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Comment by biztos | Hacker News Reader

One of the original, and most effective, competition hacks is to convince people that you sleep less than they do.

When someone tells you they sleep 5 hours a night then run two miles and take a 15-minute cold shower then start their work day, 85% of the time they are lying, 10% of the time you will have already noticed the effects of chronic sleep deprivation, and 5% of the time it's drugs.

But this has been a surefire way to put your competitors on the back foot for hundreds, probably thousands of years.

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Also no breaks at work, lunch is for wimps. Refer to Will Smith saying how he would die on a treadmill rather than lose. Watch overwork porn like Suits or any legal drama.

I believe in napping, not lunch.

I've noticed my energy dips very significantly after lunch, whereas if I nap for 30 mins, I get a burst of energy and focus.

I also got down to a healthier weight.

If you read enough of those "day in the life" articles in newspapers about the daily routine of famous/successful people, you realise that they are probably complete fabrications. Even if it's not for competition purposes, convincing people that you do mad stuff like get up at 2am for a kale cleanse, followed by three hours of meditation is fun. And on top of that, it adds to the razzle-dazzle and gets people talking about you. That's why Michael Jackson pretended to sleep in an oxygen tent.

You need to account for genetic outliers.

IIRC, Jocko Willink believes that his ability to function on little sleep is genetic, he just doesn't need much of it.

He has mentioned that this was a running joke in the Seal teams, which presumably consist of people already selected for their ability to function on little sleep, not your average "7 - 8 hours of sleep" folks.

But then normal people who need an average amount of sleep start "getting after it" by waking up at 4.30 AM because that's what Jocko does.

You can wake up at 4.30 AM as a normal person, but you'd need to go to sleep at 8.30 PM - 9.30 PM for that to be sustainable.

You can't "discipline equals freedom" yourself into optimal performance under perpetual sleep deprivation.

When you listen to Jocko talk about himself, you are not getting an honest accounting about an actual human being

Your are being given a story created by Jocko to build the Jocko mythos. Jocko will not let any truths get in the way of a good story about the mythical Jocko. His artisinal leather boots and cologne don't sell themselves, you know.

I tend to believe what he says because I don't get the "narcissist cult leader" vibe from him.

I do get that vibe from the vast majority of popular content creators in the "hustle" niche, though.

No, some people have a genetic mutation that allows them to sleep for 5 hours a day.

Fascinating, and true about the mutation:

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...

So I should update the above to include some percentage who are lying about having this mutation, and an extremely minuscule likelihood your sales manager actually happens to have it. Second prize is a set of 23andMe test kits.

Are there?

Not saying they don't exist. But I've yet to meet someone who only sleeps 5 hours a day, doesn't have bags under the eyes, and doesn't fall asleep in every meeting.

Tricking competition like that is really a zero sum game when it comes to mental health. I don't recommend doing that at all. You don't want to be in an environment like that even if you've contributed to its existence, you're not in control anymore.

> But this has been a surefire way to put your competitors on the back foot for hundreds, probably thousands of years.

So there examples of this?

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