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.
August 2Prove Yourself Wrong
Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson—Self-Reliance (1841)
One of the better rules of self-reliance is you get to change your mind—you can even contradict yourself. Now, as Emerson suggests, this frightens some, but how silly is it to hold on to something that no longer serves?
Consistency breeds trust, but when it no longer serves, it's simply a lie. In how many areas of your life can you afford to hang on to a lie?
You don't have to stick with your big idea, you don't have to keep that client, you don't have to remain in an unprofitable business partnership.
The point of all of this is not to prove ourselves right, but to prove ourselves wrong. If today you have all the answers, how are you going to grow?
Just in case you need a little more Emerson on this topic, he goes on to say, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds …”
Fundamentally what Emerson is suggesting is nothing less than integrity.
Challenge Question
- What's one thing you need to change your mind about?
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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.Addison B.
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.Amir M.
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.