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There’s no denying that mindset is incredibly important. As a business owner myself I can attest to this. But I think the advice gets twisted. The way I see it

• DenisM 6y ago
  This advice perhaps even more apt for grad students. Entrepreneurs at least have the luxury of pivot.
  • gabereiser 6y ago
    grad students can change majors. Entrepreneurs can pivot. Workers can quit. We all have free will. I think, if anything, sunken cost fallacy keeps people “believing” well after the picture is revealed.
    • katbyte 6y ago
      Not everyone has the uzery of quitting. Free will we all have but situations can drastically curb our options.
      • WalterBright 6y ago
        Some people I know told me they couldn't quit because of various chains that kept them in place. I went over these chains with them (such as a mortgage) and pointed out all of them were of their own making.
        • katmannthree 6y ago
          >all of them were of their own making. Having taken it out themselves doesn't make the mortgage any less real.
          • WalterBright 6y ago
            I didn't say it wasn't real. I said something along the lines of they are victims (if they are victims) of their own choices.
            • dingaling 6y ago
              If the options from which they could choose were constrained by other factors then they weren't really choices. Free will implies the ability to choose freely.
              • nickpp 6y ago
                How about those who freely choose to reduce their choices? Does that mean their original freedom was not real?!
                • username90 6y ago
                  It means they made a tradeoff and shouldn't blame the world for it later. If you laze around and don't gather firewood during autumn then the reason you freeze to death in the winter isn't because nature is unfair but because you didn't get the wood.
              • WalterBright 6y ago
                Please describe some choices that aren't really choices for a typical healthy person in a free country? I can list a few: 1. having a baby is a choice 2. getting married is a choice 3. buying a house is a choice 4. buying snazzy furniture is a choice 5. buying a new car is a choice 6. buying lottery tickets is a choice 7. where you live is a choice 8. using drugs/alcohol is a choice These are the kinds of chains that people forge on themselves.
        • username90 6y ago
          I agree with this, most of peoples problems comes from poor choices earlier in life. Like when I say that it isn't hard for poor people to get a good job as long as they are smart people go "But what if you are poor, have 4 kids, no house and have to work two jobs, huh, what would you do?????". Well, every person starts out young with no debt and no kids and at least 12 years of free schooling. That takes you really far if you are in the top 1% of intelligence. If you are worse off than that then you spent your life making it worse instead of better.
          • watwut 6y ago
            But, if you are from rich family you can get well paid job where you slack whole time. Cousin Johny or dad will get it for you. Or you parents will pay nanny. You never get into the two jobs situation. Or you just get house gifted from mom. All examples of normal family help if family can afford it. If you are a man, four kids affect you less in employment options too. It is that thing, even very bad choices have significantly less bad impact on you if you are rich. > That takes you really far if you are in the top 1% of intelligence. 99% of people are not in 1% of intelligence. Per definition and there is really nothing they can do to change it. You can't change own intelligence. (Pls biggest screw up I know had measured intelligence super high and that person is complete absolute fail cause intelligence is not that useful practically on itself)
            • WalterBright 6y ago
              Intelligence is useless if you don't train it, use it, apply it towards something useful, etc. It's like Michael Phelps who was born with a talent for swimming. But that talent was worthless without putting in endless hours of directed training. Similarly, a no-talent swimmer can actually learn to swim rather well. And certainly being very successful in life does not require you to be the best swimmer in the world. Just an adequate swimmer will do just fine.
            • WalterBright 6y ago
              > if you are from rich family Yes, rich people have it easier. There is no path for your life to be better by complaining that life is unfair. You could vaporize all the rich people, and it still wouldn't make your life any better (and would likely make it worse). The good news, however, is you don't have to be born rich to become rich in a free market country. Lots of people do it - 85% of American millionaires are self-made. There's even a book about it and how ordinary people become wealthy - "The Millionaire Next Door".
    • spicyramen 6y ago
      This is one of the most important comments, free will is underrated. I signed up to Blind app few months back and just can see how many people rant about their jobs and salaries and just stay in the same company (I'm not talking about cases which people has no skills or not many job opportunities)
• chillwaves 6y ago
  > Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe, but chances are you are wrong. So dark and brilliant and illuminating at the same time.
• flyinglizard 6y ago
  “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right” As it pertains to business, I’d say that self belief is probably the primary thing I can think of as a predictor for success. It implies that you are more persistent, more determined and willing to put more on the line.
• jariel 6y ago
  Also you have 'can do it' and 'correct' which imply the issue here amounts to ability. I'd argue that grit, status and luck have just as much to do with success than anything. So 'having the talent' is really just one small part of it. And FYI it's not about 'being wrong', really I do think large numbers of people could do A or B if they had the right connections, were born wealthy, and wanted to work really hard at it. The talent part is somewhat unique, but far unique so in sports than for example business.
