As I find myself staring at the output of Tcl Console for embarrassing amount of time, I had a chance to catch up with my News stream. Lo, I found RMS predicting with immaculate precision what I will be doing on this beautiful Sunday (see below). Do professional FPGA engineers find that abysmal performance of Tcl engine impacts their process ? (pretty much everything in Vivado and Quartus is a Tcl script. I think AMD is trying to move Vitis side of things towards Python, but there's still plenty of Tcl). I surmise that some ~90% - at least - of the actual runtime of HDL tools is Tcl overhead. The real question is, if the entire industry is so dependent on this, for good or for bad, why was it never overhauled into something with respectable performance ?
Anyway, Words of the ProFET (formatting mine) :
Richard Stallman
Sep 23, 1994, 7:14:52 PM
to g...@prep.ai.mit.edu[Please redistribute wherever appropriate.]
Why you should not use Tcl Richard Stallman, GNU Project
As interest builds in extensible application programs and tools, and some programmers are tempted to use Tcl, we should not forget the lessons learned from the first widely used extensible text editor--Emacs.
The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!
Extensions are often large, complex programs in their own right, and the people who write them deserve the same facilities that other programmers rely on.
The first Emacs used a string-processing language, TECO, which was inadequate. We made it serve, but it kept getting in our way. It made maintenance harder, and it made extensions harder to write. Later Emacs implementations have used more powerful languages because implementors learned from the problems of the first one.
Another lesson from Emacs is that the way to make sure an extension facility is really flexible is to use it to write a large portion of the ordinary released system. If you try to do that with Tcl, you will encounter its limitations.
Tcl was not designed to be a serious programming language. It was designed to be a "scripting language", on the assumption that a "scripting language" need not try to be a real programming language. So Tcl doesn't have the capabilities of one. It lacks arrays; it lacks structures from which you can make linked lists. It fakes having numbers, which works, but has to be slow. Tcl is ok for writing small programs, but when you push it beyond that, it becomes insufficient.
Tcl has a peculiar syntax that appeals to hackers because of its simplicity. But Tcl syntax seems strange to most users. If Tcl does become the "standard scripting language", users will curse it for years--the way people curse Fortran, MSDOS, Unix shell syntax, and other de facto standards they feel stuck with.
For these reasons, the GNU project is not going to use Tcl in GNU software. Instead we want to provide two languages, similar in semantics but with different syntaxes. One will be Lisp-like, and one will have a more traditional algebraic syntax. Both will provide useful data types such as structures and arrays. The former will provide a simple syntax that hackers like; the latter will offer non-hackers a syntax that they are more comfortable with.
Some people plan to use Tcl because they want to use Tk. Thankfully, it is possible to use Tk without Tcl. A Scheme interpreter called STk is already available. Please, if you want to use Tk, use it with STk, not with Tcl. One place to get STk is from ftp.cs.indiana.edu:pub/scheme-repository/imp/STk-2.1.tar.Z

Richard Stallman

This is not my main account because friends and family know of that. Also, I'm new to Al-anon. I have never written a post this long in my life and I just kept typing. Thank you to anyone who reads this or responds.
TLDR: Estranged brother got 3rd OWI, will be going to jail, and will have a felony in his record. My parents and other brother don't know about it yet but my husband and I do. I don't know what to do.
My younger brother (31), let's call Alex, and I (33f) used to not get along very well as kids - we have loving parents but they were emotionally immature (still are) and dealing with their own generational trauma. In our early 20s, we worked through a lot and became best friends. Fast forward a few years, he got an owi. He told everyone he was at a party, his drink got spiked and he didn't know what to do so drove home. Something about the story didn't sit well with me but I ignored it at the time.
About a year later, due to several reasons, I offered for him to move into my house - most notably it was supposed to be for about 6 months so he could save money as I wouldn't charge him rent. At first things seemed to be normal. He worked odd hours while I worked 8 to 5 so we didn't see each other a lot. It was clear he was depressed but he didn't want to talk about it and I didn't pry - I suggested therapy, we hung out together more, and I assured him that I was here for him any time, night or day. We started having friction when he kept coming home loudly on weeknights between 2 and 3am, waking me up. At first I asked him to be quieter and when that didn't work, we had a meeting and set some house rules - if coming home on a weeknight, park in the driveway and enter the house through the basement (my house has a walkout basement and he lived in the basement).
Things were okay for a while. Alex decided he wanted to wait another year before going to grad school. Since things were going better, I offered for him to stay with me until he figured out what he wanted to do.
Fast forward a year, Alex had no plans of leaving and I started seeing my now husband, let's call him Ryan. Ryan got along with Alex wonderfully as well as the rest of my family. Around this time, Alex kept forgetting to use the basement entrance. One night when I heard him coming home, I went downstairs (to the first floor) to talk to him. Alex was very, very drunk. I was furious and yelled at him asking him what he was doing driving drunk. I did not handle it well. He mumbled and gave excuses and said he never did this and it was just an odd circumstance. He opened up about some of his traumas and that he was going to get help. I believed him. The next morning he acted totally normal and claimed he didn't remember any of our conversation. This was followed by many more encounters exactly like that.
I went to my parents with my concerns about Alex. Their response was very much that I was exaggerating that Alex was coming home drunk or had any problem related to alcohol. They basically said that he was an adult and could make his own decisions. I went to my older brother who basically had the same response butadded he'd reach out to Alex and check in on him.
One night, I went out with Ryan to a bar, started getting a migraine and went home early. Ryan ended up coming back to my house several hours later. He woke me up and said he had run into Alex who was incredibly drunk. I texted Alex to see if he needed me to get him an Uber or come pick him up. Immediately he texted back as saying one of his friends who was sober was about to drive him back to the house and crash in the basement for the night. About an hour later I got a phone call from Alex. He was very upset and very drunk as he explained he got a flat tire and didn't know what to do. When I get there, there is no 'friend' and the flat tire wasn't a flat tire, the tire was sideways (parallel to the ground) on the rim. I put him into my car and drove him straight to my parents house while he babbled about how he hit a curb before changing the story to say it was his friend who hit the curb then Alex called an Uber for the friend so said friend wouldn't have to wait around while the car got sorted. We got to my parents, I explained the situation and that very clearly their son is drunk, drove drunk again, and that they can handle him. Dad and I sort out the car and he drove it back to his house. The next morning, I get a call from my parents explaining that Alex wasn't drunk last night but was dealing with shock from hitting the curb. In not my best move, I erupted which resulted in me going low contact with my parents.
Things continued going downhill between Alex and myself. I started to avoid my house and spent most of my non working hours at Ryan's house. It got to the point that we only interacted when the house was trashed with garbage and moldy dishes (he stopped cleaning up after himself) or I tried to talk to him about his drinking which resulted in empty promises.
At this point, Alex gets another OWI. I tell him he needs to move out, that I can't enable his behavior and that he needs help and it's not something I can fix or change, that he has to be the one who wants to change. I tell him I would do anything for him and I love him but until he is ready to make changes I can't there for him. He moved out.
Many things happen in the next two years, most notably I almost died (surgery and several extended hospital stays) and I got married to Ryan (quick courthouse ceremony). Not a word from Alex throughout all this time. Ryan and I decided to have a wedding reception. My parents brought up inviting Alex to our reception - Ryan and I talk about it and decided Alex could attend if (1) He doesn't drink any alcohol (2) he takes accountability for his actions. We give Alex 8 months to do (2). He didn't. My parents tried to manipulate the situation once the time expired (a couple weeks before the reception) but Ryan and I stood very firm on our boundaries. Two days before the reception I received awful texts from Alex about how I'm the worst, how could I do this to Mom and Dad, and if I cared about our family at all, we would allow him to come. Again, we held our boundaries which caused a lot of friction with my parents and older brother but it was absolutely the best decision for me.
Once again fast forward months to 2 days ago. I've had no contact with Alex. My mother and I were hanging out and she drops a bunch of information about Alex - he is apparently doing even better with promotions at work, seeing a therapist, and is in a happy relationship. I wanted to believe this with every fiber of my being. I don't exactly know why but I had a strong feeling which led me to looked up Alex on my state's online court system (public court document system, if you search by first and last name, any legal proceeding a person is/was involved with shows up). And that's how I found out he got a third OWI (and a driving with a suspended license) in April followed by a search warrant that was executed at his apartment a couple weeks after that. His court date is this coming week. For the third offense, he will be going to jail for at least 30 days and lose his license for years. The 3rd offense is a felony. My parents and older brother do not know what is going on, it's very clear based on how they're acting and the future plans they've been making.
I am profoundly sad. My husband and I have discussed it and we think we are not going to say anything to anyone. The truth is going to come out but after the last several years, I don't think it should come from. I don't know what to do. I feel guilty that I didn't do enough and that I'm at fault.

