[gdl]

> Without a doubt, one way to mimic the successes of these people is to do what they do.

Careful with that thought. If someone creates their own path, following in their footsteps after the fact will be an entirely different journey than the one they took.

That said, I'm curious as well. With the crowd that HN attracts, personal anecdotes can get pretty interesting.

[anemecek]

Sure but that is dependent on how low-level your definition of "mimic" is. I did not mean that I would do the very same thing. This might not be the most instructive example, but for example if someone said "I work hard all day long", you can certainly get successful as well by doing that. I guess I should have said "get inspiration" instead of "mimic".

[gdl]

Totally agree. Just figured I'd put that out there since some people waste too much effort trying to take on the superficial mannerisms and habits of successful people as a distraction from the more difficult task of actually getting things done.

[stretchwithme]

A few specific habits that could be more important than the right routine:

- Learning how to get yourself into a creative state - Automating non-creative, repetitive tasks - Discerning when one should delegate or seek help from others and picking the right way to do that for the situation. - Taking the time to learn principles/foundational material for a new tool. In other words, RTFM.