I am in a management position in a retail corporation since 2021. I would never have imagined even getting this far 15 years ago. I was just beginning my journey towards sobriety. (thats also the time i discovered you on YouTube). I have hired many lemons over the last few years. I'm trying to figure out why. I remember people taking a chance when promoting me because they saw potential in me. I feel like I am bad at spotting potential. What did people see in me that I am missing when I hire?
My wife and I are having our second baby at the end of October - 4 months away. We had our first child and I was able to be there in person for her throughout the birth, but this second will present a problem in that anyone but the father is allowed on site in the maternity ward. My wife tonight told me that she is very afraid about having the birth on her own as I stay home with our first born. I wonder if I have not been recklessly un-empathetic for her.
My wife has moved countries to marry me and we have both defoo'ed all of my family and friends and as a result, have no support throughout the birthing process and I am going to have to remain at home for the duration.
Where I see this going as the problem - is that I don't have much - if any will to search for friends in the face of what I see out in the world. I'm now also considering that I do not pay enough attention to the people commenting in the chat for an example as possible future friends. What are your thoughts on finding new friends after having had defoo'ed a toxic family and starting from scratch?
0:00 - Introduction and Livestream Recap
3:51 - Problem-Solving Skills and Initiative
8:45 - Interest in Business Beyond Specialization
12:15 - Balancing Family Responsibilities
13:41 - Overcoming Social Anxiety and Building Friendships
16:23 - Importance of Social Life for Parenting
In this episode, we delve into the challenges of identifying potential in employees and the importance of looking beyond surface achievements. It's easy to fall into the trap of assuming that success is solely linked to giving opportunities to others because you succeeded when given a chance. However, this can lead to overlooking true potential in candidates. I share that when mentoring individuals, I seek a pre-existing passion that extends beyond the specific job at hand. For instance, my early interest in programming showcased a long-standing passion that set the stage for later success in the field.
Moreover, I emphasize the value of employees who proactively offer solutions to problems, showcasing initiative and dedication. I recount a compelling example of a team member who independently developed a solution for a technical issue, highlighting the importance of self-driven problem-solvers. Additionally, I stress the significance of employees who display a curiosity about the broader aspects of the business, going beyond their designated roles. Understanding the holistic functioning of the company aids in problem-solving and overall contribution.
Transitioning to personal matters, a listener seeks advice on supporting his wife during the birth of their second child while managing childcare responsibilities. I emphasize the necessity of building a support network, whether through friends, community groups, or babysitters. Being present for significant life events and making arrangements for childcare demonstrates care and responsibility. I also touch on the listener's concerns about forming friendships after cutting ties with a toxic family. Emphasizing the importance of social connections for personal and familial well-being, I encourage seeking out new, positive relationships, despite past hurts.
Ultimately, the episode highlights the significance of looking beyond the surface and nurturing genuine passion and initiative in employees. Additionally, it underscores the crucial role of building a supportive community for personal growth and family well-being. Through fostering curiosity, initiative, and forming meaningful connections, individuals can create a fulfilling and supportive environment both in the workplace and personal life.
[0:00] Hey there, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain, hope you're doing well. Well, it is the pinch-punch first day of the month, 1st of July 2024, and there were some questions I didn't get to yesterday in the Sunday morning 11am Eastern Standard Time livestream because we got sucked into a black hole of intense white knight drama. No, not drama. Intense white knight manipulation land, and it needed a fair amount of wrangling, so some questions escaped me, but of course, I truly appreciate your support and interest. So here we go. All right. I'm in a management position in a retail corporation ever since 2021. I would never have imagined even getting this far 15 years ago. I was just beginning my journey towards sobriety. That's also the time I discovered you on YouTube. I have hired many lemons over the last few years. I'm trying to figure out why. I remember people taking a chance when promoting me because they saw potential in me. I feel like I'm bad at spotting potential. What did people see in me that I am missing when I hire? It's a great question. So one of the things that is real easy to do is to mistake your own energy for others' potential. Mistake your own potential for others' potential. So the syllogism goes something like this. I succeed, I succeeded because people gave me a chance. Therefore, everyone I give a chance to will succeed. You follow? You follow?