The Selective Responder is someone who only responds to the most idiotic and obviously illogical arguments that are opposite their own positions, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate arguments on the opposing side.
As an example, I will use the very video that inspired this suggestion in the first place. YouTuber Big Joel made this video about the pro-Palestine Colombia protests (on his Little Joel account): https://youtu.be/CmY8NsWxf38?si=AN444TBLs7eKbwUT. The video responds to this article by Colombia Professor John McWhorter, that is critical of the protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html.
In his video, Big Joel makes the following legitimate criticisms of the article:

• McWhorter complains that the protests are too loud. In fact, he says they are so loud to the point of being "abuse." Big Joel rightly points out how ridiculous a take this is. Protests are supposed to be loud, as the entire point is to grab people's attention. In addition, the validity of the cause being protested for is not dependent on how loud and annoying the protestors are. Even if the protestors were being abusively loud (whatever that means), that does not inherently make their cause unjust.
• McWhorter equates opposing not just the war but Israel's very right to exist to being anti-Black. Big Joel rightfully points out that he just assumes the two positions to be equal levels of racist and terrible. Big Joel rightfully notes that if you are going to make such a statement, you should explain why this is the case instead of just assuming it to be so. Big Joel then goes on to say that in assuming this position as fact, McWhorter does not have to attend to the merits of the pro-Palestine arguments
• McWhorter points out the following things indicating that the Colombia protests have turned violent ("It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Israeli Arab activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"). Big Joel then goes on to rightfully dismantle each argument (except one). He says just because the rabbi says there might be violence, does not mean violence is already occurring. He says that one instance of violence (the Arab Israeli getting roughed up) does not indicate a systemic culture of violence amongst the protestors, especially since this assault occurred off-campus. Repeating his earlier point, he says that constant loudness does not equate to violence. Curiously, he never addresses the comment about pro-Hamas posters and clothing at the protests. I will address this more later on.
• McWhorter praises the anti-apartheid protests against South Africa in the 1980s, while condemning the anti-Israel protestors of today. Despite both protest groups similarly disrupting campus life, McWhorter only calls the latter abusive, obviously because he disagrees with the latter while agreeing with the former. Big Joel rightfully points out that, for someone who has previously claimed to be so pro-free speech, McWhorter is a hypocrite. You cannot judge the violence or lack thereof of a protest based solely on whether or not you disagree with the cause

So it seems all fine and good, right? Big Joel is making logical criticisms of McWhorter's mostly dumb arguments. However, the problem is this: there are legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel just does not address any of them. In fact, he does not address a logical criticism of the protests that is within the very article to which he is responding. Let's take this point by point.

• Big Joel clearly rejects the idea that the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour. In this video and in other videos, he has accused Israel of genocide, colonialism, apartheid, etc. In order to critique someone who believes the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour, he does not find someone who lays out logical arguments for why this is the case (for example, someone who might say stuff like "dismantling Israel could lead to huge amounts of violence against the Israeli Jews" or "Jews, as a persecuted minority, should have the right to self-determination"). Instead, he finds someone who merely assumes this to be the case, so as to not have to address any of the actual more logical arguments for why denying Israel's right to exist is racist. I am not saying that these pro-Israel arguments are flawless, nor am I saying that denying Israel's right to exist is inherently racist. I am simply pointing out that there are more logical reasons to come to that conclusion than "denying Israel's right to exist is racist because I said so," reasons which Big Joel ignores.
• Most people criticizing the protestors are not doing so on the basis of their loudness. Rather they are doing so on the basis of the antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric being espoused at the protests (I am sure you have all seen the videos). They are also doing so on the basis of their inaccurate understanding of the conflict (examples include them using extreme words like "genocide" or blaming Israel for literally everything that has gone wrong since the conflict began). Rather than focus on an article that contains these perfectly legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel instead focuses on one that incessantly and stupidly tries to degrade the protests on the basis of their loudness. He has picked the worst possible criticisms of the protests so as to not address the best criticisms of the protests. And when the article does contain one legitimate criticism of the protests ("it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"), Big Joel reads out the line but does not address it any further.
• Big Joel rightfully points out McWhorter's hypocrisy when it comes to the South Africa and I/P protests. However, what would he say to someone like Destiny, who supports the rights of both groups to protest yet still politically disagrees with the pro-Palestine protests? What would he say to someone who is legitimately pro-free speech, but nonetheless takes issue with the political values of the pro-Palestine protests? I guess we will never know, because rather than address someone who is ideologically consistent, he instead chose to address a hypocrite. Rather than address the most logical and consistent people who disagree with the protestors, he has chosen to address the most braindead disagreers, so as to not have to confront any legitimate and non-hypocritical arguments.

Put simply, the article is trash and a lot of Big Joel's criticisms of its logic are very valid. However, just because the article's criticisms of the protests are stupid, does not mean that all criticisms of the protests are stupid. In choosing to only address the stupid criticisms while ignoring the legitimate ones, Big Joel never has to question his political views. In this example, Big Joel selectively chose the worst possible representation of the pro-Israel (or at the very least, not as anti-Israel as the Colombia protestors) side, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate positions on said side. He can simply talk about how assuming controversial statements to be true without providing evidence is a bad debate tactic, how loudness does not equal violence, how hypocrisy is bad, and ignore the higher-quality criticisms of the protests.

