That's such an insightful post! That's also why I find it so interesting when people career swap into engineering. They have a whole lot of domain knowledge and alternative perspective that can be incredible valuable.

Agreed. This is the same principle that is often given out as advice: excel at the intersection of fields rather than particular ones. The combinatorics generate a pretty ginormous space of possibilities to excel at even for 8 billion humans.

Wow this is superb life advice, thank you! You’ve given me a lot of food for thought.

If you would like to put that advice to practice, this book will help.

(The Art of impossible) https://www.amazon.com/Art-Impossible-Peak-Performance-Prime...

It guides you through discovering your mix of passions and strengths to land on what you might make you uniquely extraordinary.

This is true, but it creates a new problem: you have to find your multi-dimensional thing, which is tends to be quite difficult.

but thats the fun part

Most people deserve more fun

Well said. People and problems have a multidimensional nature. For me, one major key to finding happiness in work is finding an environment where the skills needed to solve problems is in high alignment with the two of three skills that you believe you're "good enough" in.

> Actually, being extraordinary is something most people can do.

I think that this isn't so different from the article's point, just phrased differently. But I also think it's worthwhile to remember that, while you can be extraordinary, you don't have to be. Giving someone permission just to enjoy something, without having to worry about whether they are extraordinary at it, is as important as reassuring them that they can be extraordinary.

Conversely, by choosing the axes differently, Olympic gold medal winners become ordinary people.

Also, being extraordinary in one thing (e.g. running) doesn't mean what people think it means because how many people actually try to become a professional runner? If everybody tried, Usain Bolt would be ranked #1000 or perhaps even lower.

Just to balance this out a bit... the alternate reality of "everyone tried" is kind of fictional, because a huge factor in high performers of their chosen sport/field/art is determination, resilience, imagination, visualisation, their psychology and finally personal desires - which are a product of their life experience combined with physiological predispositions.

In other words, what made Usain Bolt a gold medal winner wasn't merely physical potential and chance, but the mental ability to push his body to extremes and work at it every single day because he desired it that much and had the mental stamina to do so. In the "what if" reality, you would have to change everyone's mind to have the same psychology. You can have all the physical attributes and potential of a runner, but if you hate running and generally don't have much "grit", you aren't going to get far.

This "if everyone did x" is always a fiction, since it is impossible to get everyone to do the same thing at the same time. It is I believe a useful thought experiment, for the reasons you mention.

What if someone had the potential but not the determination to follow through. Or they did not have a way to train, or got injured the day they had the first competition, or the first training, or they did not like the coach or the teacher, or they preferred dancing or music instead of running, etc.

Your comment reminds me of a comedian who used to remark that for a person like Bolt it is not really extraordinary to do what he does: it’s his ordinary job. Extraordinary would be, say, a plumber dropping by the stadium on his way to work, outrunning Bolt, then quietly going back to his clogged drains.

“If everybody tried, Usain Bolt would be ranked #1000 or perhaps even lower.”

I’m skeptical. The people who do become professionals are heavily weighted towards the fastest runners. People naturally gravitate towards what they’re best at.

Yeah and running isn’t like say hockey where you need a load of equipment and a certain socioeconomic background to play. Literally every kid runs. Some are faster than others and some enjoy it more.

And some have older friends who are faster, and thus they give up and try something else.

As someone who follows soccer in the US, and specifically women's sports, there are some absolutely _fascinating_ reasons why that statement is way more complicated than it looks. There are so many factors — the means to access even rudimentary safe training and recovery, happenstance discovery by coaches or organizations, connections through friends and family — that leave me always wondering how many athletic talents simply don't pursue it.

SI ran a fantastic story[1] about Naomi Girma, a top young talent who's already cemented a starting position on the US women's national team, the holding and four-time World Cup champions. Considering the size and depth of the US talent pool, itself massive due to the relative dearth of women's team sports and the accessibility fostered by Title IX, and likewise also rife with abuse and corruption, the USWNT is arguably one of the world's hardest soccer teams to become a starter for.

Girma had none of the advantages of many of her teammates. She's Black, which is still uncommon on the USWNT and even less common among natural defenders. She's the daughter of an Ethiopian refugee and another Ethiopian immigrant, another rarity. She was discovered by a travel team — often difficult to join and expensive youth clubs — while playing at a YMCA, and stayed on a worse-performing team because she relied on getting rides from a friend's family on that team.

