
A Close Call: How a Near Failure Propelled Me to Succeed [pdf] - noch
https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202007/rnoti-p1007.pdf
======
quacked
I once read a very interesting, barely-upvoted reddit post titled "I suck at
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu". It was written by a black belt, himself a formidable
combatant and instructor, who no one would accuse of "sucking at BJJ". His
rationale was that compared to world champion BJJ athletes, he was barely a
blip on the radar of the sport itself. Although he had achieved significant
mastery relative to the everyman, or even the average advanced practitioner,
he was still woefully far off from the true limits of the sport.

This can a tremendously valuable mindset to take up in mathematics; especially
when one is a student learning under the factory model of modern school, where
one is evaluated relative to their peers and the institution itself, rather
than relative to the limits of what is possible. Countless "gifted and
talented" students have been done a tremendous disservice by being informed at
a young age by the system that they are "good at math" or "good at English"
because they show relative aptitude in memorizing and regurgitating simplified
models of advanced material.

Terry Tao is lucky to be so smart that he was already somewhat well-known and
successful by the time he learned the truth that these administered tests of
ability are arbitrary; it would be tremendously helpful for modern students to
learn the same, much earlier.

~~~
dvt
This is a great post, and I think you often tend to see that kind of humility
in top competitors -- _especially_ athletes. I remember a guy in my social
circle back at UCLA was an Olympic discus thrower: extremely talented, hard-
working, gifted, and intimidating. One of the most humble, respectful, and
down-to-earth people. He spoke with great reverence of the sport and his
competitors and teammates. My sister's boyfriend was an Olympic-level swimmer
and he has the same exact attitude.

From my own experience playing Counter-Strike at world-class levels, I found
that, generally speaking, the best players were the most humble and down-to-
earth; the ones that talked shit were not only bad teammates, but sub-par
players in general. These days, I'm much better than the average Joe at first-
person-shooters, but I always point out that I'm _actually_ pretty bad: I'd
get easily beaten even by mid-tier semi-pro teams. Interestingly, this is a
side-effect of our human brain not quite grasping exponential growth (or log
scales). Going from the 95th to the 96th percentile is _much_ harder than
going from the 50th to the 85th.

~~~
selestify
Why do you think this correlation between top-tier skill and humility exists?

~~~
toss1
I'd say there's several factors working in the same direction

At the very top levels, everyone has very close to the same level of
preparation in terms of physical training, equipment, and mental preparation.
A lot of the result comes down to your mental edge on a particular day, and
some luck. The mental edge is the most fickle and difficult part of the skill
set, yet it is virtually everything at the top. So, everyone recognizes that
they may have an on or an off day.

Recognition that just in general, a position at the top is fragile, and it is
not about your previous result, but your next result, which is uncertain.

Recognition that your competitors are also extremely good and prepared, and
respect for them also leads to humility.

Then, even if they've got multiple world championship seasons under their
belt, they see the context of the other greats in their sport (or similar in
their field).

The post-qualifying and post-race interviews in Formula 1 auto racing often
provide great examples. The top qualifiers will almost always say something
like: "we qualified well, we think we're prepared, and hope for a good result
tomorrow.". And after winning the race, it's about the team effort and the way
things fell into place to make the win. I can't recall hearing anything
resembling trash-talk in that environment.

------
austinl
This is something that afflicts a lot of younger, talented students. I was
able to breeze through K-8 without studying, then attended a challenging high
school where I went from a straight A student to a B/C student. It took me at
least two years to realize that I could no longer succeed by simply showing
up. Fortunately, this was great preparation for college. I saw many straight-A
high school devastated after their first round of college engineering exams.

I think this is an unfortunate consequence of our education system at-scale.
It's difficult for advanced students to be properly challenged until they
reach a certain reckoning point, which for Terence was impressively during his
grad school exams.

~~~
tiravia
similarly, I was able to go through k-8 with no effort outside of paying
attention during class. high school was more or less the same, not to mention
interests can easily wander during those years. in college I quickly
discovered I could get more or less straight Bs with almost zero effort and
figured the effort needed for the last 1 point in GPA was far too "expensive"
relative to the first 3 so I coasted.

never having explicitly failed during those years ill admit my level of "grit"
is lacking. after a decade and variety of circumstances i sit here, mid 30s,
saddled with a ton of student debt and no career. in the grand scheme i have
definitely failed; if this reckoning point (realization) had been reached as
early as mr. tao perhaps there would be time to turn things around.

~~~
keenmaster
If you turn the boat around in the next 5 years, you will hopefully have
another 30 years of a flourishing career, more than the entire career of some
prodigies who perished young. This assumes a projected retirement of 70 years
old. What is particularly exciting is that new industries are starting to
form, and any one of us can be pioneers in those industries (fintech, VR, AR,
AI, automated vehicles, drones, robotic process automation, Edge Cloud,
etc...).

