1. Reaching 95

    Reaching 95%-ile isn't very impressive because it's not that hard to do. I think this is one of my most ridiculable ideas. It doesn't help that, when stated nakedly, that sounds elitist. But I think it's just the opposite: most people can become (relatively) good at most things.

    Note that when I say 95%-ile, I mean 95%-ile among people who participate, not all people (for many activities, just doing it at all makes you 99%-ile or above across all people). I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among people who participate.

    There still seem to be a number of things where 95%-ile is still impressive – things like academia, especially primary education, where participation and regular practice are mandatory for everyone. 95%-ile on the SAT isn't quite as impressive as it seems as first, but it's also still good.

  2. Mistakes at the top

    Personally, in every activity I've participated in where it's possible to get a rough percentile ranking, people who are 95%-ile constantly make mistakes that seem like they should be easy to observe and correct. "Real world" activities typically can't be reduced to a percentile rating, but achieving what appears to be a similar level of proficiency seems similarly easy.

    Dan makes the case here that simply being aware of your mistakes and deliberately fixing them can take someone from 50th to 95th percentile in most activities.