7 ms·

Shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it

165 points by inetsee 3y ago

d--b 3y ago
That’s utter bullshit. To correct the metaphor: you don’t paint the target yourself, the target paints itself and it’s quite lucky if your arrow is somewhere in it.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Funny he pins Springsteen’s success on his lyricism when he was using a rhyming dictionary to write basically all of Welcome to Asbury Park and was obviously aping the blue collar poeticism of Bob Dylan. I love Springsteen, but it’s mostly because the E Street band is absolutely bonkers good.
- selcuka 3y ago
  > he was using a rhyming dictionary Apparently manual LLVMs were a thing back then.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    What is LLVM here, 'large language vector models' (not a term I know)? Or a typo for LLM?
    - richrichardsson 3y ago
      Most likely just a muscle memory typo: https://llvm.org/ https://llvm.org/
      - selcuka 3y ago
        Yeah, it's a typo. Not sure whether I was thinking of LVM (Logical Volume Manager) or LLVM...
- rocketbop 3y ago
  Regarding your mention of rhyming dictionaries, it's perhaps not widely known, but they are not considered cheats by most songwriters, but rather essential tools of the trade, like code editors or inline docs for programmers. If you pointedly refuse to use one you're not being more authentic, you're just making your job much harder. At the risk of destroying the mystique of the craft, I will also say that they are not used in the way you might think. Instead of writing the second line of a verse and then looking for a rhyming word that somehow fits, it's common to compile lists of relevant rhymes to your starter material and theme, and work backwards, creating lines that connect to the rhymes. If you do this the other way around it's very hard to write meaningful verses without abandoning your rhyming scheme.
- markeibes 3y ago
  Have you Read the lyrics to "For You" recently? It's not the rhymes that make them give me goosebumps
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Listen to his Sessions Band recordings, particularly Live in Dublin.
whiddershins 3y ago
This makes the most sense when there is an oversupply of arrows for a given bullseye. If, otoh, there is a massive shortage of something and you can supply that thing, no need to reinvent the wheel.
anigbrowl 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy Of course, your ability to hit a target in reality has nothing to do with the number of other people aiming at it - in this case, Bruce Springsteen's ability to write great songs is not constrained by the existence of many other brilliant songwriters. This sort of free-association discourse seems very popular in marketing/ entrepreneurial/ motivational blogging but sadly it's not that informative or educational.
- djmips 3y ago
  Plus, it's been shown that there's plenty of equally talented musicians as Bruce Springsteen. He just edged the others out by a process that we might as well call luck.
  - ojbyrne 3y ago
    Some luck perhaps, but also a reputation (well deserved imo) of working very very hard for a very long time. His predilection for 4 hour long concerts was well known in the eighties.
    - tasty_freeze 3y ago
      There is more to it than just hard work. There are a lot of people who would be able to put on a four hour show, but would people want to watch it? Four hour concerts are celebrated only if the entertainer can grip the audience for four hours.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  The definition of great is relative. If too many people write great songs they become average songs.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    They should really have used an example like John Smith who made it to Level 6 SWE at Google instead of Level 4, because he kept his passion for low level coding (even though everyone was say "do web programming") or something. But that would be too prosaic I guess!
blendergeek 3y ago
In accordance with Hacker News guidelines the headline should be: The key to becoming extraordinary.
- dang 3y ago
  That title is linkbait and therefore the submitter was correct to change it, according to the guideline: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. They did an unusually tasteful job of finding a representative phrase from the article to serve as a better title. Well done! Edit: oops - it was a mod that edited the title. But I didn't know that when I wrote the above :)
  - vultour 3y ago
    I don't see how the current title is any less linkbait, in fact the original would have never made me want to check it out.
    - bmacho 3y ago
      Very true. Clear, true title > mysterious title. In general, but according to the HN clickbait title rules as well.
      - dang 3y ago
        Mysterious titles aren't necessary linkbait. Not everything should explain itself right away—that follows from the principle of curiosity—and we've always taken the position that it's good for readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22work%20a%20little%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
        bmacho 3y ago
        Mysterious titles are linkbait from the user perspective. > Mysterious titles aren't necessary linkbait. Not everything should explain itself right away—that follows from the principle of curiosity—and we've always taken the position that it's good for readers to have to work a little. The HN guideline speaks against 'linkbait': Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. While it does not specify what 'linkbait' means, I believe the HN guideline wants links to be informative about their content. What else?
Gustomaximus 3y ago
This is a big marketing lesson in general. All to often I see managers tell me they want to be the <insert something popular> brand. More often than not I ask them is that true about this company? Many don't see the connection between promoting something true to your core vs what you want to be perceived as. Some literally feel offended no being what they want to be even when it's clear. The line I reuse is, "Find a fundamental truth, then celebrate it" Truth doesn't mean you cant polish and choose the best angle, but the truth must be there and exist today. One of the classic examples is the Guiness dancing man. They literally celebrated how long it takes to pour a Guiness vs ignoring or tying to make out it's not that long. Brilliant marketing: https://youtu.be/69MpLiYhsXw https://youtu.be/69MpLiYhsXw