~~~
BigHatLogan
Your comment and the parent's comment both resonated with me, as someone who
also finds himself "stuck".

What do you suggest that someone do in this situation--one where they want to
reset their career, carve out a new one, etc.?

~~~
keenmaster
I'm in the same boat (except I wasn't "stuck," I was climbing, but I wanted to
do something else), and my post articulates logic that I am using myself :) I
recently cold-messaged someone in a startup in one of those industries, and
they were surprisingly willing to carve out an opportunity for me. He's the
person who would be my boss and just needs to get approval from the CEO. Even
if that doesn't work out, I've learned the following lesson in various ways
over the past few months: just applying to jobs isn't enough if you don't have
specific applicable experience. That should be common sense, but somehow I had
fooled myself into thinking otherwise before. Career switching is a complete
grind. That's why it's so important to join a growing industry, do great work,
and hopefully never have to switch again.

I welcome comments from someone who successfully reset their career after at
least 5-10 years of working.

~~~
BigHatLogan
Thanks for the response. The story about cold-emailing your future boss
(hopefully!) is very cool.

And I agree completely regarding applying to jobs. I've sent out some
applications recently but it feels like I'm sending them into a black hole of
complete radio silence. Part of me thinks that I should go back to school to
do a complete career reset, but my academic performance was abysmal during
undergrad...lots to think about! Thanks again for the response.

~~~
tiravia
same - done with applying. has only consumed a massive amount of time with no
results. perhaps im just from the island of misfit candidates but shifting
focus for now to work on a reset as you mention. feel like im just too stale
to continue that path. diving into perhaps some of the things @keenmaster
mentioned, perhaps working on some certifications. either way, opportunity
ebbs and flows (imo) just need to be better prepared to take advantage.

best regards to both of you (and anyone else reading feeling similar
circumstances).

------
jeffreyrogers
Reminds me of a friend from high school who was one of the smartest people
I've ever known. In multivariable calculus we weren't required to do the HW if
we didn't want to. He never did homework and never studied outside of paying
attention in class and still got 100s on all the quizes/exams. He went to MIT
and failed most of his classes his first semester there. He'd never had to
study before so he didn't know how. Like Terence Tao though he's doing fine
now.

~~~
ISL
If we live long enough, we all find our limits. Learning to work within those
limits and succeed in spite of them seems like one of the great leveling-ups
of life.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Strictly speaking, I don't think that's true if you're the smartest person in
the world.

John von Neumann springs to mind, who did his mathematics PhD at the same time
as his chemical engineering degree, with a friend of his commenting that
_Evidently a Ph.D. thesis and examination did not constitute an appreciable
effort._ [0]

To my knowledge he never really failed at any of his intellectual pursuits,
but I could be mistaken.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#University_st...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#University_studies)

------
croissants
This essay also appears in a book called "Living Proof: Stories of Resilience
Along the Mathematical Journey" put together by the AMS and MAA recently. Its
a collection of essays kind of like this about near (or actual) mathematical
failures and what happened afterward. The whole thing is here [1]. Most of the
essays are from pretty "normal" mathematicians rather than super-duper stars
like Tao.

[1]
[https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/ebooks/pdf/Livin...](https://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/ebooks/pdf/LivingProof_WEB.pdf)

------
troydavis
Here’s the summary that Tao wrote at the time, for future Princeton grad
students:
[https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/tao_terence](https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/tao_terence)

Other students:
[https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/](https://web.math.princeton.edu/generals/)

------
johnnujler
I sometimes feel very uncomfortable reading such stories, especially when the
person in the story is a legendary mathematician. It is as if my mediocrity is
afraid of their excellence.

Maybe this is why we have so few Terry Taos and Ed Wittens, idolatry aside,
there is a kind of fear that lurks inside of most people. Realising which the
average joe distances himself more instead of striving to attain his full
potential.

