How to do things if you’re not that smart and
don’t have any talent
如果你不够聪明也没有任何天赋，
该如何做事
Guidance has been provided for those who lack confidence in their own intelligence or abilities.
为那些对自己智力或能力缺乏信心的人，提供指导。
This is a blog post aimed at people who want to do important work or make meaningful contributions to work, but feel they aren’t that smart and don’t have any talent.
这是一篇针对那些想要做重要工作或为工作做出有意义贡献，但觉得自己不够聪明也没有任何天赋的人的博客文章。
Be audacious.
要大胆
Most people who are talented or smart are scared of doing things. For example, you will find that a lot of talented or intelligent people are scared of cold emailing or just do a really bad job at it. Offer to do this work for them, and by offer I mean just do it. Send the cold email, get the response and then tell them about it. They will be really impressed, and have an incentive to get the ball rolling on said project. They might end up so impressed that they also stretch the initial goal of the project!
大多数有才华或聪明的人害怕做事。例如，你会发现很多有才华或聪明的人害怕发冷邮件，或者发得非常糟糕。主动为他们做这项工作，这里说的主动就是直接去做。发冷邮件，收到回复，然后告诉他们结果。他们会非常惊讶，并且有动力推进这个项目。他们可能会惊讶到连项目的最初目标都提高了！
A by-product of this skill is that you may start to feel like a little bit of an imposter because the work doesn’t feel hard, and therefore you’ll assume it is not valuable in the grand scheme of things. This is not true. By being audacious on these peoples behalf you will make them, and therefore the work you both do together, a reality. Talented and smart people tend to have the technical ability to do work, but often lack the courage or audacity to actually do it.
这种技能的一个副作用是，你可能会觉得自己有点像个冒名顶替者，因为工作看起来不难，所以你会认为它在宏观角度来看没什么价值。这并非事实。替这些人大胆行事，你将使他们以及你们共同完成的工作成为现实。有才华且聪明的人往往具备完成工作的技术能力，但常常缺乏真正去做这件事的勇气或胆量。
Pushing them to make it a reality is a very big deal, so don’t underestimate that.
促使他们将之变为现实意义重大，所以不要低估这一点。
Most people do not like doing grunt work. More often than not people want to be doing “creative” work, such as discovering or creating new things. Fortunately for you, this is your opportunity to shine. Become someone who loves grunt work. Most times the work is not complicated, it’s just laborious, repetitive, and not that intellectually challenging, but it is important. Learn to genuinely love it and do it for the team or project. People will appreciate you.
大多数人不喜欢做苦差事。通常人们都希望从事“创造性”的工作，比如发现或创造新事物。但对你来说幸运的是，这是你大放异彩的机会。成为那种热爱苦差事的人。大多数时候，这些工作并不复杂，只是费力、重复且不太需要动脑筋，但它们很重要。学会真心热爱它，并为了团队或项目去做。人们会感激你的。
Do the boring things.
去做那些枯燥的事
Similar to grunt work, there will always be boring work to do. Learn to love it & do it! This is an especially good area to work in if you aren’t so smart or talented because people will show you more grace & patience to get up to skill (purely because they don’t want to do it themselves).
就像苦差事一样，总会有枯燥的工作要做。学会喜欢它并去做！如果你不是那么聪明或有才华，这尤其是一个不错的领域，因为人们会对你更加宽容和耐心，让你掌握技能（纯粹是因为他们自己不想做）。
Learn undefined skills.
学习未定义的技能
Learn skills that have not yet been professionalized or established. A really good example of this is learning to code with AI.
学习那些尚未专业化或确立的技能。一个很好的例子就是学习用人工智能编程。
For example, most people don’t actually know how to use AI to code up real products, especially if they don’t know how to code. There is no proven course or guide written to do this either so its even harder to do, which is what makes this a great opportunity for you to shine. If you teach yourself how to do so you are not only in a unique position to set the standard for other people to learn, but you also get to apply this skill set on behalf of super smart or talented people who most likely wouldn’t have done so due to lack of time, skepticism or both. Again, do and show the results, rather than seek permission first to avoid discouragement.
例如，大多数人实际上并不知道如何利用人工智能来开发真正的产品，尤其是那些不懂编程的人。目前也没有经过验证的课程或指南来指导如何做到这一点，所以这更难实现，这也正是你大放异彩的好机会。如果你自学如何做到这一点，你不仅处于独特的地位，可以为其他人树立学习的标杆，而且还能代表那些由于时间不足、怀疑态度或两者兼而有之而可能不会这样做的人运用这一技能组合。再次强调，先去做并展示成果，而不是先寻求许可，以免受到打击。
If you are not that smart or talented it’ll often take you more time on average to complete a task. And that’s okay. Just be aware of this and put in the extra time and effort to not only produce at a good pace but produce above standard. Again, most smart or talented people can produce above standard with much less effort than you. But sometimes they don’t do so because they don’t see a clear reward at the end. Try to counteract this and put in the extra effort. It might not always lead to a super fantastic outcome, but you significantly increase your chances of bumping into such an outcome if you do.