Apologies in advance for this somber post. I wanted to share my experience in our wedding planning, and in life really, in case it helps anyone else here too. Next weekend my husband and I are having our destination wedding/vow renewal with our closest friends, family, and a sprinkling of acquaintances. I already know it’s going to be the wedding of my dreams with the dress, the venue, the food, and those most special to me being there, safe and sound. About six months ago however, my kitty Max was diagnosed with both kidney disease and liver cancer. He’s been my guy for the past 15 years, and for those 15 years he’s slept next to my head at night, waited for me at the door, played fetch with corks and talked to me when I had a tough day. Currently he’s sitting on his floor scratcher, staring towards the patio door. I don’t think he’s looking at anything in the backyard, moreso he’s managing the discomfort and pain that his daily dose of chicken-flavored Buprenorphine should help alleviate. He has good days and bad, and sometimes he sleeps all day, other times (like this morning) he wakes me up for food and medicine at 4:30am. I never ever mind. This Wednesday we have a friend coming over to watch our house and the pets before we board our flight early Thursday, and will only be gone six days. He will have someone here 24/7 to feed him, give him medicine, anything and everything I can think to do short of physically being here… I lost my other kitty Lola last October and experienced first hand the very moment we knew it was time to help her go. My Lola, my little miss, passed away in my arms. Max is not there yet, but he’s close, and we joke (we have to) that the moment we get on the plane is the moment he decides to croak. I’m genuinely so scared I won’t be there in case it is his time to go, and for what, ultimately a party about ourselves. There has been more than one moment where I thought we should put him to sleep before the trip, and my husband helped me see that right now it would be more selfish on my part than a gift to Max. He still plays a little, still purrs, still talks to us in his older cragly tone. My husband will be the designated contact during our week up north so if something does happen to Max, he will keep it secret from me until we are on our way home. There is absolutely no world or dimension in which I could keep it together if bubs passed away without me. The whole point of this story though is to explain… this is all just a part of life. I can’t cancel these year-long plans based on an unknown, and we of course didn’t know he would be this sick right now. I am taking early morning walks everyday and drinking lots (and lots and lots) of water to keep my body in check. I’m eating smaller meals and taking vitamins/fiber to ease my stomach and headaches. I have lists to check to help prep for the trip there and the wedding itself and each completed check gets a tiny victory dance in my head. I’m not a religious person at all, but I am speaking prayers to myself and to Max, telling him to go if he has to, and to please forgive me if I am not there to keep him warm when he does. My friends and family are aware of the situation and my best friend, my maid of honor, will help keep me grounded in remembering the ultimate reason why we were doing this in the first place: we are worth celebrating our 15 years of love and the life we made together. I will be open to the love and compliments they give, I will be focused and present in the moment to hold a decent conversation, I will make sure to show gratitude for everyone there. Bubby would want me to. If you’re still reading this, thank you. Know that time does not stop for you, or for me, and all we can do is make the best of what we are given and make peace with the choices we decide to make. Know you’re not alone in the stresses of wedding planning (just had to double check some florist stuff that is making me nervous) and that being stressed itself is also okay. Maybe age really helps all of this (35F) so those of you getting married younger may feel differently, but to give this post an end, I hope you all feel some peace of mind that you’re not alone and have a beautiful time on your special day.

I can list my credentials and positive qualities about myself.
And then I can listen to outsiders list the negatives.
I am an honest woman, who has faced systemic barriers, due to age (now), my never married- childfree status, (gender non-conforming).
I see people suggest things like apply to be a legal secretary or admin, "it takes time to train you to become a paralegal."
But they don't know what I can do and have done. They assume I have the same skills that they do, the same knowledge and learning capacity.
No one asks me questions and just glances at my resume but doesn't know what skills I used in those jobs.
Maybe I am qualified to study for LSAT to apply for law school. Maybe I have that skill level, but due to health and financial reasons, I can't do that, so Paralegal work is just fine.
Maybe I wrote my own petition, motions and interacted with opposing counsel, and used Pacer.
How much "training," would it really take me to be a paralegal if I already worked in Insurance, Mortgage, Property Management and all areas of Human Resources?
I've performed analytical and research work, used proprietary software systems, Microsoft, Teams, and performed confidential file case management work.
Despite some people's beliefs that college isn't necessary, I've worked my way through college twice, earning a little beyond a Masters including professional industry certifications. Some people say degrees are worthless. I don't generalize like that. Some people work and go to school at night, others, lived on campus all 4 years and enjoyed the college experience.
I have not denigrated anyone for graduating from college.
I not shamed anyone for choosing marriage and children. But those who do, have a different skill set than a woman who never took the mommy and wife route.
Many completely long term singles developed survival skill, resourcefulness, and interpersonal skills, all while remaining single and childfree in our family-centric world.
I need to be honest. If you were an attorney looking to hire a paralegal, I would build trust and he transparent and share about my prior Civil legal matters. I'd have to. And then I would hope that you would recognize my integrity, and courage, to stand up for what is right and for doing what is right, despite being blacklisted from working in the private sector.
Does anyone know of a law firm who would potentially consider me for paralegal work in Illinois? I would absolutely love this kind of work.
I need an income for an apt, utilities, food, car, insurance for car, health, dental, vision, and living needs to be successful.

Edelgard is the hero. The only moral greyness here is that she works with the Dubstep Molemen instead of trying to kill them all a day after becoming the Emperor... If she fails she wants to die by Dimitri's hand... She didn't have Hubert reach out to Claude about the Slitherers... She's willing to sacrifice Bernie if forced to... she was too hurt to reach out to the other House Leaders and try to get them on her side while they have no good excuse for not reaching out to her and taking the risk of opening up to them means taking the risk they will ruin her only shot at the power needed to change things... and she's willing to risk the Slitherers defeating her after she conquers the other nations.
Dimitri is a lunatic who eventually gets over it. The story takes for granted that he is always justified and necessary and his redemption and rise as a good King is worth whatever it takes to get there. Where this story normally has the balls to call out bad Lords and bad Nobles and bad Goddesses, it falls apart with Dimitri because they want to sell funko pops of him. Dimitri has people in his House who were hurt by Nobility or Crests or both yet they never get to make a coherent argument for continuing the nobility because to argue for such a thing is impossible without assuming the system is right to privilege the lucky and hold down the many. No, not anyone can wield a speshul weapon, so these people should be soldiers who can dedicate their lives to training and battle, these people should not be high ranking government officials overburdened with other responsibilities. The Crested, the Nobles, the Royals, they are not inherently better than commoners, and the system should not treat them as such.
Rhea had countless years to get over her losses and stop experimenting on people. Countless years to try harder to remedy the abuses of power in her system.
It is bad writing that Hubert enjoys going mwahaha and likes being feared and hated and was raised to be a fanatically devoted servant of Lady Edelgard because when he is that, there is no interesting tension in who he is as a person, what he wants to be, what he has been through, what he wants for the world. Dedue is written the way he is to humanize the victims of Duscur blamed for the Tragedy of Duscur and humanize Dimitri because Dimitri didn't blame Dedue for all of this and try to slay him on the spot, Dimitri tried to save him, and Dedue continues to serve Dimitri despite how he is hated because that's what a big deal Dimitri is to Dedue. When Dedue becomes a monster it's written as a noble sacrifice, and when Edelgard and some of her nameless faceless soldiers become monsters it's written as a tragic loss of humanity. Even though it would have been so much stronger if the Black Eagles Strike Force got to have that moment with the Crest Stones, not faceless Empire troops. Make them survive longer than they did if need be, Hubert survived death enough times.
Edelgard isn't "a literal fascist", she doesn't even give a damn about railroads. I bet she's never read a single book on fascism by actual fascists. Or a book on fascism by people who detest fascism and would surely definitely totally represent it more honestly than anyone else and understand it better than anyone else too.
Yes, I believe it is bad writing when the writers of this game try to paint Edelgard as someone more morally grey than she is while painting her opposition as better people than they are. Yes, I believe it is unfair to hold Edelgard responsible for what she potentially does in routes that demonize her while refusing to give her credit for what she does in routes where she is the hero. Yes, I believe it is unreasonable for her haters to say "She is evil for working with the Slitherers instead of taking them out overnight" as if that would be easy when they have a nuclear missile and Nemesis and as much control over the Kingdom as they want. Edelgard's flaws make her an interesting complex hero and Dimitri and Rhea's flaws make them interesting detestable villains. More interesting than the Slitherers.
Remind me again, what's that nonsense platitude Dimitri spouts when it comes to Edelgard's hatred of the Goddess who failed her, and her belief that mankind is better without such delusional superstition? Something about him believing people are strong where she believes they are weak, or vice reversa, or something something cycle of violence? Edelgard is right to detest the myth of the Goddess who failed to save her family. It's not like she plans to outlaw it across all of Fodlan once she takes the throne.
Would you say the cops are going too far if, instead of giving a billion dollar company a fine of a few million dollars for killing and failing people, they ensured the people responsible were punished appropriately and got replaced no matter who was willing to die to violently defend them and the power they abuse?
Every time the writers try pretending Edelgard is "pushing things too far too fast" they make excuses for the system and its injustices and act as if it's the victim's responsibility to ensure the continuity of authority or the peaceful transfer of power. Dimitri is a terrible king and so was his father. Claude couldn't protect Lysithea. Edelgard strives to make a better world without the problems that create people like Edeglard, Dimitri, Lysithea, Dorothea, Hanneman, Mercedes, Jeritza, Byleth, and more. In the routes where Edelgard doesn't win, we are told things still got better because this is a video game meant to sell characters and it would harm the FEH profits if people who picked a house solely for a character they were attracted to were told this results in a bad ending where the problems only Edelgard truly cared about enough continue to plague the continent. For as much as this story roleplays as a deep nuanced tale of countries and ideologies at war, this is still a product under capitalism meant to sell, and the most financially viable route under capitalism is to "Both sides" the problems the rich and powerful and privileged create for the underdogs and demonize any underdogs who "go too far" to preserve the illusion of neutrality. Even though being neutral on a question like "Should the system that enabled the family problems of Mercedes and Bernadetta continue or be annihilated across all of Fodlan by any means necessary?" is abominable.

