How to Become the Best in the World at Something • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#121

Post by musicale » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

joecot wrote: post #22

codingslave wrote: post #9

I think this is a fallacy, its true that becoming 90th% in a few different fields would render you quite the unicorn. The issue is that its common for there to be very low demand for such an overlap of skill sets. Also, how would you leverage such an overlap? These positions and opportunities do not just appear as you are qualified, the job market is extremely inefficient, and not very good at correctly pricing abili…

> The issue is that its common for there to be very low demand for such an overlap of skill sets. Also, how would you leverage such an overlap? The only overlap they really gave in the examples was "They're good at X skill.... and marketing themselves." Literally, the example people were good at both a skill and then marketing themselves as being good at that skill. Gary Vaynerchuk is both a good writer and good at m…

> This is also why people can name Neil deGrasse Tyson but probably not a single other living astrophysicist

Brian May :)

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#122

Post by suyash » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #116

I'm a fan of tennis, I'm not a very good player though, and never will be - I don't want to play 12 hours a day. I've watched Federer many times and a couple of take aways I've seen from watching him - practice every day, if you're losing, just keep going, the other guy will eventually give up or make a mistake, or you'll lose today, the other guy will eventually give up. I really think this is the only way to be the…

I concur, it also reminds me of this famous quote : “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ” —Aristotle.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#123

Post by chadcmulligan » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 10:36 PM UTC

suyash wrote: post #122

chadcmulligan wrote: post #116

I'm a fan of tennis, I'm not a very good player though, and never will be - I don't want to play 12 hours a day. I've watched Federer many times and a couple of take aways I've seen from watching him - practice every day, if you're losing, just keep going, the other guy will eventually give up or make a mistake, or you'll lose today, the other guy will eventually give up. I really think this is the only way to be the…

I concur, it also reminds me of this famous quote : “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ” —Aristotle.

I always find it surprising when so much of what we think and talk about today is the same thing that people thought and talked about a couple of thousand years ago, very little about people has changed.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#124

Post by playing_colours » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #103

playing_colours wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share please how you cultivate the discipline, and maybe, books/ podcasts that inspired you?

Absolutely! Let me start by saying that I power lifted for years, but outside of that I was not very disciplined. A couple years ago I came across Jocko Willinks twitter which led me to his podcast. His no nonsense "Extreme Ownership" approach spoke to me. If you want an introduction to him, a good start would be to listen to him on Tim Ferris or Joe Rogans podcast first. His YouTube channel also has a lot of clips.…

Thank you for sharing!

I used to struggle to lose some weight, and was too casual at sport. David Goggins - you can watch him at Joe Rogan and check his book - clicked in me and seemed to have changed my mindset regarding physical activities.

As a result, I managed to keep Paleo diet, and challenge my body and mind with regular long distance running (sweet suffering :) The healthy changes in my weight followed!

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#125

Post by matwood » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

playing_colours wrote: post #124

matwood wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! Let me start by saying that I power lifted for years, but outside of that I was not very disciplined. A couple years ago I came across Jocko Willinks twitter which led me to his podcast. His no nonsense "Extreme Ownership" approach spoke to me. If you want an introduction to him, a good start would be to listen to him on Tim Ferris or Joe Rogans podcast first. His YouTube channel also has a lot of clips.…

Thank you for sharing! I used to struggle to lose some weight, and was too casual at sport. David Goggins - you can watch him at Joe Rogan and check his book - clicked in me and seemed to have changed my mindset regarding physical activities. As a result, I managed to keep Paleo diet, and challenge my body and mind with regular long distance running (sweet suffering :) The healthy changes in my weight followed!

Goggins gets flak sometimes for being about all the attention, but who cares. He's inspirational for a lot of people, and I think that's what is important. Good on you for finding your personal inspiration and making the changes you wanted to make!

You say sweet suffering, and you're right. Embrace the suffering and life just gets...better. From Musashi,

“If you can bear up under hardship, you can experience a pleasure greater than the pain,” Musashi said solemnly. “Day and night, hour by hour, people are buffeted by waves of pain and pleasure, one after the other. If they try to experience only pleasure, they cease to be truly alive. Then the pleasure evaporates.”

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#126

Post by oper8or » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 11:28 PM UTC

This should be taken to heart by every technologist, or to be precise, pure technologist. Being pure tech today is about as useful as being a typist during the type-writer era i.e. specialized skill that is in demand, but by itself (with few exceptions) is only secondary to the domain it is applied in.

Most so-called "tech" companies are not really tech, but more in (tele)communications, media, advertising, surveillance data businesses.

It is easy to see the time when everyone can do technology. This surely happened to typing, it would be ludicrous trying to get a job as a typist today. Same can happen to the pure tech: a) due to technology itself e.g. web-site builders, etc. b) education,- everybody learns to type today, its a bit of a stretch, but maybe everybody can learn to program.

Aside from job security argument, the value creation is happening in the domain where business is focused, not necessarily knowledge of technology. Technologists who understand the domain can deliver much more value, and command higher premiums.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#127

Post by bertr4nd » Thu, Oct 24, 2019, 11:59 PM UTC

ptd wrote: post #33

derekp7 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have the case where natural ability is a hindrance. If the kid is used to not having to work at a particular sport, they will have trouble when they get to a point that they have to involve deliberate practice in order to get beyond their current level (something they never had to do before).

This applies to academics as well. A lot of people have stories of being the best in their class/school at something, but when they get to college they are average, or even below average because they never had to deliberately study.

A related thing happened to me in grad school: I had always done well in academics, and I even had a strong work ethic in addition to “natural” talent. But I had never really needed to exercise creativity in an academic domain, and I more or less fell flat on my face when I had to define my own novel problems.

Even after grad school, in industry, I’ve been much more of a strong executor than an idea generator.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#128

Post by wolco » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

messick wrote: post #86

wolco wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 2800 people in the world are 7 feet tall or taller. 0.000038%. Half are women. 300/400 would be in the age range at anytime. If 10% play basketball. That's only 40.

> There are 43 players in the National Basketball Association that are at least seven feet tall. Fourteen of those players are seven-foot-one or taller. https://gooddeedseats.com/tallest-players-of-every-nba-team-...

Interesting. I wonder how many all-stars vs bottom feeders. Sevenfooters need to rebound/block sometimes shoot but rarely are they the best of the best and suffer from more health issues.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#129

Post by mike00632 » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

agota wrote: post #27

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #17

I think there is yet another path: hyper specialization in one ludicrously specific niche no one else cares about or has good reason for not getting into. If you spend 10k hours perfecting something no one else even thought of trying, chances are you'll be the best in the world at it.

Can you give a specific example, though? Because generally, no competition means no demand, so while it might be satisfying to be best in the world at something, an obscure skill might not translate into financial success.

In the world of signal processing there are a lot of technical areas that are super important/lucrative but few people have expertise in them. Often it takes not only technical competence but years of experience.

To make this example even more specific, maybe you are good at writing fast decoding algorithms for new telecom standards.

There is also a lot of now low-hanging fruit in compressed sensing for the mathletes/computer people who know what that's about.

Edit: Actually, just learn math if you're looking to get ahead and have an advantage over many people. This advice doesn't make for the best blogpost or YouTube video but it's effective.

Re: How to Become the Best in the World at Something

#130

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 1:50 AM UTC

chadcmulligan wrote: post #123

suyash wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, it also reminds me of this famous quote : “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ” —Aristotle.

I always find it surprising when so much of what we think and talk about today is the same thing that people thought and talked about a couple of thousand years ago, very little about people has changed.

See, I would be surprised if it was the other way.