with a loved one.

The painting moves me in a very strong and particular way because it captures not just the 3D night view, but the viewer’s thought, ideas, and emotions that arose at the moment with the spiral flow of lines. In a sense, creating a 4-dimensional space blending the 3-dimensional reality with our feelings.

What makes a pretty view beautiful is the emotion you feel at the moment depending on your mood or who you are with. Being with the right person or in the right mindset is what cements a gorgeous view into a timeless memory. It’s also what adds the swirl to the moon and the stars. When we reminisce, we don’t just remember what we saw, but how we felt. This is my favorite painting because of how it is able to convey feelings in a visual way.

While staring at this painting, tracing the lines with my eyes, time flies by while I lose myself in mesmerization.

Originally written on 2/13/2017

[jackywang]

Freedom Through Commitment

While investing deeply in one person, one job, one activity might deny us the breadth of experience we'd like, pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the opportunity to experience the rewards of the depth of experiences. There are some experiences that you can have only when you've lived in the same place for five years when you've been with the same person for over a decade when you've been working on the same skill or craft for half of your life. 

Pursuing breadth has diminishing returns. When you never left your home country, the first country you visit inspires a massive perspective shift, because you have a narrow experience to draw on. But when you've been to 20 countries, the 21st adds little. 

Same for material possessions, money, hobbies, jobs, friends and romantic/sexual partners-all the lame superficial values people choose for themselves. The older you get, the more experienced you get, the less significantly each new experience affects you. The first time I drank at a party was exciting. The hundredth was fun. The five hundredth time felt like a normal weekend. And the thousandth time felt boring and unimportant. 

Commitments give your freedom because you're no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous. Commitment gives you freedom because it hones your attention and focus, directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removed any fear of missing out; knowing that what you already have is good enough, why would you ever stress about chasing more, more, more again? Commitment allows you to focus on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would. 

The breadth of experience is likely necessary and desirable when you're young- after all, you have to go out there and discover what seems worth investing yourself in. But depth is where the gold is buried. And you have to stay committed to something and go deep to dig it up. That's true in relationships, in a career, in building a great lifestyle - in everything. 

Inspired & extracted from the book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” by Mark Manson.

Originally written on 12/28/2016

[jackywang]

[Late Post] Lessons from 2016

I regret leaving this blog empty in 2017 entirely. I’ve taken some private notes that I’ve been meaning to post for some time now (a year to be exact), here’s the first one. 

I’ve especially wanted to post this one since 2016 was a big, pivotal year for me as I look back at 2017 today. 

In 2016, I’ve left my first programming job in Taiwan.(Feb) Traveled to Australia. Moved to start a new job in Hong Kong 9GAG.(Mar) Quit that job, booked a one-way ticket to San Francisco.(Jun) Traveled to Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Portland, Chicago before starting at Facebook (Aug). At the end of the year decided to move to New York to join Instagram(Dec)

Essentially living in 4 cities in 2016. Taipei, Hong Kong, San Francisco, New York, between 3 jobs. 1 department transfer.

In the process of making all these changes, bold moves were made, mistakes included with lessons learned. Regret is only regrettable if we don’t learn from it. I believe taking notes of lessons observed is an invaluable resource for the rest of my life. Here’s the original note was written at the beginning of 2017.

Be Aggressively Resourceful.

If you don’t ask, you will never know. There are people who can help you in every aspect of life. Out of those people, there are people who are willing to help you and people who are unwilling to help you. Out of all the people who are willing to help you, some have time to help you, some don’t. You will never find this precious subset of people that can and are willing and have the time to help you if you don’t ask. Even if the person you ask falls into the other category that is unable to help you, you opened a communication line for possible future engagement. You got nothing to lose, the worse you can get is a no.

An example of this is when I first joined Facebook, we get to choose our teams. I’ve always wanted to join Instagram but at the time, there was no headcount available for any Instagram teams. I’ve reached out to every Instagram manager I could find on the work tool and asked if there were opportunities. Unsurprisingly, there were none. I ended up joining Messenger and had a great time there. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, our team had to shut down due to political reasons out of our control. I was able to reach out again to Instagram managers that I’ve opened the line of communication with 5 months ago to successfully secure a position along with relocation package to move to New York.

Make your home, your room your favorite place in the world.

Keep it simple, only own the essentials, things you love and only in high quality. Make it a place that fills you with joy whenever you are present. People sometimes say that you can tell a person by how they make their bed. I say you can tell a person by what their room looks like and what they own.