- themodelplumber 3y ago
  It's very similar to the career-focused work carried out in the field of personality type. I used to go to organizations and interview members, and then help describe to them where their arrow was going to consistently land, based on the favored personality-perspectives of those who worked there. You'd quickly get a picture of how everybody worked together, and then it'd click. Boom, "if there's a way to paint a target right about... here, so to speak, definitely do it." That kind of thing. It was interesting to me because the work often showed a very sharp relief around the concept of "core self" and "projected persona". A lot of people run fantasy businesses and effectively hallucinate what it is they do, or offer. This feels like a tremendous mission to them of course, and it provides important energy. But you had to be very careful about telling people that the persona--or the "who I want people to think I am / we are" was by definition generally less available in terms of raw productivity energy. This would tend to kick the logic stool out from underneath their value proposition. Then they automatically think, "of course, so life has to be boring." IOW if you were telling an architectural illustration firm, established and profitable after years of hard work, that they were basically a political advocacy organization by default, and probably couldn't _not_ be that if they tried--that was not really something you could just come out and say to everybody. So to this day I'm very familiar with orgs out there that are hired for architectural illustration or whatever, and then the topic of political maneuvering comes up, and the client suddenly pulls them in closer, and later keeps asking for illustration work in the future, because...well, probably because they like the huge discount they get on political strategy! That the vendor doesn't want to look at their own work this way is not the client's problem, and the accompanying under-valuing of their services definitely seems to be a covert benefit.
whartung 3y ago
If I’m not mistaken, the concept of shooting and drawing the target around where it hit is known as “Kentucky windage”. Edit: apparently I am mistaken.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Texas Sharpshooter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy
RosanaAnaDana 3y ago
'This above all: to thine own self be true' -Polonius
vxNsr 3y ago
This is a good idea but the piece reads like an idealistic LinkedIn post that’s been overshared and rewritten a thousand times.
tinkertamper 3y ago
I was hoping this was about my coworkers tuning on our cloudwatch alarms until pagerduty stops calling
khazhoux 3y ago
Ridiculous hogwash. Springsteen didn't "paint a target around his arrow." He is just insanely talented in a way that resonates with millions of people. Step 1: Be Springsteen Step 2:
- themodelplumber 3y ago
  Are they mutually exclusive? Is it possible that Springsteen could have benefited from painting more of a target around some of those arrows? Or is that like asking if he has any regrets or made any mistakes... Simply obvious?
  - khazhoux 3y ago
    > Is it possible that Springsteen could have benefited from painting more of a target around some of those arrows? The premise of this article is that Bruce "doubled-down" on his strength: song-writing. The life-lesson being that we should focus on our individual strengths instead of chasing someone else's strengths. But I think Bruce just did his thing, and it happens to be that he was really-really good at it. I don't think he chose to focus on lyrics vs guitar skills or vocal skills. He just wrote songs and played guitar and sang --all to the best of his ability-- and it turned out that the sum of three was phenomenal. The author is correct in his lesson. But Bruce is not an example of it. Instead, find a person who failed repeatedly while chasing something they were not great at, then found success after consciously switching gears and being more true to their own strengths.
    - themodelplumber 3y ago
      > But Bruce is not an example of it. Instead, find a person who failed repeatedly while chasing something they were not great at, then found success after consciously switching gears and being more true to their own strengths. It's weird because GPT is telling me this is exactly how Born to Run happened. Especially if you equate "something they were not great at" with "not having full creative control".
      - 3y ago
noufalibrahim 3y ago
A big point that the article is missing is the work put in. If you're the kind of person that shoots several arrows, one (or more) of them is bound to hit and then you double down. It's a mix of luck, insight into opportunities, timing etc. Not a reliable formula for success but one that increases chances. Just doing a lot of work opens up opportunities that idle planners can't even imagine.
- atorodius 3y ago
  Well put. Whenever people say „talent“ it’s important to keep in mind it’s usually a lot of work + luck. But few want to put in the work
  - noufalibrahim 3y ago
    Yes. The passion, talent etc. follow the work. That's been my experience.
  - adversaryIdiot 3y ago
    I'd actually say that there is a shortage of opportunity and that most people are willing to put in the work or already have put in the work but it was just never fruitful
plq 3y ago
Oh sure, do that. But don't forget that these kinds of articles are written by lucky people whose "targets" were of interest to others. Would you care if I told you I held a world record in the 98m sprint? Embrace your weirdness, but unless you are lucky enough to have a weirdness that resonates with people, you are just an outcast. Enjoy everything in moderation, including your qualities that may come off as unusual to others, whatever they may be. You are probably an ordinary person. Chill out and just do your best.
- toxik 3y ago
  I think this is on point, and also: an ordinary person is extreme, ie, there will be parameters outside the normal interval. This is because there are so many dimensions of personality, and the higher the number of dimensions, the more surface-to-volume you get for a given volume. So if personalities are sampled from a hypersphere, it is likely to get a point on the surface in the high dimensional case.
- josephg 3y ago
