TITLE: Listen Now
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 14, 2019  2:56 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 In
<A HREF="http://www.femalefounderstories.com/danielle-morrill.html">
   a YC Female Founder Story</A>,
 Danielle Morrill gives a wise answer to an old question:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Q: What do you wish someone had told you when you were 15?
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I think people were telling me a lot of helpful things when
 I was 15 but it was very hard to listen.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 This may seem more like a wry observation than a useful bit
 of wisdom.  The fifteen-year-olds of today are no more likely
 to listen to us than we were to listen to adults when we were
 fifteen.  But that presumes young people have more to learn
 than the rest of us.  I'm a lot older than 15, and I still
 have plenty to learn.

 Morrill's answer is a reminder to me to listen more carefully
 to what people are telling me <EM>now</EM>.  Even now that
 can be hard, with all the noise out there and with my own ego
 getting in my way.  Setting up my attention systems to
 identify valuable signals more reliably can help me learn
 faster and make me a lot more productive.  It can also help
 future-me not want to look back wistfully so often, wishing
 someone had told me now what I know then.
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