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Comment by abstractcontrol | Hacker News Reader

> Probably one of the most ego-crushing realizations (if you're a nerd) is to discover that there are people out there MUCH more talented and higher performing than what you'll ever be, but with none of the obsession or pride. In other profession that's not really a topic. You can be a top performer in other professions, without a deep interest, clock out 4 daily, and never think about work outside work.

You could clock out, but I don't think the top performers ever stop thinking about work. Everything you've written here has to be wrong.

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Depends on the work. I've worked places (military intel) where you leave work at work, simply because it is impossible to take work with you home. Some of the people I worked with said that was exactly why they chose that line of work - so that they never had to think about work when they came home. Some of those were also top performers.

But I also knew other top performers that basically had geopolitics as their hobby, and would study OSINT (open-source intelligence) when they came home.

And obviously there are many other professions where you can do really well, and don't think a second about work when your day is over. Really depends on how your work is structured!

Some people are naturally talented at things. It’s no different than an average athlete who works extremely hard and an elite athlete who puts in half the work but still outperforms the average.

What? Elite athletes put in unimaginably more work than average athletes.

Elites who put in a lot of work are world class. You can’t outwork genetics.

I think what he meant was that you can take a group of people and train them for a sport. Some of those people (genetically elite athletes) will improve very quickly with minimal training, others can do massive amounts of training and never reach beyond a certain level.

Not necessarily. See George Best

Yes, this is what I mean. It's not that talent doesn't exist, but it's never the case that people on the top of their domain work less hard than others. In fact, it's the opposite. People don't have talent, the talent has them.

I promise you top performers aren't always thinking about work. There is proof in going detached from work problems and doing other things can help produce novel solutions. Same principle as getting a good night's sleep vs cramming the night before a test. Your subconscious does a lot of lifting. Never being able to put down work is just anxiety masked as dedication, in my book.

> Everything you've written here has to be wrong.

This is certainly incorrect.

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