Elon Musk, "...nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week"

[Forestluv]

@Winter I've always lived within two miles of school/work and would ride my bicycle. Only about a 10min. ride each way, so not much time.

What I did at work depended on the stage of my career: whether it was as a grad. student, post-doc or prof. 

@Outer I could have only worked 40hrs, yet what would I do with all that free time? . My life and identity revolved around work. My motto was "Work Creates Work". The more work I did, the more work it created. More experiments to do, papers to publish and grant money to get. Plus, advisors put a lot of pressure on me to get results, publish and bring in money. Looking back, I think they could sense that I had weak boundaries, was a people-pleaser and could be manipulated to work longer. Also, there was a subconscious fear that I wasn't good enough and I had to work extra hard so they wouldn't kick me out of school. There was one point in grad school I was working looong hours to get a paper out. Another lab was catching up on my work and there was enormous pressure to publish before them (only the first lab gets to publish). I was so stressed I couldn't sleep or eat well. I was getting severe headaches and stomach pain. I told this to my advisor and he said "If all the pressure and stress is increasing your productivity it is a good thing". That's the type of environment I was in. 

There were also some really inspiring, passionate, exciting times as well - yet I wouldn't say that was the default.

[Shadowraix]

8 hours ago, kingroboto said:

I guess the takeaway here is that Elon thinks he's changing the world. The world is the world. Nothing gets changed it just is. Or put it in another way, the world is constantly changing on it's own just fine

@Shadowraix but i am interested in the length of the post, just not in the way you like 

I meant you aren't interested in the post because of its length given you said nobody would read it. I'd call it blatant shit posting. 

[Callum Milner]

@AceTrainerGreen this was a very interesting read thanks for compiling this.

[AceTrainerGreen]

21 hours ago, John Lula said:

@AceTrainerGreen Pick up a rock and throw it. There you changed the world in a couple of seconds.

@John Lula

Zen. It reminds me of several things.

1. Butterfly Effect
2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/It's a Wonderful Life - If you travel back in time and murder someone that would turn 80 years old, the present will look noticeably different.
3. 

17 hours ago, kingroboto said:

how many hours did you spend making this that no one will read

@kingroboto It didn't take long 40 minutes for the first post; 30 minutes for the second. All I did was copy-paste the notes I took. For the note-taking, it's taken well over 8+ hours. I don't mind making "long posts." I tend to write 20+ pages. This is nothing. I don't care if no one reads it. I'm just displaying my thoughts, so other people can help me navigate my thinking. You don't have to read all of it.

15 hours ago, kingroboto said:

I guess the takeaway here is that Elon thinks he's changing the world. The world is the world. Nothing gets changed it just is. Or put it in another way, the world is constantly changing on it's own just fine

@Shadowraix but i am interested in the length of the post, just not in the way you like 

@kingroboto

Probably. There's a concept in history called the Great Man Theory.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Great_man_theory

It's an exciting read. Your comment made me research about the topic further. At first, I only knew about it in a dictionary definition sense. I spent three hours reading about it and taking notes. The Great Man theory deserves its thread, to be honest.

Here are the notes I took recently.

Sharing this for the sake of sharing new information I learned.

One particular insight would have to be the forces of nature vs. nurture. When I look at Elon Musk, it seems that he's the only person who is single-handedly running all of the companies; however, that's false. There are a lot of factors going behind-the-scenes. For example, Elon's work relies heavily on subsidies from the government as well as public-sector funded technology. Perhaps, the Great Man Theory is like standing on the shoulders of giants. Without external forces such as geography, technology, socioeconomic status, Elon would not exist. Then again, it gives an interesting question: If Elon never lived, would these advances have been possible?

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

There are times when I work a lot. There are times in life when you need to work a lot. But this should be done strategically, in bursts, not as a chronic habit in an attempt to avoid spiritual work (which is what Elon Musk is doing -- avoiding spiritual work).

Work will NEVER make you satisfied. If work made people satisfied then Elon Musk should be the most satisfied guy in the planet. And yet he is clearly miserable. He has turned work into a neurosis.

I find that if I work too much I start to feel like a robot and I lose my creativity and passion for life.

The times I am most creative and connected to life is on my days off.

As I learn more about myself through your teachings, other resources, and my personal experience, I agree. Hard work and success does not correlate with authentic being, yet many tend to do so otherwise. At the back of my mind, even despite all of this learning about workaholism and the dangerous consequences of it, I still feel pushed to work hard.

Regarding your last sentence, it reminds me of playing a challenging video game. When I keep dying at a boss battle, I tend to rage quit and do something else for a while. I don't think about the game, but when I come back to it the next day, my mind seems to have figured out a way to beat it. I've done some reading on this, and I find it incredible how the subconscious mind is capable of generating insights. Active vs. diffused thinking is vital.

