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- ✴️ How I'm Making... #22
✴️ How I'm Making... #22
Ben Jang
October 27, 2024
Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up
Hey, it’s Ben.
I hope you’re having a lovely weekend 🙂
Last week, my sister asked me for some tips on how to program using chatGPT
(Stick around, I’m giving away the document I sent her later).
✏️ Summary
Explore without fear
Failure is a prerequisite to success
Bonus: 5 Steps to Kickstart Programming with ChatGPT
My first business was a golf clothing store.
To be fair, I still think it looks cool
It made a grand total of:
- $683 USD
Here’s why I’m happy about that.
📈 The Lesson
When I started the store, I was terrified that I would do something wrong. I spent weeks making decisions that should have taken minutes. With the experience I now have, I can see that I did everything wrong anyways.
There's a common misconception that decisions take time. This is incorrect. Decisions take information. Time is a side-effect. Time passes because we need to go find the information, or process what we already know.
If we can't say exactly what information we are waiting for, we are dancing with indecision.
4 years after the launch of Petry, all I have to remember it by are a bag of golf balls, a polo shirt, and the skills I gained along the way. And I can tell you now, the market value of the skills far outweigh any amount of branded golf balls.
It was this failed venture that got me my current job. It was this that introduced me to margins, cashflow, and advertising. Without the scrapes and bruises I gained from trying something new, I would still be the scared kid wondering if I could make a golf business work.
So if you’re toying with an idea, I say go for it. Take the plunge. Do the first few things you think you should. And when you inevitably do something wrong, don’t be discouraged. Failure is a prerequisite to success in the beginning.
🎁 As promised, here’s a bonus!
🔗 Progress Update
We have the first semblance of an actual tool.
The best writer I know personally gave me this reaction when I sent them the results. So we’re on the right track here!
This tool allows us to see how dense the spacing of ideas are.
For memorable speeches like JFK’s inauguration speech - we can see that the content clearly crescendos towards the end.
The interesting part is here - this sentence that does not seem as densely linked to the rest.
“I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation.”
Would the passage be more powerful with or without this sentence? I’m leaning towards without… see for yourself.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
As you can see, the tool is not prescriptive. It’s something that will help writers analyze their text, and point out points of interest in a clear, visual way.
What’s Next?
I’ll be wrapping the tool up to make it usable, then shifting my focus to getting some users on board. Onwards and upwards!
That’s all for now!
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