I can list my credentials and positive qualities about myself.
And then I can listen to outsiders list the negatives.
I am an honest woman, who has faced systemic barriers, due to age (now), my never married- childfree status, (gender non-conforming).
I see people suggest things like apply to be a legal secretary or admin, "it takes time to train you to become a paralegal."
But they don't know what I can do and have done. They assume I have the same skills that they do, the same knowledge and learning capacity.
No one asks me questions and just glances at my resume but doesn't know what skills I used in those jobs.
Maybe I am qualified to study for LSAT to apply for law school. Maybe I have that skill level, but due to health and financial reasons, I can't do that, so Paralegal work is just fine.
Maybe I wrote my own petition, motions and interacted with opposing counsel, and used Pacer.
How much "training," would it really take me to be a paralegal if I already worked in Insurance, Mortgage, Property Management and all areas of Human Resources?
I've performed analytical and research work, used proprietary software systems, Microsoft, Teams, and performed confidential file case management work.
Despite some people's beliefs that college isn't necessary, I've worked my way through college twice, earning a little beyond a Masters including professional industry certifications. Some people say degrees are worthless. I don't generalize like that. Some people work and go to school at night, others, lived on campus all 4 years and enjoyed the college experience.
I have not denigrated anyone for graduating from college.
I not shamed anyone for choosing marriage and children. But those who do, have a different skill set than a woman who never took the mommy and wife route.
Many completely long term singles developed survival skill, resourcefulness, and interpersonal skills, all while remaining single and childfree in our family-centric world.
I need to be honest. If you were an attorney looking to hire a paralegal, I would build trust and he transparent and share about my prior Civil legal matters. I'd have to. And then I would hope that you would recognize my integrity, and courage, to stand up for what is right and for doing what is right, despite being blacklisted from working in the private sector.
Does anyone know of a law firm who would potentially consider me for paralegal work in Illinois? I would absolutely love this kind of work.
I need an income for an apt, utilities, food, car, insurance for car, health, dental, vision, and living needs to be successful.

until now with zero problems, but for some reason now the game is repeatedly crashing, but I didn’t alter any settings or made any alterations to justify it. I doesn’t crash while loading the game, only mid game. No error messages, no mods installed, it just shuts down and opens Larian's “Send bug report” window.
My system: RTX 4070 AMD 7 7700XT 32GB DDR5 Windows 11
Altering between Direct and Vulkan didn’t help, but lowering the frame rate to 30 helped for a while. I managed to play for about 30 minutes before crashing again.
Any ideia why that might be happening?

About STYLE Protocol

STYLE Protocol is revolutionizing the way we interact with virtual assets by enabling their monetization and utilization across any game, metaverse, or virtual world. Through innovative NFT sublicensing mechanisms, STYLE Protocol ensures true interoperability of virtual assets and NFTs across all digital environments. This groundbreaking approach bridges the gap between Web 3.0 and industries like gaming, fostering seamless interoperability and cross-multiverse usage. Grounded in principles of play, rent, earn, and guilds, STYLE Protocol is paving the way for the future of digital asset management.

Transforming 3D Assets into Functional NFTs

One of the standout features of STYLE Protocol is its ability to transform 3D assets into fully functional NFTs. This means that your digital collectibles are no longer confined to a single platform or game. Instead, they can be converted into practical in-game items such as avatars, skins, and weapons, usable across a multitude of virtual environments. This not only enhances the utility of your NFTs but also broadens their appeal and value, making them more versatile and desirable.

Monetizing Assets to Generate Consistent NFT Revenue

STYLE Protocol offers a unique opportunity to monetize your digital assets. By leveraging the platform's robust rental and lending features, you can earn a steady stream of income from your NFTs. Imagine renting out your Pudgy Penguin PFP for use in GTA 6 or other popular games. This innovative rental system maximizes the exposure and utility of your digital assets, ensuring that they generate consistent revenue. Whether you're an artist, gamer, or digital entrepreneur, STYLE Protocol provides a seamless way to monetize your creativity in the metaverse.

Strong Partnerships and Financial Metrics

STYLE Protocol's potential is underscored by its strong partnerships and impressive financial metrics. Key partners include Morningstar Ventures, FileCoin VC, Seedify, and ChainGPT, all of which bring significant expertise and resources to the table. These collaborations position STYLE Protocol for substantial growth and ongoing innovation.
Financially, STYLE Protocol is an attractive proposition with a $263K Initial Market Cap (IMC) and a $9.2M Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV). This low cap GEM presents an excellent opportunity for investors looking to capitalize on the growing intersection of gaming and blockchain technology.

Why I am Bullish on STYLE

There are several reasons to be bullish on STYLE Protocol:

• Usability of NFTs in Virtual Environments: Convert NFTs into practical in-game items like avatars, skins, and weapons.
• Cross-Usability of Existing In-Game Assets: Enable existing in-game assets to be used across multiple virtual environments.
• AI Avatar Creator for Gaming Assets (Text-to-3D): Multiply assets for rental purposes and rent or lend digital assets for revenue through a global network.
• Strong Partnerships: Collaborations with industry leaders such as Morningstar Ventures, FileCoin VC, Seedify, and ChainGPT.
• Financial Metrics: With a $263K IMC and $9.2M FDV, STYLE Protocol is a low-cap GEM offering substantial growth potential.

