[hiAndrewQuinn]

Volume is incredibly important for any truly serious endeavor. Bryan Caplan's excellent post Do Ten Times As Much makes the point succinctly. [1]

I've come to believe the real reason people shouldn't pursue these kinds of sports or games professionally unless they're born with a deep thirst for winning them is twofold. First, if you love it from day one, the chances that you're actually better than average are higher than they would be for a randomly selected person in the population (e.g. Nike CEO Phil Knight really was able to run a 4-minute mile in college).

But second, deeply enjoying the game makes the requisite 10 (20, 50, 100) thousand hours you need to become a true pro go much faster than for someone who's just putting in the reps, and it even gives you drive to do related things in the likely case that that doesn't pan out (e.g., Nike CEO Phil Knight did not become an Olympian after college, he instead sold Japanese shoes out of his car for half a decade or so as a side hustle to track and field meets across the country while working a day job).

[1]: https://www.betonit.ai/p/do-ten-times-as-much

[markus_zhang]

I particularly agree with the second point. Having enough hours is absolutely necessary to grow into a pro. And the number of hours spent is a non linear function, in two perspectives, from my observation:

First, spending 10 1-hour session produces way less pro-ness than spending 1 10-hour session. Every programmer who attempts a difficult (pro) project can probably attest to this.

Second, not all X hours/days produce the same pro-ness. People have plateaus that seem to stuck somewhere. But you need those plateau X hours/days too. I have a theory that one can avoid as much plateau as possible by always challenging oneself with an almost impossible -- yet still doable project. But it's difficult to get right, so a lot of people get a very long plateau, or burnout, and then quit.

PS: So eventually, anyone who is serious about a career must spend his hours efficiently on high quality (aligned to the career path, while challenging, but not impossible) projects.

PS2: The freedom to spend one's time is absolutely important. Marriage and children could bring havoc to this freedom so people should think carefully before treading into the water.

[hiAndrewQuinn]

>Marriage and children could bring havoc to this freedom so people should think carefully before treading into the water.

Way ahead of you, I moved to Europe as a precondition of my getting married. cries in TC