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He's absolutely right. The problem is that people buy their listeners some temporary comfort with their false modesty, but at the same time disempower them in t
by ellyagg 16y ago
He's absolutely right. The problem is that people buy their listeners some temporary comfort with their false modesty, but at the same time disempower them in the long term by saying that success is a function of luck.
Few people say their success was all luck, but many give it a bigger role than it deservers. It you are successful on a 10% play, it's easy to pass that off as luck. But if you made 10 plays like that, it's not really luck, now, is it?
Of course, sometimes the magnitude of the success is mostly luck.
- _delirium 16y agoI think the last part might be why some big winners are modest about it. They don't think of the question as, "was it luck that I was successful?", but as "was it luck that I made $2 billion?". The answer's probably a lot closer to yes on the 2nd question, which can make it tempting to say that you succeeded due to luck.
- ellyagg 16y agoThat's true. My mind doesn't normally jump to the tiny fraction of outlying billionaires when I think of successful people though.
- frederickcook 16y agoThe size of the opportunity you choose to go after has a significant role in the maximum success you may have, and that choice should not be discounted. Founders of billion-dollar companies such as PayPal and YouTube foresaw that the world was changing, and given many industries to choose from, they picked a couple of the largest possible markets where they could have an impact. If you decide to spend the next four years of your life making, say, appointment scheduling software (first thing that came to mind), that is a conscious choice not to go after a billion-dollar market, and right off the bat, the potential magnitude of your success is constrained.