• crocodiletears 6y ago
  This was one of the most disheartening realizations I ever came to. I know a lot of people with the kind of indefatigable optimism and self confidence that leads to success over the long-term. They're almost always failures, they're almost always wrong about intricacies of how the world works, and are blind to the difficulties faced by both themselves, and others. A select few of them are very, very successful, and in spite of no clear superiority to their peers, their careers go up like bottle rockets with no shortage of fuel. I don't envy them their success they've usually earned it about as much as anyone else. But I do wish I had the boundless sense of hope and energy they have, and the mindset that it takes to push through challenges like they do.
  • chasd00 6y ago
    "the mindset that it takes to push through challenges like they do" when people say things like believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything! i think what they're referring to is this mindset you mentioned.
• koonsolo 6y ago
  I don't think you require to believe as an entrepreneur. For example Elon Musk very well knows the possibility of failure. But it seems he finds it important enough to try it. Same for Jeff Bezos, who has a regret minimalization strategy. So seems they are very aware of the possibility of failure, but it's important enough to try it. I like that, because it's a more rational approach than "I'm sure I can do it"
  • warent 6y ago
    They tried/are trying those things because they believe there's a non-zero probability of success. Belief in success being a possible outcome is pretty fundamental to accomplishing any goal or strategy in general.
    • koonsolo 6y ago
      That is pretty obvious. But believing you will succeed is still very different than believing you have a non-zero chance to succeed. If I remember correctly, Musk even had the mindset of "I will probably fail, but something good will come out of it, even if I fail". I think the details on this mindset matter on the "believe" part.
    • username90 6y ago
      There is a non-zero probability of you winning the lottery, why don't you spend all your money on lottery tickets? Realistically assessing risk is necessary for success, being over-confident in your odds will just waste money or time. This means don't be over confident, but also don't be under confident.
      • closeparen 6y ago
        The odds on starting a business are pretty bad. You kind of have to ignore them, or else have some reason you think they don’t apply to you.
        • username90 6y ago
• cutler 6y ago
  The proposition that everyone who succeeded believed they could do it is demonstrably false as it implies underdog victories are impossible. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with our victories. I experienced this on several occasions playing competitive chess in my teens.
• nonbirithm 6y ago
  Purposely believing in something that you know is most likely to be incorrect is difficult to me. In this case you have to think illogically on purpose in order to have any chance at succeeding. But that kind of belief doesn't foster the mindset of "if I fail, that's just life and I will move forward." Having that much confidence in accomplishing something means staking my self-worth on it, because this is a test of my own effort and nobody else's. The results begin and end with my actions only, and the things I want are too important to me to not take seriously. If those things are what I ultimately want to spend my time on Earth succeeding in before I die, then not succeeding is devastating to my mental health. I don't understand how not to think like this, because every real success I've fought for and won came as a result of believing my life was over if I didn't succeed. In some cases I really would become poor or have no future if I didn't succeed, so it grants too much legitimacy to the method.
  • throwaway201103 6y ago
    A saying I remember from my childhood was "if at first you don't succeed, try try again." There was no messaging that life was easy, or that you only had to believe, or only had to try hard. You could do all of that, and fail. Then you reflect on the failure and try again, presumably having learned something.
    • edoceo 6y ago
      ""It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life."" - J.L. Picard
      • WalterBright 6y ago
        Star Trek is a hollywood fiction.
        • imtringued 6y ago
          All quotes are equally worthless so I don't know why you bring that up. People quote people because they want to express the same sentiment but they believe someone else did it better. Not because they believe the quote to be an absolute truth.
• MaximumYComb 6y ago
  It's a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success.
• username90 6y ago
  > Everyone who succeeds in business believes that they can do it. No, not at all. For example Larry Page offered to sell Google for 1 million dollars, he didn't believe he would succeed. Yet he went on to create one of the most valuable companies on earth. Being modest does not prevent you from succeeding.
  • alisonkisk 6y ago
    Because he wanted to finish his PhD. At that time Google was just a cute research project. The engineering behemoth that became Google came after, and Page might have done that anyway after graduation.
• philippoi 6y ago
  "Everyone" is a strong word. I'd wager you could find impressive achievements by quite a few business people with Imposter Syndrome. Believing you can succeed isn't necessary, or Imposter Syndrome wouldn't be a thing.
• lbblack 6y ago
  A lot of people can believe in themselves. Fewer people can believe in the "right" things about themselves. And even fewer can execute well with those justified beliefs.
• yters 6y ago
  A number of years ago, an HN article said the most successful entrepreneurs are the most pessimistic. I would say it is more about disbelieving in yourself, and still trying to pursue a goal greater than oneself. "The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums." - GK Chesterton
  • alisonkisk 6y ago
    Yet entrepreneurs are more optimistic than non entrepreneurs.
• cactus2093 6y ago
  > but chances are you are wrong. It really depends what the specifics are, what does success look like? Not everything is so difficult that a large majority will fail at it. Believe you will become a $500B dollar company? Ok you’re probably wrong. But believe that you can make a decent living and not end up homeless? Most people who set out to accomplish that succeed, after all most people are not homeless.
• AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Lottery winner fallacy! I am rich because I believed in myself and WORKED HARD! There are a lot of people that bought a lottery ticket and believed they could win. At least the lottery winners have a chance of changing the world for the better, so the myth serves society, even if it deludes the players.