[1:26] I succeeded or succeed because people took a chance on me, therefore everybody took a chance and will succeed. That's not true. That's not true. That's reversing cause and effect, right? I mean, necessary but not sufficient, right? All good basketball players are tall, therefore all tall people are good basketball players, right? That's not a rational sort of syllogism, right? So, you may have that sort of magical thinking of saying, well, I'm just like everyone else. People took a chance on me, and I should pay it forward by giving the chance to other people, taking a risk on other people. Now, clearly, that hasn't been working out.
[2:08] So, that is something important. Now, so what I've looked for when mentoring people is a passion for whatever is going on that predates the work itself, right? So, for instance, one of the reasons that people took a chance on me and invested in me as a software entrepreneur was because I'd been writing programming code since I was 11 years old. So, since I was 11 years old, I'd been writing programming code, so people knew that my passion for computers strongly predated me doing this coding work in my 20s. And so, when I had $1,200, which was like a massive fortune back then, when I was 11 or 12 years old, I inherited it from my step-grandmother. And I immediately applied it to buying a computer. I didn't save it up for a car. I didn't buy, you know, whatever nonsense you could buy back in the day, but I used it to buy a computer.
[3:04] And actually, no, to be fair, to be fair, the computer was $1,100 or $1,200. It was an Atari 800 with, was it 16K? 16K, yeah, the 400 came with 8K and a membrane keyboard. This one had a raised keyboard and 16K of RAM. And I, yeah, I think I got $600 or $700. My mom kicked in the rest, to be fair, right? She did help me with that, which was good and nice. So I had a passion for computers that vastly predated me getting into programming. So if there's a passion that is larger, right? If the job is a subset of a larger passion, then that's a good thing, right? If people come up with solutions prior to you noticing or asking them to solve something, right?
[3:51] So I remember my daughter and I, I don't know, some maybe five years ago, four years ago, I mentioned this on the show before, but it's illustrative, right? So we went to a Tim Hortons in Canada, of course, and they were out of bagels, right? And so I went through this whole exercise with her. So, let's say that you're working at Tim Hortons and you're out of bagels.
[4:14] Well, and again, let's assume that these things are possible. It really was a mental exercise. There could be good reasons why you wouldn't. And let's say you notice that you were running out of bagels. Well, you'd call head office. You say, we're running out of bagels. You've got to drive some out here. You would go to, there was a convenience store that was attached. You go and see if they have any bagels. They say, ah, well, they're not official Tim Hortons bagels, but whatever. I think people would rather get bagels and you could at least tell them. You could drive to another store and you phone another store and say, do you guys have extra bagels, you could drive and go and get the bagels, right? So, the people that I most valued working with and poured the most energy into were people who had a passion that was larger than the job. The job was a manifestation of that passion. And also, the people who said, you know, hey, I came up with the solution for X, Y, and Z, right? So, way back in the day, I had a report production engine that required Access to be running, Microsoft Access, which is a database based program and a reporting system. It required that Microsoft Access be running.
[5:11] On a server so that the client could request the reports the reports would be sent back it turns out sadly that microsoft access could not run on the server unless somebody was logged in but the company we were working with had a security policy that people could not be logged into the server so that was a problem so a guy i worked with i still remember his name actually a guy i worked with came up with an idea to scan the you could open up the reports in design mode or design view and you could scan the reports to figure out where the controls were like the labels and the data boxes and so on and he ended up writing an algorithm to store the properties of the reports and then produce the reports in what's called rtf rich text format and it was wonderful fantastic and so he came up with that all on his own and he worked on it all weekend end and so like I was thrilled and excited so people for whom the work is a subset of a larger passion people who solve problems either that you as a manager you didn't even know there was a problem and they solve it or that you know that there's a problem and they come to you with the problem and the solution right so the people I did not invest in were people who came and said.
