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How to Become the Best in the World at Something

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

#131

Post by arvinsim »

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…

I agree with you. I used to think that marketing is just another department's job.

Turns out that your own personal branding is very important to your career.

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

#132

Post by friendlybus »

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…

These articles about generalists are a trend. You'll see it morph into a focus on quantity in a few years. Both single focus quality and broad generalist work.

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

#133

Post by guerrilla »

rootusrootus wrote: post #92
guerrilla wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its similar to thinking about the Dunning Kruger effect, a complete waste of time. What do you mean by this and how do you justify such a statement?

I can't speak for the OP, but Dunning-Kruger does seem pretty useless as a practical matter. Maybe it tells you why you see so many overconfident dumb people. Maybe you realize it's more useful as a warning to you for thinking you are the smart one in the equation. Either way, it doesn't really offer anything actionable.

Seems pretty actionable to me. For one, informing people of it alone can give them insight into their overconfidence if they are able to be mindful of it.

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

#134

Post by pbulises »

specialp wrote: post #12

An aside, but basketball is probably not the best example. A large amount of men 7ft tall or more have played in the NBA. over 17%. So basketball many of them have achieved elite height not skill. http://www.truthaboutit.net/2012/05/true-or-false-half-of-al...

Author here. That's actually a good point. Thank you!

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

#135

Post by pbulises »

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…

Author here. Actually Federer does not do tennis. In fact, he's famous for trying lots of different sports before settling on tennis.

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

#136

Post by pbulises »

esel2k wrote: post #109

Isn’t it strange that comments on medium are all very positive whereas on HN all are very negative towards this article. What I want to say is that there might be a bias?

Author here. It's the culture of the site. Like Reddit. Much more critical. Also, remember that Medium is the platform where the writer writes. Commentators mean in fact to address the author. That helps for civility.

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

#139

Post by cc-d »

agota wrote: post #37
Ididntdothis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my boxing gym every few months some kid would show up and after a week he would be much better than everybody else. These guys just understood the sport immediately and also had physical ability. A lot of these guys dropped out but if this level of talent meets with interest and work ethic then you get super athletes like Michael Jordan or Michael Schumacher in F1. My ex coach knew sugar ray Leonard pretty well in…

That's why I think that trying to be the best in the world at something almost certainly means setting yourself up for failure. At the top, you have genetic freaks with insane work ethic that are obsessed with that particular skill. Can you compete with that? No. I'd guess that if you have average talent, you can probably get to the top 10%, mainly through outworking everyone else. But you will never be the best in t…

Anecdotally, during the years I effectively spent the entirety of my time playing competitive multiplayer games, I reached the top 0.1% level in 4 different games with player counts far above a million. 3 of those being entirely different genres many skills did not directly transfer between.

And you know what I learned? 1. 750+ hours of "practice" is always required and 2. The difference between top x.x% and #1 is astounding.

There are very few areas of skill in which putting in several thousand hours of consistent practice will not land you in the top 1% at least, assuming you have close to the average physical/mental aptitude of people who usually take up this skill.

But you will never be Magnus Carlsen. The skill difference between 0.01% and #1 is far greater than the skill difference between 50% and 1%.

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

#140

Post by sudhirj »

Fricken wrote: post #44

If the goal is to be the best in the world for the sake of being the best in the world at something, just pick something really obscure. I'm the best in the world a tactical boomerang juggling in Breath of the Wild. A gamer with pro-level skills could probably show me up with a few hours practice, but until someone decides to do that, I'm the best.

I think the goal is to be best in the world at something that society will reward, that will enable you provide it with something it wants that it doesn't know how to get or doesn't know it wants yet.

In your case, making entertaining videos of popular games is a pretty profitable niche.

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