14 hours ago, zambize said:

What I am trying to do, is to create a path for myself to live a more fulfilling and profound life, that others may or may not choose to follow.  How can I expect to beat myself over the head with 80 hours of work a week in a never ending cycle of optimization, and then at the end, come away with happiness for myself and others.  People would look to me and the path I followed with dread and never follow it.  However, if I can prove that a more profound life is achievable in a reasonable amount of time by focusing on the right areas of your life, that's a path people will follow.  I'm trying to live the most profound life I can live that other people could reasonably follow, and see what I'm doing and think, yeah I could do that too, not look up to me like I'm some god who busted his head open and sent himself into psychosis to find the Truth

Your comment reminds me of this post I read on Wall Street Oasis. The website is for people who want to work at Wall Street, hence the name. Within the notorious culture of working 80+ hours a week, there are a lot of threads about burnout. One particular thread I remember fondly of would be a person quitting his job as an analyst and instead of working as a professional pianist.

https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/life-after-investment-banking

Inspirational.

It also reminds me of Gary Vaynerchuk's advice on careers. He stated, "

I've tried looking into burnout into other careers. On Wall Street Oasis, the most commonly recommended advice is to take a vacation, so you can get perspective. When you're in the grind every day, it's hard to think of yourself outside of the box.

14 hours ago, NoSelfSelf said:

What would you do with sucess buy more stuff that you dont need?

@NoSelfSelfI'm not very materialistic. If I were rich, the most expensive item I would be a gaming computer and a Tesla. Haha, The goal is to use fame, power, and wealth to help people.

14 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@AceTrainerGreen I spent many years conducting research related to cancer and tropical diseases. 70-80 hour work weeks were normal. Always after the next result, the next discovery, solving the next problem, getting the next publication, the next speaking engagement, the next grant, the next promotion. I never had children - they would have taken up too much time. I never got married - she would have wanted too much time.

I pushed and pushed scientific research until I reached the terminal end - and it didn't look like what I thought or hoped it would. . . 

@Serotoninluv

Thank you for your comment. It's good to know that you are speaking from experience.

14 hours ago, Winter said:

For Elon Musk, It's not about success, it's about solving problems. With each problem solved will be more. Each dollars made can be reinvested in future projects. It's not about cravings the end result, it's about enjoying the ride.

There's not much to understand, dream hunting is a pretty irrational arbitrary choice. 

It's similar to Bill Gates. Instead of using his wealth for his selfish ambitions, he's using his tens of billions of dollars into fixing poverty worldwide.

Yeah, that's what I mean in response to @NoSelfSelf

14 hours ago, Joseph Maynor said:

I kind of agree with Elon.  The thing you're passionate about you're kinda always working on.  You're always working on it because you're passionate about it.  It's fun to work on it!  It's what you wanna be doing.  This is why finding your passion is so important and starting to move everything your work on in your life to be in alignment with that passion.  When I was learning how to play jazz, that was real passion.  I would work on jazz all day long.  I would read books on music theory.  I would practice my instrument at least 4 to 5 hours per day.  I would practice all these skills that jazz musicians practice.  I would spend all day working on jazz, and none of it seemed like I was punching a clock at a job.  That's when your work is aligned with your passion.

@Joseph Maynor

For myself, passion is difficult to determine. I have many interests; however, these tend to be intense and last for several months. Recently, I became very obsessed with uploading video game footage for my YouTube channel. I gained 800 followers and 200,000+ views. It's something I would spend 8+ hours on every day, and I would look forward to it. Recently, I have been feeling burnt out. Outside of the small fame, it makes me realize that passion alone is not sufficient.

I have many interests, but interests do not always mean passion. When I think about it, there are several areas that I routinely come back and several processes that allow me to enter flow. It's good to know that I've documented this. Some reoccurring interests would have to be philosophy, psychology, and politics. I tend to overthink about ideas. The processes that allow me to enter the state of flow would be anything related to creating such as writing and video making.

Outside of this altogether, when work becomes play and you "work" for 12 hours, you also tend to neglect other aspects of your life. Going back to my little YouTube interest, I had incredible fun for 2.5 months; however, I ignored many other aspects of my life during this time such as sleep, fitness, and even prolonging excretion urges.

 

14 hours ago, Outer said:

Couldn't you work 40 hrs a week while still conducting research?

Could you sleep at the lab?

@Outer Not sure if you're sarcastic.

13 hours ago, aurum said:

@AceTrainerGreen

I didn't read what Leo said but I mostly agree with Elon. Your attitude towards work is more important than whether you are working. "Work" is just a label, we decide what is enjoyable and what isn't.

