This review tastes sour to write primarily because I let Dorion Mode stay silent since Sunday. “Dealing with Death, “Ode to Joy”, Simple Steps Part 3 and TMSR OS Dependency articles weren’t published. Writing that sentence delayed this review from being on time. I feel silly writing this, which I’m looking at as a signal that the next phase of growth is ready to kick in. While it was good to publish both the St. Vincent article and the TMSR OS January Statement last weekend, I think “the I won’t sleep until I finish this article”, a.k.a. emergency mode, resulted in a regression below the mean that resulted in the above delays. Now that I’ve allowed that to block me this week, including blocking not talking about it, again, until now, I have this permanent reminder to look at for discouragement of that negative pattern.
On encouraging the positive patterns, I did make some progress on drafting the articles I’d scheduled, but had many pots on the stove rather than cooking and serving one. Becoming more flexible with the services JWRD ought to offer to develop relationships is a major shift that’s already starting to show its upside. While we take pride in having a relatively strong understanding of Bitcoin, I can see how the narrow stance and business offering we have marketed has limited the relationships we’ve developed. Circling back to a couple valuable local contacts with a more open position has resulted in positive feedback. I expect dealing with the balance of maintaining the well informed, hardcore Bitcoin outlook and practice while meeting people where they are will take some time and practice to refine. Keeping my own development process in mind ((While also reminding myself that most people are probably going to take longer than I did.)) and using that knowledge to increase our public exposure and the number of people we talk to will be keys to growth.
I was feeling a bit nostalgic after writing the St. Vincent article and had a nice call with my old friend Ashe Tuesday, which was our first time speaking in about 8 months. It was good to talk. February comes from the Latin februo, “to purify through sacrifice,” which our Roman ancestors used for atonement. This February is the last of my twenties and I feel grateful to have the blog as a medium to reflect on the past and project towards the future and will take the opportunity to be conscious of sacrificing old, weak, negative patterns and replacing with the positivity of the present.
I can see the need for time and practice there, indeed. The core of it is very simple though: the “hardcore Bitcoin outlook and practice” is your fixed and anchoring, grounding point, your root from which you can nevertheless grow solutions up to wherever different people may be and addressing any bits and bobs of problems that people may face; it can very well happen that some won’t like your solutions because of what they require (especially in terms of change) but as long as the solutions are indeed the correct ones in actually solving their problem(s), your only further concern is to communicate that very well. The rest, especially whether they take the solution offered or not, is not under your control and as such not something to worry about or even directly aim for. And this ties in with your footnote:
And some will take less than you, while some won’t even go that far at all, some will stop at one point or another or even get off the track altogether, sure. But what’s that to you and why do you even consider it upfront? Let their path and their travel be theirs (as it will be anyway) and focus instead on what you do, namely offering the correct solution for whatever actual problem (as opposed to imagined one) they face at one point or another – whether they take the solution or don’t take it or to what extent they implement it and how far they go with it is however *not on you* at all. Don’t hang your evaluation of your own effort on what *others* do or don’t do, it’s unhealthy in the extreme.
It strikes me that there might be something quite important lost because of this modern day habit of making *everything* taste “nice” – perhaps you didn’t have the chance to experience it directly before even thinking of it at all, but all medicine actually tastes quite horribly and sour is not even the half of it, to the point that the correct association tends to go along the lines of “it’s unlikely to do much good if it doesn’t taste bad”. (The opposite though is not true – it may very well taste bad AND not do any good either!)
This is, by the way, one of the best reviews I read around here so far, just so you know.
Comment by Diana Coman — February 2, 2020 @ 1:35 pm
I apologize for shying away from this until now.
Yeah, communicate correct solutions and identify as soon as possible who people are and where they are.
Thanks for making the point that some will move faster and that generally everyone’s going down their own path. Evaluating/qualifying the pace and path which a prospect is going to proceed matters in the qualifying process and evaluating/prioritizing who to talk to and when. Not in my effort or my evaluation of it, but who to direct my effort towards.
Thanks for underlining that unhealthy tendency. I think I’ve made progress replacing it over the years – I’d not be on the path otherwise – but I can see it lingering to a degree.
Good points. I think the silly feeling came up once I started for that reason and because I know better.
That is good to know, thank you. Do you mind expanding a bit on why ?
Comment by Robinson Dorion — February 8, 2020 @ 6:55 pm
You’re welcome.
Gladly: because it sets out quite purposefully to reflect on what and *why* happened/didn’t happen, going through the sour (and silly) to really focus on identifying what needs to change and drawing from everything available (good, bad, close at hand or further back/away) what might work to enable and support those needed changes.
To compare otherwise, just look back at your own past reviews: while you had in previous reviews identified at times what didn’t happen as it should have, you tended to aim for way more superficial changes and at times even no explicit changes beyond a generic “I’ll make it happen this week”.
Comment by Diana Coman — February 8, 2020 @ 8:46 pm