[6:28] X is a problem and they just sit there like a bunch of wet glued papier mache they just sit it there and you know then it would be up to me to solve the problem and it's like okay well obviously i'll pay you because once i figure out the solution you can implement it but what i did like was people who said yeah here's the problem here's the solution or there was a problem i solved it right and i want people to tell me of course we don't don't hide your light under a bushel or whatever so look for those kinds of things i also was very interested in people who showed interest in the business outside of their narrow specialty, right? So if I had a database programmer, if he got interested in the front end, if he wanted to come on sales meetings, if he wanted to understand the clients and the cash flow and the share structure and the management and ownership structure, if he showed interest in the business as an organic entity outside of his particular specialty, well, that was very interesting and very exciting. Because what is the problem in business? The problem in business is to make money, right? And you should always ask yourself this, right? Is what I'm doing making money, right? There's this weird thing like, I don't know, making money is considered a bad thing or whatever. It's like, well, it's pretty necessary. I can't do this show if there's no resources to do the show, right? So when people showed an interest...
[7:56] In the business as a whole larger than their own particular little slice of the business. That was, of course, of great interest to me because it meant that they could solve problems from a business standpoint rather than just be told what to do from a specific subset of the business platform.
[8:12] People who read books or take courses on their own time relative.
[8:16] That have some importance relative to what they're doing as a whole. So if there was a programmer who was interested in learning something about business, I'd be happy to chat with him. I'd recommend some books. I'm not going to send him on a big training course, although I was happy to do that if that worked out, unless he showed some interest and some ability ahead of time. So people who wanted to understand how the economics of the business worked, because a lot of people are just like, well, I have my tasks, and then I get my paycheck, and I have my tasks, and I get my paycheck.
[8:45] And there's nothing wrong with that, right? There's three kinds of people in business, the finders, the minders and the grinders the finders find the business the minders run things from a conceptual standpoint and the grinders just do the actual day-to-day work right finders minders and grinders and so if you're a grinder then you're just going to be given a task right and you are going to be programmed with your task and then you program the computer to complete the task and then you just get your next task and to me it's not the most exciting and conceptual way to live and to work but there's a lot of people who are like that so if somebody showed interest outside of the narrow field of specialty and was willing to learn about business and requirements and needs and wanted to meet with customers and so on, right? Because I loved having my programmers meet customers because like, you think I pay you? I don't pay you. I just hand them the money that they pay you. Like, they pay me and then I pay you, right? So, you're not working for me, you're working for the customers. And, you know, people who wanted to understand, they enjoyed talking about, I don't know, politics, economics, philosophy, science, like something that's larger, right?
[9:44] I also look for people who had interesting hobbies, right? If somebody was just like, well, I go home and I play video games and I watch a movie and I go to bed. I think there's nothing wrong with that. It's fine, but that's just not the kind of intellectual curiosity and excitement that I'd want to invest much managerial time, effort, and energy into. So there's a lot more about that, but that's my very sort of general answer as a whole. Just be someone who's interesting, who's curious, who looks at the larger picture, and you'll be fine. All right.
[10:13] My wife and I having our second baby at the end of October, four months away. We had our first child, and I was able to be there in person for her throughout the birth, but the second will present a problem in that anyone but the father is allowed on site in the maternity ward. My wife tonight told me that she's very afraid of having the birth of her own as I stay home with our firstborn. I wonder if I've not been recklessly unempathetic for her. I'm so sorry, I'm a little in trouble understanding this one. Anyone but the father is allowed on-site in the maternity ward.
