October 2019
Beginner
400 pages
7h 56m
English
Content preview from The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
June 5Unlocking Solitude
To persons whose pursuits are insulated from the common business of life—who are either in advance of mankind or apart from it—there often comes a sensation of moral cold that makes the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes around the pole.
Nathaniel Hawthorne—“The Artist of the Beautiful” in Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories (1846)
Entrepreneurs are in many respects artists—or at least are prone to think like artists—for better or worse. Read the full text of “The Artist of the Beautiful” and you just might think Hawthorne was writing about you at times.
The life of an entrepreneur can be a lonesome one. You may work apart from others, live mostly in your head, and wrestle with the sensation that you are the only one who gets what you're trying to do.
Hawthorne's character Owen, the subject of today's reading, was indeed an artist. Throughout his journey he suffered from self-imposed isolation and bouts of depression—“a sensation of moral cold” (an office in the basement of your home can add to this feeling too).
Don't let this be you. Fight it. Get outside. Attend a conference. Meet a client face to face for a change. Get off social media for a week. Get an intern. Adopt a dog.
Oh, and just think how miserable the folks are who are stuck in jobs they hate.
Challenge Question
- Who should you need to go see today?
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.