#88: Focus is not even enough

And a dream (nearly) comes true

Image by Dall-E. Prompt: Image of a man sitting on a boat, in the middle of the sea, one hand holding a book, the other hand rowing the boat. There are many seagulls from afar. The sun is setting on the horizon, casting a warm orange glow on the scene. Digital painting.

I've always been curious about the stock market.

Almost all of my friends talk about it, almost all the time: which stocks to buy, when to long, short, which company is going to IPO next, etc.

I told some friends that I wanted to try investing, and received a kind warning from them: "Don't invest if you cannot pay attention to it"

. . .

I love badminton.

I can say I have fairly good techniques. But when I play with equally competent people, I still lose many times.

Some kind pros told me: "If you want to win, you need to pay attention to your opponents"

. . .

I never actually asked myself why didn't people use "focus" instead of "attention", like "don't invest if you cannot focus on it" or "focus on your opponents".

It was not until I was feedback-ed that I needed to improve my deliverables' quality at work despite having poured in so much effort, that everything clicked into place (aside from, yes, my mental collapse because I thought I was doing everything right).

I have been focused, but I lacked attention.

Focus refers to the ability to direct one's mental effort toward a specific task or objective. If I'm focused at work, it means I only work, no checking social media, and no chit-chatting with colleagues.

Attention, on the other hand, is the ability to be so deeply involved in the characteristics of an object and respond to it with consideration and care.

For example, if I pay attention to launching a product, I will not only try to publish it on the play store and call it a day.

I will also think about how to collect feedback after the product is launched, prepare the resources in case the traffic spikes, or make sure the customer support team is ready to resolve complaints from new users. All of them are related to launching a product.

Back to my work. I have been so good at prioritizing what to do and always manage to get tasks done on time. But I rarely assess the output quality, for example, how can my stakeholders consume the reports I created in the shortest amount of time.

Back to investing. It shouldn’t be the only thing I do in life (focus), but I need to research it thoroughly and follow the market trends closely (attention).

Back to badminton. Apparently, opponents shouldn’t be my only focus in a match, cuz there’s my technique, my partner, and the shuttle that I also need to focus on. But I need to look very carefully at how my opponents move and think during the game. That’s attention.

There's a huge difference between someone who's merely focused on a task (me) and someone who is so busy thinking about all the adjacent aspects of the task that they appear focused.

Some of my colleagues just cannot fathom why our leader can work rigorously through lunch, not realizing that it's the leader who is always one step ahead when a crisis happens.

I think The 4-Hour Workweek (Tim Ferriss) or Deep Work (Cal Newport) can only bring us so far to be "in the zone", but what we do inside that zone is a completely different thing.

What I realized: people who have some stake in the matter pay better attention.

• CEOs of startups, whose life and families depend entirely on an idea and its execution, are an example.

• A person whose own initiatives at work, which reflect their creativity, and professionalism, and impact their promotional opportunity, is another.

I'm not the former one (yet), so I'm trying to be the latter.

Focus will get things done. Attention will get things far.

Weekly discovery: Vall-E

I think I like Jarvis much more than Iron man.

Ever since the movie first came out, I was obsessed with this digital assistant who seems capable of doing anything (online, 'course!)

I went so far as to (hard) code a little assistant that answered my pre-input commands. But well, the voice was never close to that of Jarvis.

Now, with Vall-E, I'm one step closer to that dream.

Vall-E is an AI that can generate speech in any voice after only hearing 3 seconds of that voice.

That means, if I possess a recording of your voice, I can make 'you' read Lord of The Ring for me every night! Crazy, huh?

What's more, this AI can also replicate all the environmental acoustic, and the speaker's emotions, so the final output sounds more real than ever.

Although the application of this AI still remains to be seen, it's great to know such a thing is possible!

Around the internet

1. A looong but beauuuutiful read about monoculture in the technology era | LINK

If you need a summary, I asked ChatGPT for help:

The summary is pretty neat!

2. I know this day will come. Youtube is flooded with content about how to write the best ChatGPT prompts (like this one). Formulas are all over the place baby.

Probably in the next few months, someone will put on Fiverr as "I can write the best ChatGPT prompt in 5 minutes" and can actually make a fortune outta it.

John Cutler @johncutlefish

funny how "prompt engineering" is a thing talk about blaming the user :)

3. I stumbled upon this wonderful repository of ChatGPT prompts (must try!) | LINK

The one I found most helpful is to ask ChatGPT to become a job interviewer. See how it noticed my lack of elaboration and delved into that!

4. Product Hunt is having their Golden Kitty Awards 2022!! Come check out and nominate your favorite productivity apps of this year | LINK

(I would definitely vote for Shottr and Obsidian 1.0!)

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Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. If you find it useful, please help share it with your friends :)

By the way, I will take a two-week break to celebrate the Lunar New Year with my family and friends in Vietnam, so there won’t be any newsletters on the 22nd and 29th of January.

Hit me up if you want to catch up, I will be in Hanoi from 16-25 Jan, and Saigon from 26-29 Jan.

Wish you a relaxing weekend and a productive week ahead. For my Vietnamese folks, happy Tet holiday!

Yours,
Tuan Mon

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Many One Percents newsletter is my weekly curation of Internet gems, mostly about technology, productivity and product management. If you want to support me, you can either subscribe to this newsletter, or donate via these channels: Momo | Paypal | Vietcombank | Patreon