[brd]

Absolutely yes to "Pass the Hacker News test". Seneca's letter Epistle XI is one of my favorites and teaches this exact lesson.

It closes with "Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them." http://www.stoics.com/seneca_epistles_book_1.html#‘XI1

I've found it to be a great technique for making better decisions.

[jaf12duke]

One of the powerful parts of the HN application of this age-old teaching is that it includes lots of super smart hackers, who by their very nature are skeptical and inquisitive. This crew doesn't miss details.

So in those times when your discipline is failing you. It's actually helpful to know that the HN crowd will catch you. For our industry overall, it's a very healthy self-policing mechanism.

[taroth]

I keep this picture of Elon Musk open permanently in one of my Spaces. When feeling unmotivated or risk-adverse, I'll imagine what he would say if I was sitting in the backseat of the Tesla.

http://imgur.com/4tsZOIf

[pratik661]

I think keeping a picture is a bit extreme, but there were several times when I thought "Hmmm... what would Elon Musk do..." and pursued that course of action.

[rubidium]

There's also the deathbed technique. Imagine you're 91 years old, with a few members of your family around, and you're thinking back over your life. How would you wish you would have made the decision?

Admittedly, this only worked really well for me after I sat with a grandparent at their deathbed.

[kemiller]

I recently did sit with my 91-year-old grandfather on his deathbed, and I don't think much in his working life would have even made the list. I'm still working out how to apply that lesson.

[rmason]

My grandfather worked in real estate and owned a number of commercial buildings that he lost during the great depression. It took him sixteen years, but he paid every one of his creditors off with interest.

I always took it as an example of the right way to act. But I have relatives that thought he was a fool not to declare bankruptcy and move on. There will always be people on both sides of that question, but he continues to be my inspiration as an entrepreneur.

[telephonetemp]

Interesting story. Did your grandfather make the money to pay off his creditors through entrepreneurship? How did his career go once he had paid off the debt?

[rmason]

Yes he started a business installing furnaces. He was well respected by the guys who survived in real estate and had no problem finding business. When the war was over he did go back to real estate but never as big as before. He explained that he never would again be comfortable to be so highly leveraged.

[brd]

I think the thing that makes the Seneca/HN approach so effective is that it can be applied to the minutia. No one wants to look bad in front of their mentor, no matter how trivial the act is.

When you're on your deathbed most individual events will be irrelevant. Not to mention that it doesn't really work until you have a visceral appreciation of your mortality, something many younger people lack.

The deathbed concept I had heard frequently with little effect but reading that letter from Seneca had a profound impact on my decision making process.

[pjgomez]

I agree, it reminds me about a quote I heared sometime ago (I can't remember where) about corporate (mis)management and its paper trail, and it was something like "Before you send an email, imagine it printed in the front page of the New York Times".