10 ms·

Another equally important thing is choosing your battles: you have to not only work hard, but work hard at the right things. I could practice basketball for 1

by aneesh 18y ago

Another equally important thing is choosing your battles: you have to not only work hard, but work hard at the right things. I could practice basketball for 10,000 hours, but there's no way I could do it professionally. You have to figure out what your natural abilities are, and work hard in those areas.

PieSquared 18y ago
And be sure to avoid confusion 'natural abilities' with talents. I agree with aneesh that you shouldn't focus on something that you are inferior at genetically - obviously a seven foot tall guy will be better at basketball and a normal sized person if both play professionally - but make sure you don't give up by saying, "I can't seem to do very well at this one thing. Eh, I suppose it's just not a natural ability."
- mdakin 18y ago
  Spud Webb is only 5'6" tall. He played in the NBA for 13 years and won the 1986 slam dunk contest with a "180-degree reverse two-handed strawberry jam." He was better than all the seven-feet-tall guys in that contest in 1986. Assessing potential is hard. For example, one might assume that "height" is a phenotypical requirement for being an elite basketballer. But Webb proved that assumption is incorrect. You'll likely make similar mistakes assessing your own potential. So why bother? Do what you love and let the chips fall where they may.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    Anomalies aren't evidence. The strawberry jam was awesome though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-IoInRUjDM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-IoInRUjDM
    - mdakin 18y ago
      Anomalies aren't necessarily evidence but in this case, and in many important general cases anomalies can be critically important evidence. He and his career constitute evidence that "height" is not a requirement to be an elite basketball player. It's definitional and not arguable. In science today's "anomaly" is sometimes the evidence that leads to tomorrow's breakthrough.
      - fallentimes 18y ago
        It's not a requirement but there's a massive correlation between the two. It's just like when people say they shouldn't worry about monetizing because of Google.
        mdakin 18y ago
        We are discussing prediction of success. Noticing one or two characteristics thought to be shared by the successful is really quite useless; most people with those characteristics do not succeed. Most tall people suck at basketball. Some elite basketball players are short. The fact that most elite basketball players are tall does not really help us write our basketball-success-prediction algorithm. People dedicate their careers to solving this problem. It is very hard. Since this is hard and likely to yield garbage results anyway, and most likely only leads to worry, time-wasting and excuse-making don't bother with these thoughts. Instead, erase every doubt from your mind, get in the long boat, row west and find Valhalla. (Given Google somehow came up I had no choice but to bring Valhalla into the discussion.)
        fallentimes 18y ago
        The average height of an NBA basketball players is over 6' 6''. This helps us with our predictors of success. Sure there are other variables, but knowing this is very helpful especially if you had never watched an NBA game before. Source: http://www.nba.com/news/survey_height_2006.html http://www.nba.com/news/survey_height_2006.html
  - asdflkj 18y ago
    I met a guy one time who did what he loved for most of his life--he played the piano. Despite practicing for 8 hours a day for years, he still wasn't good enough to be a professional performer. (His situation is not uncommon, apparently). Now he's close to middle age, broke and bitter. So yeah, let those chips fall where they may, unless they end up turning your life into shit. PG's advice comes co mind: "Stay upwind". Playing basketball or the piano is not upwind, so it might be wise to forgo those things even if you love them.
    - wheels 18y ago
      I think the case you mention is more about having reasonable expectations than staying upwind. If you're studying as a musician and targeting symphonic performance as a career goal, you need to realize that you're going into a field which maybe has a couple dozen job positions open up per year world wide. Being the 200th best clarinet player in the world, despite being statistically very impressive, means that you still won't be able to work as professional symphonic performer. On the other hand, if you set that as a nice-to-have goal, but are fine working as a studio musician or teacher, it becomes a much more attainable goal. Fortunately, as a software developer, even if you're only one of the top several thousand you have a pretty big chance of doing impressive stuff. My sister is about to finish a degree in music from a decent conservatory, but I'm glad she decided to double major half-way through. She's very good, but she doesn't have what it takes to be competitive in a race for maybe a dozen open positions every year for her instrument.
Retric 18y ago
If you had spent 10,000 hours practicing basketball you would probably be better than anyone you know at the game. Granted if your short or old there are limits but a tiny fraction of the populous really focus on getting better for 10,000 hours.
time_management 18y ago
I think the difference between athletic and intellectual endeavors is that the genetic factors necessary for reaching the highest levels are fairly well-understood, and also known to be very rare. By contrast, we don't know how rare potential great writers or programmers are; they might be fairly common. If there is a natural basis for greatness in these fields, we don't have any way of testing for it.
migpwr 18y ago
If you practiced basketball for 10,000 hours then you would be fucking awesome, regardless of having a contract. The right things don't exist... or have we already forgotten the whole "do what you love" concept?
- aneesh 18y ago
  Loving what you do is necessary, but not sufficient. What you do should be at the intersection of what you love and what you're good at.
  - mdakin 18y ago
    How do you know you're good at something a priori without spending the 10,000 hours to find out empirically?
    - aneesh 18y ago
      You do what statisticians do ... take a small sample and estimate. Spend 20 hours each doing 10 different things, and then pick 2-3 of them to spend 200 hours doing. Then pick the one. While it may take 10,000 hours to be truly awesome, you can probably get a sense of being "good" at something in a much smaller amount of time.
- xiaoma 18y ago
  You wouldn't be "fucking awesome at basketball, even after 10000 hours of practice if you were crippled, pushing 90, blind or disadvantaged in a number of other ways. It's not an easy truth to accept, but the playing field is not level and while the human will is capable of amazing feats, there are limits.

