7 ms·

I like this: "A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you can do something really well but there are other th

by plg 6y ago

I like this: "A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you can do something really well but there are other things at which you’re failing, the latter will hold you back. But if almost everything you do is up there, then you’ve got a good life."

larntz 6y ago
This is interesting and very true. It reminds me of people who are excellent at something but their life gets held back by alcohol/drugs or bad relationships or some other _low minimum_. That first sentence is really profound in my opinion.
- barrkel 6y ago
  You've never experienced good art by a tortured artist, then?
  - alfonsodev 6y ago
    That would be success in art but failing in life, by the quote definition, I infer he’s equating success in life with your minimum quality of life indicators being as high as posible, if I got it right.
    - larntz 6y ago
      That's how I read it also. Take for example Kurt Cobain (whatever you think of him and his music). He had major success in music, but his life was a disaster and not something I'd hope for a loved one. I do agree that it seems like the best art is created by "tortured artists".
      - barrkel 6y ago
        Do you think he'd be ok with the opposite - a bland, contained and long life? What is life for? There are fundamental questions here and I don't think the answers are obvious as you seem to think.
      - NateEag 6y ago
        Tortured artists have produced some great work, true. J. S. Bach had some hardships in his life, but he wasn't tortured. J. R. R. Tolkien, similarly, was not tortured. da Vinci's life doesn't seem to have been horrible either. I think they stand as strong counterexamples to the idea that tortured artists make the best art.
        _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        Tolkien wasn't tortured, but he fought in WWI.
        NateEag 6y ago
        I guess people (particularly Tom Shippey, IIRC) do argue that's a lot of what made his work what it is. I tend to forget about that part of his history. Certainly it would have been a traumatic experience. Definitely a relevant point. Thanks for mentioning it.
  - yters 6y ago
    Is their art good because they are tortured, or despite being tortured? People tend to assume the former, but it's unclear why the latter cannot be true.
barrkel 6y ago
How about defining your own idea of success in life? Taking your utility function, your definition of success, from someone else, is only one step removed from being jealous of someone on Instagram. Think, and judge, for yourself.
- spinningslate 6y ago
  > Think, and judge, for yourself. But surely also be inspired by others? OP simply said "I like this". I agree we shouldn't blindly follow or resent others, but that seems a stretch from "like".
- yesenadam 6y ago
  Oddly, this comment seems mainly to put down the GP precisely for thinking and judging for themselves. Please allow people to like and utilize the good ideas of others. Thankfully, we don't have to invent every wheel we use.
  - barrkel 6y ago
    Eh. The direction irked me, smacked too much of an objective measure of people's lives.
  - goatlover 6y ago
    If you meet the Buddha on the road ... It's true we don't have to invent every wheel. But it's also true that we don't have to treat invented wheels as gospel. There's more than one standard for living a good life, which depends on the person.
circlefavshape 6y ago
I've heard it said (maybe by Frank Zappa? can't remember for sure) that the difference between a professional musician and an amateur is not how well they play at their best, but how well they play at their worst.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  my personal favorite (which I don’t know where I picked up from is): the difference between good programmers and average programmers is in how they cut corners. average ones will mostly walk themselves into a corner where the amount of effort required to fix it means it will never get fixed. good programmers will leave it such a way that it can be improved/fixed given more time.
  - cafard 6y ago
    There is a statement very like this, about construction workers--masons or carpenters--in Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language.
    - rantwasp 6y ago
      need to check it out. thank you.
- heinrichhartman 6y ago
  The hardest part about professional music, is that you have to perform at a schedule. It takes a lot of effort to perpare your body physically and mentally for peak performance ... and often-times you just fail. Have a bad day. That happens. There will be many concerts, where you are just at 70% of your peak ability. As a professional musician, you have to make sure your 70%-version is good enough that people gladly pay for seeing it.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >As a professional musician, you have to make sure your 70%-version is good enough that people gladly pay for seeing it. Or you just do electronic music, so that's not an issue!
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
This is why it's important to identify your weaknesses. Once identified they are no longer weaknesses but areas to work on.
- loquor 6y ago
  I've heard that it's better to leave weaknesses be and instead utilize your strengths. The reason is because if you just work on your weakness, you end up being just mediocre. What's your opinion on this?
  - jfk13 6y ago
