Thread by @nateliason

An idea I've been playing around with:

I think there's value in intentionally increasing the difficulty of your professional life

Let's look at video games by analogy.

Most single player games have a difficulty setting (Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane, etc.). The harder it is, the more you'll have to understand the mechanics of the game, test ideas.

You can win on easy, but so can anyone.

Then, there are games like Starcraft, DOTA, where there's no difficulty since it's multiplayer, but you're matched against someone roughly your skill level.

In these games you're going to win/lose 50/50 unless you make an effort to get better.

SC2 and DOTA 2 consumed more of my life than any other game, mostly because of this challenge.

When you're always playing against people slightly better than you, you want to keep getting better.

I probably watched 500+ hours of Twitch streams just to improve my gameplay

These games also succeed by not being too hard. Blizzard/Valve know that if you get destroyed over and over, you'll quit.

They want you to keep playing the game, so they give you just the right amount of challenge.

But they also don't want you to win too much because that's boring too.

Sometimes I would play on "smurf" accounts just to trounce on people who were much worse than me. I know, mean, but it was fun, though only briefly.

Only challenging opponents stay interesting.

Alright, so, professional life.

Why is there so much success and innovation from cities like NYC, SF?

I think part of it is actually that they're expensive.

Higher cost = higher earnings needed = work harder = grow more professionally

When people are getting into entrepreneurship, many who can will go to a low COL area like Thailand, South America.

It's awesome when you need to get something off the ground and extend your runway.

But it's dangerous if you stay there. You'll be playing on easy.

I think this is where most people's careers stagnate: they get to a point where things are easy enough and they're comfortable enough, and there's no "player slightly better than them" to challenge them.

Conversely, if you want to keep growing your abilities, net worth, business, you need to find some way to create that second player.

It could be anything:

- Hiring / growing
- High COL city
- Tying up your money (IRA, real estate)
- Side businesses

The challenge is staying balanced.

Increase it too much and you'll quit. No one likes losing all the time.

But if you can find that horizon at the edge of your current capacity and ride it, you never have to stop learning/growing.

FWIW there are other ways to increase the difficulty level on life so you keep growing... having a kid is probably the most common one.

I also think this is why so many entrepreneurial types are constantly attracted to side projects, hobbies, weight lifting, etc.

Once you get in the habit of looking for that Player 2 to challenge you, it gets addicting, for better or worse.

I think the thing many of my friends are worst at is being okay with being bad at something.

I know for me, I always feel like I need to be "at least pretty good" at something, or quit it. And if something feels stagnant, it feels like a waste. So there's definitely a downside.

But I do think it's worth asking:

"How can I make this more challenging... in a way that won't destroy me"

Especially for professional endeavors.

You don't want to be stupid, you want insurance... but you don't want to be too safe either.