This is why Shaq is the Big Aristotle
To be great, be good repeatably
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#32I spent the last few days writing this piece as I was reflecting and frustrated with my short-term progress (or lack there of). This led me to consider what I think greatness even is, which was almost therapeutic to think through. Curious to know what people think about this. Can "greatness" really be achieved quickly?
While I agree with much of your article, it's interesting to me that you cite this tweet: Building products, writing, and painting are not mental excercises, they are physical ones. Reading to improve is like watching someone else workout – it does almost nothing for you. To run better, run. To paint better, paint. To write better, write. To build better, build. I certainly agree that practice is the core of all incr…
Everything I've achieved has been because I read voraciously about it as I was learning.
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see a couple ways to become great quickly. 1. Put in an extreme amount of effort to maximize the goodness you create and minimize the amount of bad. 2. Have extreme events impact your life (by no fault of your own) in a short period of time. 3. Change how you measure greatness. Ten years ago, I could not see myself in the life that I have now. Everyday I accomplish things which would have been impossible for my pre…
It sounds like you've built yourself a wonderful life. I think people really underestimate the greatness of doing seemingly mundane things consistently. All the things you mentioned seem trivial to an outsider, but over the course of a life, they make your whole existence so much much more pleasant. Investing time in a marriage, or parenting, or working out seems less important than just about anything at the moment…
>Investing time in a marriage, or parenting, or working out seems less important than just about anything at the moment you have the opportunity to do it.
I feel the complete opposite. The only reason I do the other things is so I can be good at those 3 things (and a few others in a similar category).
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#34In my personal experience, many people (including yours truly) give up because we have vague ideas of what exactly great is. What exactly does it mean by being a great programmer? Peer adulation? LOCs per day ? I believe that until anyone finds a decent enough definition of what great is for him/herself, it is rather hard psychologically to achieve anything resembling greatness.
"If you can't measure it, you can't change it" Peter F Drucker.
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#35In my personal experience, many people (including yours truly) give up because we have vague ideas of what exactly great is. What exactly does it mean by being a great programmer? Peer adulation? LOCs per day ? I believe that until anyone finds a decent enough definition of what great is for him/herself, it is rather hard psychologically to achieve anything resembling greatness. "If you can't measure it, you can't ch…
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Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#36I spent the last few days writing this piece as I was reflecting and frustrated with my short-term progress (or lack there of). This led me to consider what I think greatness even is, which was almost therapeutic to think through. Curious to know what people think about this. Can "greatness" really be achieved quickly?
I re read DF Chambliss's The Mundanity of Excellence from time to time to reflect on greatness too.
https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-mundanity-of-excellence-an-...
The whole thing is great (har har) but one passage has always resonated with me ...
> When Mary T. Meagher was 13 years old and had qualified for the National Championships, she decided to try to break the world record in the 200-Meter Butterfly race. She made two immediate qualitative changes in her routine: first, she began coming on time to all practices. She recalls now, years later, being picked up at school by her mother and driving (rather quickly) through the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, trying desperately to make it to the pool on time. That habit, that discipline, she now says, gave her the sense that every minute of practice time counted. And second, she began doing all of her turns, during those practices, correctly, in strict accordance with the competitive rules. Most swimmers don’t do this; they turn rather casually, and tend to touch with one hand instead of two (in the butterfly, Meagher’s stroke). This, she says, accustomed her to doing things one step better than those around her—always. Those are the two major changes she made in her training, as she remembers it.
Dedicated, deliberate practice of qualitative improvements, frequent direct comparisons of oneself to one's peers and exemplars and a singular S.M.A.R.T. goal. That's all it takes to be excellent.
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#37[deleted]
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#38This post is amazingly written. I have been thinking about things related to this topic and how to implement them in my life. It's been only a few months since I actually started thinking about this. I realised that I am an average person but slight burst of decent things in time. And to become great I have to work towards it.
I have learnt that building habits is a big part of this. You need to build good habits to actually reap the benefits of the compounding. My thinking of habits came from Anki. While reading up on Anki, I noted the benefits of compounding and consistent effort.
What I am still trying to achieve is the iterating process. To figure out the right inputs to get the desired output. Once I saw there are a lot things that I need to do parallelly, I created a schedule to work on them everyday, but that was very difficult to follow. Something or the other was left out. So i had to drop a few things from the routine. I am still trying to find a good way to experiment and find the right path. This blog post gave words to what I am trying to achieve, and how I can approach it.
Thank you for writing and sharing it.
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#39I spent the last few days writing this piece as I was reflecting and frustrated with my short-term progress (or lack there of). This led me to consider what I think greatness even is, which was almost therapeutic to think through. Curious to know what people think about this. Can "greatness" really be achieved quickly?
I don’t think it’s worth the effort trying to pin down what greatness is. I mean, what’s the point? Does being “great” make you a better person? Who is giving out gold stars for greatness? Why does it matter?
I think you need to be wary of focusing on outcomes, life has a habit of getting in the way.
Re: To be great, be good repeatably
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many people don't know that Alexander was tutored by Aristotle! So yeah, he had a great upbringing.
His father spent a lot of effort facilitating that as well, so he really was a pretty cool guy.
Yeah he even was proud when (as story goes) Alexander at a very young age managed to ride a horse.