    > it's important to identify your weaknesses. Once identified they are no longer weaknesses but areas to work on As Tevye might say, You're right! > it's better to leave weaknesses be and instead utilize your strengths You're right! > They can't both be right. You know, you are also right. - - - Or maybe this illustrates that overly simplistic "solutions" to the complexities of life are just that... overly simplistic, that is, not solutions.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
    My opinion is that you can do both. Working on your weaknesses doesn't mean ignore your strengths.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    It depends what they are. Early in my career I was told I was too introverted and I took that on board. Looking back I think should have told those people to fuck off. That's a lot different from having a shallow understanding of some technology you use or not understanding your employers business that well.
eru 6y ago
Well, one way to raise your minimum is by cooperating with other people so that they help out cover your minimum, you do theirs.
thebean11 6y ago
Interestingly a lot of the self-helpy books coming out recently say the opposite: that investing effort into improving strengths has a higher return than improving weaknesses.
- niklasd 6y ago
  I also heard that McKinsey adheres to that strategy when investing in training for their employees. Though that is only hearsay and it doesn't mean anything, they could also be wrong. But I think you are right when saying that the opposite approach also has a lot of followers right now.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I suspect what's best for an employer isn't necessarily the same as for an employee. Big employers want specialisation and obedience. That's fine while the demand is there but the narrower your specialisation the less the market needs to move to make you obsolete.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Initial impressions are driven by strength while lasting impressions are formed by your weaknesses. So building up those strengths will get you the job offer, but bolstering your weaknesses is what gets you the promotion.
Der_Einzige 6y ago
Are you all claiming that people with one-hit wonders aren't succesful? Like yeah, Baauer isn't especially talented but he's going to be remembered forever for "Harlem Shake" Same with Sir mix-a-lot and baby got back. They have some pretty low minimums. If you make one great work - you can coast on that forever.
- tiborsaas 6y ago
  One hit wonders are statistical flukes. They seem to achieve something by being at the right place at the right time and delivering an amazing performance. I remember Harlem shake is a thing but can't remember who Baauer is. I know about Sir Mix-a-lot, but couldn't recall any of his tune. I think you need more than great work to get me remembered forever. The Beatles certainly achieved that, in year 3000 some people will probably talk about them. I'm not so sure about Vanilla Ice.
gowld 6y ago
That doesn't relly make sense. Everyone's minmum is 0 (or negative) at something. Knuth is famously proudly terrible at email and "keeping on top of things". Does that make him a failure? Of course not.
- kick 6y ago
  Knuth isn't "terrible" at electronic mail or keeping on top of things. He used electronic mail for decades. He's old. He doesn't want to use it anymore. So he doesn't. https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html
asiachick 6y ago
That's about the most depressing thing I've ever heard. So basically if I'm not great at everything I suck. I guess Knuth must be amazing in bed, can play every instrument known, solve top problems in quantum mechanics, compete in all olympic events, etc or he's not having a good life.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  There is a De-motivational Poster from back in the day with a picture of a skier doing an airborne yard sale. Captioned with 'If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly' A diamond right there.
- sedatk 6y ago
  He probably meant an attitude towards life; giving your best effort to even the most mundane task to get the best out of it. That would also elevate your success in what you do best, and your satisfaction in life in general.
- blondin 6y ago
  the original quote lost its full context and is giving the wrong meaning. knuth is trying to tell us to find joy in the most mundane things we do. he gave the example of cleaning the toilet, which his family does wearing suits. solving top problems in quantum mechanics is, by any means, no mundane task. but i have heard similar quotes before. about the joy of doing something being more important than the result. i think it's because joy is so contagious. shared joy makes you even happier, imo.
- svat 6y ago
  Based on similar things he's said in many previous interviews, I think you should read "success in life" as "happiness in life", etc: read the quote as something like: A person’s happiness in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you enjoy something a lot but there are other things which make you miserable, the latter will hold you back. But if almost everything is enjoyable (or at least tolerable) to you, then you’ve got a good life. — see the example from the article where he got uniforms to make toilet-cleaning more fun.
ipi 6y ago
can someone mind ELI5 "the high minimum, high maximum"

by plg 6y ago

larntz 6y ago

This is interesting and very true. It reminds me of people who are excellent at something but their life gets held back by alcohol/drugs or bad relationships or some other _low minimum_. That first sentence is really profound in my opinion.