The more spiritual work I do, the more I feel I get aligned with my purpose. And the more I get aligned with my purpose, the more energy I want to flow into it.

@aurum I think you're fine. I think the problem with Elon is that he's so incredibly passionate about his work or his play that he's neglecting other facets in his life such as his health and family.

11 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Winter I've always lived within two miles of school/work and would ride my bicycle. Only about a 10min. ride each way, so not much time.

What I did at work depended on the stage of my career: whether it was as a grad. student, post-doc or prof. 

@Outer I could have only worked 40hrs, yet what would I do with all that free time? . My life and identity revolved around work. My motto was "Work Creates Work". The more work I did, the more work it created. More experiments to do, papers to publish and grant money to get. Plus, advisors put a lot of pressure on me to get results, publish and bring in money. Looking back, I think they could sense that I had weak boundaries, was a people-pleaser and could be manipulated to work longer. Also, there was a subconscious fear that I wasn't good enough and I had to work extra hard so they wouldn't kick me out of school. There was one point in grad school I was working looong hours to get a paper out. Another lab was catching up on my work and there was enormous pressure to publish before them (only the first lab gets to publish). I was so stressed I couldn't sleep or eat well. I was getting severe headaches and stomach pain. I told this to my advisor and he said "If all the pressure and stress is increasing your productivity it is a good thing". That's the type of environment I was in. 

There were also some really inspiring, passionate, exciting times as well - yet I wouldn't say that was the default.

I see multiple problems.

1) Your life and identity revolved around work.

2) The more work you did, the more work is created. It's never-ending.

3) Your subconscious fear of not being good enough.

It reminds me of Leo's video on workaholism. It makes me wonder if hanging out with incredibly professional successful people is more or less a good thing. Their ability to accomplish rubs off on you; however, at the same time, it also rubs off a culture of workaholism and that it's okay to place less time on family, friends, and other aspects in one's life. For example, what would happen if you worked in Silicon Valley where everyone is overworked?

-------------------------

Thank you for all the responses and thank you for the individuals who read all of it. I have more insights to think. I wasn't able to do much research about the questions I was asking about on my last post; however, I did research Great Man Theory and responded to these responses. I like to return to almost all of them because it helps facilitate my thinking.

A question I have:

What do you think of Gary Vaynerchuk preaching workaholism?

Topics to Research:

- Butterfly Effect

- Silicon Valley & Workaholism

- I tend to be very indecisive. Is my personality even suited for entrepreneurship? There's Warren Buffet who researches immensley into a company before making any moves.

Edited December 1, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[Joseph Maynor]

@AceTrainerGreen

If you haven't done Leo's Life Purpose Course, give that a look.  That will clear up passion for you if you work hard on the course.  You can gain more clarity about your passion than is commonly realized.  Few people do that work, that's the issue.  You can get very clear about what you're not passionate about.  I keep a journal and note all these things for future reference.  Keeping journals about stuff you like and stuff you don't like is good.  That way when you walk into something you can design exactly what you need rather than taking a crap-shot.  Sometimes you do have to take a crap-shot, but not when you don't have to.  Sometimes you can really make an informed decision based on knowledge of yourself.  Your passion is knowable if you have the desire to chase it down and pin it into categories.  And then that serves as a great foundation-piece to your Personal Development Work because you can use that passion as a litmus-test for everything you decide to take on in your life.  That's up to you.  But you can really design a life for yourself that revolves more and more around your passion.  That's one of the available options of Personal Development Work!

Edited December 1, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[AceTrainerGreen]

56 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

@AceTrainerGreen

If you haven't done Leo's Life Purpose Course, give that a look.  That will clear up passion for you if you work hard on the course.  You can gain more clarity about your passion than is commonly realized.  Few people do that work, that's the issue.  You can get very clear about what you're not passionate about.  I keep a journal and note all these things for future reference.  Keeping journals about stuff you like and stuff you don't like is good.  That way when you walk into something you can design exactly what you need rather than taking a crap-shot.  Sometimes you do have to take a crap-shot, but not when you don't have to.  Sometimes you can really make an informed decision based on knowledge of yourself.  Your passion is knowable if you have the desire to chase it down and pin it into categories.  And then that serves as a great foundation-piece to your Personal Development Work because you can use that passion as a litmus-test for everything you decide to take on in your life.  That's up to you.  But you can really design a life for yourself that revolves more and more around your passion.  That's one of the available options of Personal Development Work!

@Joseph MaynorI recently obtained his course less than a week ago. I'm investing an hour a day into it. I'm excited. It makes me wonder since the life purpose course is relatively "old" and Leo has had created much more profound insights since then, I wonder if the advice still rings true? Of course, most of it does, but I wonder if there are any positions he has changed, even slightly.

