The Quest to Be Good at Everything | Hacker News Reader

The Quest to Be Good at Everything

superorganizers.substack.com

189 pointsdshipper35 comments

There is one super power that is rarely mentioned: having been successful enough that only superficial knowledge and time investment is needed to leverage a workforce.

If you are the guy that spends 40hours per week diving deep into one specific topic because your business depends on having someone being an expert on something to that degree, you won't be able to lead a this well rounded life.

If you are in a Founder position and feel this statement hurts, extract yourself atleast a day a week from being an employee of your business and think bigger.

Let me guess: This guy is a Libra!

Seriously though, I can contribute one idea, which is to use radar or spider charts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_chart). I used to do this kind of thing, tracking 5-10 categories and trying to keep them all balanced. For feedback I would periodically assess how things were going in each category and give it a numeric rating, then plot these on a radar chart. The goal was for the resulting shape to be as close to round as possible, i.e. literally well-rounded. If the chart is bulging out in a particular area you've been working hard in, and lagging in another, you could theoretically take that as the signal to switch focus to the area that needs work. Also if you saved the charts over time you could compare the chart from let's say January 2019, against the one from January 2018.

For me personally it ended up making itself obsolete because it made me notice in a roundabout way that I am, and want to be, one of those people who works better at one thing at a time (or at least, fewer is better). But it did force me to do some things that were beneficial that I probably wouldn't have done otherwise.

Really helpful addition to the link, thanks for sharing! Even though I was aware of radar charts, I hadn't linked them for personal use yet and I've been thinking about how I can look a few different measures in my personal life. I was coming up empty. Sounds like it would complement interviewee's system perfectly.

I though this was a piece about how modern society pressures us to be good at everything, and how we are optimising ourselves to death.

Boy, was I wrong.

I’m not sure you were wrong.

After reading about him, I don’t have the impression that he’s particularly good at anything, rather just average.

I suspect he’s incredibly good at networking and interpersonal relationships.

Nothing about him is bad, but also nothing stands out. I didn’t see anything that was astoundingly good.

I’ve had a feeling for a while that getting to the 80th percentile in everything I do should be my goal.

Imagine a person that is the 80th percentile in distance running, powerlifting, swimming, basketball and Nordic skiing.

That person would be the best all-around athlete you’d likely meet.

The opportunity cost of getting beyond the 80th percentile is so high you should spend that time getting some other skill up to the 80th.

That may feel like being a master of none but the trade off is that you’re pretty decent at everything.

I know enough about surfing, politics, world travel, programming and music(among other things) that I can hold a conversation with anyone even though I’m not the best at any of them.

This has felt like a huge advantage over people who focus on one thing at the expense of being more well rounded.

80th percentile in what population? If you've been nordic skiing, you are very likely in the 99th percentile of nordic skiing ability out of everyone in the world.

Yeah it takes like a weekend of practice or study at many things to reach the 99th percentile. Most stuff’s not that widely practiced or known.

In the population that has actually ever done that thing. Or perhaps currently does that thing on an at least seldom basis.

Only 4% of the world even plays soccer.

Being in the top 10% of them puts you into global fractional percentages.

If it's not soccer, having done it likely puts you in fraction-of-fraction land.

Great question...my response wasn’t super clear on that. I’d say 80th percentile of people who do a given activity. That’s, of course, pretty vague but this is just a guiding principle for me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Everyone pursues different strategies to achieve different things. I'd praise you for choosing a deliberate strategy if I was your friend. I feel like more people should be deliberate with their time and energy, including myself.

One issue is that skills don't last forever. You lose them if you don't practice (and I'm not even talking about body decline). And you can't practice them all at once due to time limitation.

Besides, some skills decline slower than others. For instance, "technical" sports, such as skiing, boxing or swimming, seem to be more engrained in the body. Whereas running abilities decline pretty fast. I usually favour technical sports for that reason.

I’ve learned that unless I’m learning new skills my mind creates issues for me. Learning to dance, play an instrument, draw, sing — with no desire to become close to exceptional in any of them has benefited me in ways I couldn’t imagine. Just 1% better every month (although I don’t track it) in a relaxed manner, over time, without investing too much time (5 minutes every few days) is enough to make life fun. In the end all these various “unrelated” skills tend to link up. YMMV I went to “elite” schools and anything less than 100% was deemed failure. So wrong.

I have started walking down this path and I’m finding the same thing. Your comment was validating.

Step 1: Get lucky and win the lottery.

Step 2: Sit in your chair. Your cash reserves now give you access to opportunities that poor people don't have.

Not a very actionable plan for the rest of us.

An obvious PR piece on the front page?

Worth asking: how does wasting your time on being interviewed for this fits into this framework?

Box #2 - Invest: "For example, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to invest in building a reputation in a particular area so that I’m seen as an expert. "

A lot of what makes it onto the front page of HN are PR and marketing puff pieces. But it’s only considered marketing or PR when disagreed with.

Have met Henrik a couple times -- super fascinating, very down to earth guy.

Interesting to get a peek at what goes on behind the curtain.

> NoteToSelf Mail is a little app that I have on my home screen that lets me really easily send an email

Oh snap, I haven't thought the AppStore is such saturated platform, where there is specific app to send an email to myself - why FastMail or Spark won't be enough to do that? Isn't just two/one less click optimization app?

The app isn't used because of its functionally, it is used as a psychological hack.

> He ... has helped started business like ... Managed By Q (acquired by WeWork)

I’m wondering if it’s a good time to praise WeWork ties. On Managed by Q’s website (https://www.managedbyq.com/):

> We Manage, We run, We design, We staff

There are plenty of us who have built products which then got sold to companies who do not match our ideals. The flaws of our acquirers do not diminish our work -- we accomplished something by building a product that was interesting and successful enough that someone wanted to buy it in the first place.

> > We Manage, We run, We design, We staff

These almost sound like a pre-emptive positive corporate bankruptcy tale in the making.

using IFTTT != hacking a Google Home

Hack in the MIT sense.

it’s a lifehack. ish.

this is an advertisement thinly wrapped in some vague advice

What am I buying? Trello?

The interview platform/website?

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