barrkel 6y ago
You've never experienced good art by a tortured artist, then?
- alfonsodev 6y ago
  That would be success in art but failing in life, by the quote definition, I infer he’s equating success in life with your minimum quality of life indicators being as high as posible, if I got it right.
  - larntz 6y ago
    That's how I read it also. Take for example Kurt Cobain (whatever you think of him and his music). He had major success in music, but his life was a disaster and not something I'd hope for a loved one. I do agree that it seems like the best art is created by "tortured artists".
    - barrkel 6y ago
      Do you think he'd be ok with the opposite - a bland, contained and long life? What is life for? There are fundamental questions here and I don't think the answers are obvious as you seem to think.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      Tortured artists have produced some great work, true. J. S. Bach had some hardships in his life, but he wasn't tortured. J. R. R. Tolkien, similarly, was not tortured. da Vinci's life doesn't seem to have been horrible either. I think they stand as strong counterexamples to the idea that tortured artists make the best art.
      - _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        Tolkien wasn't tortured, but he fought in WWI.
        NateEag 6y ago
        I guess people (particularly Tom Shippey, IIRC) do argue that's a lot of what made his work what it is. I tend to forget about that part of his history. Certainly it would have been a traumatic experience. Definitely a relevant point. Thanks for mentioning it.
- yters 6y ago
  Is their art good because they are tortured, or despite being tortured? People tend to assume the former, but it's unclear why the latter cannot be true.

barrkel 6y ago

How about defining your own idea of success in life? Taking your utility function, your definition of success, from someone else, is only one step removed from being jealous of someone on Instagram. Think, and judge, for yourself.

spinningslate 6y ago
> Think, and judge, for yourself. But surely also be inspired by others? OP simply said "I like this". I agree we shouldn't blindly follow or resent others, but that seems a stretch from "like".
yesenadam 6y ago
Oddly, this comment seems mainly to put down the GP precisely for thinking and judging for themselves. Please allow people to like and utilize the good ideas of others. Thankfully, we don't have to invent every wheel we use.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Eh. The direction irked me, smacked too much of an objective measure of people's lives.
- goatlover 6y ago
  If you meet the Buddha on the road ... It's true we don't have to invent every wheel. But it's also true that we don't have to treat invented wheels as gospel. There's more than one standard for living a good life, which depends on the person.

circlefavshape 6y ago

I've heard it said (maybe by Frank Zappa? can't remember for sure) that the difference between a professional musician and an amateur is not how well they play at their best, but how well they play at their worst.

rantwasp 6y ago
my personal favorite (which I don’t know where I picked up from is): the difference between good programmers and average programmers is in how they cut corners. average ones will mostly walk themselves into a corner where the amount of effort required to fix it means it will never get fixed. good programmers will leave it such a way that it can be improved/fixed given more time.
- cafard 6y ago
  There is a statement very like this, about construction workers--masons or carpenters--in Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language.
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    need to check it out. thank you.
heinrichhartman 6y ago
The hardest part about professional music, is that you have to perform at a schedule. It takes a lot of effort to perpare your body physically and mentally for peak performance ... and often-times you just fail. Have a bad day. That happens. There will be many concerts, where you are just at 70% of your peak ability. As a professional musician, you have to make sure your 70%-version is good enough that people gladly pay for seeing it.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >As a professional musician, you have to make sure your 70%-version is good enough that people gladly pay for seeing it. Or you just do electronic music, so that's not an issue!

