Most People - @visakanv's blog

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2024-03-29 11:30:05

I’ve been sharing this set of notes more and more as time goes by. I suppose you could say most people care too much about what most people think. I don’t expect to be able to change most people’s minds on this. But I’m interested in getting to know the people who really manage to understand this dynamic, and more importantly, unshackle themselves from it. The unshackling requires courage more than it requires intelligence.

Periodic reminder (more for myself than for you) that I write for 0.1% outliers in optimism, thoughtfulness, creativity, kindness, competence, ambition, drive, curiosity. All are welcome to read and hang out, but I won’t dilute my writing trying to be “more accessible”.

A thing that my ex-boss tried to teach me (and he was very skilful about it, over 100s of conversations over 5+ years) was the idea that you should focus on whatever is best, whatever is most important, and not worry about what “Most People” think.

I actually resisted this for a long time. As a writer, shouldn’t I care about the bulk of my audience? But I slowly flipped even on this. I’ve come to believe that you should make your writing clear and accessible, yes, but then you should focus on persuading the smartest, most thoughtful people there are.