They say the best way to clean a drawer is the dump everything on the ground and only put back the things you cannot live without. I’ve applied this to many aspects of my life and the results were astonishingly liberating.

Surround yourself with people that are positive and inspiring

Time goes by so fast, we really don’t have time waiting for people, dealing with other people’s problems for them when they can and should be handling it themselves, and getting brought down by other people’s negativity.

Even though it may mean more loneliness in the short-term. Cutting off whatever will not come to fruition makes room for people that can have a long-term positive impact on me. I didn’t look for company because I needed company. I love the company of great people around but I rather have no company than bad company. I’ve become even more comfortable with going solo on whatever I do. 

People change, even if someone used to be a close friend of yours but they are dragging you down a path you don’t want, be willing to let go and fade out. Cherish the memories, but keep your eyes straight on the gold. And when you meet someone who is awesome and enjoy their company, don’t be afraid to reach out and open up to be vulnerable, that’s the only way to get close to people. Be aggressive in setting up an optimal circle for growth.

Embrace fear

Learn to have fun with fear. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. The old saying goes, courage is not the absence of fear, rather the realization that something is more important than fear. The great ones are willing to get burned in order to sharpen his sword again and again.

The best time is NOW

Be very picky about things you do and who you do them with, but don’t be picky about time. If you have time, and there’s something you always wanted to do, commit, go make it happen. Too often, people postpone and postpone for the optimal time because the weather isn’t the best, a person or 2 is missing from the group, didn’t get enough sleep, laziness, and end up never doing what they could have done have they just did it the first chance. Postponing is risking “never going to happen"

Be in the present

Every instance of interaction with another human, give him or her all your attention.

Being at peace

You can’t count on the world being silent, so your best option is to become at peace with the noise. I not strongly religious, but I believe in meditating praying and sitting in a chair and staring into the distance. You can’t always be happy, we are emotional creatures, we get sad, angry, nervous naturally. Amidst our humanity, we can always be at peace

Love yourself

Be able to look at yourself in the mirror and fully accept what you see. Not just physically but mentally, your past, your mistakes. Forgiveness and hope. The best and the worst. The victories and the lessons.

What is success?

Giving it all to be the best that you can be and be happy with the results.

Be Direct

Like Jeff Flur, stand up for yourself, speak facts, remove emotions, seek people’s true intentions and see and express to the world clearly.

“At this point in my life, if it doesn’t make me happy, make me better or make me money, I don’t make time for it.“

[jackywang]

Reflection of Grandpa Morris and Grandma Nancy’s Lives

In the government of KMT, where Morris and Nancy sat across from each other in the office and began their fling. It was during the times of the Chinese revolution in 1950s, Communist were taking over China. In Shanghai, Morris told Nancy to wait for her at the port where they found each other and traveled to Taiwan to start their family.

I haven’t had the chance to really write about Grandpa Morris and Grandma Nancy since they passed away this year. During the times I lived in Taiwan, they showed many signs of illness due to old age and previous health conditions, so in my mind, I had always been mentally preparing myself for their passing. Of course, one can never be ready for a close one to pass, but one can do its best to spend as much time with them as possible before the inevitable. 

And that’s what I believe I had done in terms of spending as much with them as possible, so when Grandma passed away in March, Grandpa on 4/21/2017(my birthday) it felt... strange. A mix of sadness with a surprising overwhelming calmness. 

They were my favorite people growing up, when we lived in New York as babies (0-7), I remember their visits always brought the most joy to us and the family. I clearly remember my brother and I fighting over grandpa’s affection. Where my father said, 

“Hey as a brother, you need to learn to give up things for your brother” 

in which, I wittily replied back 

“I’ll let him have grandma!” 

Thinking back, that was quite an insensitive thing to say, but we were 5 years old, and grandma had the biggest heart so everyone just laughed about it. Grandpa was always better socially, he knew how to talk loudly with confidence and knew how to make people laugh. 

Later on, they moved to San Jose in a retirement home, we had a blast at Uncle Andy’s in San Jose one year when I was in middle school, where we mingled with all our cousins all together for the first time. As I enter high school/college, going to town to visit them was always one of the things I really looked forward to the most. 

My brother and I both adored Nancy and Morris as a kid, but growing up, as I matured and learned more and more about their personalities as adults and observe their interactions with each other/other people. I secretly started appreciating grandma for her covered qualities more and more. Not that it’s important who I liked more between the 2, they are obviously 2 different people with very different personalities. But I saw many qualities in Grandma that truly inspired me and wanted to become more of.

