This is bullshit. This is what people who’ve failed tell themselves to rationalize that failure.
People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding. You’ll hardly ever, if ever, hear them say it’s solely the consequence of having the right networks and being lucky.
Sure some luck is involved, but most of it is attitude, and this is NOT the attitude.
I say thank God for people with this faulty perspective. It makes it easier to succeed when the playing field is full of people who’ve told themselves it’s futile to even try.
> People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding. You’ll hardly ever, if ever, hear them say it’s solely the consequence of having the right networks and being lucky.
Yes, people tend to adopt a personal narrative that maximizes their own moral status, so successful people artificially minimizes the effect of circumstance on average and unsuccessful people artificially minimize the effect of choice.
But we don't have to rely on competing personal narratives weighted by who has the resources to reach a larger audience; these are concrete fact questions, and there is plenty of evidence that (1) circumstance beyond personal traits has a very large role, (2) personal traits contribute in ways different than the popular narrative of the successful, and (3) the personal traits that contribute are themselves largely products of (mostly inherited and early childhood) circumstance, not active choice.
> Yes, people tend to adopt a personal narrative that maximizes their own moral status
Exactly, that's what I'm saying about rationalizing. The only thing those who've yet to succeed lack is the vantage point of the successful. So I'd argue the successful are operating with an information advantage.
> The only thing those who've yet to succeed lack is the vantage point of the successful.
No, that's a pre-Enlightment (or maybe postmodernist, it can be hard to tell the difference at times) attitude.
What both most who have succeeded and most who have not succeeded lack who don’t actively seek it out is the perspective of structured, broad information gathering, analysis, and hypothesis testing beyond self-justifying rationalization of personal experience.
But no one needs to lack that, because plenty of that has been done, so there is no need to rely on duelling self-justifying constructed narratives to understand the world.
The amount of luck involved in "success" is almost always underestimated. Whether it's being born into a family with money, or having a great teacher who helps you understand Calculus. To avoiding health issues and accidents. To choosing a spouse that doesn't self-destruct. The list is long.
Luck is the trump card of life. You can be smart, hardworking, all the business traits that are espoused by "successful" people, and still fail. As Lefty Gomez said "I'd rather be lucky than good."
Look at Michael Jordan. He had talent and an incredible work ethic. Yet until the Bulls drafted Scottie Pippen, he didn't have the team required to win a championship. Imagine if the Bulls missed out on drafting Pippen and had drafted Dennis Hopson instead? Would Jordan have still become the GOAT?
> People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding.
You fell for the classic survivorship bias fallacy.
People who’ve succeeded at achieving ambitious goals are able to look at success from both vantage points: from having yet to succeed and succeeding. You’ll hardly ever, if ever, hear them say it’s solely the consequence of having the right networks and being lucky.
Sure some luck is involved, but most of it is attitude, and this is NOT the attitude.
I say thank God for people with this faulty perspective. It makes it easier to succeed when the playing field is full of people who’ve told themselves it’s futile to even try.