  > Would you care if I told you I held a world record in the 98m sprint? .. unless you are lucky enough to have a weirdness that resonates with people, you are just an outcast. Maybe living an enjoyable life isn't about making a name for yourself. The point isn't to do something that other people find interesting. Its to do something you find interesting. One of my old friends from grade school is an international coffee judge. Every year he goes to some big coffee event where he meets a lot of the growers of coffee from all over the world. He drinks a lot of coffee, judges which beans are the best that year and places a bunch of orders on behalf of multinational coffee companies for coffee beans from farmers. Do I care about coffee? No. Is he famous? No. But he seems to be having a great time. He's not an outcast. The opposite - he's found his people. I'm kind of the same. I've been working on collaborative editing systems for the last decade. Why? I don't really know. They're just full of nice puzzles that are fun to solve. I've written some systems in my niche which have been world firsts. And some hold world records for performance. I don't do it because you - or anyone else cares. I do it because I care. Because I enjoy this kind of work. There's maybe about 50 people in the world who work on this stuff. Thats more than enough community for me. Maybe we are all oddballs. Ok by me. The alternative sounds boring.
markeibes 3y ago
The thing that barely anybody seems to mention is that what elevates Springsteens best moments is Roy Bittan's piano playing.
atorodius 3y ago
I was hoping the piece would be about this sentence from the intro > Here was this 73-year-old guy dancing, jumping, and sliding across the stage, pulling off moves that would put people in their 30s to shame How does one keep so fit all the way to 73?
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Dancing the proto-Carlton keeps you young.
- arp242 3y ago
  Outside of the obvious things you can do (or shouldn't do) for your health, it kind of comes down to genetics and luck. Remember Pope John Paul II in his final years, about as infirm as you can get short of actually dying? He lived a pretty healthy life, was known as "healthy" when appointed (which stood out as several of the previous popes had health issues), but was "only" 84 when he died and suffered from serious health issues ten years prior to his death. Meanwhile Marshall Allen is still playing shows at 98. Yes, ninety-eight. It ought not be possible but somehow it is. This seems to have been recorded last month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1Ndcy_ZQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1Ndcy_ZQE
mrhektor 3y ago
While I agree that the article is a bit specious, I think there is a deeper argument to be made about Springstein's specific kind of lyrics. As mentioned in the article, his lyrics are about blue-collar workers and the associated struggles and life. This was probably an under-served / poorly talked about community when he was on the rise. It's just a case of focussing on an under-served market. I'm not sure of Springsteins' background, but if he came from a blue-collar background, then he would have known his community / market really well. So I guess the lesson is, serve an under-served market with talent that's good enough. It helps if you, yourself, are the customer :)
- rob74 3y ago
  I can name two other well-known acts off the top of my head that at least partly serve the same "market": Billy Joel (who incidentally is the same age as Springsteen) with songs like "Allentown" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown_(song)) and Bon Jovi with songs like "Livin' on a prayer" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livin%27_on_a_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livin%27_on_a_Prayer). However Joel (who can also be described as a legend) has been semi-retired for the last 30 years, with his last album coming out in 1993, and Bon Jovi are probably a bit too commercial (and have failed to live up to their big success in the eighties/nineties). So it's not like the market was underserved, but Springsteen has a special combination of staying power/intellectual appeal/whatever else that makes him unique...
nicbou 3y ago
I was greeted by a massive newsletter banner before I could read a word. It’s for a guy who knows everything about success, apparently. The advice is predictably trite, in the way the horoscope usually is.
cwillu 3y ago
Paint the general area where the arrow might go, then shoot the arrow, and finally remove all the paint that doesn't constitute a target perfectly hit. That way you're not doing suspicious things to the target people might call you on.
noduerme 3y ago
Guh. Springsteen is a great songwriter, great musician for a lot of reasons. Using him as a prop/example for the cheapest of cheap worthless nonsensical self-help garbage that doesn't even rate as an article or an original thought; not so cool.
stefs 3y ago
pedantic nitpicking: "People often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye. Of course with everybody else aiming there as well that makes it very hard to hit." this makes no sense. the analogy doesn't really work, because no matter how many people are aiming, the difficulty to hit the bullseye is always the same.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  The idea is probably that unless you're first, there is less target area as it is crowded out with others shots -- image to illustrate https://c8.alamy.com/comp/c375hy/bulls-eye-three-archery-arrows-hit-right-on-target-center-over-white-c375hy.jpg https://c8.alamy.com/comp/c375hy/bulls-eye-three-archery-arr...
  - stefs 3y ago
    well, it does work if interpreted that way, but i think it's not very elegant. something like "smaller slices of cake" would work better, or having to divide a jackpot between a higher number of players.
- rocqua 3y ago
  I think there is an implicit contest to be closest to center of the bulls-eye. So you want less competition.
bambax 3y ago
This isn't bad advice. The obvious risk is you can spend your whole life (and then some) waiting for the world to catch up with your own special weirdness. But maybe that doesn't matter. Short of starving, some people are happier being themselves than trying to fit into someone else's dream. Not all people, though! You need to decide where you belong (but at some point it's going to be obvious anyway).
Fricken 3y ago