Grandpa was always the authoritative, always right, loud, full of humor and resolve, wisdom type of person, with that, comes his big ego and stubbornness. Grandma was always willing to be in the background of things, she would only yell at you when she hears you sneeze and want you to put on another layer. 

“Hey! getting sick! another jacket and blanket now!”

If you dare to disobey her, even in the hot summers of Taiwan, she will force her way to put a blanket over you against your will. She was always the more caring and loving one, doing so without getting the attention and affection grandpa demanded out of everyone. 

The most important lesson I learned from Grandma is how to smile, a little piece I wrote about here:

https://medium.com/positive-vibes/smile-5a63b969d934

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

One thing grandma always made me feel, no matter what terrible health condition she is in, is happiness.

A big part of the reason why I moved to Taiwan, Taipei for a few years after college was to be as close to them as possible. I visited them every other week with my father, where we would go to their retirement home in Linko, where we would sometimes bring food, or eat there, then my dad and I would go down to play ping pong or pool while they napped. Then drive back the same day to our home in Fongyuan where I will spend time with my parents before going back to Taipei. 

Towards the later years of their lives, things were more difficult, their health was naturally deteriorating, their emotions were sometimes unstable, and generally required more and more help to function normally. It was tougher and tougher to spend time with them emotionally as things weren’t as pretty and perfect as before. My parents have gotten old and don’t have the physical ability to always take care of them, so the responsibility of taking care of them often fell on the shoulders of the kids, rightfully so. Sometimes things were negative, but that also taught me a great lesson in positivity. A piece I wrote about my experience with my grandpa in the hospital:

http://jackywang.tumblr.com/post/124738294137/the-positivity-challenge

They have passed away for a few months now, I’m not sure why it took me this long to write this reflection on their lives. Maybe I didn’t want to face it or maybe because I felt like I’ve done everything I could in their last years to be close to them that I have nothing to be sad about.

Anyhow, I miss them and I will learn the best of their qualities and have them continue to live on through my life.

[jackywang]

What other people think of me is none of my business.

:)

[jackywang]

https://youtu.be/t2G8KVzTwfw

[jackywang]

The you in the past wants you to do better than they did, and the you in the future wants you to be better than you are. Don't let yourself down.

[jackywang]

Religion

I don’t really have one. But I believe in meditating, thankful prayers and sitting in a chair and staring into the distance. 

[jackywang]

Birthdays

I like birthdays. Technically, its just another day like all the other 364 ones where the earth happen to spin another round. I don’t think its nice because it was the day you were born, thats just a number on the calendar. Rather, they are nice because they are a chance to appreciate friends who take their time out of their day to wish you a happy birthday. A precious opportunity to reconnect with old friends who you haven’t talked to in a while and see what everyone has been up to. That’s the nice thing about a birthday socially and externally.

Internal, They are a chance to reflect on how much you’ve grown and matured in the past year. It’s like taking a train in a loop and always coming back to the station you started from.

While John Mayer’s “Stop this train” plays in the background,

“I can’t take the speed its moving in, won’t someone stop this train?”

Life is like a train that keeps moving through different stations but it doesn’t stop. It only moves forward. You may look back, but the view in front of you a second ago can be behind and forgotten the next minute.

as John Mayer puts it,

“So scared of getting older I'm only good at being young So I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun”

The idea of getting older can be frightening at times. Life begins at 30, life begins at 40. We’ve all heard of that before. Everyone’s train moves in the same speed, we all get 24 hours a day. So whats the point of attaching any meanings to these numbers?

John’s old man tells him,

“Turn 68, you’ll renegotiate. 

John, honestly, we'll never stop this train.“

That’s the beauty of this train. It will never stop, even if you do come back to the same station, nothing will be the same. If we could turn back time, we shouldn’t because that will just destroy the meaning of “moment”. A moment is not a moment if it can be visited from multiple instances.

"Stop this train I wanna get off and go home again I can't take this speed it's moving in I know I can't 'Cause now I see I'll never stop this train.”

Lets not ever try or think about stopping this train. Take some photos of what you see, write in your diary about it, look at those memories every now and then. Reminisce, don't regret. Be glad this train will never stop, because thats what makes every moving scene, every mountain, tree, ocean, every emotion and every moment so worthwhile and invaluable.