His Secret Obsession

1. He's Obsessed With Making You Happy

As a developer, you’re likely aware of the importance of a solid relationship with your beta users (and developers). If you are in a startup, the beta user is probably something like an early customer or an early adopter. But if you’re in a big company, the beta user might be someone who has taken time out of their already busy day to get feedback on your product.

The above is just one way to do it (think of it as a best practice), but it touches on important topics here:

• Building trust between the team & customer

• Communicating more effectively what they want from your product

• Adding value to the customer experience

--also see: his post on building Trust and Relationships with Beta Customers

2. He's Obsessed With Making You Comfortable

David Allen has a popular book called Getting Things Done. I’ve been reading it for several years now, as I wanted to get a feel for some of the ways I approach work and life. It appears that David is obsessed with making you comfortable — very comfortable. He is careful to note that this isn’t condescension or ridicule, but rather an acknowledgment of what he calls the human condition.

It seems to me though, that there are many forms of comfort in our lives: comfort in not having to think about what we are doing; comfort in doing things we enjoy (like playing video games); comfort in not having to do anything; comfort in being accepted for who we are; and so on.

And as much as I have found myself frustrated by many aspects of our society, the one thing I will always find myself attracted to and drawn to is the idea of being accepted for who we are.

I had a conversation with a friend recently, who was talking about how she and her husband had recently separated. She said they were both open about it at first and then became defensive as time went on. She said she was afraid she would lose him if they discussed it more than once or twice a year; and while her husband initially appreciated her openness he eventually grew impatient with it (he liked things done his way).

What she finds so hard is that whenever she approaches him or their daughters about something important it feels like he is suddenly going through the motions — like “I know this has been a big deal but let me tell you how much it means to me!” But when he does talk about something important, which happens often enough for him not to become “obsessed” with it anymore, he does so with confidence and competence — instead of fawning over his accomplishments like someone pulling out all the stops on their birthday wish list...

David Allen wants us all to find our own ways of making us comfortable — without being condescending or shrill (or boring - which seems the same thing) — because after all, if we can become comfortable in ourselves then where do those feelings come from? After all those years spent perfecting one small part of your life, why can’t you make yourself happy? If you can make yourself comfortable—why not extend that feeling across your entire life? So how do you go about that? It takes practice but if you work at it you will eventually begin to see

3. He's Obsessed With Making You Feel Safe

He’s obsessed with making you feel safe. I mean, it’s not that his product is bad or anything like that. But he cares about you enough to make sure you feel as though you can trust him, both with your data and your expectations.

He doesn’t just care about protecting your data; he cares about protecting your feelings. He cares enough to have a dedicated team of people who know what they’re doing and will take any responsibility they have for making sure that everything goes according to plan - and that includes both the team members themselves and their managers.

This is a big deal, because it means that not only are there no guarantees in this new world, but there are also massive responsibilities involved in maintaining the trust of the users of his products. It means that even if you buy into the idea that his “secret obsession” is to make everything seem safe and secure, it doesn't mean he's going to keep those promises once he starts selling more products than he can test internally alone - which could end up being a lot more than just “a few hundred thousand dollars worth of software...”

That means spending a lot of time looking for ways to show users what they're really paying for when they use his products: things like small details (like if someone has connected their company email address), or subtle changes in how things are described (like how many requests an app gets on an average day).

And so many people don't realize this, but when it comes to building trust with other companies - especially large ones (like Apple or Amazon) - the product you're building needs to be as transparent as possible in order to earn what little trust people might have left around it.

I'm not saying developers need to stop building things; I think we should keep building stuff we believe in, even if we don't think anyone else will use it or pay money for it (or even care). But if we do build something people really want and then start neglecting our own goals - because deep down we know better - then we're not building a product at all.

That's why I started arguing for having a team dedicated specifically to keeping track of these sorts of details: because I know deep down that this is something we all need to be doing anyway - even if no one else will admit it. And I'm pretty confident it's something everyone else needs too!