>Instead of aiming for the same target as other musicians—trying to out-sing or out-play them—Springsteen instead doubled down on the quality that made him unique: His ability to write song lyrics. No, the ability to write song lyrics does not make Bruce Springsteen unique. He didn't exploit some weird angle that no other performer had considered. And it's worth noting his breakout hit, "Born in the USA" was popular because few people actually listened to the lyrics. It sounds like a patriotic song until you actually listen to what he says.
- ryathal 3y ago
  The words and meanings of songs have never been important so long as the tune was good. Yankee Doodle was essentially a dis track, but Americans liked the tune, so it was adopted as a patriotic song anyway. Stadiums of homophobes will happily stomp and clap to We Will Rock You.
- scotty79 3y ago
  > "Born in the USA" was popular because few people actually listened to the lyrics. It sounds like a patriotic song until you actually listen to the lyrics. That actually is a neat trick. Make a catchy tune that sounds like it says what dumb people like, but have a subtleties in the text, which dumb people won't notice, that turn the things around and let smart people like it for subversiveness. Then you capture all of the audience. Provided that the tune is really catchy.
  - brianmcc 3y ago
    Every Breath You Take by The Police is another great example. Song's about a stalker; gets played as a romantic wedding song :-)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - npteljes 3y ago
      I think these happen because many genuinely don't see the difference. The amount of times abusive relationships are shown as something desirable, in popular media, can also not be a coincidence.
aqme28 3y ago
This feels like textbook survivorship bias as advice. Plenty of artists try to do their own thing and are not culturally rewarded for it.
- grungydan 3y ago
  I'm a litle surprised to see something so vapid ranking so high on the site.
  - a4isms 3y ago
    In some ways, the less such an essay says, the easier it is to become a “tabula rasa,” where the reader fills in the huge, empty spaces with things they already believe. The next step is to applaud the essay because the reader feels it “feels right.” Of course it feels right if you mentally fill in the blanks, and if it says nothing that can be empirically falsified.
  - remram 3y ago
    It took me a second to understand that you mean the article, not the comment you replied to. I agree. I think the title is insightful, but I was surprised to see that the article picked a single, poor example to develop it. This is probably being upvoted for the title only. It can still spark interesting discussion here though.
- a4isms 3y ago
  The general principle is good, and can be found in literally any textbook about market segmentation and business strategy. And the idea of motivating the reader by giving an example is sound, even though in and of themselves, single examples reek to high heaven of survivorship bias. If it motivates someone to not give up because they don’t seem to fit the existing templates for success, that is necessary, but not sufficient by a long shot. What’s missing are concrete tactics for succeeding with the strategy of “make your own niche.” Lacking specific tactics for replication—at any scale, in any field—its primary value IMO is as an exhortation to go out and research how to succeed with this strategy. It’s only a short essay, so it really has no more weight then the preface of a book. And that’s what it reads like: An anecdote at the beginning of a book about succeeding as a niche or specialized entity… Only the rest of the book—with specific chapters detailing the strategy at finer levels of detail and laying out tactics to thrive—is missing. We are left to either fumble around blindly, frustrated that we are unable to “paint the target around our arrow,” or go out and do a lot more reading and learning to assemble the rest of the book by hand. If anyone does find this inspirational or thought-provoking, there are entire books touching on the subject that provide a lot more value. If this motivates people to go out and read such books, it’s not a complete waste of time, but it is incomplete and fails to say “Hey, this is just to whet your appetite, this is the beginning of a long journey. Bruce took decades to discover what worked by trial and error and working with others, you can read these books to get you started on the right road.” I’ll contribute one book recommendation: “Marketing Warfare” by Reis and Trout. It’s also lightweight and easily digestible, but it contains a simple model of competition that divides business into four different strategies (offence, defence, flanking, guerrilla) and then details specific advice for success in each one. What they call “guerrilla” is closest to what this essay espouses, and readers may find their advice a little more actionable. But even then, that book is not a complete how-to. You have to keep learning and keep researching.
sakerbos 3y ago
Started reading this as it was vaguely intriguing but after a few sentences I was confronted by a "Enter your email to continue reading" dialog. It seems like the author has taken his own writing to heart. Unfortunately for the author, the arrow won't land again.
rr808 3y ago
I heard it as look at which way the ship is drifting and announce that as the strategic direction. It isn't supposed to be a complement.
golemotron 3y ago
This the advice of Peter Thiel in the book Zero To One.
wunderland 3y ago
Sometimes I forget that most people on HN are huge dorks
Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
In engineering this is called "draw your graph, then plot your points"
elevaet 3y ago
> the qualities you suppress the most—because they make you weird or different from other people. At some point in your life, you were probably shamed for embodying those qualities, so you learned to conceal them. > But here’s the thing: We notice things because of contrast. Something stands out because it’s different from what surrounds it. The other thing that happens is that you get so used to your own quirks and traits that they don't seem remarkable whatsoever, like how the fish can't tell it's swimming in water. And then particularly for introverts, if you don't get out and contrast yourself agains the people around you, it's easy to go around life with no concept of what makes you unique.
starkparker 3y ago
For the full Eno quote in at least a little more context, there's this 2010 Guardian interview: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/17/brian-eno-interview-paul-morley https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/17/brian-eno-inte...