[10:48] Yeah, I don't think that you should not, I mean, I think you should be there for the birth of your child. You should be there for the birth of your child. I mean, there's got to be somebody who can watch your baby, right? And if there's nobody who can watch your baby, then you need to start developing your social networks, right? Friends, neighbors, family, whoever, right? Right. But there's got to be some maternity group, some parenting group, some, I don't know, maybe a homeschooling group or some social group. Or, I mean, you don't raise your children on your own. They're not really designed for that. Right. So if it's October, which is some months away, and there's absolutely no one who can watch your baby for a day or two. I mean, it may not be a day or two. Maybe she'll just pop out like a grabbed bar of soap or something like that, the baby. But yeah, you need people to help you raise the child. You need people that your children are going to play with and socialize with and hang out and all of that. So this is your wake-up call to develop, you know, some kind of social network that is going to function for you. So, yeah, she's right. You need to be there. And there could be decisions, right? There could be important decisions that need to be made that you need to be there for. So your baby will be fine. fine, and you want to do it now, right? So, you want to introduce someone and, you know, even if you hire babysitters or whatever, right? You want to introduce your baby to someone so your baby gets comfortable.
[12:15] With that person, and then, I don't know how old your firstborn is, but I assume quite young, so you've got to get them used to that person and pay for it, and that way you have that person available as a resource, and then you, I don't know, depending on the age of your firstborn, you can explain things or not, or whatever, but, you know, your baby, your firstborn will be fine crying for a day or two while you go and have right the second baby i mean this is this has been going on since time immemorial and babies if they especially if they have someone else in their life that they know and trust or toddlers they can be they'll be absolutely fine i mean big crying kick and kiss up a kick up a fuss and all of that i get that but it's important for you to be there with your wife so yeah you get yourself some kind of community get people who can watch Watch your toddler and go be with your wife. In my humble opinion, that would be the way to go. All right.
[13:15] All right. Oh, there's more information. My wife has moved countries to marry me. We've both defooded all my family and friends. And as a result, have no support. I was at the birthing process. Okay. So, but you have to get support. You have to get support. You have to find friends, family. Sorry, not family, friends. You've got to find people in the community. You've got to hire babysitters. You've got to go to a church. Whatever it is you're going to have to do to get some sort of community. Community, you need that. And the good news is you have several months, right?
[13:42] All right. She says, oh, he says, where I see this going is the problem is that I don't have much, if any, will to search for friends in the face of what I see out in the world. I am now also considering that I do not pay enough attention to the people commenting in the chat, for example, as possible future friends. What are your thoughts on finding new friends after having defood a toxic family and starting from scratch? Yeah, I mean, you really should find friends. You should find your friends. You should find people that you can get along with. You can find... They don't have to be perfect, because Lord knows I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, your wife's not perfect, your kids are perfect, but that's a different matter. But it's what's best for your kids. What's best for your kids, of course, is that you have some kind of social life, right? They can't just grow up in a cocoon of you and your wife. And you don't talk to anyone else, you don't have any social life with anyone else, they don't have any friends with anyone else. I tell you, man, I tell you, tell you, tell you. this is especially fundamentally and essentially crucial when your kids get older. When your kids become teenagers, they're going to need a friend group, they're going to need a social group, or they're going to miss an absolutely crucial window of development. I mean, they want to start developing friends, they want to start exploring the possibility of a little bit of romance and dating in their mid-teens and so on. So yeah, you're going to need that.
[15:05] And you your kids are going to need other kids to play with. They're going to need to learn how to negotiate some kind of social environment. And they're going to need to, you know, see you socializing as well, because they're going to learn how to socialize from watching you and your wife socialize. And it's really not a good idea, in my humble opinion. It's not a good idea.
[15:27] To raise kids who don't have social skills. Now, of course, you can teach a lot of social skills, you and your wife, they'll develop social skills from siblings, from being siblings and so on, but it's not enough. Your kids need to see you socialize, they need to see how you handle friendships, they need to see, oh, you know, the pluses and minuses of friendships, and a good friend is gold in this world. So your kids are going to need to. Otherwise, your sort of fear and anxiety and negative attitude towards the world, which is why you wouldn't have friends, is gonna get into their brain, right? And you don't want that, right? You don't want them growing up to think that everyone's terrible and you've got to be isolated because humanity is a social contagion plague or, you know, whatever you're going to come up with, but you've got to find people that you like. And there are people, I mean, I tell you this, right? There are people out in the world that you will like.