When it was overwhelmingly evident that she belonged on the better team, the team itself covered her rides to practice because her parents couldn't — in part by a parent driving Girma to a private school for pickup. Her coach promoted a feeder program to the youth national teams to her, without which neither Girma nor her parents would have any idea what her ceiling would be.

> “You know, my parents had no idea about the college recruiting process. They didn’t even know how to get me onto a club team. Even, like, what is AYSO? The concept of rec—all these little things—you have to learn that, and if you didn’t grow up here, why would you ever know what AYSO is? You’re not going to look that up. So I feel like a lot of things fell in place on my path because of the people I was surrounded by, and I’m extremely thankful for that, because I know I would probably just still be playing at the park on Saturdays—still having fun, but I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today.”

She went on to get a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, won national championships, became a first-overall draft pick in the US pro NWSL, and started for a San Diego expansion team that went to the semifinals in its first year. Girma was Rookie of the Year. She's considered a lock for the 2023 World Cup roster, playing for the defending world champions.

Her contemporaries as exciting young talents are in stark contrast: Sophia Smith, this year's league MVP and USWNT teammate, came up through a sports family where her mother, unlike Girma's, could afford to quit her job to cover the three-hour practice commute. She also had the advantages of a Colorado youth system that produced several other USWNTers.[2] Trinity Rodman is Dennis Rodman's daughter (itself a complex and fraught oversimplification of her relationship[3]). Olivia Moultrie's family was rich enough to build her a sophisticated practice facility, complete with her own pitch, as a pre-teen on her way to a Nike sponsorship and pro contract at 15.[4]

But if Girma didn't have a friend on a youth team who's mom would give her a ride to practice? If, instead of a supportive coach, she had an abusive one?[5] By her own estimation, she might still be playing weekend ball in a park with her dad.

Bolt's story is extremely well documented. But on top of the talent, and on top of the work to excel, to think there aren't hundreds of other kids out of billions with that same potential is difficult to reconcile. A faster kid, a better soccer player, a better wide receiver, a more clever pitcher might just not have a mom who can get them to practice.

[1]: https://www.si.com/soccer/2022/06/29/naomi-girma-san-diego-w...

[2]: https://www.today.com/parents/dads/trinity-rodman-opens-rela...

[3]: https://www.today.com/parents/dads/trinity-rodman-opens-rela...

[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/soccer-pro-olivia-moultrie...

[5]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/02/08/rory-dames-...

It's definitely an interesting thought experiment! A key question is how extreme outliers like Bolt are distributed. There's certainly a chance that there are others in his cohort who match or exceed his genetic potential, but 1000?

I also don't think you can assume the greatest outlier who has been discovered would be significantly exceeded by others who weren't discovered. If they could be better, my intuition is it would be by a very small margin.

I think it becomes even more obvious with team sports. Among males, Sweden is a top-tier ice hockey-nation but an absolutely disgrace in rugby while the opposite is true for New Zealand. There's a significant overlap in the talent pool for ice hockey players and rugby players so there's no reason why Sweden and New Zealand would be equals in ice hockey and rugby. Access to the sport makes all the difference.

As someone who grew up playing some backyard hockey, access to frozen ponds helps as well! ;)

There is some merit. Lots of people don't have the opportunity due to poverty, lack of access to good coaches, good competition, etc etc.

Would Bolt be #1000? Dunno, but if this were the multiverse then yes there is always someone better.

Well, Bolt himself was born into a poor family. Someone who has the genetic potential to be that fast is going to spend their whole early life being the fastest kid anyone around them has ever seen. Sure, some might not pursue it seriously for whatever reason, but any kid with that much inborn talent is going to know that they are fast, and others will know it too--that kind of thing gets noticed.

It's a bit like if a 12 year old is 6'6" and athletic... there's a pretty high chance someone is going to try to teach that kid to play basketball.

I think you’re overestimating the difference between an elite runner and the average (fit) person.

Usain Bolt is only about 15-20% faster than a decent high school runner. The difference was even less when Bolt was in high school.

