How things get done

Today I found inspiration in a tweet by Sam Altman:

How things get done in the world:

Relentless focus
Self-confidence
Personal connections
Effective leadership (communication, management, vision, and evangelism)

— Sam Altman (@sama) January 5, 2018

I feel compelled to add resilience and equanimity to the list. I find in many cases that my efforts are thwarted by me regularly giving up for some time until I get my act together again.

This happens many times because I overreact to set backs or temporary roadblocks. Interesting that emotion is what will propel you forward with raving motivation or stop you right in your tracks from fear or frustration.

This discontinuous start-stop pattern is also enabled by a tendency to burn myself out. I end up needing to take more time off to recover than if I'd followed a more sustainable work schedule. Equanimity might be a good antidote for this as well.