Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. At 4 hours a day, you'll need 2500 days. [6.8 years] If you did it full time (40 hours a week), you'll supposedly be fucking awesome in 4.8 years. If this were true, I should be an awesome programmer. But I know I am not yet one. Far from it. So I call bullshit. (Some popular 'fucking awesome' programmers for reference: Steve Yegge, RMS, John Resig)
"Finally, deliberate practice is an effortful activity that can be sustained only for a limited time each day during extended periods without leading to exhaustion (effort constraint). To maximize gains from long-term practice, individuals must avoid exhaustion and must limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis." (K. Anders Ericsson) "A number of training studies in…
How To Be Fucking Awesome
51–60 of 76 posts
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
In short, practice is necessary but not sufficient for awesomeness. In particular, this implies: "If you have not practiced, then you are not awesome." So to be awesome at X, you need: 1) some natural talent for X, varies based on the field 2) a love for X that will allow you to practice for 10,000 hours
3) the discipline to make 10,000 hours of your practice deliberate
I was struck a few years ago by an interview with an olympic athlete. She was asked how she found the discipline to keep a grueling practice schedule. She answered that what many see as discipline is actually passion.
If you're having trouble finding discipline, the answer may lie in finding a way to love what you're doing more.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#53That reminds me of Peter Norvig:
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years.
Let me add: Don't waste your time reading books about trivial topics.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spud Webb is only 5'6" tall. He played in the NBA for 13 years and won the 1986 slam dunk contest with a "180-degree reverse two-handed strawberry jam." He was better than all the seven-feet-tall guys in that contest in 1986. Assessing potential is hard. For example, one might assume that "height" is a phenotypical requirement for being an elite basketballer. But Webb proved that assumption is incorrect. You'll likel…
I met a guy one time who did what he loved for most of his life--he played the piano. Despite practicing for 8 hours a day for years, he still wasn't good enough to be a professional performer. (His situation is not uncommon, apparently). Now he's close to middle age, broke and bitter. So yeah, let those chips fall where they may, unless they end up turning your life into shit. PG's advice comes co mind: "Stay upwind…
I think the case you mention is more about having reasonable expectations than staying upwind.
If you're studying as a musician and targeting symphonic performance as a career goal, you need to realize that you're going into a field which maybe has a couple dozen job positions open up per year world wide. Being the 200th best clarinet player in the world, despite being statistically very impressive, means that you still won't be able to work as professional symphonic performer.
On the other hand, if you set that as a nice-to-have goal, but are fine working as a studio musician or teacher, it becomes a much more attainable goal.
Fortunately, as a software developer, even if you're only one of the top several thousand you have a pretty big chance of doing impressive stuff.
My sister is about to finish a degree in music from a decent conservatory, but I'm glad she decided to double major half-way through. She's very good, but she doesn't have what it takes to be competitive in a race for maybe a dozen open positions every year for her instrument.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#55how would someone do "deliberate practice" with programming anyway? Music, basketball etc involve "body memory" where repetitions of identical movements help. This seems to be fundamentally different from programming.
I am guessing programming "practice" would involve writing more ambitious programs? where would the feedback come from?
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#56Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
3) the discipline to make 10,000 hours of your practice deliberate
I was struck a few years ago by an interview with an olympic athlete. She was asked how she found the discipline to keep a grueling practice schedule. She answered that what many see as discipline is actually passion. If you're having trouble finding discipline, the answer may lie in finding a way to love what you're doing more.
This is very important. Having the iron discipline to work very hard for a long time at something you don't really like, in order to achieve some unrelated goal (for example getting rich) is also known as obsessive-compulsive disorder. The worst thing is that this approach sometimes works - I have met guitar virtuouses who definitely have this disorder. But if it's at the expense of your well-being, it is probably not worth it.
There is a lot of this in the startup community. I'm pretty sure the early life of Cisco is a pretty good example, but unsuccessful instances are all around you.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
> one hour a day is what many of us have to pursue other personal goals different from work, family, etc. Perhaps this lifestyle precludes being "fucking awesome"?
I'm certainly betting my wife finds me " fucking awesome " for bringing food back home, and no worries. :) What would be your definition of being " fucking awesome "?
'I'm certainly betting my wife finds me "fucking awesome"'
In this case, the literal meaning of the phrase could be quite applicable, and well worth devoting 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to the cause.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#59Wait, wait, wait. Bill Gates didn't program ANYTHING (at least not anything of note). He bought DOS, which made his fortune, and it was his connections through his mother which helped him in the deal with IBM. You /can/ be awesome with practice. But Bill Gates isn't an example. (And, yes, I know he wrote an early Basic interpreter, but he was also considered a mediocre programmer by many who knew him.)
you can call billg an awesome businessman, after all it takes a lot to be the richest man on earth. I haven't heard much about his programming skills, so I don't think he was a great programmer.
Re: How To Be Fucking Awesome
#60Wait, wait, wait. Bill Gates didn't program ANYTHING (at least not anything of note). He bought DOS, which made his fortune, and it was his connections through his mother which helped him in the deal with IBM. You /can/ be awesome with practice. But Bill Gates isn't an example. (And, yes, I know he wrote an early Basic interpreter, but he was also considered a mediocre programmer by many who knew him.)
you can call billg an awesome businessman, after all it takes a lot to be the richest man on earth. I haven't heard much about his programming skills, so I don't think he was a great programmer.
exactly. And he didn't spend 10,000 hours practicing business.
I'm not trying to be snarky by pointing this out; I'm trying clarify that, while we should remember that in order to be great, we require dedication, effort and patience, the example chosen of Bill Gates shows that, sadly, this is often irrelevant.