165 points by inetsee 3y ago

d--b 3y ago

That’s utter bullshit. To correct the metaphor: you don’t paint the target yourself, the target paints itself and it’s quite lucky if your arrow is somewhere in it.

dclowd9901 3y ago

Funny he pins Springsteen’s success on his lyricism when he was using a rhyming dictionary to write basically all of Welcome to Asbury Park and was obviously aping the blue collar poeticism of Bob Dylan. I love Springsteen, but it’s mostly because the E Street band is absolutely bonkers good.

selcuka 3y ago
> he was using a rhyming dictionary Apparently manual LLVMs were a thing back then.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  What is LLVM here, 'large language vector models' (not a term I know)? Or a typo for LLM?
  - richrichardsson 3y ago
    Most likely just a muscle memory typo: https://llvm.org/ https://llvm.org/
    - selcuka 3y ago
      Yeah, it's a typo. Not sure whether I was thinking of LVM (Logical Volume Manager) or LLVM...
rocketbop 3y ago
Regarding your mention of rhyming dictionaries, it's perhaps not widely known, but they are not considered cheats by most songwriters, but rather essential tools of the trade, like code editors or inline docs for programmers. If you pointedly refuse to use one you're not being more authentic, you're just making your job much harder. At the risk of destroying the mystique of the craft, I will also say that they are not used in the way you might think. Instead of writing the second line of a verse and then looking for a rhyming word that somehow fits, it's common to compile lists of relevant rhymes to your starter material and theme, and work backwards, creating lines that connect to the rhymes. If you do this the other way around it's very hard to write meaningful verses without abandoning your rhyming scheme.
markeibes 3y ago
Have you Read the lyrics to "For You" recently? It's not the rhymes that make them give me goosebumps
kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Listen to his Sessions Band recordings, particularly Live in Dublin.

whiddershins 3y ago

This makes the most sense when there is an oversupply of arrows for a given bullseye. If, otoh, there is a massive shortage of something and you can supply that thing, no need to reinvent the wheel.

anigbrowl 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy Of course, your ability to hit a target in reality has nothing to do with the number of other people aiming at it - in this case, Bruce Springsteen's ability to write great songs is not constrained by the existence of many other brilliant songwriters. This sort of free-association discourse seems very popular in marketing/ entrepreneurial/ motivational blogging but sadly it's not that informative or educational.

djmips 3y ago
Plus, it's been shown that there's plenty of equally talented musicians as Bruce Springsteen. He just edged the others out by a process that we might as well call luck.
- ojbyrne 3y ago
  Some luck perhaps, but also a reputation (well deserved imo) of working very very hard for a very long time. His predilection for 4 hour long concerts was well known in the eighties.
  - tasty_freeze 3y ago
    There is more to it than just hard work. There are a lot of people who would be able to put on a four hour show, but would people want to watch it? Four hour concerts are celebrated only if the entertainer can grip the audience for four hours.
charcircuit 3y ago
The definition of great is relative. If too many people write great songs they become average songs.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  They should really have used an example like John Smith who made it to Level 6 SWE at Google instead of Level 4, because he kept his passion for low level coding (even though everyone was say "do web programming") or something. But that would be too prosaic I guess!

blendergeek 3y ago

In accordance with Hacker News guidelines the headline should be: The key to becoming extraordinary.

dang 3y ago
That title is linkbait and therefore the submitter was correct to change it, according to the guideline: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. They did an unusually tasteful job of finding a representative phrase from the article to serve as a better title. Well done! Edit: oops - it was a mod that edited the title. But I didn't know that when I wrote the above :)
- vultour 3y ago
  I don't see how the current title is any less linkbait, in fact the original would have never made me want to check it out.
  - bmacho 3y ago
    Very true. Clear, true title > mysterious title. In general, but according to the HN clickbait title rules as well.
    - dang 3y ago
      Mysterious titles aren't necessary linkbait. Not everything should explain itself right away—that follows from the principle of curiosity—and we've always taken the position that it's good for readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22work%20a%20little%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
      - bmacho 3y ago
        Mysterious titles are linkbait from the user perspective. > Mysterious titles aren't necessary linkbait. Not everything should explain itself right away—that follows from the principle of curiosity—and we've always taken the position that it's good for readers to have to work a little. The HN guideline speaks against 'linkbait': Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. While it does not specify what 'linkbait' means, I believe the HN guideline wants links to be informative about their content. What else?

