from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

"Why would anyone do this? It's a total waste of time." I personally tend to do a lot of activities where many - if not the majority - of people would take the above stance. And usually see good results - the long term. I call this "an investment mindset". Here are 6 examples:

1. Preparing for sw eng interviews. Some say: "Total waste of time. You prep for a week, or a month, then you fail." Me: "I prep for a month or two, and even if I fail this interview, interviews are similar across the industry." It's how I got into Uber as a senior engineer.

2. Building a niche project that will have very few users. I build a cocktail website in Hungarian, for Hungarians while at college. I spent months and months on it, then optimizing it... until it became the #1 Hungarian cocktail website. It's how I learned web development.

3. Betting a new platform few bet on. Most mobile devs in 2010: "iPhone and Android is where you want to be." Me in 2010: "Windows Phone could be big... or at least have little competition on launch." Built a few apps that had more than 15M downloads, and opened so many doors.

4. Starting anew with a new tech. Many people: "Why would I switch to {other stack}? I'd start from scratch." Me: "Why *not* switch to {other} after I know my current one well enough? I get to learn on the job." It's how I learned thick client, backend, web, iOS, Android.

5. Writing a book. Many people: "Writing a book? Too much time and you don't make money." Me: "Writing a book? I don't know enough to write a book about this topic. But maybe if I write a book about it..." I know more about mobile *after* writing t.co/9iXKja2hCy

6. Starting a blog. Many people: "Too much time. Too much effort. No one cares." Me: "What if I do it for myself? Write as a way for me to reflect on what I've learned. Use it to improve my writing and make my ideas more cirsp." This blog is the result: t.co/svCAkNmhox

Summarized my investment mindset in more depth and examples in this blog post: t.co/VMLvIue8Iv