List of Exceptional Traits

Traits and signs of exceptional people.

1. They take massive risks and asymmetrical bets in life. My common experience with this are students dropping out of college or 20-30 year olds changing career paths at a whim. They’re willing to experiment and can drop everything to work on a single thing if they decide that it’s important.
2. They use: Anki, Obsidian/Logseq/Roam Research, Zotero, X.
3. They help out without expecting anything in return.
4. They speak up against others and their friends. They do what they believe is the right thing in the absence of positive feedback or only negative feedback from others.
5. “I know I’m right, and you’re all wrong.”
6. Mean to your face but will always defend you behind your back.
7. They have clear writing… but not necessarily clear speaking skills.
8. Attribute their success to luck.
9. Operate fast, learn fast, and think fast. Likely inherently impatient. Signs of this include typing fast, lots of random small optimizations, and interrupts people when speaking.
10. They read.
11. They say “I don’t know.”
12. They are always ahead on important questions and insights in the world.
13. They have a ton of interesting hobbies or side projects.
14. They had weird teenage hobbies and were against the mainstream.
15. They do so much cool technical stuff such that you think they’re a hermit, but they somehow know a lot of interesting people to talk to.
16. They energize you; they make you feel like you can do anything after talking with them.
17. They focus on inputs they can control. They have belief in their influence on outcomes.
18. For founder specific stuff: Founder Traits.