
A lesson on thinking and acting long term - seapunk
https://threader.app/thread/1074063712254857218
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nine_k
There's no silver bullet.

Spending the proverbial 10k hours on something gives you mastery. This mastery
matters if it's a mastery of a right thing.

Spending 100 hours on 100 different subjects gives you an immense breadth of
view, and maybe a better chance to choose the worthy area for digging deep.

There's an obvious survivor bias in the messages of people who have spent 10k
hours on doing something _and succeeded_. They have spent their time and
concentrated effort on the right thing that returned the investment many times
over.

You don't hear much about people who spent 2k hours on something that drove
them to poverty, so they dropped it. They are seen as losers that wasted their
time on that silly thing. There are also people who keep doing something
completely unrewarding for years, because they like the process, or because
they think they can't learn anything else. They are seen as crazy. No matter
that they were or are exercising _the same_ perseverance that drove other
people to the shining summits of success.

I personally think a mixed strategy is best. Do one or two things long-term,
learn it deeply. Keep looking around and trying other things, and be ready to
de-prioritize your old "deep thing" and start to dig deeper at something else.

~~~
tokyodude
Right. I know plenty of people that spent 10k hours playing WoW back in the
day. That's not a judgement. If you enjoyed those 10k hours good for you. Just
guessing though that mastery of WoW is a not that useful of skill outside of
WoW

~~~
nine_k
High-level WoW team players, and also Eve team players, are known to be in
high regard in certain business settings.

The orcs and planets may be virtual, but the skills of team-playing, knowing
your teammates, strategy, resource allocation, quick estimation are very real
and transferable.

~~~
ThomPete
That's mostly the same reason they were highly regarded in WOW. I.e. it's not
that WOW made them that but rather their skills were expressed in WOW.

~~~
jcbrand
Skills get honed through practice. Sounds like their skills improved through
putting them to use in WOW.

~~~
ThomPete
Yeah but those skills could have been improved by doing other things too. I.e.
it's not WOW as such that just a vehicle for developing skills.

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ThomPete
_4 / what is actually difficult, and worthwhile, instead is to do ONE single
thing for a very, very long time. It's much harder and much rarer and results
in outlier outcomes much more often._

A friend of my parents spent more than 30 years building a famous watch called
"jens olsens world watch" in half size by hand (as in litreally everyhing is
done in hand also the wrenches which for some of them takes 400 years to go
around their own axis)

This is on top of a bunch of other things he built. If there is a modern day
da vinchi he would be it (he paints, plays music, writes assembler like it's
an artform, understand mechanical engineering and electrical engineering he
reversed engineered the Mac2 back in the days, I could go on)

[https://imgur.com/a/wfQNM](https://imgur.com/a/wfQNM)

He never brags about it so I have to do it because I think there are far too
few people like him left and they are the ones who really do things in life.

There is much to be learned by someone like him.

~~~
SubiculumCode
So many undergraduate research assistants want to be in the lab to do the
minimum time and effort, get the check mark in their cv, and move on. Then
they go interview with an impressive looking list of labs and projects they've
worked at, but when you inspect their thinking there is little depth. Then you
find the jr specialist applicant that stayed at one lab their entire
undergraduate career, shows some understanding and language surrounding the
basic problems in that field, and mental dedication to work through the hard
problems without bailing. That is what I valued in candidates. No matter how
tough it gets, they didn't give up.

~~~
ThomPete
Little depth is exactly the problem.

I am all for the expert generalist but you need to at least have tried to dig
into something really serious and spent the years learning to become really
good at something.

First time I did that was with music where you learn that you will hit
plateaus along the way were it feels like nothing happens until then suddenly
you are catapulted to an ever more accomplished level.

Luckily this still happens but it seems like it mostly happens outside of
academia because it's not been as politicized as much of that seems to have
become.

------
nopinsight
Markets reward useful uniqueness. Long-term focus yields mastery few have
achieved.

A path even more likely to lead to success is combining two types of expertise
in a fruitful way. In today's global economy, it is very hard to be among the
world's top 100 or 1,000 for a particular skill, even with years of practice.
It is quite possible to be among the top 1,000,000 in each of the two skills
that, when usefully integrated, result in a fairly unique output or skill set.

To elaborate on YC's motto:

Creative integration toward things people want.

~~~
hyperpallium
Markets reward useful _defendable_ uniqueness.

Making something people want is a foundation, but no good if someone else
copies it (and perhaps does it better amd markets it better through
capitalization).

I _think_ the YC playbook is if you keep improving it, it's hard for copiers
to catch up (so don't worry about competitors/copiers in themselves, look
fotward, not behind you). There's also a market advantage of being first -
people _like_ that, and you've have longer for news to spread about you.

~~~
nopinsight
Good elaboration.

You could say defendability is implied by uniqueness. Once it is copied it is
no longer unique. Better to have it spelled out though.

I used the word ‘toward’ to hint that there is no _perfect_ market fit. One
can only continually improve toward the ideal, which also keeps changing. I
think we largely agree. :)

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meta_AU
_the same way that if you lift for 3 months, it achieves nothing._

I'm probably missing the point - but that first 3 months of training is where
you make the fastest growth and can double the weight you lift (from untrained
to novice). Sure - you aren't going to compete at a world level after 3
months, but it doesn't seem right to describe it as 'nothing'.

~~~
pseudoramble
Agreed. Though re-reading it, I think the point may have been more about
quitting after 3 months and not so much that you don't gain anything the first
3 months.

> 5/ if I had only worked on a startup for a year, I would've gotten nowhere,
> the same way that if you lift for 3 months, it achieves nothing. Everything
> good in life comes from perseverance, but at the beginning, you're just like
> "I need to be somebody!!!"

It may be more about persevering beyond that arbitrary time limit and trying
to get to a certain real goal instead... maybe.

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llampx
How (and when) do you decide that your time is better spent elsewhere?
Basically the Silicon Valley catchphrase, "Fail fast"

I know that if I decided to spend my next two (or three or ten) years learning
Discrete Mathematics I would probably get somewhere. But what if I gave up
once I realized that I have more of a talent somewhere else and followed that
subject?

That aside, I find references to historical successes kind of a truism. Sure,
Amazon is successful and Jeff Bezos perservered. It doesn't mean everyone who
perseveres at their craft is going to be as successful as him.

------
sharadov
It's not about reading 52 books or reading 1 book 52 times. Your literary
journey should be all about discovery, if you really like an author then read
his omnibus. If you gravitate towards certain areas - then read the best
writing that is available. Books lead to other books and good authors always
name their influences. There is nothing quite like reading, when you read an
author's omnibus you are literally getting into his head and realizing he
is/was wrestling with the same existential dilemmas that you have/had.

------
vikiomega9
I'll leave one of Naval Ravikant's podcast here that contains similar advice
including putting down books instead of reading them cover to cover,
[https://fs.blog/naval-ravikant/](https://fs.blog/naval-ravikant/)

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myle
Deep work, the book, is along similar lines.