[16:24] You know, maybe it may take a couple of runs to find them, but they are out there, and you can find them. And you should. For you, for your wife, for your happiness. You know, we're social animals. We're not just atomistic family interstellar space station non-groups, right? Just the family unit is usually not enough. And for the obvious reason, of course, that your kid's future lie beyond the family unit, right?
[16:52] Your kid's future lie beyond the family unit because your kid's obviously not going to marry and have kids within the family unit. So your kids are going to need to, you're aiming your kids at the outside world and they need to have exposure to the outside world, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong.
[17:07] And that is important because otherwise, how are they going to get out into the world and get married and have their own friends and careers? And how are they going to have kids? And like all this kind of stuff, right? So you need to develop a social life. To me, that is an essential part of parenting as a whole. And I get, I know. I mean, we can all be kind of fussy. We've all been burned. And you'll make mistakes. Lord knows I have with friendships over the course of my life. But you'll be fine. You'll survive all of that. And you'll get a good, stable group of friends. You know, I've had my ups and downs with friendships. But I've got a good group of friends now. now and my daughter is good friends with a good group of great group of people and that's just something you have to keep thrashing around until you can find and build and yet we've all been burned but you know to be fair we've also burned others right i'm sure you haven't been a perfect friend or a perfect person as a whole none of us have so you know with humility recognizing that you're not perfect i think it's important to just go out there and do some of that rough and tumble of developing friendships. And, you know, that's going to have you confront maybe some social anxiety or some problems with affection towards others. But the purpose of being burnt...
[18:24] Is to have you avoid fire, not sunlight, right? The purpose of being burned by bad people is to have you avoid bad people, not everyone, right? That's taking it too far, right? That is like saying, I got a sunburn once so I can never see the sun again, right? That's letting the bad guys win, right? Letting the bad guys seal you off from a social environment is not the way to deal with being hurt, right? The way to deal with being hurt is to go the opposite direction into love and affection, not stay in the realm of avoidance. In other words, the solution to being hurt is not isolation, because that's just being hurt in a different kind of way. The solution to being hurt is to connect, is to love, to have affection, to be positive. You don't want to let people who hurt you rob you of your capacity or willingness or desire to have a social life and social engagements, right? That's not, whatever happens, that's not the right thing to do. We're social animals and you don't let bad people take away your social life. You don't let them say, and the bad people might even be the people in media, the people in politics or all of the people who are saying to you, the world is ending, it's the worst thing ever and World War III and all that kind of stuff.
[19:39] People have had to have children throughout our evolution in situations far worse than we face. I mean, humanity was down after the last age. I say humanity was down to 10,000 people, like one-fifth of the Galactica crew. So, yes, you don't want to let the bad people and the scaremongers and the fearmongers rob you of a social life and rob your kids of learning how to socialize outside the family because that's what they're going to have to do. Otherwise, it's kind of the end of your line, which makes having kids a whole lot less valuable. So, all right, I think, let me just double check. I think that was it. And I really do appreciate everyone's time and care and support, of course, and attention. Freedomain.com slash donate. If you would like to help out the show, you can do that. You can, of course, email me. Well, actually, go to the form, freedomain.com slash call, freedomain.com slash call. If you'd like to do a call-in, of course, now, oh, no, I'm offering, for the first time, really, in the history of the show, I'm offering private call-ins. So I hope that you will avail yourself of that. If there's something you've had a yearning burning to talk about that you haven't ever wanted to have go out into the world, you can do that. And I hope that you will avail yourself of that resource. And, of course, if you subscribe at freedomandlocal.com, man, you get access to a whack load of just incredible stuff. All right. Lots of love, everyone. Take care. Thank you very much. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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