Gustomaximus 3y ago

This is a big marketing lesson in general. All to often I see managers tell me they want to be the <insert something popular> brand. More often than not I ask them is that true about this company? Many don't see the connection between promoting something true to your core vs what you want to be perceived as. Some literally feel offended no being what they want to be even when it's clear. The line I reuse is, "Find a fundamental truth, then celebrate it" Truth doesn't mean you cant polish and choose the best angle, but the truth must be there and exist today. One of the classic examples is the Guiness dancing man. They literally celebrated how long it takes to pour a Guiness vs ignoring or tying to make out it's not that long. Brilliant marketing: https://youtu.be/69MpLiYhsXw https://youtu.be/69MpLiYhsXw

themodelplumber 3y ago
It's very similar to the career-focused work carried out in the field of personality type. I used to go to organizations and interview members, and then help describe to them where their arrow was going to consistently land, based on the favored personality-perspectives of those who worked there. You'd quickly get a picture of how everybody worked together, and then it'd click. Boom, "if there's a way to paint a target right about... here, so to speak, definitely do it." That kind of thing. It was interesting to me because the work often showed a very sharp relief around the concept of "core self" and "projected persona". A lot of people run fantasy businesses and effectively hallucinate what it is they do, or offer. This feels like a tremendous mission to them of course, and it provides important energy. But you had to be very careful about telling people that the persona--or the "who I want people to think I am / we are" was by definition generally less available in terms of raw productivity energy. This would tend to kick the logic stool out from underneath their value proposition. Then they automatically think, "of course, so life has to be boring." IOW if you were telling an architectural illustration firm, established and profitable after years of hard work, that they were basically a political advocacy organization by default, and probably couldn't _not_ be that if they tried--that was not really something you could just come out and say to everybody. So to this day I'm very familiar with orgs out there that are hired for architectural illustration or whatever, and then the topic of political maneuvering comes up, and the client suddenly pulls them in closer, and later keeps asking for illustration work in the future, because...well, probably because they like the huge discount they get on political strategy! That the vendor doesn't want to look at their own work this way is not the client's problem, and the accompanying under-valuing of their services definitely seems to be a covert benefit.

whartung 3y ago

If I’m not mistaken, the concept of shooting and drawing the target around where it hit is known as “Kentucky windage”. Edit: apparently I am mistaken.

sokoloff 3y ago
Texas Sharpshooter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

RosanaAnaDana 3y ago

'This above all: to thine own self be true' -Polonius

vxNsr 3y ago

This is a good idea but the piece reads like an idealistic LinkedIn post that’s been overshared and rewritten a thousand times.

tinkertamper 3y ago

I was hoping this was about my coworkers tuning on our cloudwatch alarms until pagerduty stops calling

khazhoux 3y ago

Ridiculous hogwash. Springsteen didn't "paint a target around his arrow." He is just insanely talented in a way that resonates with millions of people. Step 1: Be Springsteen Step 2:

themodelplumber 3y ago
Are they mutually exclusive? Is it possible that Springsteen could have benefited from painting more of a target around some of those arrows? Or is that like asking if he has any regrets or made any mistakes... Simply obvious?
- khazhoux 3y ago
  > Is it possible that Springsteen could have benefited from painting more of a target around some of those arrows? The premise of this article is that Bruce "doubled-down" on his strength: song-writing. The life-lesson being that we should focus on our individual strengths instead of chasing someone else's strengths. But I think Bruce just did his thing, and it happens to be that he was really-really good at it. I don't think he chose to focus on lyrics vs guitar skills or vocal skills. He just wrote songs and played guitar and sang --all to the best of his ability-- and it turned out that the sum of three was phenomenal. The author is correct in his lesson. But Bruce is not an example of it. Instead, find a person who failed repeatedly while chasing something they were not great at, then found success after consciously switching gears and being more true to their own strengths.
  - themodelplumber 3y ago
    > But Bruce is not an example of it. Instead, find a person who failed repeatedly while chasing something they were not great at, then found success after consciously switching gears and being more true to their own strengths. It's weird because GPT is telling me this is exactly how Born to Run happened. Especially if you equate "something they were not great at" with "not having full creative control".
    - 3y ago

noufalibrahim 3y ago

A big point that the article is missing is the work put in. If you're the kind of person that shoots several arrows, one (or more) of them is bound to hit and then you double down. It's a mix of luck, insight into opportunities, timing etc. Not a reliable formula for success but one that increases chances. Just doing a lot of work opens up opportunities that idle planners can't even imagine.

atorodius 3y ago
Well put. Whenever people say „talent“ it’s important to keep in mind it’s usually a lot of work + luck. But few want to put in the work
- noufalibrahim 3y ago
  Yes. The passion, talent etc. follow the work. That's been my experience.
- adversaryIdiot 3y ago
  I'd actually say that there is a shortage of opportunity and that most people are willing to put in the work or already have put in the work but it was just never fruitful

plq 3y ago

Oh sure, do that. But don't forget that these kinds of articles are written by lucky people whose "targets" were of interest to others. Would you care if I told you I held a world record in the 98m sprint? Embrace your weirdness, but unless you are lucky enough to have a weirdness that resonates with people, you are just an outcast. Enjoy everything in moderation, including your qualities that may come off as unusual to others, whatever they may be. You are probably an ordinary person. Chill out and just do your best.