by aneesh 18y ago

PieSquared 18y ago

And be sure to avoid confusion 'natural abilities' with talents. I agree with aneesh that you shouldn't focus on something that you are inferior at genetically - obviously a seven foot tall guy will be better at basketball and a normal sized person if both play professionally - but make sure you don't give up by saying, "I can't seem to do very well at this one thing. Eh, I suppose it's just not a natural ability."

mdakin 18y ago
Spud Webb is only 5'6" tall. He played in the NBA for 13 years and won the 1986 slam dunk contest with a "180-degree reverse two-handed strawberry jam." He was better than all the seven-feet-tall guys in that contest in 1986. Assessing potential is hard. For example, one might assume that "height" is a phenotypical requirement for being an elite basketballer. But Webb proved that assumption is incorrect. You'll likely make similar mistakes assessing your own potential. So why bother? Do what you love and let the chips fall where they may.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Anomalies aren't evidence. The strawberry jam was awesome though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-IoInRUjDM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-IoInRUjDM
  - mdakin 18y ago
    Anomalies aren't necessarily evidence but in this case, and in many important general cases anomalies can be critically important evidence. He and his career constitute evidence that "height" is not a requirement to be an elite basketball player. It's definitional and not arguable. In science today's "anomaly" is sometimes the evidence that leads to tomorrow's breakthrough.
    - fallentimes 18y ago
      It's not a requirement but there's a massive correlation between the two. It's just like when people say they shouldn't worry about monetizing because of Google.
      - mdakin 18y ago
        We are discussing prediction of success. Noticing one or two characteristics thought to be shared by the successful is really quite useless; most people with those characteristics do not succeed. Most tall people suck at basketball. Some elite basketball players are short. The fact that most elite basketball players are tall does not really help us write our basketball-success-prediction algorithm. People dedicate their careers to solving this problem. It is very hard. Since this is hard and likely to yield garbage results anyway, and most likely only leads to worry, time-wasting and excuse-making don't bother with these thoughts. Instead, erase every doubt from your mind, get in the long boat, row west and find Valhalla. (Given Google somehow came up I had no choice but to bring Valhalla into the discussion.)
        fallentimes 18y ago
        The average height of an NBA basketball players is over 6' 6''. This helps us with our predictors of success. Sure there are other variables, but knowing this is very helpful especially if you had never watched an NBA game before. Source: http://www.nba.com/news/survey_height_2006.html http://www.nba.com/news/survey_height_2006.html
- asdflkj 18y ago
  I met a guy one time who did what he loved for most of his life--he played the piano. Despite practicing for 8 hours a day for years, he still wasn't good enough to be a professional performer. (His situation is not uncommon, apparently). Now he's close to middle age, broke and bitter. So yeah, let those chips fall where they may, unless they end up turning your life into shit. PG's advice comes co mind: "Stay upwind". Playing basketball or the piano is not upwind, so it might be wise to forgo those things even if you love them.
  - wheels 18y ago
    I think the case you mention is more about having reasonable expectations than staying upwind. If you're studying as a musician and targeting symphonic performance as a career goal, you need to realize that you're going into a field which maybe has a couple dozen job positions open up per year world wide. Being the 200th best clarinet player in the world, despite being statistically very impressive, means that you still won't be able to work as professional symphonic performer. On the other hand, if you set that as a nice-to-have goal, but are fine working as a studio musician or teacher, it becomes a much more attainable goal. Fortunately, as a software developer, even if you're only one of the top several thousand you have a pretty big chance of doing impressive stuff. My sister is about to finish a degree in music from a decent conservatory, but I'm glad she decided to double major half-way through. She's very good, but she doesn't have what it takes to be competitive in a race for maybe a dozen open positions every year for her instrument.

Retric 18y ago

If you had spent 10,000 hours practicing basketball you would probably be better than anyone you know at the game. Granted if your short or old there are limits but a tiny fraction of the populous really focus on getting better for 10,000 hours.

time_management 18y ago

I think the difference between athletic and intellectual endeavors is that the genetic factors necessary for reaching the highest levels are fairly well-understood, and also known to be very rare. By contrast, we don't know how rare potential great writers or programmers are; they might be fairly common. If there is a natural basis for greatness in these fields, we don't have any way of testing for it.

migpwr 18y ago

If you practiced basketball for 10,000 hours then you would be fucking awesome, regardless of having a contract. The right things don't exist... or have we already forgotten the whole "do what you love" concept?

aneesh 18y ago
Loving what you do is necessary, but not sufficient. What you do should be at the intersection of what you love and what you're good at.
- mdakin 18y ago
  How do you know you're good at something a priori without spending the 10,000 hours to find out empirically?
  - aneesh 18y ago
    You do what statisticians do ... take a small sample and estimate. Spend 20 hours each doing 10 different things, and then pick 2-3 of them to spend 200 hours doing. Then pick the one. While it may take 10,000 hours to be truly awesome, you can probably get a sense of being "good" at something in a much smaller amount of time.
xiaoma 18y ago
You wouldn't be "fucking awesome at basketball, even after 10000 hours of practice if you were crippled, pushing 90, blind or disadvantaged in a number of other ways. It's not an easy truth to accept, but the playing field is not level and while the human will is capable of amazing feats, there are limits.