如果你不是那么聪明或有才华，完成一项任务通常会花费你更多的时间。这没关系。只要意识到这一点，并投入额外的时间和精力，不仅以良好的速度完成任务，还要超越标准。同样，大多数聪明或有才华的人用比你少得多的努力就能达到标准以上。但有时他们不会这样做，因为他们看不到明显的回报。试着去抵消这种影响，并付出额外的努力。这或许并不总是能带来极其出色的结果，但如果你这样做了，你碰到这种结果的机会就会大大增加。
Bring a sense of urgency & move fast.
培养紧迫感，加快速度
If you think about it, most deadlines are arbitrary, and smart & talented people know this. They will still work to the deadline but they may not feel a real sense of urgency to move faster. Try to counteract this energy. I’m not sure why but moving faster increases the likelihood that work will actually get done, and also opens you up (and therefore the team) up to a lot more opportunities along the way. Most likely because you are “prepared” when you meet luck, or something along those lines. Anyways.
仔细想想，大多数截止日期都是随意定的，聪明且有才华的人也明白这一点。他们还是会按截止日期工作，但可能不会真的感到有紧迫感从而加快速度。试着抵消这种心态。我不太清楚原因，但加快速度会增加工作真正完成的可能性，而且还能让你（以及整个团队）在过程中获得更多机会。很可能是因为当你遇到好运时，你已经“做好了准备”，或者类似的原因。总之。
Keep things stupid simple & focused.
保持事情简单明了且专注
As I have mentioned before, smart and talented people often want to do creative work, that involves inventing or discovering. Because of that, they will naturally be driven to complex work and shiny new ideas. Your job, should you choose to accept, is to keep things simple and focused. To make sure you (they) are always moving one leg in front of the other so that shit is actually getting done at a fast pace. Otherwise, you will find that you have moved in every direction apart from forward, which leads to a lack of progress => lack of momentum => low motivation, and eventually death of the project.
正如我之前提到的，聪明且有才华的人往往想要从事创造性的工作，这涉及发明或发现。正因如此，他们自然会被复杂的工作和新奇的想法所吸引。你的任务，如果你愿意接受的话，就是让事情保持简单和专注。要确保你（他们）始终向前迈进，这样事情才能快速推进。否则，你会发现你（们）在除了向前之外的各个方向都走了，这会导致缺乏进展 => 缺乏动力 => 动力不足，最终项目夭折。
Similar to boring work, a lot of times what it takes to improve things is just a lot of boring grunt work e.g. optimizing incubation times of an antibody, tweaking marketing email times, etc. Boring but impactful work. Learn to love it and then do it without asking.
与枯燥的工作类似，很多时候要改进事物，就需要做很多枯燥的基础工作，比如优化抗体的孵育时间、调整营销邮件的发送时间等。这些工作虽然枯燥，但影响重大。学会热爱它，然后主动去做，而不只是等着别人吩咐。
Ask your naive questions.
提出你那些天真的问题
If you aren’t that smart or talented, you will find that you will have a lot of “noob” questions, that’s okay. In fact, it is kind of a superpower. Ask them! Especially if you are entering a new field, take note of these questions before you become entrenched in current knowledge. These questions may just probe you or your teammate to question dogma that may not be so true in your project’s case. More importantly, on occasion, you will bring forth questions that other people have but are too afraid to ask due to fear of being seen as not smart or talented. Sometimes the emperor has no clothes, so don’t be afraid to say something!
如果你不够聪明或有天赋，你会发现你会有很多“新手”问题，这没关系。实际上，这算是一种超能力。提出这些问题！尤其是当你进入一个新领域时，在你被现有的知识束缚之前，把这些问题记下来。这些问题可能会促使你或你的队友质疑那些在你们项目中可能并不正确的教条。更重要的是，有时你会提出其他人也有但因害怕被看作不够聪明或有天赋而不敢问的问题。有时候皇帝是没有穿衣服的，所以不要害怕说出自己的想法！
I have mentioned this skill a lot, but it’s a pretty awesome skill to have and one that you probably already have.