toxik 3y ago
I think this is on point, and also: an ordinary person is extreme, ie, there will be parameters outside the normal interval. This is because there are so many dimensions of personality, and the higher the number of dimensions, the more surface-to-volume you get for a given volume. So if personalities are sampled from a hypersphere, it is likely to get a point on the surface in the high dimensional case.
josephg 3y ago
> Would you care if I told you I held a world record in the 98m sprint? .. unless you are lucky enough to have a weirdness that resonates with people, you are just an outcast. Maybe living an enjoyable life isn't about making a name for yourself. The point isn't to do something that other people find interesting. Its to do something you find interesting. One of my old friends from grade school is an international coffee judge. Every year he goes to some big coffee event where he meets a lot of the growers of coffee from all over the world. He drinks a lot of coffee, judges which beans are the best that year and places a bunch of orders on behalf of multinational coffee companies for coffee beans from farmers. Do I care about coffee? No. Is he famous? No. But he seems to be having a great time. He's not an outcast. The opposite - he's found his people. I'm kind of the same. I've been working on collaborative editing systems for the last decade. Why? I don't really know. They're just full of nice puzzles that are fun to solve. I've written some systems in my niche which have been world firsts. And some hold world records for performance. I don't do it because you - or anyone else cares. I do it because I care. Because I enjoy this kind of work. There's maybe about 50 people in the world who work on this stuff. Thats more than enough community for me. Maybe we are all oddballs. Ok by me. The alternative sounds boring.

markeibes 3y ago

The thing that barely anybody seems to mention is that what elevates Springsteens best moments is Roy Bittan's piano playing.

atorodius 3y ago

I was hoping the piece would be about this sentence from the intro > Here was this 73-year-old guy dancing, jumping, and sliding across the stage, pulling off moves that would put people in their 30s to shame How does one keep so fit all the way to 73?

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Dancing the proto-Carlton keeps you young.
arp242 3y ago
Outside of the obvious things you can do (or shouldn't do) for your health, it kind of comes down to genetics and luck. Remember Pope John Paul II in his final years, about as infirm as you can get short of actually dying? He lived a pretty healthy life, was known as "healthy" when appointed (which stood out as several of the previous popes had health issues), but was "only" 84 when he died and suffered from serious health issues ten years prior to his death. Meanwhile Marshall Allen is still playing shows at 98. Yes, ninety-eight. It ought not be possible but somehow it is. This seems to have been recorded last month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1Ndcy_ZQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M1Ndcy_ZQE

mrhektor 3y ago

While I agree that the article is a bit specious, I think there is a deeper argument to be made about Springstein's specific kind of lyrics. As mentioned in the article, his lyrics are about blue-collar workers and the associated struggles and life. This was probably an under-served / poorly talked about community when he was on the rise. It's just a case of focussing on an under-served market. I'm not sure of Springsteins' background, but if he came from a blue-collar background, then he would have known his community / market really well. So I guess the lesson is, serve an under-served market with talent that's good enough. It helps if you, yourself, are the customer :)

rob74 3y ago
I can name two other well-known acts off the top of my head that at least partly serve the same "market": Billy Joel (who incidentally is the same age as Springsteen) with songs like "Allentown" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown_(song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown_(song)) and Bon Jovi with songs like "Livin' on a prayer" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livin%27_on_a_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livin%27_on_a_Prayer). However Joel (who can also be described as a legend) has been semi-retired for the last 30 years, with his last album coming out in 1993, and Bon Jovi are probably a bit too commercial (and have failed to live up to their big success in the eighties/nineties). So it's not like the market was underserved, but Springsteen has a special combination of staying power/intellectual appeal/whatever else that makes him unique...

nicbou 3y ago

I was greeted by a massive newsletter banner before I could read a word. It’s for a guy who knows everything about success, apparently. The advice is predictably trite, in the way the horoscope usually is.

cwillu 3y ago

Paint the general area where the arrow might go, then shoot the arrow, and finally remove all the paint that doesn't constitute a target perfectly hit. That way you're not doing suspicious things to the target people might call you on.

noduerme 3y ago

Guh. Springsteen is a great songwriter, great musician for a lot of reasons. Using him as a prop/example for the cheapest of cheap worthless nonsensical self-help garbage that doesn't even rate as an article or an original thought; not so cool.

stefs 3y ago

pedantic nitpicking: "People often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye. Of course with everybody else aiming there as well that makes it very hard to hit." this makes no sense. the analogy doesn't really work, because no matter how many people are aiming, the difficulty to hit the bullseye is always the same.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago
The idea is probably that unless you're first, there is less target area as it is crowded out with others shots -- image to illustrate https://c8.alamy.com/comp/c375hy/bulls-eye-three-archery-arrows-hit-right-on-target-center-over-white-c375hy.jpg https://c8.alamy.com/comp/c375hy/bulls-eye-three-archery-arr...
- stefs 3y ago
  well, it does work if interpreted that way, but i think it's not very elegant. something like "smaller slices of cake" would work better, or having to divide a jackpot between a higher number of players.
rocqua 3y ago
I think there is an implicit contest to be closest to center of the bulls-eye. So you want less competition.

bambax 3y ago

This isn't bad advice. The obvious risk is you can spend your whole life (and then some) waiting for the world to catch up with your own special weirdness. But maybe that doesn't matter. Short of starving, some people are happier being themselves than trying to fit into someone else's dream. Not all people, though! You need to decide where you belong (but at some point it's going to be obvious anyway).

