
To be great, be good repeatably - stephsmithio
https://blog.stephsmith.io/how-to-be-great/
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AimForTheBushes
On habit building- If you're like me and have tried time and time again on
enforcing new habits and failed time and time again: try mindfulness. It's
easy to not live in the moment, especially so when a tech centered world makes
it so easy to live vicariously. It's okay to make lists of things you want to
accomplish and do, but it's not okay to do that often and not do what you
originally set out to do. It will become cyclic.

Be mindful in the morning and reflect on it before you go to bed. Be in the
present and realize you are the one making the decision whenever the situation
arises. Taking action or not, be present and mindful of your decision.

I've found simple google calendar reminders put me in the situation where I
have to make the decision to take action or not. They don't require any
interaction (apple reminders will stay until they're cleared) and they tap me
on the wrist and present an option: Run? Write? Work on project?

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badestrand
> "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to
> make his family rich"

That almost sounds like sarcasm to me. I currently live in South East Asia and
you know who gets up early every morning grinding 12 hour shifts with little
to no vacation? The million of poor people who don't earn much more than
"survive" money.

Okay, probably it's about context so if you are in a first world country you
just work hard and the wealth will come pouring in? Still sounds like sarcasm
tbh.

Of the top of my head the five most well-off people I personally know didn't
work harder than the average and I am sure wouldn't say so about themselves,
either.

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rainhacker
> if you are in a first world country you just work hard and the wealth will
> come pouring in? Still sounds like sarcasm tbh

No. Later in the writeup, the author talks about 'Habit of Progression' which
adds more context:

> "There is one thing to clarify: this habit of progression must come with the
> right inputs. Being consistent with something leading you in the wrong
> direction will unsurprisingly lead you in the wrong direction. So if this is
> the way you are constantly moving (excluding short periods of local minima),
> pivot until you determine what the right inputs are."

So it's not just about working hard. It's about working hard in the right
direction by analyzing the outcome of efforts and using it to refine the
approach to move forward.

~~~
cruano
To quote J. Cole, "The good news is you came a long way. The bad news is you
went the wrong way"

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stephsmithio
I spent the last few days writing this piece as I was reflecting and
frustrated with my short-term progress (or lack there of). This led me to
consider what I think greatness even is, which was almost therapeutic to think
through.

Curious to know what people think about this. Can "greatness" really be
achieved quickly?

~~~
zbobet2012
While I agree with much of your article, it's interesting to me that you cite
this tweet:

 _Building products, writing, and painting are not mental excercises, they are
physical ones.

Reading to improve is like watching someone else workout – it does almost
nothing for you.

To run better, run. To paint better, paint. To write better, write. To build
better, build._

I certainly agree that practice is the core of all increase in skill. However,
I've found that the differentiation factor of my skills comes from being
someone who reads, who looks for _better ways_ to run. From being someone who
constantly reflects on the practice that occurs. This is something that's
_well_ supported by research (the notion of deliberate practice).

Deliberate Practice:
[http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.PDF)

~~~
stephsmithio
OP here. This is a good point. While I certainly think there is value in
reading _how_ to do things better, IMO there is an upper limit on this. I more
often see people reading about X, Y, or Z, never to actually take action,
rather than the other way around. I also think you learn iteratively by doing.

However, I do agree that it is necessary to take a step back and learn from
others along the way.

~~~
douglaswlance
Are you suggesting that scientists shouldn't read about the latest
developments in their field? They should just start from scratch and try to
figure out everything without any prior knowledge or learning from others?

~~~
claudiulodro
Clearly she is not suggesting that, as nobody reasonable would ever suggest
that.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
> says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

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tminima
This post is amazingly written. I have been thinking about things related to
this topic and how to implement them in my life. It's been only a few months
since I actually started thinking about this. I realised that I am an average
person but slight burst of decent things in time. And to become great I have
to work towards it.

I have learnt that building habits is a big part of this. You need to build
good habits to actually reap the benefits of the compounding. My thinking of
habits came from Anki. While reading up on Anki, I noted the benefits of
compounding and consistent effort.

What I am still trying to achieve is the iterating process. To figure out the
right inputs to get the desired output. Once I saw there are a lot things that
I need to do parallelly, I created a schedule to work on them everyday, but
that was very difficult to follow. Something or the other was left out. So i
had to drop a few things from the routine. I am still trying to find a good
way to experiment and find the right path. This blog post gave words to what I
am trying to achieve, and how I can approach it.

Thank you for writing and sharing it.

~~~
stephsmithio
OP: Thank you for sharing your perspective! I think we all struggle with this,
which is one of the reasons I wrote the article. We are taught to believe
others are born great, but really everyone struggles to get from A to B.
Focusing on a few things that are more important (ie: cutting out noise)
certainly helps. Another book which I didn't mention in the article is
Essentialism, which may be a good book for the particular obstacles you're
facing.

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yingw787
IMHO I've found greatness is also very much a result of environment as well.
Not just in the "you are the five people you interact with most" kind of
thing, but also in the kind of bounds you face when shipping greatness. It
definitely impacts your scalability curve. Shipping a great product and having
business impact is kind of an O(1) deal; people see the great product, git
blame the source or look at release notes, and find out you're behind it, and
then think you're good at programming. Shipping a bad product because of
business or technical org constraints and then having to explain to people the
design decisions and compromises you had to make is very much not an O(1)
deal. I think the former definitely lets people stand on their own two feet
and merits, while the latter concentrates power in those who control
perception.

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azujus
I wonder what Alexander the Great would think about this. Did he think he
achieved greatness? Was he happy and satisfied? Or did he suffer from the
impostor syndrome like many "greats" of today?

~~~
simonsarris
> Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchus discourse about an infinite number
> of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, "Is it not worthy
> of tears," he said, "that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have
> not yet become lords of a single one?"

(Plutarch)

(But as far as we know he did think he was great. "Only sex and sleep make me
remember I am mortal", "If I were not Alexander I would wish to be Diogenes",
and so many other lines suggest he thought he was awesome, note those quotes
are my paraphrasing.)

~~~
ohaideredevs
Bunch of punks - Caesar cried at Alexander's grave too.

Still, to me, Alexander's father was the man who made Alexander, so he was
greater. (I don't mean by birth, the army and previous conquests)

~~~
abc_lisper
Many people don't know that Alexander was tutored by Aristotle! So yeah, he
had a great upbringing.

~~~
ohaideredevs
His father spent a lot of effort facilitating that as well, so he really was a
pretty cool guy.

~~~
lihaciudaniel
Yeah he even was proud when (as story goes) Alexander at a very young age
managed to ride a horse.

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vmurthy
In my personal experience, many people (including yours truly) give up because
we have vague ideas of what exactly great is. What exactly does it mean by
being a great programmer? Peer adulation? LOCs per day ? I believe that until
anyone finds a decent enough definition of what great is for him/herself, it
is rather hard psychologically to achieve anything resembling greatness. "If
you can't measure it, you can't change it" Peter F Drucker.

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coldtea
> _“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to
> make his family rich” - Outliers_

Yeah, billions of hard working people would disagree. Tons of factory workers
woke before dawn (and worked 10 hours or more) and never got anywhere...

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__rompy
He clarifies it later, saying that you must in the right direction. His whole
article is written from 1st world perspective, imho.

~~~
stephsmithio
She* :)

I would agree that the concepts are relevant to all. Certain parts may be more
difficult for those in varying circumstances, but I think the core principles
are still valid: 1) Iterating until you find a "good" path 2) Working towards
that "good" consistently

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whateveracct
This is why Shaq is the Big Aristotle