That kind of difference isn’t even noticeable unless you’re timing it or racing. It’s not something that’s immediately obvious to everyone.

"Only" is not an appropriate term there. Everybody races when they're a kid, and it tends to be a win a bit, lose a bit, and always by a margin of couple of steps. Beating somebody by even 5% is an unbelievably huge margin in a race that is extremely visible.

In a 40 second race a 5% margin would be 2 seconds - enough to quickly turn around, sit down, and feign some yawns as you wait for the #2 guy to come in. A 20% margin? That'd be 8 seconds in a 40 second event. It'd look plainly comical.

I can’t remember ever seeing little kids running anywhwre near a 40 second race. 10 seconds is probably a bit long for an impromptu race.

Also Usain Bolt was 15-20% faster at his peak than a decent high schooler. He was nowhere near that when he was in high school. In addition to genetics he was also training much more than a decent high school runner would.

A huge component of genetic potential is a greater response to training. Someone like Usain Bolt could easily slip under the radar just by being uninterested in running.

You never played football, tag, or even ran track in PE? I'm also not entirely sure where you're getting your comments about his high school stuff from. He won both the world youth and junior championships while in high school, and was the fastest man alive in his age group - a record that stood until quite recently. He ran a 20.4s 200m in 2003 at the age of 17. His ultimate personal best and still world record would be 19.19 in 2009.

Incidentally he also wasn't interested in running. He was much more interested in football, but seeing one kid Bolt across the field led others to convince him to try out track and field.

I played American football as a kid, but I know plenty of kids who never played any sports outside of PE. And PE was mostly just jogging around a track, dancing, and other non competitive actives. Plenty of kids just half-assed PE, and never would have demonstrated to anyone any genetic proclivity for sprinting.

>Incidentally he also wasn't interested in running. He was much more interested in football, but seeing one kid Bolt across the field led others to convince him to try out track and field.

Being seriously into any team sport makes being identified as a gifted athlete of any kind much more likely. Most kids are either not involved in team sports or aren't trying hard enough to really be noticed even if they are genetically gifted.

In addition in many countries almost half of the kids are overweight, obese, or just out of shape, which probably swamps out any genetic benefits in terms of sprinting.

>He ran a 20.4s 200m in 2003 at the age of 17. His ultimate personal best and still world record would be 19.19 in 2009.

That's about 10% faster than what's considered a good time for someone that age, and that was after, by that time, a ton of practice. My point was that he probably wasn't beating other "fast" kids by 20% margins.

My overall point isn't that when participating in athletic events, a genetically gifted kid isn't going to be noticed. My point is it's very possible for a kid with Usain Bolts genetics to go unnoticed, simply because they aren't interested in sports.

The differences in speed between young kids are likely small enough that it's not obvious just from playing tag a few times that this kid is freakishly fast. And many kids will just never run 40 second races. It's very possible that whatever genetic advantages Usain Bolt had didn't even show up till puberty.

Maybe the kid is just bookish and doesn't play outside much, maybe he plays with older siblings so his natural ability is dwarfed by the extra year or 2. Maybe he gets fat because his parents feed him too much etc...

One thing I want to hit on is how Usain would look against a normal person. Imagine Usain, at his best, (at 17) runs a race against the 200th fastest other 17 year old, of all time, at his best. How do you think this would look? From your comments I suspect you think it would be a photo finish. We can actually answer this precisely with a bit of math (and record keeping).

The current 200th highest world record for a U18 is 21.04. Usain's record is 20.13 (my mistake). In the 200m you're generally looking at around 4.2 strides per second with each stride covering around 2.4 meters. So we have all we need. The difference at the end would be (21.04 - 20.13) * 4.2 * 2.4 = 9 meters, or more than 30 feet - multiple car lengths!

And that 200th fastest 17 year old of all time is not just a "fast kid". He's a physical outlier several sigmas away from the mean that would be creating similarly lopsided finishes at nearly nearly every local, state, and even national competition he entered. But Usain is just on an entirely different level than even that. So Usain racing against anybody even remotely normal would look like "fast kid" vs "extremely slow kid."