Fricken 3y ago

>Instead of aiming for the same target as other musicians—trying to out-sing or out-play them—Springsteen instead doubled down on the quality that made him unique: His ability to write song lyrics. No, the ability to write song lyrics does not make Bruce Springsteen unique. He didn't exploit some weird angle that no other performer had considered. And it's worth noting his breakout hit, "Born in the USA" was popular because few people actually listened to the lyrics. It sounds like a patriotic song until you actually listen to what he says.

ryathal 3y ago
The words and meanings of songs have never been important so long as the tune was good. Yankee Doodle was essentially a dis track, but Americans liked the tune, so it was adopted as a patriotic song anyway. Stadiums of homophobes will happily stomp and clap to We Will Rock You.
scotty79 3y ago
> "Born in the USA" was popular because few people actually listened to the lyrics. It sounds like a patriotic song until you actually listen to the lyrics. That actually is a neat trick. Make a catchy tune that sounds like it says what dumb people like, but have a subtleties in the text, which dumb people won't notice, that turn the things around and let smart people like it for subversiveness. Then you capture all of the audience. Provided that the tune is really catchy.
- brianmcc 3y ago
  Every Breath You Take by The Police is another great example. Song's about a stalker; gets played as a romantic wedding song :-)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - npteljes 3y ago
    I think these happen because many genuinely don't see the difference. The amount of times abusive relationships are shown as something desirable, in popular media, can also not be a coincidence.

aqme28 3y ago

This feels like textbook survivorship bias as advice. Plenty of artists try to do their own thing and are not culturally rewarded for it.

grungydan 3y ago
I'm a litle surprised to see something so vapid ranking so high on the site.
- a4isms 3y ago
  In some ways, the less such an essay says, the easier it is to become a “tabula rasa,” where the reader fills in the huge, empty spaces with things they already believe. The next step is to applaud the essay because the reader feels it “feels right.” Of course it feels right if you mentally fill in the blanks, and if it says nothing that can be empirically falsified.
- remram 3y ago
  It took me a second to understand that you mean the article, not the comment you replied to. I agree. I think the title is insightful, but I was surprised to see that the article picked a single, poor example to develop it. This is probably being upvoted for the title only. It can still spark interesting discussion here though.
a4isms 3y ago
The general principle is good, and can be found in literally any textbook about market segmentation and business strategy. And the idea of motivating the reader by giving an example is sound, even though in and of themselves, single examples reek to high heaven of survivorship bias. If it motivates someone to not give up because they don’t seem to fit the existing templates for success, that is necessary, but not sufficient by a long shot. What’s missing are concrete tactics for succeeding with the strategy of “make your own niche.” Lacking specific tactics for replication—at any scale, in any field—its primary value IMO is as an exhortation to go out and research how to succeed with this strategy. It’s only a short essay, so it really has no more weight then the preface of a book. And that’s what it reads like: An anecdote at the beginning of a book about succeeding as a niche or specialized entity… Only the rest of the book—with specific chapters detailing the strategy at finer levels of detail and laying out tactics to thrive—is missing. We are left to either fumble around blindly, frustrated that we are unable to “paint the target around our arrow,” or go out and do a lot more reading and learning to assemble the rest of the book by hand. If anyone does find this inspirational or thought-provoking, there are entire books touching on the subject that provide a lot more value. If this motivates people to go out and read such books, it’s not a complete waste of time, but it is incomplete and fails to say “Hey, this is just to whet your appetite, this is the beginning of a long journey. Bruce took decades to discover what worked by trial and error and working with others, you can read these books to get you started on the right road.” I’ll contribute one book recommendation: “Marketing Warfare” by Reis and Trout. It’s also lightweight and easily digestible, but it contains a simple model of competition that divides business into four different strategies (offence, defence, flanking, guerrilla) and then details specific advice for success in each one. What they call “guerrilla” is closest to what this essay espouses, and readers may find their advice a little more actionable. But even then, that book is not a complete how-to. You have to keep learning and keep researching.

sakerbos 3y ago

Started reading this as it was vaguely intriguing but after a few sentences I was confronted by a "Enter your email to continue reading" dialog. It seems like the author has taken his own writing to heart. Unfortunately for the author, the arrow won't land again.

rr808 3y ago

I heard it as look at which way the ship is drifting and announce that as the strategic direction. It isn't supposed to be a complement.

golemotron 3y ago

This the advice of Peter Thiel in the book Zero To One.

wunderland 3y ago

Sometimes I forget that most people on HN are huge dorks

Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago

In engineering this is called "draw your graph, then plot your points"

elevaet 3y ago

> the qualities you suppress the most—because they make you weird or different from other people. At some point in your life, you were probably shamed for embodying those qualities, so you learned to conceal them. > But here’s the thing: We notice things because of contrast. Something stands out because it’s different from what surrounds it. The other thing that happens is that you get so used to your own quirks and traits that they don't seem remarkable whatsoever, like how the fish can't tell it's swimming in water. And then particularly for introverts, if you don't get out and contrast yourself agains the people around you, it's easy to go around life with no concept of what makes you unique.

starkparker 3y ago

For the full Eno quote in at least a little more context, there's this 2010 Guardian interview: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/17/brian-eno-interview-paul-morley https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/17/brian-eno-inte...