Edited December 1, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[AceTrainerGreen]

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #4.

 

It's been a few days since I last posted. Since then, I've been thinking about this topic in my spare time. While doing that, I discovered an invaluable resource. There are bite-sized video questions asking Nobel Laureates a variety of questions. One particular category that is relevant for this thread would have to be work-life balance.

http://www.nobelprizeii.org/video-category/work-life-balance/

I've watched all of the videos within the category, took notes, and I'm pleased that it's possible to have a successful career in the sciences without being a workaholic. It solves the main question of: is it possible to be professionally successful without killing yourself?

There are a many videos I would like to share. Thankfully, almost all of them are less than a minute long.

Dr. Kornberg brings up the example of Albert Einstein and his miracle year. In 1904, while Einstein was working six days a week as a patent clerk, considered to be a failed academic, he devised four fundamental papers that each to their own are worthy of a Nobel Prize.

I recommend watching this animation from TED for a quick summary of what he did.

This is an important insight because assuming if he worked 6 days a week at a minimum of 8 hours a day, that's 48 hours a week. If he worked for an additional 8 to 20 hours related to just physics, it's a minuscule amount of hours relative to the overwhelming majority of physicists.

I also think it's interesting how his insight for relativity was obtained inside of a train. He wasn't working. It's diffused thinking works its magic.

 

The second video I would like to share would have to be this:

To the point, Dr. Schekman states he would rather have someone who plans his day wisely and works intensely without much distraction than someone who goofs around at the lab for 12 hours.

It reminds of Cal Newport's formula. Work Accomplished = Time x Intensity

http://calnewport.com/blog/2014/04/08/work-accomplished-time-spent-x-intensity/

In support with Dr. Nurse, he believes relaxation is important. Diffused thinking allows your mind to process new ideas in a different way.

Now, some of the scientists such as Dr. Hunt have talked about how they worked non-stop. Some state they "work" 7 days a week and 12 hours a day; however, the scientist did state that a good chunk of those hours was fooling around and socializing inside of the lab.

There are three particular videos that make me kinda upset.

Dr. Yamanaka, who also won the Kyoto Prize, the most prestigious award in Japan, has stated he only spends 1 to 2 hours on weekdays with his family only to have dinner. On weekends, he spends a couple of hours with them in the morning.

Doing the math, he spends (1.5 * 5) + (2 * 2) = 9.5 hours with his family each week. It does not sound like a lot; however, the average American spends approximately 40 minutes a day or 4 hours and 40 minutes a week with their family. Surprisingly, he spends double the amount of time with his family than the average American. It's even more surprising because the Japanese are infamous for working incredibly long hours.

It's upsetting in a way because I personally don't think only seeing your children while eating dinner is not sufficient. Then again, dinners are not 1.5 hours long. haha For myself, the eating process is less than 10 minutes. I suppose he does other stuff with his family to keep his mind off.

The second video would have to be regarding how a woman literally worked on her wedding day at the lab.

For her students, she heavily discouraged vacations. It's interesting because France has some of the longest vacation days in the year. They have 25 PAID vacation days AND 11 PAID holidays for all residents.

The last video would have to be what I'm most upset about.

Dr. Hunt argues that if you don't put in much more work, other people will outwork you. To overcome that, you have to maximize your possibilities by working harder.

There are two problems with this. The first is that science is an international collaborative effort for all of humanity. If you discover someone that knows something that you don't, it would be best practice to collaborate with that individual. The second would be the conundrum of maximizing success. He states it only slightly increases it. Honestly, the disadvantages heavily outweigh the advantages. From what has already been discussed, it's not worth your time.

There are a lot more videos I would like to share on this thread, but it's not entirely relevant in the context of this topic. It's a damn shame that the YouTube channel and website are not very well known. The channel has less than 5,000 subscribers and less than a million views. It's a truly underrated gem.

By watching these videos, I feel a lot better. 40 hours is the ideal. 60 hours when time requires it. I absolutely refuse to do anything beyond that. It's fantastic to know it's possible to achieve academic greatness by working fewer hours.

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Outside of Nobel Laureates but still in the topic of academia, there was a study from Nature, arguably the most pretegious journal in all of science, asking how many hours they worked.

Quote

Long hours are still the norm in many corners of science. In a 2016 Nature poll of early-career researchers worldwide, 38% of respondents reported working more than 60 hours each week — 9% of whom claimed more than 80 hours (Nature 538, 446–449; 2016). A survey published in 2013 of academic work habits in Europe found that senior academics in Germany reported working an average of 52 hours per week, more than researchers in any other country canvassed1 (see 'Academic hours'). In a 2014 occupational-stress survey of university lecturers and professors in the UK University and College Union (UCU), 41% of employees with full-time contracts said that they worked more than 50 hours a week (go.nature.com/2q8abi9). And a similar UCU survey in 2012 found that nearly half of all respondents often or always felt pressure from colleagues and supervisors to put in many hours (go.nature.com/2qt7xdw).

