Alex Komoroske: evaluation

Transcript context

…Along those same lines, I think a lot of people have heard a version of this quote, which is, "New things that give you energy." So one, I love the additional piece of it is, "and that you're proud of." Two, you have another quote that I love that makes you think deeply about stuff, which is, "The secrets of life is things you've heard a million times already, you just weren't ready to hear them." Talk about that insight. So this I call the Hallmark card fallacy, which is you discover at great effort some deep insight that resonates with you and makes you see the world differently, and you want to share it. Insights are naturally viral. You want to share them and you go tell someone, it's like, "Guys, guys, the point of life is the friends we made along the way." And people go, "That's from a Hallmark card, man." And to you, it is you now possess the knowledge, the emotional intelligence to understand why that phrase has been shared so many times. Before, you heard it when you weren't ready and now it becomes a trite, "Duh, everyone says that. That can't possibly be a meaningful statement. " The reason people keep on saying it is because it's meaningful. And so I think that having that space of recognizing it, that when you have these epiphanies that come from different leaps in vertical development or the ability to, when you stare into the abyss and make it through the other side, you realize and learn a bunch of amazing things that you want to pass on others, and it's just really hard to get them to find it. I find that that's one of the reasons I try to write things that are or share ideas that are like little seeds that you can shoot into someone's brain even if the soil's not ready for it, it's rocky or craggy, at some point in the future, if something goes through there and opens up a crack, that's sitting there to grow into an idea. One of the things that makes me the happiest is when someone I've mentored years and the years in the past, they go search me out years later and say, "Alex, I just want to let you know, you probably don't even remember talking to me, but that Tuesday at the building, the no-name cafe or whatever, on Google campus, you said something I was frustrated to hear in the moment I didn't understand it. And I just want to tell you, thank you because I finally understand what you were trying to tell me. And I realized that that influenced me in the decisions." That to me is one of those meaningful things I can hear. And so I just find that you can't force it before people are ready to hear certain topics. Man, that must feel so good to hear those sorts of closing the loop on something long ago. The point you make about cliches that you've heard a million times actually finally feeling right and profound, I had this very experience. I did a psychedelic trip with some friends a while ago, and at the end of it I was just like, "Man, love is all you need. Love is all you need." I felt that so deeply through the experience and I was telling people, they're like, "Shut up."…

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