Conclusion

STYLE Protocol is at the forefront of enhancing the usability and monetization of NFTs in virtual environments. By enabling cross-compatibility of in-game assets and introducing innovative features like the AI Avatar Creator, STYLE Protocol is transforming the digital asset landscape. Supported by strong partnerships and solid financial metrics, STYLE Protocol is poised for significant growth and innovation. As we move towards a future where digital assets and gaming are increasingly interconnected, STYLE Protocol stands out as a pioneering force in this exciting new frontier.
🌐 https://www.protocol.style.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year, and have been living together for six months. Our relationship has been very committed, serious, and happy, but we do have differences in personality and sometimes they clash. Last night, we got into a fight. It was nothing major and no words that couldn't be taken back were exchanged, but I got frustrated enough that I yelled at my boyfriend. I very rarely yell for any reason, and could feel myself boiling over into frustration. My boyfriend as well seemed upset and began to ignore my attempts to talk it out which made me even angrier, so in order to get some space from him I messaged a friend (m23), N, to ask if he would drive me down the street for a bit in exchange for some late night munchies.
I have known N for almost three years and he is one of few friends I've been able to make as an adult. He is also dating my best friend of almost five years (m22), H. I originally messaged H with this same request, but H was feeling very sick. N is a chronic night owl and lives less than three minutes away, so he said he was up for it and arrived within ten minutes of me asking.
I was gone for no longer than twenty five minutes, and almost 80% of that time I spent talking to my boyfriend over text. Sometimes when we argue, we get to the issue better over writing, because we aren't trying to talk over each other and we can think out our words better. The only thing N and I did was drive down the street (about three blocks), get fast food from the drive through (I got my boyfriend a burger for lunch tomorrow), N got gas at the nextdoor gas station, and then I was driven back.
I asked my boyfriend if he had anything else he felt like he needed to talk to me about since we had both calmed down, and he said no, and that he had already gotten over it. We hugged and kissed and spent the next two hours eating dinner and laughing over youtube.
When it came time for bed, I had just thrown up (I have Crohns, it happens a lot), and was very exhausted. I was just dozing off when my boyfriend asked, "So, what did you tell N to get him to rush over here so quickly?"
I told N that my boyfriend and I had gotten into an argument, but that we would be fine, and we just needed to air out the apartment of bad vibes. I tried to tell this to my boyfriend, but he immediately cut me off angrily and said "Oh, I see" right after I finished "argument."
I tried to continue explaining that I didn't say anything bad about him to N, only for my boyfriend to ask why I had to run away with a male friend after an argument, and then asked if I had "sucked his dick too" while I was gone.
I am gay, but my boyfriend is pan, and has friends of all genders. I was shocked at him saying this, and asked why he would accuse me of cheating on him. He avoided this question and kept asking why I made such a huge deal of our fight earlier that I needed to run away. I tried to explain that I wanted to clear my head so I could approach the issue productively, but by this point I was in tears over him accusing me of cheating. He then asked why it made me so upset if I didn't do anything, and I said it was because I felt incredibly shocked and disrespected.
I ended up crying so much that my boyfriend got angry with me again, and we got into another verbal altercation. He tried to claim that he was just joking with the dick sucking comment, but when I asked if me going with a female friend would have been different, he said yes. I pointed out that he hangs out with both male and female friends all the time alone for long stretches of time, but I had never felt like he was cheating on me with any of them. I also said he could read all the messages between me and N if he still didn't trust me. This seemed to finally get to him, and he hugged me and ushered me back to bed. I cried, and told him I would never cheat on him, and he said he knew that, and we went to sleep.
It has been hours since then and I have barely gotten a wink of sleep. It feels like my heart has broken. This man is truly the love of my life as corny as it sounds. Our lives are interlinked, and we have already talked about marriage and how we want to spend the rest of our lives together.
I think part of why it hurts so bad is because his closest friend is his ex girlfriend, who is also his ex fiance. They dated for five years and I support their friendship because she was a major part of his life. He frequently brings her food and lets her borrow his playstation, but I have never once thought that he would cheat on me with her. Now that he's accused me of this, though, I don't know what to think.
I would like to know what my next step should be in approaching this situation, that helps both myself and my boyfriend move past this.
TL:DR; After a fight, I took a short drive with a male friend to clear my head. My boyfriend accused me of cheating on him with this friend, and now it feels like my heart has broken, and I don't know what the next step to take is.

Homeowner here, not a pro. We currently have a condensate pump attached to our HVAC system, with its output running up 5 vertical foot and across the basement ceiling and outer wall 25 linear horizontal feet (with grading) before emptying into the utility sink. Separately, we had a stand-alone dishwasher installed in the (ground floor) kitchen less than two years ago, with a dedicated standpipe in the cabinetry for its drainage.
While looking into changes to our basement layout for finishing plans, I realized I can eliminate almost the entire horizontal run if I run the condensate pump's output line up the dishwasher standpipe instead, increasing vertical rise of the line by about another 3.5 feet.
Setting aside any question of whether the pump can handle the vertical lift (still looking up specs on the dynamic head capacity of the pump, and more than willing to get a beefier pump if needed), is there any practical reason (or code reason, in Wisconsin) why I shouldn't do this? I've already figured I would have to make sure the outflow for the condensate pump would need to be lower than the dishwasher to prevent any potential contamination into the dishwasher's drain line, unless I have that backwards or it's a non-issue? Happy to hear thoughts. :)

I just DCed from a 333x for no reason despite my internet working perfectly fine. I've been feeling so fed up with how grindy and frustrating this game is with having to farm chunks, the ranking system, the bad matchmaking, the garbage maps, and the dysfunctional netcode but I thought this weekend I'd be able to just relax and enjoy Splatfest since it's just casual fun but nope. I get a 333x and halfway in I get a comm error no reason. All else I can say is I'm hella sorry to Same Ol' homies Adrián, bladeBlitz, and ~kπαk£n☆~. I genuinely don't know what happened. We were def gonna win that shit but the game is garbage and doesn't work. I think I'm just done with Splatoon now. 2000 hours and nothing to show for it but frustration and disappointment. Will probably be quitting. Such a shame cuz the concept is dope but they probably got dumbass interns on this shit instead of real game devs.