 

https://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7656-175a

Although the percentages may be large, it's important to consider that although 41% work more than 50 hours a week, there's another 59% of scientists who don't. This is fantastic news because my question of: "Is it possible to achieve Elon-Musk-like professional success or at least an order of magnitude less by working 40 hours a week? has been answered. It's possible to achieve it.

Two other interesting passages from the article:

Quote

He has the luxury of being able to delegate some less than fulfilling tasks. “I hire professional editors to help me polish my articles, grant proposals and reports.” he says. “I can do this myself, but it's more efficient for me to pay someone to help.” Working too long on something unpleasant is not a recipe for a successful career, he says. “A lot of colleagues tell me that they have to work extra hours to write that paper that will get them promoted,” he says. “If I'm writing in the evening, it's because I enjoy doing it. You can't do it because someone is telling you to do it.”

1

Delegation is critical! Pay professionals to do it for you.

Quote

The '9–5' culture is very much alive in Denmark, says Wenkel, who is from Germany. “The institute empties in the evening,” he says. He adds that the Scandinavian region is renowned for promoting a healthy work–life balance. At his institute, scientists have the flexibility to deal with personal issues. “It's accepted here that people might have to leave in the afternoon because of a call from day care,” he says. The US News & World Report ranked Denmark third worldwide in quality of life in 2017, in part thanks to the country's family-friendly attitudes.

2

According to Top Universities, the University of Copahegan is the best school in Denmark. It ranks #79 worldwide with second place at a distant second at #112. Their Wikipedia page has an impressive roster of alumni. There's Niels Bohr, the 70th President of the General Assembly within the United Nations, and one of the main founders of string theory.

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Outside of academics altogether, I tried placing all of my thoughts into a list. I do this because I tend to research the same topics. It's impossible to memorize all of it.

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Further Things to Consider

1. It seems anything beyond 60+ hours a week is considered workaholism. 8 hrs/day * 7 days/week = 56 hours/week. I suppose the main problem with workaholism is that it eats up other important activities in life. It's not possible to do spiritual work on 80 hours a week, but it's possible with 56.

2. When work and play are one in the same, you "work/play" for 11 hours a day Monday to Friday. I love to learn. When I learn, hours pass by without me noticing. When I study, I don't learn the minimum to get an A. I go above and beyond the material because I'm interested in it and consequentially get a much higher grade. It's intrinsic.

Edited December 5, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[AceTrainerGreen]

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #5.

There are many articles I read since yesterday. I'm posting the notes. The commentary is mostly found inside of the notes.

There is a lot of research on the subject. The most defining authority would have been the European Union mandating a maximum of 48 hours a week. What other authority can you get? I've tried looking into the World Health Organization, a branch within the United Nations, for data on this; however, there isn't.

Regarding my question on working 56 hours a week, the answer would have to be no. The limit would be 48. That's 9 hours and 36 minutes Monday to Friday or working 8 hours a day Monday to Saturday.

Again with authority, this is a level below international organizations. An army of research scientists has stated that working beyond 55+ hours a week is very bad. The sample size is 600,000+ individuals. This is the closest approximation of truth outside of the physical sciences.

This Fortune article is fascinating. It's a long read; however, it's very worth it. Some 30-year-olds have the same physical problems as individuals who are 50+ inside of Silicon Valley.

It's disheartening that the vast majority of individuals are suffering from preventable heart problems. Many of these are choosing to do this to themselves.

For Rosenstein, who co-created many things such as Google Drive and the Facebook like button, he works only 50 hours a week. His net worth is $150 million. It's yet another example that you can accomplish great professional success without selling your soul to the devil. Additionally, an incredibly useful article from Forbes gives an account to his daily routine.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliversmith/2018/04/26/how-to-boss-it-like-justin-rosenstein-cofounder-of-asana/#9fccff4457b9

Some interesting activities he does:

1. He sleeps 10 PM to 7 AM. An incredible 9 hours. Jeff Bezos himself sleeps 8 hours a day.
2. He meditates, does yoga, runs, journals
3. His phone is set on airplane mode and grayscale, so he's not distracted by it.
4. Five glasses of water and ~10 supplements. I don't know what his supplements are.

5. I [try to] keep the first few hours of my day meeting-free (and my whole day meeting-free on Wednesdays) to 1) set my work intentions for the day and order my to-do list and 2) get some “deep work” done, work that requires getting into the flow.

