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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 imme

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 his youth and he said that Ray started beating up people already in his first day at the gym without having learned boxing technique. He just watched once and knew what to do.

agota 7y ago
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 the world.
- cc-d 7y ago
  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%.

agota 7y ago

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 the world.

cc-d 7y ago
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%.