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

This might be a slightly philosophical post. But the aim is to get to the bottom of what you should be truly doing. To truly get the most results.
There seems to be a MASSIVE amount of conflicting information online about how to do this.
“Do stuff that moves the needle forward”
“Do stuff that brings in revenue”
What does this truly mean though. And is it even the right thing. That’s the purpose of this post, to uncover.
When I’ve spent my time on actual needle-moving forward things, like taking business from 0 to revenue, doing all offer development, operations, sales process, marketing myself, it generally has taken me about 6 months to fully ‘try out’ a business idea I’ve had.
Most times it hasn’t worked.
Either it wasn’t profitable. Or there was a big problem somewhere.
I believe fundamentally it’s because I’m moving too slow.
Because it usually takes me around 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential.
When you haven’t sold it or developed expertise in it yourself yet.
And I would say about 5% of the time it does work.
So if it takes 6 months and only 5% of the time it works (where you bring in revenue, no major issues), and each time it doesn’t work you try a new variation of it or something new based on what you learned, then it might take 10 years of trying different things to get the business to work.
Which sounds like it takes way too long.
So I thought about how the top companies move much quicker.
What separates them and my strategy.
And realized they simply had much more people on their team.
If you think about any successful organization who has achieved great things, and is world-leading, usually there is not 1 person on the team.
There seems to be a correlation between number of people on the team and speed of progress they can make in business.
Which goes against what most conventional startup wisdom tells you, most small business content creators etc all tell you to do it all yourself.
Which I’ve done for quite a few years and it’s gone so slowly in terms of overall progress.
If you should ‘do everything yourself’ then most Fortune 500 companies would’ve had single founders, and 1 person on their team. But the vast majority of successful Fortune 500 companies had co-founders.
And most successful businesses I know of, had co-founders.
And as they succeeded, they got more people on the team, and these people helped bring more success, then they brought more people.
Obviously there can be bad staff and not everyone contributes to the success of the company.
But I do believe, based on this, and observing top companies, that generally the more successful they are, the more people were involved with bringing about the success.
Which completely contradicts most information given to startups about ‘lone wolf’, ‘go it alone’. If that were true, Google would have 1 employee. Apple would have 1 employee.
And they would have never gotten off the ground.
Anyway, I may not have explained this perfectly but I do strongly believe the more & higher quality people are working together on something, the stats show these companies tend to do better, and successful companies you see often have more people than less working on them.
From the very beginning and now.
Regardless of the stage they were at.
So going based off this information, that the more people, the better, I have hired 30+ different people for different roles. Over the past few years. Across different businesses. To help speed up the progress in different areas.
From marketing roles, sales process roles, web development, app development, customer service, delivery of services.
And I would say there have been maybe 1 or 2 of them where I was actually happy with the result.
Most times, I would hire someone to do a job, and they didn’t do the job well, despite saying they were experienced.
And showing past examples of their work. And telling me everything I wanted to hear about how good they were.
It would often be that they would end up performing badly in the KPIs I set for them, giving many excuses, asking for help/questions/not solving anything on their own.
And just so many other problems. Like when there were multiple people at the same time on a team, working on the same project, they would blame each other and no one took responsibility despite clear responsibilities.
All telling me how other staff were bad and they were good, but getting conflicting info from all staff where they blame each other for everything so it’s difficult to know who to trust and who is being truthful.
Oftentimes not being reliable or doing what they were clearly asked to do.
Oftentimes trying to outsource the work I game them, to other people and not caring about the quality.
At my expense.
So I lost lots of clients, had low performing areas in the areas I hired for a lot of the time.
To be fair, things happened faster the more people there were.
But they often needed much more from me than they were contributing.
Like they always wanted to get paid more, for doing less work, weren’t reliable, did low quality work, didn’t hit KPIs, missed clear deadlines, always gave excuses, blamed others/external things, always asking how “I” wanted their job to be done, to the point where I was having to literally tell them every single thing to do and become an expert at their job myself, and show them how to do what they were put there to do, or do it myself, and still get a low quality result from them.
Anyway, the list goes on in all the problems I have experienced hiring people.
It really seems like a minefield.
But there were 1-2 people who did actually do well, who were responsive, who did what they committed to do, who hit deadlines, who did what they were asked, who didn’t give excuses. Who were actually honest hard workers who figured out how to solve problems and actually do the job that was asked from them.
Because of the amount of people I hired and the very low % of people who seemed to do their job well, it made me think that I am probably the problem here. If so many people are doing a bad job and not doing what they were actually hired to do. When most other companies seem to succeed at hiring people.
Then it must be a problem with myself and how I am hiring and managing them.
So it makes me think I need to level up in how I hire and manage people.
I’ve tried lots of different businesses and variations of them and some have done okay, some have not.
Mainly the most success I’ve had is in my own freelancing, where I don’t have other people on my team.
Because it’s kind of turned into a headache working with others. Who just seem to have mostly never been able to deliver what they promised without it becoming pointless to hire them in the first place with all the work I’m doing on their behalf and trying to pick up after all the problems and failures they’ve done.
So I’m not sure exactly what to spend my time and resources on.
I have money saved up from freelancing.
Where I can continue to hire people.
But I do feel I’ve had many many bad experiences.
And I believe it’s mostly my fault. Maybe my training, my hiring, my management, at places along the line I’ve not done it well enough.
I’ve tried to make improvements each time but it has kind of seemed like luck to get people who do actually do their job well.
I genuinely want to hire people and succeed in this.
Because if I can successfully work with people to achieve outcomes, rather than relying only on myself, I can build a real business and not just do freelancing.
In freelancing, I was able to make $3k-5k/month but it was very stressful and I hated speaking with clients, and was constantly stressed.
I generally really don’t like socialising with people. Including clients and staff.
And staff often try to get me to socialise unnecessarily so they can avoid doing their job, and pull me away from mine.
So trying to make it work.
I want to make it work with hiring people because if I can do this, I can make 10x-100x-1000x faster progress with other people on the same team.
But I do have a very bad track record so far. So it’s kind of painful returning to it and continuing to have bad experiences.
But at the same time I know it’s me who’s probably at fault because there can’t be this many bad people I’ve hired and it surely can’t be this bad for everyone.
I think the reason is that I’ve been better at managing myself and doing things successfully solo throughout my life.
Like I’ve achieved very good things in solo sports, in academia, and in many areas that don’t require a team, but often become frustrated working in a team.
But I don’t want my business success to be limited to 1 person.
So I truly want to make it work in improving my ability to manage (ideally a large amount of) people in a way where they can actually deliver and it work well.
Because I was capped in freelancing to making $3k-5k/month because I couldn’t take on more clients because I was undercharging and overdelivering and couldn’t handle more due to being massively stressed out and hating it. I was able to work with less clients at times and charge higher, but they never wanted me to ‘outsource’ my work to others or bring on a team, and I felt bad about it because had bad experiences where I had felt like I let clients down, and oftentimes they told me they had hired me because of me, and not wanted me to ‘outsource’ the work.
But I want to make it work.
Building a real business with a team. Not just doing freelancing and relying just on myself.
So I have time and money and resources to put into this.
I have 1 staff member currently who is unproductive. But we have an equity deal so it doesn’t cost me money for them to perform. But costs me lots of time and their performance is extremely weak. Don’t even want to go into detail, but it’s a nightmare. Their performance is about 1/10 but I believe I can raise their performance if I improve my ability to raise their performance.
Anyway. I want to build a team, but not sure exactly what activities are best ways to spend my time.
If I am physically making improvements, I feel I am slowing down the business progress.
Whereas I want to hire and manage people.
I’ve built training so that this co-founder is able to hire people. And these people can use the same training to hire people.
But I don’t currently have training to enable them to manage people.
My fear is that without training, people just ask unlimited questions on how to do something in their role and it becomes pointless to have hired them because I have to do everything they should have done to do it, so they basically just become a robot following very specific instructions. Rather than a human being who can achieve things independently.
So for example, if I made this training, it would take up all my time, whereas I have savings I’ve accumulated from freelancing which I can put into either having the co-founder manage staff, or have the co-founder make management training at the same time to enable more and more staff to hire and manage new staff. To achieve overall objectives and KPIs.
Or I could have the co-founder hire someone to make the training.
Then that frees up my time, my co-founders, time and only takes financial resources to accomplish.
What I want to achieve, is a scenario where I can give staff KPIs and objectives, and they are enabled to hire and manage people who can meet these objectives. Independently without my help required.
They give feedback, and I have a system for feedback to internal improvements can be made based on staff feedback.
Without it being unfiltered, it’s structured and organised so people can’t just get unlimited help/training/whatever from me.
Where they should be able to take actions, iterate, learn, improve, and act as independent thinking people who can achieve objectives themselves. Or within a system where it’s not all tied directly to me.
E.g. I have direct reports going to me.
But they have direct reports who go to them.
Previously I had a system where I did this, but then staff at the bottom of the hierarchy would ask their managers questions, and the managers wouldn’t know the answer so would then ask me the questions, and so jumping over the managers and making me deal with everything.
Whereas I want to build a system where people can make business progress in their specific area, independently without everything going to the CEO. Only important/urgent things are feedbacked to the CEO.
This way I believe much faster progress can happen.
Because I won’t be bogged down by exponentially growing problems.
Like with how it works in any successful organisation.
Tim Cook has only a handful of direct reports. Who each only have a handful of direct reports. And so on.
He’s making the most important decisions, dealing with what’s most important and strategic, with top authority, dealing with everything as a birds eye view, but not doing every employee’s job for them, teaching every employee how to do their job. Picking up the pieces after every employee misses their deadlines, doesn’t do their work, gives excuses, does poor work that doesn’t help the company.
Even in any successful organisation. Each unit/person is making their own decisions, taking their own action, learning from it, practicing themself at improving, gaining their own experience, not all relying on 1 person, every single person in the organisation, just for them to do their job.
In successful organisations, people at every level experience new problems all the time, and don’t need to contact the #1 person at the top just to deal with it.
They come up with a solution and go for it. And iterate. Learn, try to do something better next time. And there’s a constant learning/feedback process going on across the organisation which everyone takes part in, not just 1 person doing every part for everyone.
I believe this structure of modelling what actually successful organisations do is the correct way. Because they’re successful for a reason.
Not this ‘hustle grindset’ BS in the startup/business world where lots of information seems to be saying the wrong thing. It just makes no sense to make every single person 100% reliant on you for them to do their job.
Anyway so I’m thinking about what I should do with my time.
What I want to do, is tell my co-founder what to do, which involves hiring and managing people who do things that move the needle forward in the business, as defined by me, and some of those people also hire and manage people. To have an exponentially growing system of people growing the organisation. And a communication and feedback and learning system and autonomy within the system itself so it can take action, learn, grow, thrive. As a system within itself.
I believe if hypothetically, I did everything myself, then it takes about 6 months to ‘validate’ whether a business has good potential, and 5% of the time it does. So if I do everything myself, I believe it will take me 10 years to get a business off the ground.
But if I utilise my money and time more efficiently, I can have as many people working on each part involved in validating these businesses as possible.
I don’t know if that is lazy or smart.
I believe it’s both. But mostly smart. Because I believe I can convince, hire, organise, manage people to either work on equity deals or pay in a way where businesses can realistically bring in profit.
My co-founder does very little of what I ask him to do.
And he wants me to be doing individual things.
He objectively is financially and intelligently very poor and has very minimal skills or experience.
Not to be offensive. Just to paint a picture. So since there is conflicting information everywhere in the business world and you need to choose who to trust, I don’t trust what he believes.
Objectively I am much richer in all these areas than him.
So I used to operate on a democratic system with them. But it’s kind of like, in a vote for president, if you have 80% of the population being easily controlled by the media and being very dumb and easy to sway and manipulate into believing anything, and they vote for things which are objectively dumb and go against what the smartest and objectively most valuable people vote for, I don’t want to be held back by a dumb population having authority or being listened to, if they have a clear, long track record of making very bad decisions.
If you were to take business advice from a homeless person with no experience, money or intellect, or a Fortune 500 CEO, who let’s say objectively has massive experience, money, intellect and success. Then I would probably take what the CEO has to say.
If you had to listen to what a scientist vs 12 year old had to say about a scientific topic, you’d probably want to listen to the scientist who studied the topic and is well respected in their field.
So I believe it would be dumb for both of us, if he made decisions, objectively.
But at the same time it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
The Fortune 500 CEO could be telling you what you want to hear, and could have an incentive to lie to you to send you in the wrong direction with bad business advice so you don’t become competition to them, and the homeless person could be honest.
The scientist could be trying to gain fame and get attention to themself to build their career on a lie and fake experiments whereas the 12 year old could be a science savant.
So it’s difficult to truly know what the truth is.
If I should listen to him or myself.
Objectively.