6. "Methods-wise: I try to operate according to a work-rest fractal: taking a short meditation break every hour, a longer break (a walk outside) in the middle of the day, a day of rest between sprints, and longer breaks between months of hard work."

7. Uninstalled some apps from his phone (social media, news, email) because they were taking too much of his attention

8. At home, he lives in an intentional community called Agape (the Greek word for unconditional love in action) with 14 friends

9. He recommends reading 15 Commitments of Consciousness. Every member within his company is encouraged to read it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23275060-15-commitments-of-conscious-leadership

10. Recommends The Untethered Soul as a great secular introduction to many of the insights that are underly spiritual/wisdom traditions. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1963638.The_Untethered_Soul

The first paragraph is interesting because careers such as investment banking are notorious for incredibly long 80+ hour workloads; however, individuals still report happiness.

The link to Sam Altman's blog is also interesting. He's the president of Y Combinator, arguably the world's greatest company accelerator, and he gives his insight into the dark side of Silicon Valley.

For Startups Annonymous, it's interesting to show the dark side of the Valley. I was recently on there, and the founder is correct. Many of the anonymous posts talk about backstabbing, depression, cheating on significant others, and a wide variety of other dark stories.

There are many stories on suicide within the Valley. The truth is that showing weakness is considered a massive problem. The reality is that you can only bottle up so much stress and emotional weight before it all explodes violently. When you look at Elon Musk and other icons within the tech industry, there is an uncountable number of people who failed. Even for the individuals who have everything right, they may not make it. The individuals on the top showcase a sense of survivorship bias.

Why would you sacrifice everything for a chance that is smaller than 1%?

There's a 23.5 minute-video from CNN. I highly recommend watching it. After watching it, my insight on success leading to happiness deepened. It's also interesting how the individual described in the video was so great at masking his delibating bipolar disorder while working at eBay.

An overwhelming majority of founders in Silicon Valley has had struggled with severe anxiety and clinical depression. Success does not correlate to happiness.

Things to Consider:

I am glad to know it's possible to achieve professional success by working less than 50 hours a week. If you can manage your time well, delegate, and optimize your physical and mental health, you can do it.

I am also glad to know my question of working 56 hours a week has been scientifically disproven. The European Union has disproved it.

Technically, one can work for an additional eight more hours. The EU mandates overwork at a maximum of 48 hours a week. Since 56 hours of work is terrible, 48 hours can do.

Now, if one were to work for 48 hours a week, as an aspiring academic and entrepreneur, what is considered work?

• Assuming you are a computer science student and you run a YouTube channel about computer science, is the blog time considered working?
• Instead of video games, you learn a language. That's cognitively demanding. Is that working?
• If you have a channel with unrelated content such as comedy, is that considered working?
• If you watch videos, read articles and books about computer science, is that considered working?
• When you socialize with your Computer Science club, is that considered working?
• When you shower and you think about computer science, is that working? haha

It's difficult to determine the boundaries of what considers work and the other fun. Could it be that you do DELIBERATE PRACTICE for 40 hours and the remaining 8 hours you work on your blog and watch computer science? If that is so, what about engaging in other cognitively demanding activities such as learning a new language?

At least, I'm satisfied that my two main questions have been answered beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[Hello from Russia]

Yeah it's hard to judge. Intense spiritual practices also feel like work when you're doing them right with hardcore focus and concentration

Edited December 5, 2018 by Hello from Russia

[Outer]

Interesting that you've put so much thought and work into this topic, clearly it's worth it. Though I have to say I think you are missing something.  It isn't about much as how much or little you work, it  is what you work towards. Work length is simply instrumental, just like money. What you work towards is epistemic.  I suggest that you take a look at rationality, I've started to read a blog and after I'm done with that I will move on to a larger resource. If you don't find it interesting then move along and ignore it.

Try reading this in chronological order. http://mindingourway.com/page/11/ (starting at 12th Nov 2013) it will link you to simplifience, Less Wrong and the sequences etc as you go along.

[Hansu]

Lets say your life purpose is to somehow change the world. You work 8 hours a day, meditate for an hour and spend 2 hours a day developing yourself.

Isn't that 61 hours a week working towards changing the world, considering you don't do your day to day work at weekends? Even more, if you use your free weekend's to work on yourself?

[Moreira]

The elites, puting in Elon Musk words, to normalize modern slavery.

[universe]

Work smart, find the thing you are good at and let other people do the work you are not so good at. I feel your desire to change the world for the better. But dont get lost too much in your thoughts. Reality is already perfect.

 

I feel like the best advice I can give is that you look deeply into your motivation & vision for working long hours.