---

Basically it's not really possible to fail to notice this sort of achievement. In PE he'd casually run laps around everybody without even trying. And by football, I don't mean any sort of team event - just a bunch of kids grabbing a football, imagining some nets, and playing. Nobody would be even close to being able to keep up to him. Literally anytime there is any sprint movement in anything, he would be on top - by far.

As for the hypotheticals beyond this, I don't know. We might have to just agree to disagree. I tend to think people are drawn to the things they're good at. And with running it's basically impossible to not notice that you're this many sigmas away from the mean. It's not like we're talking the best Polo player.

>or more than 30 feet - multiple car lengths!

Yes in a 200m foot race someone who is 5-10% faster is very noticeable. But by that time Usain Bolt was already a well trained athlete competing in organized events, so of course he was noticed.

My agreement can be broken down into 2 arguments.

1. If we accept that Usain Bolt's genetic speed boost is the same throughout his life, so that at 4 years old he had a 10-15% boost compared to other other fast 4-year-olds with similar fitness levels--I'm saying that given the kinds of running and games 4-year-olds play, that isn't a big enough difference to guarantee that someone notices it. That is, it isn't guaranteed to swamp out other variables. Bolt at 4 wasn't likely faster than his 6-year-old cousin. Hypothetical fat Usain Bolt at 4 wasn't likely faster than his fast 4 year old friend. Hypothetical indoor sheltered Bolt who never played outside, probably wasn't faster than his fast friend who ran outside all day long.

2. We shouldn't accept that his genetic speed boost stays the same throughout his life. It's very unlikely that Usain Bolt was the fastest 9 month old in the world. It's very likely that at least some of the physiological differences that enable his freakish speed didn't develop until puberty.

Kids generally stop running around for fun outside of organized activities well before then. Potentially giving hypothetical Usain 2, plenty of time to develop other interests.

A deconditioned couch potato 12-year-old isn't going to be lapping his peers who play soccer every day after school, no matter his genetic potential--especially if he doesn't care enough to really try.

Culture matters too. It isn't a coincidence that Bolt came from Jamaica, which has a tradition of high level sprinting. If he was born poor in the US, my guess is he would have been a wide receiver or basketball player and only would have focused on running if it was clear he had no future in a more lucrative/higher status sport.

So we're digging our heels in that no one could ever be faster than Bolt.

> Well, Bolt himself was born into a poor family

Sure, but what about the really fast kid who was shot in Somalia or the other one who lost a leg to an unexploded antipersonnel mine. Or as innocuous as the really fast kid who didn't like the pressure of competition.

What about the people who were simply born earlier? Technology showed up in the 2 years that's making people even faster. Those throughout history were not given the same opportunity, but if they were, could they have been faster that Bolt? Possible.

Your skepticism requires that everyone be given an equal chance which simply isn't grounded in reality.

I mostly agree. Someone could definitely be faster. But I think you're underestimating how much of an outlier he is.

Not everyone wants the results of concentrating on a certain sport/job/hobby, even if they are naturally great at it. For example, many women (or men for that matter) might not want the physical result of being the world's best body builder, even if they are genetically predisposed for it. Being the world's best horse hockey might also not appeal to many, the prestige probably goes most too the horse and not the jockey. I'm sure there are other activities which are lacking in some aspect, which would make people who would excel at it turn away.

Also, as it takes some time to get past the amateur level and explore whether one actually had generic potential to be great at a sport, and that there are more sports than time, there's an element of chance whether someone hits upon the right sport.

> If everybody tried, Usain Bolt would be ranked #1000 or perhaps even lower.

Usain Bolt redefined the limits of the human body.

He's literally a rocket man.

There aren't enough extraordinary runners to make him rank #1000 or even lower.

> There aren't enough extraordinary runners to make him rank #1000 or even lower.

I do not want to diminish Bolt's achievements, but how do you know this?

> Conversely, by choosing the axes differently, Olympic gold medal winners become ordinary people.

See Michael Jordan trying baseball or every programmer who thinks they know everything about everything else because they know programming. One of my favorites is when an athletic guy comes into Jiu-Jitsu the first time and gets submitted over and over by one of the kids or women.

This comment reminded me of a video Tim Ferriss posted recently on Youtube which basically said something very similar: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kgO_Og-__HU

Very insightful!