1. I believe if I spend time building the business via this logic I’ve described above, it can grow much faster, with unlimited people working on it and performing well, if the necessary improvements are made.
   
2. And I believe if I were to do the individual things necessary to do it, it would take 6 months to ‘validate’ each’s potential. I.e. try everything in that timeframe to make it work, build a good service/product, build good sales process, build good marketing, deal with customers, etc, all on your own.
   

Whereas in the first option, other people could do all these things.
Human development over history has happened due to the input of millions, if not billions of people.
There wasn’t 1 person who did all the work to get Carnegie or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to gain the success they’ve achieved.
They all build an empire off the backs of others.
Did the slave owners do the slave work themselves when they brought slaves to America? No.
Does Elon do all the individual parts necessary to grow the company? No. He leads and controls the people in order to do that.
Does Mark Zuckerberg single handedly get Facebook off the ground? No. There were 10+ people involved. He stole code from others. Who sued him.
All of these people had exponentially growing staff as the company grew, as fuel to grow the company.
So if you have the money and strategy to lead them to success, I believe it surely is possible.
So long story short this is a long rambling piece of writing but I believe there’s very little impact 1 individual person has on the success of a company. Controlling and amassing an army of people who build the company up and contribute to the company sounds more true.
Does 1 person do everything involved in every sports team? No. Each player plays their respective part. Directed by the coach/manager.
Does 1 person do everything involved in musical orchestras? No each musician plays their part. Directed by the conductor.
And so on.
If you can build an exponentially growing team of staff who effectively work together, bring others on, take action to grow the business, learn from mistakes, make improvements, are highly motivated, are led successfully, it can achieve great things. I feel like it’s a delusion that individual people single-handedly grow companies without others.
So what should that person spend their time doing?
Doing all the millions of things necessary to grow the company? Or bring and manage others who some make progress themselves, some bring and manage others, to gain more and more resources to make progress at faster and faster rate.
Do successful people really have only 1 person responsible? No. They have teams of people behind them.
So trying to do the work of 1,000 people as 1 person sounds 1,000x as hard as getting 1,000 people to each do the work of 1 person.
So if you can finance the growth of the company via hiring others.
Let’s assume I can finance this exponential staff growth. Then surely I should do it right?
Like if I were to compete with 1 person trying to grow their business, and I had 1,000+ people, all doing their jobs effectively, being organised, working as a system not all relying on me, the competition where it’s 1 staff member on average would get beaten.
And surely any excuse you could give, I could just hire someone to solve that excuse.
Like “oh but what roles do you hire these people to do?” well I could hire someone whose role is to figure out what roles they should do. “But what if x?” well I could hire someone whose role is to solve that too. And so on. “Oh but do you have enough money to pay these staff?” Yes. And I can hire people whose job is to bring in money. Whether it’s fundraising, raising from
Did Hitler fight WW2 with 1 person? No. He fought it with millions, if not hundreds of millions of people.
Did Amazon/[insert any Fortune 500 company] get to their size today from having 1 staff member who did everything? No. They had thousands if not hundreds of thousands of staff.
Did any successful mom and pop shop/small business get to their size today from 1 staff member? No. They are one of the largest employers in the USA. Which means they hire a lot of people. Successful mom & pop shops generally have more staff the more successful they are.
Armies generally have more success the bigger and more effective they are.
Companies generally have more success the more staff and more effective the staff are.
So surely we shouldn’t hold ourselves back, to use the example of war, it’s like trying to go to war with others who have hundreds of thousands of people in their army, with just 1 person, yourself. Who is going to win? Them.
How are you going to compete with companies with way more staff, and way more effective staff than you? You would have to become exponentially more effective as 1 person which I just don’t know if it’s realistic.
I think it’s more delusional to believe that 1 person can do as well as 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or more people who are each as effective as that 1 person.
So if you were to win, you would probably want to expand your army/staff and make them more effective, rather than try to make yourself somehow perform on the same level as armies/companies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s just delusional to believe you can beat them in my opinion.
In business, you’d have to be extremely skilled at hundreds of different skills, spend 10+ hours on 100+ individual areas of the business each week to compete with 1,000+ staff who, if performing effectively, would crush you.
This is just my thoughts.
Am I being delusional? Come on…
I just feel like this is the way. Just look at the most successful organisations in history. Was it 1 person?
No, 1 person cannot realistically win a war against 100,000+ people. No matter how good they are. They would need to be top 0.00000000001% in skill in the world at what they’re beating the other side at.
Could 1 footballer beat a football team of 100 people of equal ability than them? No.
Could a company of 1 person outperform a company of 1,000 people? No.
So I believe if I can solve the ability to do this, I can grow a team of unlimited size to conquer and beat any problem thrown at us.
It’s just down to control of people.
Money doesn’t exist.
Even biggest most successful companies in the world mostly didn’t get there on their own.
I believe less than 1% of Fortune 500 Companies were bootstrapped. Or something similar.
And this is what I’m saying.
People in the small business/entrepreneur world tell you you need to have everything yourself.
How are you going to outfinance, outcompete companies on complete other levels without acquiring these resources from others? Just relying on yourself.
How could 1 person get more financing/investment in a company from investors compared to 1,000 of equal ability.
It’s never 1 person ‘beating the world’. Or beating the industry on their own.
Maybe if your aspiration is to be an average business.
“Oh but you should do what is best at each level, and it’s different for each level. Start just by yourself until you get X revenue. THEN hire people”
…..Well if you struggle to get X revenue on your own, how are you ever going to hire others?
The others help you grow the revenue in the first place.
I feel like the small business world is too overreliant on the founder and delusional about the capabilities of 1 person when competing against units 100-1,000x + bigger than them.
Come on.
Anything you want to compete in. In business.
Generally you already have competition.
And if you manage to somehow “spot” something they’ve “missed”, they could just copy you and wipe you out with their massive resources anyway.
In my opinion you need to expand your resources as FAST as possible.
Not this BS “oh wait until you get X profit on your own to hire other people”
Well if you’ve only made good profit on your own as a freelancer, and you’ve spent a lot of years trying to get a business off the ground solo, what are you meant to do?
“Oh just make it work” Great advice.
I just feel like there’s too much delusion into what it actually takes.
In a job or as a freelancer. It’s easier to make $3k-5k/month revenue because you’re only competing against individuals.
But when you try to compete against other businesses to make $3k-5k/month profit, you’re competing against businesses with 10x-100x the people, the money, the resources, the everything, to beat you.
So how are you meant to realistically beat them on your own? Without expanding your resources as quick as possible.
So because of this I believe if 1 person on their own is somehow meant to take a business from $0 to $10k/mo profit, then surely it will happen quicker if more people, of equal ability, are trying to make the business $0 to 10k/mo profit.
To be honest I don’t know what the truth is. This is just what I believe the truth is.
Because I’ve consumed so much wrong information from people acting like they have the correct advice in business.
All Youtube videos, articles, courses, claiming to make you successful in business, when in reality it’s just advice that sounds either easy to say or easy to hear.
Like it’s easy to say as a comment to this post, a response that takes 5 seconds to write, like the first thing that comes to your mind, like “just figure it out on your own”. But that’s not necessarily the truth, it’s just easy for you to say as a commenter. Comments aren’t necessarily the truth.
And on the other side business advice is easy to hear. Like “work on your own, make $1m/month, move to X country, live the life, working 2hours/day” which is just pure delusion. And most of the time the content/advice’s purpose is to benefit the business who made it, not the receiver of the advice. Because it’s selling a course or they have ad sense so they just want maximum engagement and views.
And anyone who is successful in business doesn’t need to give any advice. Because they’re applying the advice. Not giving it. Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos etc have no strong incentive trying to help others get to their level because they could just make an extra $10M-100M from spending the same time/energy/resources giving advice into growing their business.
They’re never gonna have advice that would help you beat them because otherwise they would’ve applied it themself.
And they are actually incentivized to not want others to truly succeed. Because it means more competition for them and less success for them.
So 99%+ of info online just seems like it’s not true.
I’m trying to figure out what is true and what isn’t.
Honestly though it’s difficult to even trust what anyone says in business. Any advice or feedback. For the reasons given.
Because 99% of feedback is either from people who haven’t truly grown a successful business, or it’s not related to you, or it involved luck, or it’s just like a motivational quote they tell you, or it’s a snarky comment they tell you.
It’s only helpful to them. And you are actually their customer or viewer or their entertainment. Not a successful business yourself. Because it’s just all misinformation that all contradicts with the truth.
So not even sure if it’s worth trying to get advice or if it’s all just pointless, just to figure it out myself from experience, trial and error and learning from my own thinking than relying on any other thinking.
Anyway do you think this is just crazy and I’m going crazy or is there any truth to what I’m saying?
Let me know your brutal honest feedback