If they have anything to do with "low consciousness" values like a desire to feel important, feeling like you need to please people, wanting to be admired, get you material success, play your role or thinking it will make you happy. Stop and do more inner work instead of lp work.

Get rid of all these motivators, they will make your life miserable. And you will regret working so much. Maybe after freeing yourself from these, you will naturally cease to work so hard.

On the other hand if your motivations are "high consciousness", like love, connection and contribution. Work away! Work as much as you want. Your life will get fuller and fuller each day.

[FredFred]

This is quite THE post. Thank you for the time you invested in this

[CreamCat]

On 12/1/2018 at 8:11 AM, Serotoninluv said:

Plus, advisors put a lot of pressure on me to get results, publish and bring in money. Looking back, I think they could sense that I had weak boundaries, was a people-pleaser and could be manipulated to work longer. Also, there was a subconscious fear that I wasn't good enough and I had to work extra hard so they wouldn't kick me out of school. There was one point in grad school I was working looong hours to get a paper out. Another lab was catching up on my work and there was enormous pressure to publish before them (only the first lab gets to publish). I was so stressed I couldn't sleep or eat well. I was getting severe headaches and stomach pain. I told this to my advisor and he said "If all the pressure and stress is increasing your productivity it is a good thing". That's the type of environment I was in. 

There were also some really inspiring, passionate, exciting times as well - yet I wouldn't say that was the default.

You're right. When your livelihood is threatened by external factors, you can be stressed out. You could have worked the same hours without pain if there was no threat to your future income.

[AceTrainerGreen]

For some strange reason, I can't add this post to the original post. The edit button is missing. This is response #6.

On 12/5/2018 at 0:22 AM, Hello from Russia said:

Yeah it's hard to judge. Intense spiritual practices also feel like work when you're doing them right with hardcore focus and concentration

Leo has input on this.

Speaking of spiritual development, how much time does one allocate to this? This is a nonsensical question because you're supposed to be doing spiritual work nearly every second of your waking moments. Mindfulness comes to mind.

For myself, I aim to dedicate one hour of research a day. By research, I spend one hour reading or watching content online such as Leo's videos. I researched far and wide about this specific topic. It's a topic that directly concerns my daily life. I take notes as you see what I am doing here. In the meantime, I aim to apply the lessons in my everyday life.

One hour of research per day is good. Bill Gates himself reads an hour a day.

On 12/5/2018 at 3:04 AM, Outer said:

Interesting that you've put so much thought and work into this topic, clearly it's worth it. Though I have to say I think you are missing something.  It isn't about much as how much or little you work, it  is what you work towards. Work length is simply instrumental, just like money. What you work towards is epistemic.  I suggest that you take a look at rationality, I've started to read a blog and after I'm done with that I will move on to a larger resource. If you don't find it interesting then move along and ignore it.

Try reading this in chronological order. http://mindingourway.com/page/11/ (starting at 12th Nov 2013) it will link you to simplifience, Less Wrong and the sequences etc as you go along.

2

Thank you for your input. I appreciate it. I checked out the blog, and I'm thankful for the resource provided.

I'm working towards being a researcher in artificial intelligence. For as long as I can remember, I've always been using a computer. My dream is to help create the first general AI in the world to help solve nearly all the problems we face as a species.

I like to think my goal is noble; however, as Leo has stated, no amount of contribution to mankind is sufficient. The greatest problem all humans have is a lack of consciousness. The danger of technology without humanity is an apocalyptic event. See the quotes I posted from Leo on the original post.

On 12/5/2018 at 3:52 AM, Hansu said:

Lets say your life purpose is to somehow change the world. You work 8 hours a day, meditate for an hour and spend 2 hours a day developing yourself.

Isn't that 61 hours a week working towards changing the world, considering you don't do your day to day work at weekends? Even more, if you use your free weekend's to work on yourself?

See my response a few quotes above.

 

It's been a week since I last posted. Since then, I've been contemplating on this topic at the back of my mind. If you can recall my research, there was a list of multiple reasons why you should not work multiple hours.

I've played devil's advocate on it.

Along the way, I've read this incredibly disturbing article about the lifestyle of medicine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-ive-learned-from-my-tally-of-757-doctor-suicides/2018/01/12/

The original arguments are primarily for

1. Employees, including doctors
2. People who neglect their physical and mental health

The solution:

1. Make your employees work 40 to 48 hours a week. They consider it work. I consider mine play.
2. Optimize your physical and mental health. For example, allocate time to spend with loved ones. The World Health Organization recommends 30 to 60 minutes of exercise a day. They also recommend reducing sugar intake.

   1. Quote

      A new WHO guideline recommends adults and children reduce their daily intake of free sugars to less than 10% of their total energy intake. A further reduction to below 5% or roughly 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day would provide additional health benefits.