I recently thought about this when I was thinking about my programing skills in my current job.

I'm not the best programmer there by a long shot. I didn't grow up programming at the age of 10. I don't have a CS degree.

But then I thought how nobody has the same experience as I do. I have a mixture of things I'm good at that make me unique and valuable.

Even with the single "job" like developer, putting out okay code that's well documented and tested is probably more valuable than just putting out very good code with barely any docs and tests.

Especially if you add some social skill to figure out what exactly needs to be built instead of taking ticket comment at face value then figuring out author of request had something else in mind once it lands in test environment.

The problem is even small niches can have ton of competition, and second, market share is too small.

With enough dimensions, everything is on the Pareto frontier: https://erikbern.com/2016/10/25/pareto-efficiency.htm

The curse of dimensionality.

> However, you can be extraordinary in your own unique way. For example, running. You may not be the best runner, but you could have a lot of insight into running and a good writer at the same time, and thus be extraordinary at writing about running.

Oh, my Lord, you type a people are just incredible. If everyone is extraordinary, no one is extraordinary. You’re only afraid to say this because saying it means that plenty of people will not be extraordinary and that kills not only their dreams but your dreams.

Just because you want to put all that stress in your life, does not mean you have to put the stress on everybody else’s life. My shoes are

May I recommend the coffee table-ish book, "Be Amazing"

Who is the author? A Google search for this title didn't narrow it down clearly for me. Cheers!

Maggie Koerth-Baker

The sad reality is nobody gives an F, if you are competent across multiple dimensions. You can be a competent software engineer with a very good business sense. However, a better programmer than you is going to get the software engineer role and a better salesperson is going to get that sales role. You will be left to grinding in a org that treats you as a cost centre.

It's worth pointing out that a competent engineer with a good business sense is the exact formula for an exceptional sales engineer.

And I'd say exactly what you need for a product manager too. And they tend to be the ones that make the key decisions in tech companies.

If your theory was correct we would live in a world run by specialists. But it’s actually generalists that thrive, start, scale and run successful companies. Specialist work for generalists.

* Certain kinds of generalists with skills at starting and running successful companies start and run successful companies

The generalists that don’t have the particular intersection of skills to be CEO end up being outcompeted by specialists for specialized roles. See: poor wages and working conditions for unskilled workers, who certainly have skills outside of work, but no skills that matter enough in the economy to get specialized jobs

Same is true for specialists. Only certain kinds of specialists will be paid highly.

Picking something that is not only interesting to you but also needed by the market is generally a good idea if you want to earn money. Otherwise it’s just a hobby.

"Picking something that is not only interesting to you but also needed by the market" is not always a feasible option. Good for you if you found an in-demand job that is interesting to you, but not everyone can find that.

Those are very good skills to have if you want to found a startup, or if you are less ambitious, you can build a side hustle that can turn into something that eventually covers all your costs. With good programming and business skills, you'll also stand out as a freelancer / consultant.

I match the parent's example almost perfectly. I'm a "good" programmer, "good" teacher and I have a "good" humor. My students (university level) really laugh sometimes at the stupid analogies that I make in class. For instance, this year I to teach operating systems concepts, namely processes, synchronization, scheduling, etc., with examples from construction workers and things like that (I've self built a terrace this past summer, that is why I use construction analogies - cement, paint, etc.). Some kids even say that they won't probably forget some aspects of the class because how funny (and stupid) some of the examples are.

But getting tenured? Here, where I live (Western Europe), only the number of papers and european projects you've been into matters, even if the outcome of the "research" of those papers or projects is nothing to be seen (who realy controls that?).

Existing systems - especially heavily ossified ones, such as academia - are the worst at rewarding exceptional novelty as described by GP. They tend to reward conformism (exceptional conformism, sure!).

If you feel like you’re reaching a glass ceiling, don’t be afraid to go outside that box. Record some lectures and put them online. Self publish a book. Start your own school. Etc. (The exact way you can color outside those lines will heavily depend on your context, but you want to be coloring outside the lines).

> If you feel like you’re reaching a glass ceiling, don’t be afraid to go outside that box. Record some lectures and put them online. Self publish a book. Start your own school.