我已经多次提到过这项技能，但它确实是一项相当出色的技能，而且你很可能已经具备了。
Simplifying things does not only apply to communication. It could be a development process, operational process, the project itself, etc. There is usually always some sort of benefit that comes from being able to simplify things.
简化事情不仅适用于沟通。它可以是开发流程、运营流程、项目本身等等。通常来说，能够简化事情总是会带来某种好处。
Most people are super sensitive to being seen as annoying, and that’s the primary reason they don’t follow up and therefore watch opportunities go down the drain. Super simple solution, follow up! Most people just forget to respond, haven’t prioritized your request, or something else along those lines. But don’t just follow up, make it easy for the other participant to act on this too. For example, if you are following up on a due-to-be-scheduled meeting with someone, offer multiple specific times (including “now”), offer to meet them where they are (if possible), and send them light talking points so that they know the meeting won’t be a waste of their time. This will make it a lot easier for them to want to accept and actually turn up.
大多数人极其在意自己被看作是令人厌烦的人，这是他们不跟进的主要原因，结果导致机会白白流失。解决办法很简单，就是跟进！大多数人只是忘了回复，或者没有把你的请求放在优先位置，诸如此类。但跟进时不要只是单方面行动，也要让对方容易回应。比如，如果你在跟进一个即将安排的会议，就提供多个具体的时间（包括“现在”），如果可能的话，提出去对方所在的地方见面，并给他们发送简短的讨论要点，这样他们就知道这次会议不会浪费他们的时间。这样会让他们更愿意接受并真正出席。
Show up during the hard times.
在艰难时刻挺身而出
Every piece of work experiences hard times, the same goes for people.
每项工作都会经历艰难时刻，人也一样。
Sometimes the project isn’t going to plan or something majorly bad is happening in your personal life. It’ll be tough, but your job here is to simply keep going. It will be hard, and you will have legitimate reasons to take it easy, but try not to use them (within reason) and keep going. People remember and count on people who pushed through hard times to make things work. You will also surprise yourself at the end of it all and have proof that you can get through things of certain difficulty if push comes to shove.
有时项目进展不顺，或者个人生活中发生了重大变故。这会很艰难，但你的任务就是继续前行。这会很难，你也会有正当的理由让自己放松，但尽量不要这样做（在合理范围内），继续前进。人们会记住并依靠那些在艰难时刻坚持下来使事情顺利进行的人。到最后，你也会为自己感到惊讶，并证明自己在必要时能够克服一定难度的事情。
Figure out the first step.
找出第一步
Most people can achieve more than they think they are capable of, but they often get intimidated by ideas and just “don’t know where to start”. Make that your job and become very good at it. Learn how to figure out the first step of any idea and get the ball rolling. Often times you can usually find a cheap, low-stakes, simple way of getting started. The point is to build momentum. Momentum => morale => shit getting done! You may not have the technical skills to execute things super well, and that’s okay. That’s the job of the super smart and talented people. Your job is to get them off their asses and make them realize that progress is possible.
大多数人能实现的比他们认为自己能做到的要多，但他们常常被想法吓倒，只是“不知道从哪里开始”。把这当作你的任务，并且要非常擅长。学会找出任何想法的第一步，让事情开始运转。通常情况下，你往往能找到一种成本低、风险小、简单的方法来开始。关键是要建立动力。动力 => 士气 => 事情得以完成！你可能没有技术能力把事情做得超级好，这没关系。那是那些超级聪明和有才华的人的工作。你的工作是让他们行动起来，让他们意识到进步是有可能的。
Probably the most important thing after being audacious. Most people don’t finish things. They either get distracted, don’t have the motivation to or get stuck. Learn to finish things, it’s a big deal. It’s proof of work and of your idea (actions speak louder than words and all that). To do so requires a combination of all the previously mentioned skills, and probably even more skills that I haven’t mentioned.
这或许是大胆行事之后最重要的事。大多数人做事都半途而废。要么分心，要么缺乏动力，要么陷入困境。学会把事情做完，这很重要。这是努力工作的证明，也是你想法的证明（行动胜于言语，诸如此类）。要做到这一点，需要综合运用前面提到的所有技能，甚至可能还需要更多我尚未提及的技能。
Do not make the mistake of seeking their permission first, they will say “no, let’s wait until x” (and x will never come), or they will find ways to demoralize you from doing so (it’s nothing personal).
不要犯这样的错误，先征得他们同意，他们会说“不行，等 x 时候再说”（而 x 时候永远不会到来），或者他们会想方设法打击你的积极性（这并非针对你个人）。
There is usually always a simple, low-stakes way of doing something.
做某事通常总有简单、低风险的方法。
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uTUCSdLQ7JaoNkBQtRqr-w