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

This is why it's important to identify your weaknesses. Once identified they are no longer weaknesses but areas to work on.

loquor 6y ago
I've heard that it's better to leave weaknesses be and instead utilize your strengths. The reason is because if you just work on your weakness, you end up being just mediocre. What's your opinion on this?
- jfk13 6y ago
  > it's important to identify your weaknesses. Once identified they are no longer weaknesses but areas to work on As Tevye might say, You're right! > it's better to leave weaknesses be and instead utilize your strengths You're right! > They can't both be right. You know, you are also right. - - - Or maybe this illustrates that overly simplistic "solutions" to the complexities of life are just that... overly simplistic, that is, not solutions.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  My opinion is that you can do both. Working on your weaknesses doesn't mean ignore your strengths.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  It depends what they are. Early in my career I was told I was too introverted and I took that on board. Looking back I think should have told those people to fuck off. That's a lot different from having a shallow understanding of some technology you use or not understanding your employers business that well.

eru 6y ago

Well, one way to raise your minimum is by cooperating with other people so that they help out cover your minimum, you do theirs.

thebean11 6y ago

Interestingly a lot of the self-helpy books coming out recently say the opposite: that investing effort into improving strengths has a higher return than improving weaknesses.

niklasd 6y ago
I also heard that McKinsey adheres to that strategy when investing in training for their employees. Though that is only hearsay and it doesn't mean anything, they could also be wrong. But I think you are right when saying that the opposite approach also has a lot of followers right now.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I suspect what's best for an employer isn't necessarily the same as for an employee. Big employers want specialisation and obedience. That's fine while the demand is there but the narrower your specialisation the less the market needs to move to make you obsolete.
mywittyname 6y ago
Initial impressions are driven by strength while lasting impressions are formed by your weaknesses. So building up those strengths will get you the job offer, but bolstering your weaknesses is what gets you the promotion.

Der_Einzige 6y ago

Are you all claiming that people with one-hit wonders aren't succesful? Like yeah, Baauer isn't especially talented but he's going to be remembered forever for "Harlem Shake" Same with Sir mix-a-lot and baby got back. They have some pretty low minimums. If you make one great work - you can coast on that forever.

tiborsaas 6y ago
One hit wonders are statistical flukes. They seem to achieve something by being at the right place at the right time and delivering an amazing performance. I remember Harlem shake is a thing but can't remember who Baauer is. I know about Sir Mix-a-lot, but couldn't recall any of his tune. I think you need more than great work to get me remembered forever. The Beatles certainly achieved that, in year 3000 some people will probably talk about them. I'm not so sure about Vanilla Ice.

gowld 6y ago

That doesn't relly make sense. Everyone's minmum is 0 (or negative) at something. Knuth is famously proudly terrible at email and "keeping on top of things". Does that make him a failure? Of course not.

kick 6y ago
Knuth isn't "terrible" at electronic mail or keeping on top of things. He used electronic mail for decades. He's old. He doesn't want to use it anymore. So he doesn't. https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

asiachick 6y ago

That's about the most depressing thing I've ever heard. So basically if I'm not great at everything I suck. I guess Knuth must be amazing in bed, can play every instrument known, solve top problems in quantum mechanics, compete in all olympic events, etc or he's not having a good life.

Gibbon1 6y ago
There is a De-motivational Poster from back in the day with a picture of a skier doing an airborne yard sale. Captioned with 'If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly' A diamond right there.
sedatk 6y ago
He probably meant an attitude towards life; giving your best effort to even the most mundane task to get the best out of it. That would also elevate your success in what you do best, and your satisfaction in life in general.
blondin 6y ago
the original quote lost its full context and is giving the wrong meaning. knuth is trying to tell us to find joy in the most mundane things we do. he gave the example of cleaning the toilet, which his family does wearing suits. solving top problems in quantum mechanics is, by any means, no mundane task. but i have heard similar quotes before. about the joy of doing something being more important than the result. i think it's because joy is so contagious. shared joy makes you even happier, imo.
svat 6y ago
Based on similar things he's said in many previous interviews, I think you should read "success in life" as "happiness in life", etc: read the quote as something like: A person’s happiness in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum. If you enjoy something a lot but there are other things which make you miserable, the latter will hold you back. But if almost everything is enjoyable (or at least tolerable) to you, then you’ve got a good life. — see the example from the article where he got uniforms to make toilet-cleaning more fun.

ipi 6y ago

can someone mind ELI5 "the high minimum, high maximum"