4. He's Obsessed With Pleasing You

There can be so much more going on in your life than what you think. More often than not, people are doing things for reasons other than their own happiness and fulfillment. Many of us are obsessed with pleasing others, but we tend to hide our true motives from ourselves.

As it turns out, the secret obsession is completely harmless — it's a healthy one that should never be hidden from yourself.

The secret obsession: creating happiness for other people (and not yourself)

What's the problem? We spend most of our lives deliberately avoiding the pain of our own unhappiness. This is called "self-sabotage" by psychologists and behaviorists (which is often also called "productivity" or “accomplishment”).

Why would we do this? To get something we want? To avoid being lonely? To feel better about ourselves in general? It's a matter of conditioning, which makes a lot of sense because it's hard to stop doing things that make us happy even when we know they're wrong (and even if it was wrong when we started!). We're conditioned to do this because our brains have been programmed to make us feel good about how well we’re doing by making us feel like doing well by overestimating how well others are doing. We don't really care about them anyway; why waste time on them?

One reason why we do this is because almost all of our baseline mental states revolve around what others think — and they're generally not very pleasant ones! If you showed up at my house right now, I'd probably tell you "Your car looks nice". If someone told me they made $5 million last year, I'd probably tell you "That's great!". If someone said "I'm really good at golf", I'd probably say "Thank you." And so on...

It's easy to see why so many people get caught up in the illusion that what others think about them matters: if I play well at golf today and it doesn't look great for me tomorrow when the club doesn't work properly, then I must be terrible at golf! And if my son says he’s good at football and he gets in a big mess on Saturday after practice, then he must be terrible! But how does anyone know who is or isn't good at anything? There aren't any objective standards for being good at anything — there are only opinions and biases stemming from expectations about who these

5. He's Obsessed With Showing You How Much You Mean to Him

A lot of us have been through it. Whether we’ve been in the thick of it or not, you can’t help but wonder how long that relationship will last. And then you make a little mistake, and get dumped. It happens to everyone at some point; we all make mistakes and let things slide, but some of us are so much more susceptible to being hurt than others.

It’s easy to take for granted that the person who dumps you is just a jerk; after all, they’re only human and they are like everyone else in the world. But there is an emotional aspect to our relationships besides just physical attraction that can be just as important as physical attraction.

A lot of people think this is something your ex (or current girlfriend or boyfriend) genuinely has no interest in talking about with you (they do not know you well enough for that), but the truth is that there are many compelling reasons why a breakup hurts much more than it should.

Here are some examples from my experience:

- The breakup doesn't change their feelings about you at all

- The breakup doesn't change your feelings about them at all

- You feel like your relationship was a huge waste of time and effort - everything went wrong because you didn't do things right - everything went wrong because you did things wrong

- You feel like what happened was just not meant to be; someone else could have done something better

- You feel like your ex did not deserve what happened to them; they were treated unfairly by another party - they could have done something better

So, if you find yourself on the side of the person who dumped you, here's two basic questions to ask yourself: What kind of person do I really want hanging out with? And what kind of person do I actually want hanging out with? Otherwise known as: What kind of friend would I want? Why would I want someone like this in my life? Because if they're as good as they say they are, then why would they dump me? Why wouldn't they stay with me? And why would anyone else deserve what happened to them? These questions should drive your answers: Do I actually want them hanging around? Do I actually want them to be friends with me now anyway?

6. Conclusion

The late, great Steve Jobs was an inventor and a businessman. The way he built Apple is what inspired me to do the same for my own startup. In fact, there are two of us: Steve Jobs inside Apple and me outside.

We don’t all look alike: I am a programmer, he is a businessman and the founder of learnings, I am an engineer and entrepreneur and he is a scientist and teacher.

But we are all serial entrepreneurs who love making things happen and want them to do it better than anyone else can do it. For every person in this world who has made something amazing happen, there are hundreds more who want to start something amazing too. That’s why we created learnings — because it is our mission to help people achieve their ambitions through building products that combine human ingenuity with technology