Previously, I think I had mostly read this through the lens of “what worked for Elizabeth?” rather than actually focusing on which of this might be useful to me. I think that’s a tradeoff on the “write to your past self” vs “attempt to generalize” spectrum – generalizing in a useful way is more work.
When I reread it just now, I found the “Ways to Identify Fake Ambition” the most useful section (both for the specific advice of “these emotional reactions might correspond to those motivations”, and the meta-level advice of “check for your emotional reactions and see what they seem to be telling you.”
I’d kinda like to see a post that is just that section, with a bit of fleshing out to help people figure out when/why they should check for fake ambition (and how to relate to it). I think literally a copy-paste version would be pretty good, and I think there’s a more (well, um) ambitious version that does more interviewing with various people and seeing how the advice lands for them.
I might incorporate this section more directly into my metastrategy workshops.
Previously, I think I had mostly read this through the lens of “what worked for Elizabeth?” rather than actually focusing on which of this might be useful to me. I think that’s a tradeoff on the “write to your past self” vs “attempt to generalize” spectrum – generalizing in a useful way is more work.
When I reread it just now, I found the “Ways to Identify Fake Ambition” the most useful section (both for the specific advice of “these emotional reactions might correspond to those motivations”, and the meta-level advice of “check for your emotional reactions and see what they seem to be telling you.”
I’d kinda like to see a post that is just that section, with a bit of fleshing out to help people figure out when/why they should check for fake ambition (and how to relate to it). I think literally a copy-paste version would be pretty good, and I think there’s a more (well, um) ambitious version that does more interviewing with various people and seeing how the advice lands for them.
I might incorporate this section more directly into my metastrategy workshops.