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Being OK with not being extraordinary

tiffanymatthe.com

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Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#381

Post by tomcam »

ngngngng wrote: post #313
tomcam wrote: post #312

I’ve made well into eight figures by taking almost the opposite approach. As a kid, all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of my unsafe neighborhood and never go back. When I was young I read a lot of biographies of successful people. What I got out of it was that they just worked a lot harder than most, and failed more than most. Later I observed that there were people dumber than I was with better jobs than I had,…

I have a similar background, but right now I'm just taking a salary as a software engineer and looking to expand that. Have you written more about your path so someone like me could learn from it?

Talked about it a few years ago on Reddit. Feel free to check my profile to contact me. I love talking business.

https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3gbx78/til_th...

https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3gbx78/til_th...

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#382

Post by ativzzz »

aeturnum wrote: post #226

As I have gotten older, one of the things I have come to understand is that the people who are leading figures in fields of human effort are just wired differently. We might describe them as "devoting" their entire lives to those fields, but "devoting" isn't the right word. It's not that they "work harder" or "put in more hours," it's that they experience every thing in their lives through the prism of their "chosen"…

Agreed, I've met one of these people and discussed this trait with them. He described it as an obsession, something resembling OCD that he was literally unable to function, or would go crazy, if he didn't sit down and do the work his brain was forcing him to do.

Before we talked, I was jealous of such people. Now, I consider myself lucky to be free from that burden. Life is all about tradeoffs, nothing is given without taking something else away.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#383

Post by j45 »

jrumbut wrote: post #372
j45 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. The only way a process stands a chance is if it's person agnostic, which can introduce a different set of issues to navigate.

I don't know about in modern times but historically military leaders had a lot of interest in person agnostic processes. Caesar's book is all about what he does to avoid relying on anyone having special talents. Startups, and riskier technology ventures generally, seem to be the opposite. There you aren't Caesar, you're the Gauls. You're hoping that your team has just what it takes to overcome the odds.

Startups rely on Generalists who can specialize until the scaling happens, then it's about specialists who look to grow into generalizing/broadening.

Different skills needed for different stages of growth and not everyone can switch gears or have the range in transmission, founding leaders included.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#384

Post by kyawzazaw »

wjossey wrote: post #66
umvi wrote: post #2

> Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before. I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone. For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier sta…

This is my career so far in a nutshell. I’m an average programmer. I’m an excellent problem solver. I have an above average work ethic. I’m an excellent communicator. Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact. Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writ…

I go to a liberal arts college studying CS too. I don’t know if I can accurately attribute what I learned in college to anything but I have broadened my scope a lot.

How do you suggest to make good use of this situation/setup?

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#385

Post by coldtea »

mattmanser wrote: post #336
zikzak wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll probably regret posting this at some point because Scott Adams is smart (just not particularly aligned with my own moral compass). I don't think he is AS smart as he thinks he is but that doesn't mean he isn't smart, it just means he has a particularly large ego. See, I predicted Trump would win as well. It seemed incredibly obvious to me despite it being the worst possible outcome I could imagine. I based my "p…

I made the mistake of buying his Trump book on a whim. It was terrible, couldn't get far into it.

Was it the inherent quality (or lack thereof of the book) of mere resistance to counter opinions and certainty that "this can't be any good since it's ideologically opposite" though?

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#386

Post by phkahler »

gloatyegret wrote: post #324
mywittyname wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think the parent has a strong point though. Stats and CS are correlated skill sets. Almost all CS people learn a good bit of statistics as part of their education process, and I suspect that most statisticians are passable programmers. The fact that we have a term for the combination of both skills suggests that being great in both is not unique, it just makes you a great data scientist. The crux behind the i…

> Almost all CS people learn a good bit of statistics as part of their education > The crux behind the idea of being better than average at two things makes you individually extraordinary is that the two skills are not correlated. I don't know if "almost all CS people" come from better schools than mine, but I've never had a proper statistics course, and my degree has a "data science" stamp on it. Having good statist…

>> but I've never had a proper statistics course, and my degree has a "data science" stamp on it.

How do they justify that? ML is not IMHO the same thing, but maybe times are changing?

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#387

Post by anthonypasq »

nassimslab wrote: post #259
gucciTheWizard wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is a general measure for pattern recognition. Most modern IQ tests are heavily dependent of things like ravens matrices. Pattern recognition in obviously helpful when problem solving.

Is IQ really legit? I heard form Nassim Nicholas Taleb that the math used by psychologist is weak.

its legit in the sense that is a huge variable in predicting general life success/educational attainment.

if you think those outcomes are decent proxies for intelligence then IQ is useful

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#388

Post by sktguha »

tomcam wrote: post #312

I’ve made well into eight figures by taking almost the opposite approach. As a kid, all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of my unsafe neighborhood and never go back. When I was young I read a lot of biographies of successful people. What I got out of it was that they just worked a lot harder than most, and failed more than most. Later I observed that there were people dumber than I was with better jobs than I had,…

can you post link to your lifestyle business ?

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#389

Post by mattmanser »

coldtea wrote: post #385
mattmanser wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made the mistake of buying his Trump book on a whim. It was terrible, couldn't get far into it.

Was it the inherent quality (or lack thereof of the book) of mere resistance to counter opinions and certainty that "this can't be any good since it's ideologically opposite" though?

No, I am genuinely interested on the opposing take, but as far as I remember he was just babbling some ridiculous thing over and over. It didn't make any intellectual sense, whether you're right-wing/left-wing, populist/liberal.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#390

Post by tomcam »

sktguha wrote: post #388
tomcam wrote: post #312

I’ve made well into eight figures by taking almost the opposite approach. As a kid, all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of my unsafe neighborhood and never go back. When I was young I read a lot of biographies of successful people. What I got out of it was that they just worked a lot harder than most, and failed more than most. Later I observed that there were people dumber than I was with better jobs than I had,…

can you post link to your lifestyle business ?

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