Yeah, I have an introductory programming course that I'm developing (like how to think algorithmically with flowcharts and pseudo-code for beginners) adapted from another class I teach, and I'm exploring teaching platforms such as Thinkific and Teachable. I also have some other courses (building a 16-bit OS from scratch, basic data structures, etc.) that I would like to develop as well. This semester I have a lot of class hours, but next semester I plan to put them online (and maybe do a Show HN).

But thanks for your words! It is a confirmation that I really need to do something else (by the side, at least).

On the bright side, outside of a professional context people might care about the multiple interests and dimensions, and might find it fascinating enough to share experiences together.

That sounds absolutely perfect skillset for manager, that would be paid more than that software engineer

Being extraordinary is easier than just picking some random categorizations that you identify with and combining them. Just be yourself. There is no one else in the world like you. The odds of being you are less than one in eight billion. How's that for extraordinary?

Of course, like most simple things, this is far easier said than done.

Being unique is not what people mean when they talk about being extraordinary, though. With that term comes the connotation of not just being different from others, but being _better_ than others.

I understand that and am challenging that mindset. We are all seemingly in a hurry to diminish ourselves on the basis of external value judgments that are often arbitrary or unbalanced. Why do we value extraordinary athletes over extraordinary caretakers? If you are comparing yourself to others constantly, you are unlikely to reach your full potential, which is going to more or often than not inhibit you from being extraordinary in the conventional sense anyway.

If everyone is extraordinary in that way, like unique snowflakes, then the only really extraordinary thing would be to not be extraordinary in that way. Any property that is true for all stops being a meaningful differentiator.

Frankly, being extraordinary -- in the dictionary sense of being exceptionally special and remarkable, let's say being in the top 1% -- is something of a young person's conceit.

We all dream of making it to the top at one point or another. Nearly everyone fails to get there.

Early in life other people will indulge your fixation on this because you're young, but most of them aren't extraordinary either, so as you age, their patience with it grows thin. If you cling to a fixation on being extraordinary it will ultimately isolate you and tear you apart psychologically.

Fortunately there is an alternative which some discover as time passes. It is infinitely more powerful and useful than worrying about whether you're extraordinary or not, and will propel you to heights you never realized you could achieve.

The alternative is to compare yourself today only to who you were yesterday, and focus on always pursuing new personal bests.

By putting in the time and staying focused you can become uncannily good at almost anything this way. Far better than most people, and grinding out one little win at a time is surprisingly satisfying.

Will it make you the best? I don't know. This tactic is surely some part of how the best got to where they are. I doubt I am the best at anything but I have not bothered to check. In the end it doesn't really matter, you are able to become great and be happy, and that is more than enough.

I think this is kind of the point OP was making. You mention being in the top 1%—so now we have a definition of 'extraordinary'.

Now look at your life through every facet. Are you really not in the top 1% of anything? 1% is not even that high a bar. You don't even have to be the best on your block to be in the top 1%. Or even tenth best on your block.[0]

It could be anything that you're extraordinary at remember. Even if you want to limit it to creative pursuits, there are so many different musical instruments, art forms, styles of writing, types of dance, that with a bit of effort and specialisation, becoming 'extraordinary' is not that difficult, even before you start 'multiplying' skills (the best writer on running, the best ballroom dancing photographer, etc).

[0]: https://vlesdesigns.com/blogs/facts/how-many-people-live-on-...

I'm really not in the top 1% of anything, when comparing to the set of people who care about it. I'm mediocre. I think the point of the article is that part of growing up, for 99% of people, is realizing that. And realizing that you can still build a good life.

There's a significant difference between 'the top 1% of people' to 'the top 1% of people who care about a specific thing'.

The reason this is so significant is because now, your extraordinariness depends not just on you, but the thing.

If you're a drummer, for example, there are about 1 million drummers in the US. To be in the top 1% of drummers, you need to be one of the best 10 000 drummers in the US. One of the best 200 in the state. There are about 20 000 places incorporated in the US, meaning you need to be the best drummer in both your town and the next to be in the top 1% in the US.[0]

Compare that to go players.