Lotus eye: The pupil of the shogas have a similar look to a lotus and it allows them to see the soul of other living being and give some sort of equivalent to mind reading but that depends on how strong they are
Female shoga: Female shogas are pretty tall going with height going between 6 and 8 foot and their body type can range from lean to pretty muscular. Their physiology is much stronger than human's physiology, a healthy shoga could take over a planet in about two months and it gets faster if they're stronger
Male shoga: Male shoga can be tall and athletic too but they don't possess the same control of the shoga's abilities but they still have the eyes normally
Soul switching: So when one soul take control of the body the body change appearance and gender and they can also take the appearance of the other soul if they want but don't really do it except for reproduction
Death: after thousands of years the shoga found a way to prevent their death and make themselves immortal and without a finality. This is the reason why Finality came on their planet and made Cookie
The queen: Mai was made by selective breeding and genetic engineering so that she would be the peak of their race, and they succeeded. She's strong enough to take over dozens of solar systems in a day but what they didn't anticipate was that she would be a pacifist. Her ability to see and feel the soul of other is so strong that she basically feel it when anyone dies in big radius from her so she knows how death feels and don't really wants to inflict that on other so their creation kind of back fired and the shoga's laws and politics completely changed.
Cookie and Chip: They're kind of a special case but to put it in simple way they both have half of finality existence and shoga DNA that makes chip a little shorter than other shoga and a bit less muscular. Chip's power is way beyond her mom as she exists to eradicate the whole race including her mom and she's not really a pacifist like her mom because of Finality's existence inside of her making her a little antipathic to other people's pain and sees it as a game and she knows her purpose.
Powers and abilities:
average shoga:

• Shoga physiology
• Super human perception
• shapeshifting
• Spiritual Awareness
• soul reading
• low space-time manipulation
• cosmic radiation resistance
• self sustenance

Mai:

• Shoga physiology
• Super human perception
• shapeshifting
• soul reading
• spiritual awareness
• memory reading
• Retrocognition
• space-time manipulation
• cosmic radiation resistance
• self sustenance

Chip

• Shoga physiology
• Super human perception
• shapeshifting
• soul reading
• spiritual awareness
• memory reading
• Retrocognition
• space-time manipulation
• cosmic radiation resistance
• self sustenance
• Disaster manipulation

I wish I would have done more research before signing up with Viasat. After a few months of constantly losing internet (every time it rains), slow speed connections that will not work for Teams or Zoom calls, and going over my data limit nearly every month….I wisely switched to Starlink. 3x faster, 100x more reliable, unlimited data. I bought the mobile version for just $24 more a month. Way worth it. For all the above mentioned reasons, I would not take the time to write a review and tell the WWW why Viasat sucks. But my experience during the disconnect process changed that. When you cancel, they send you a shipping box and prepaid label…cool. However, they cannot send it until their “system” allows. In my case, the label will be sent in 4 weeks. In 4 weeks, I will be 1,700 miles from home at my in laws. After spending an hour on the phone, escalating to so called supervisors, here is Viasat’s customer service solution. 1. Have my neighbor box it up and ship it for me. 2. Cancel my trip. 3. Keep the worthless equipment and pay a $300 penalty. 4. Take the equipment on a 1,700 mile road trip and they will send the box and label to my in laws. I am actually going with option 4. Can you believe that? 5 Stars for customer dissatisfaction. Could they possibly make this more difficult and inconvenient! My favorite part is how the supervisor kept repeating “it’s our process that the system generates the label and I cannot do anything to change that “ I’m like…DUDE, go push the print button and print me a label. “There is no such button sir” Good grief, AI owns this company. I even offered to pack it up and pay shipping. Once again, our system will not allow that. Without the system generated label we would not know what account the equipment belongs to. Of course having rare sense that was once common, I said I would write my account # on the box. No sir, our employees are too stupid to connect those dots. Ok, he didn’t say that, but may as well have. VIASUCK is much more appropriate.