       

      https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/sugar-guideline/en/

   2. 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity

3. Go on vacations. Bill Gates takes vacations.

4. Understand it's all about the journey.

 

Here's a scientific list on happiness.

Almost everything you see here has its own document. You're more than welcome to ask me for practical advice on it.

It still makes me wonder.

Why do you want to work 40+ hours a week?

As for anyone else, everyone has their own path in life. You don't have to do this. For myself, I'm still planning to continue on this path because I have an internal desire, similar to Elon Musk, that needs to be fed. It's a raging fire. I'm particularly interested in artificial intelligence, notably general AI. The field is advancing in extraordinary strides. I made a thread about it.

The topic on the date of time in which artificial intelligence varies. However, this paper from Oxford and Yale University states:

Even if it not to happen in our lifetime, I'd like to directly contribute to this.

If the 20th century were to be the year of physics, the 21st century is the year of computer science.

We're not working on crafting a grand unifying theory of physics, if the super AI is capable, it will create a grand unifying theory from mathematics to economics to astronomy and beyond. It may even allow us to obtain immortality or travel faster than the speed of light. It's a lot of science fiction, and it's a beautiful concept; however, it's important to recognize the potential dangers of it within our lifetime and for future generations.  In order to conduct such research, I'll have to work my ass off to enter a prestigious university such as Stanford, Harvard, and MIT for graduate school.

Anyway, I tend to be incredibly stubborn in the first place. It's a good thing I've thought about the dangers of workaholism at a relatively deep level. It's important to question everything. If all else fails, at least I know the limit is 48 hours. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free. I created this thread, so I can publicly think out loud and hear input from others.

Edited December 13, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[Dan Arnautu]

@AceTrainerGreen Thank you for the high quality analysis and compilation. Much appreciated.

[Chase Ellfeldt]

Elon has multiple billion dollar companies. He MUST work that much to stay afloat and the phrase "change the world" is very relative so maybe to Elon that phrase means a minimum of putting someone on Mars but to you and me, it means changing the lives of 1 million people. It is all relative. 

[brugluiz]

I haven't read all of your post, but I took a grasp of it, @AceTrainerGreen. If you work more than 40 hours a day and are happy, it's okay to do that. The problem happens when the job makes you miserable. Working more than 40 hours a week at a miserable job isn't worthy (unless you really need it).

I read somewhere that you're not made to work more than 2 years at a miserable job because your body starts to get sick and illnesses start to appear.

[AceTrainerGreen]

It's been a while since I last placed input on this. I've been applying the insights I've formed from my research since then.

48 hours seems to be the peak optimal amount for myself. After that, my performance starts to noticeably decline for the worse. Despite optimal nutrition, sleep, meditation, exercise, etc, I seem to still get lethargic once I reach this point.

Additionally, I've learned some other insights along the way.

This is Warren Buffet. He's the third richest person in the world, and he claims he eats like a five-year-old child. He regularly eats McDonald and lots of other food that is not advised by almost any nutritionist expert. In this video, a person tries to replicate his diet and immediately fails. He even gains lots of weight.

Perhaps, Warren Buffet is actually lying and exaggerating about his diet?

With this video, it got me thinking. If this guy exaggerates with the quality of food he puts into his mouth, can Elon Musk also lie and exaggerate the number of hours he's actually putting in?

I did some research about this, and the results prove my hypothesis. 

From this article

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/study-people-claiming-to-work-more-than-70-hours-a-week-are-totally-lying-probably/263825/

Quote

People are not very good at estimating how many hours they work, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (PDF) in a study highlighted by Harvard Business Review. When asked how much work they do each week, Americans tend to report longer hours than when they keep a more accurate diary of their work, the BLS analysis found. For instance, a person who actually works 40 hours in a week will, on average, report working 43.

Not only that, but the more hours that people work, the more they exaggerate. Americans who say they work 75 hours a week tend to be exaggerating by 25 hours. (The average American work week in September was 34.5 hours, according to the BLS.)

1

Imagine that. You claim you work 75 hours, but the reality is that you only worked 50 hours. It's still a lot but an additional 25 hours is more than half your standard 40 hour work week.

I'm under the assumption that Elon Musk does not work 120 NOR 80 hours a week. He still very likely works a lot longer than 40 hours. However, it would be around the 56 to 66 hours of REAL work he's doing.

From my personal experience, when I was studying 8 hours a day Monday to Sunday, even despite optimal health, past the 48th hour, each hour felt like it was twice as long.

 

Lastly, I contacted a moderator why I can't edit my main post. Unfortunately, there is a limit to it. I'm just hoping people actually read the rest of the other posts, even a minority of people.