There are around regular 50 000 Go players in the US. To be in the top 1%, you need to be in the top 500. Top 10 in your state. Best in your town and the next 39.[1]

But crucially, if you learn how to play go, and you practice, you only have to play better than 49500 players. If you learn how to drum, you have to play better than 990 000 people. And if you want to be an extraordinary guitarist, well, god help you.

Wanna be an extraordinary Tanana[3] speaker in the world? You can be the best if you can beat just 29 other people. Probably wouldn't take much study to be the best Tanana poet.

Examples are contrived and I've massacred the maths, but being extraordinary is not hard in an extraordinary field. It is hard to be extraordinary in a very ordinary field.

I agree though, coming to terms with whether you want to be extraordinary, and if so, whether you want to be extraordinary in a very ordinary field, is a part of growing up.

[0] https://www.drummerworld.com/forums/index.php?threads/how-ma...

[1]: Yeah, obviously this isn't true, because not all incorporated places are the same size. Spherical drummers in a vacuum here.

[2]: http://www.intergofed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016_Go...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanana_Athabaskans

It's harder to care about an extraordinary field, unless being in the top 1% of something is a goal in and of itself.

> Now look at your life through every facet. Are you really not in the top 1% of anything? 1% is not even that high a bar.

While I haven't yet framed it this way using your language, I'll share the belief that complexity science thinking is slow-brewing within me:

That the very network structure of our social fabric (as it has evolved) is selected to be just so, such that we have the maximum chance to each be extraordinary, given the existing meme pool. Small world networks are a goldilocks zone of clustering and nearness of any two nodes. The subjective experience of this small-world feature is that the average path length between any two random points is "surprisingly close". The math is such that any two people, aka any two ideas, aka any problem and its corresponding best solution -- that all these things are on average as close together as the math allows (while still preserving high clustering), by virtue of the small-world networks properties of the social graph.

The universe wants you to remix ideas, wants your mind to be a recombinator of the most diverse ideas, wants you to be a memetic vessel containing the most extraordinary set of ideas the universe can offer you. Because that's good for the collective endeavour of humanity :)

A lot of people missing the scope.

Getting to the top 1% isn't really hard. There are 8 billion people on the Earth getting to the top one percent means being in the top 80 million. I can think several things that I'm in the top 1% because most of the people newer do it.

The problem with the internet your reach is higher and you can see people who are one in the million or billion in one aspect of their life, but don't see anything else.

This is similar to the Scott Adam's advise- which was great: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/car...

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.

Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. I didn’t spend much time with the script supervisor, but it was obvious that her verbal/writing skills were in the top tier as well as her people skills. I’m guessing she also has a high attention to detail, and perhaps a few other skills in the mix. Probably none of those skills are best in the world, but together they make a strong package. Apparently she’s been in high demand for decades.

Favorited, if I become famous for my amazing talent by combining 10 different things, it's your fault.

I guess that's what you're extraordinary at, making super stars with just one comment ;-)

>If you take the entire sum of your own unique talents, and find a way to combine them properly, you can become extraordinary simply by finding a new way of looking at the world, even if the individual talents you have are not outstanding compared to others.

maybe i'm too pessimistic in the opposite direction but this kind of argument always sounds like appealing nonsense to me. appealing because we'd like it to be true, and because the number of possible combinations is great enough that it's not immediately obvious that it isn't true. but in reality, skills don't generally exist in isolation, and as long as we're still attaching some kind of objective qualitative value to being 'extraordinary' beyond just being unique, most people who are mediocre at two things are not going to significantly exceed being mediocre at their combination, whereas people who are extraordinary at one thing are (in my experience) quite often at least near-extraordinary at a few others.

Only reason to be sad about not being "extraordinary" (not "just" good but better than most) is if that is stroking your ego.

And this is just a mental trick to stroke ego more.

It's still just finding an unique way to stroke your ego in the end. I think learning to be happy without having to tell yourself "I'm better at this than other" all the time is overall healthier outlook. I get better coz if I'm doing something I might as well do it well, and for hobbies learning and getting better is just plain fun for me.

All I get from looking at people better than me at thing is desire to plunder their knowledge and experience to be a bit better at it myself. And working with people better than me is just easier, as I have to worry only about my own fuckups, not someone's elses. Well, except people that can eat what they want and not get fat, that I do envy, but then that's not a skill to learn.