Comment by shartshooter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shartshooter | Hacker News Reader

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.

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 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.

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