Letting people grow

As a science graduate, I’m always impressed by the beauty of nature.

Background

Nature is inspiring, and when I spend an hour in nature, it heals me, I can feel it. There are many research papers supporting the statement, [1], [2], [3], [4]. That’s why I like spending time in nature. Computer scientists also started to use algorithm’s inspired by nature, [5], [6], [7]. I know they exist, thanks to the Polish professor, Andrzej Bargiela, who taught me some in Kraków. Nature might not be super efficient, but it’s healing itself when it’s damaged, and when we take a look at other animals, they are able to hand over instincts, wisdom to the next generations, and let them grow. When I take a look at humans, we were successful, but started to lose it.

As I mentioned in another post, everything has contextual validity within a time period, and it’s a cycle, not a one way linear path. We don’t need advises of many people who lived in the past. But there were exceptional people, and their words still have strong meanings. We can’t ignore them.

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
~Archimedes

Unfortunately, we rarely learn something from history and philosophy. All the questions in minds had been asked somewhere, and answered. So how can or should people grow up, must be answered again starting from today. Why? With the answer in the past, someone cannot stay alive in the future anymore.

Family

Definitely growth starts in the family, but the family has limited capability to extend the knowledge from their wisdom, and give it to the kids. Life cycle is the same for all of us. First, we are kids, then teenagers, and then adults, and then old enough. There is no interest in blaming parents or kids here. Unless it’s a calculation in Math, or a rule in Physics, everything has contextual validity within a time period. Therefore, what they learned might be obsolete now. You can see the differences between each generation for 20 years time frame.

Education

It has critical importance starting from the beginning, but not fully. I have long enough studentship experience, I’m simply a person who is able to learn anything. This is the biggest benefit of studying so long for me. Once I also thought of studying more, then because of different reasons, I decided not to push forward in academia anymore, and I find it still a valid decision from my perspective.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
~Einstein

Educational background also doesn’t prepare us for the future. Most of the time you will go to classes, take some notes, and then you need to do some practices like in a checklist. When you are good at completing the checklist, you will get good scores, and pass the class. The problem arises when you are welcomed to the real life. If you are able to understand how the world really works, then you are able to get what you want, like in the GameStop. Redditors simply smacked down hedge funds who were shorting the stock. Even if you go to the best universities in the world, you don’t learn it. It’s pure real world life experience.

If you rely on your learning experiences from school days in a business environment, often you will see that the checklist you followed in your school is not valid anymore. Because real life is chaotic. Neither customer knows exactly what they need nor organization is able to figure out what customer needs, there are always back and forth steps. Organizations often try to adapt one process, which can be applied anywhere within the organization. It also fails, because each person has different personality, strength. There is only one C. Ronaldo, and one L. Messi. If the organization expects you to score like them, they will fail for sure. It also requires another very rare skill, which is being able to see the big picture, making meaningful conclusions from it, and tying it to a strategy, which can collect people around it.

Unfortunately, this cannot be taught in schools. Neither of the schools can afford to real life projects nor students can manage it. It requires polymath people who have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. They are very rare. Product people are the closest one in the organizations as they need to understand many subjects to be able to understand and prioritize things accordingly. Even if we need specialists to execute mission-critical details, we also need this kind of generalist people to be successful.

Wisdom

Theoretical knowledge, ability to answer questions without looking into books, papers was power. Because books and papers were rare. It was hard to access them, but not anymore. Following the same strategy won’t work. So let’s stop wasting time to beat ChatGPT. Because it’s already trained with the existing public data, and it’s able to get data, extract a meaning in a context, and give output as wisdom. Nobody needs how good theoretical knowledge we have. What is your plan with more theoretical knowledge? ChatGPT is $25 per month, and answer any question.

What ChatGPT is not doing at the moment? From the public version, ChatGPT isn’t able to take decisions, execute them, and learn from the consequences, and it’s practical experience. That was the reason I kept changing my career all the time. All the repetitive tasks somehow can be automated at some point. I already did some of them without using AI. Then I decided to stay in product field. Even today, I’m looking for ways to automate product responsibilities as much as possible, it’s still the best field for me. Because I’m an investor, I know where to invest, when, how much. I know when to take risks, and how much. I know how to develop a strategy to gain competitive advantage against others and execute it. I know where to stand strong and where to bend. After all, I keep learning, updating my toolbox with fresh insights, and keep growing whatever happens. Therefore, gain as much experience as possible, and start developing your models for any field. This could be business models, strategy models, data models, process models, mental models etc., in a simple term, it’s wisdom.

In the era of artificial intelligence, one might expect that all numerical, logical steps somehow can be automated in the future. Maybe it’s better to start focusing on more verbal fields like sociology, psychology, philosophy to better understand the community we are in.

Sometimes I also see that growth and getting older have the same meanings for many people. This is not true. Most people don’t grow up, they are just getting older, they are not full of insights, their toolbox is not that strong. A growth oriented person at a younger age might have more wisdom than someone old. Let’s stop using two different wording for one purposes.

Find a Role Model

Is it good for me?

A good leader knows how to drive a business strategy, is full of insights from diverse experiences, acts like a high level of scrum master who is ready there to unblock you, give you freedom to grow up, then take the business to the next level, and open new doors for you. If you find one like this, stick! Spend as much time as possible together with your role model, and absorb as many insights as possible based on real-life outcomes. They will feed you with real life experiences, and results. So you don’t need to try and fail everything by yourself. You just need to find what is good for you.

Be a Role Model

Is it good for the society?

Congratulations! Your toolbox is getting stronger. The way you look at the World is getting better, and unfortunately you are also getting older. So slightly we need to hand over our experiences, and learnings to the younger generation to keep the society in a better shape in the future. A quote summarizes a lot here.

Mindset is everything
The way you look at the world is how it appears.
Telling yourself you are capable, confident, and
going to crush the day with kindness
not only lets you change your world but
the world of everyone around you.

Be with a Role Model

Is it good for the World?

Well, it might be a hard question for some people. After the above questions, now you have to find an answer to the last one. You need to think about the future of the World. By yourself, you are not enough. Find someone who is ready to grow, has potential to grow, can feed your soul with growth ideas, support you with your dreams, leave a few kids who can take your heritage to the World.

One of the best example here is Uğur Şahin who is oncologist, immunologist and Özlem Türeci who is physician, scientist, entrepreneur. They lived together, worked together, invented mRNA vaccine together, and their heritage will be continued with their kids in the next century. They have the highest positive impact to the World. Who couldn’t be happier than them?!

Shakespeare’s 18th Sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Analysis

It’s like a poem. Shakespeare compares his love to a summer day which is not too cold or not too hot, just perfect. Sometimes strong winds mess up flowers, and summer doesn’t long last enough, it goes away. The sun in summer can be too hot, or clouds can cover it up, making it less shiny. Shakespeare says that everything beautiful changes over time or becomes less pretty. But the person, he talks about in the poem, is said to be different. In summary, Shakespeare says,

You’re more amazing than a summer day, and this poem will make sure everyone remembers how great you are, forever.

And, Mevlana says

Half of life is lost in charming others. The other half is lost in going through anxieties caused by others. Leave this play, you have played enough.