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From my personal experience I would say we have this bias not only when it comes to success stories. One person has done something good or bad. Then all people
by lampe3 5y ago
From my personal experience I would say we have this bias not only when it comes to success stories.
One person has done something good or bad. Then all people who are in that specific group must be like this. Think of Politicians. One does something bad they are all bad. One bicycle driver is riding like crazy so lets ban all of them. I had some bad Asian food so Asian food in general must be bad. Country X had a shooting once so it must be a unsafe country.
You can find examples like that everywhere.
It makes sense that we also have that bias when it comes to success stories.
Plus with the social media culture of "Do thing X" and you will be successful.
I see that all around: Write a paper journal and you will be successful. Wake up early and you will be successful. Read a bazillion books a year and you will be successful. Read my book and you will be successful. Listen to that podcast and you will be successful. Start a shitty idea startup and sell it after X years and you will be successful.
In the end success is not only hard work. Its not only doing thing X. It has so many variables and random points that we can't just replicate someones success story.
Just think about it for a second. As a European reading about US success stories. How much does it help? The (business) culture is totally different. Yes the internet makes it kind of easier but still its just not the same.
Also whats different is that you are not starting at the same time, location, community, knowledge and luck/random level.
So yeah its fun to read these success stories but they should not be your guide of how to become successful yourself.
- bladegash 5y agoGreat points and with that, I would say with that success, in my opinion, should be far more an internally derived metric than an external one. Sure, material success is one form of achievement in life. However, there are so many other forms of success (e.g., parenthood, safety, etc). FOMO is real and sometimes people measure themselves so harshly against the accomplishments of others that they fail to acknowledge their own successes in life.
- pdimitar 5y agoI want to prioritize everything else more than money. For now I can't because I am mostly living month to month without any savings. I hear what you say but we operate on a hierarchy of priorities. Right now I am definitely above the survival stage... but only 1-2 tiers above. I can't in good conscience drop my job and just go gaze the stars with my wife. I won't be at peace. :|
- filipemcg 5y agoAlso European, and would like to point out that the major difference is the investor cash available to startups comparing to places like Silicon Valley.
- lampe3 5y agoIts the amount of money, willingness to invest at all and in what to invest. Sometimes the investors want to be like Silicon Valley investors but yeah its like with the success stories they have read about it but not experienced it.
- kirso 5y agoIts not even about being a European. Its about the notion to become successful and start a company you need to go and raise VC. Its a story that was sold to the world so that the dealflow is generated. Go change the world they say, go and chase your dreams of a better world... Honestly that got me into severe depression. I am not bitter, just stating the obvious that we have been sold a narrative via hustle porn media and that narrative served well. Now time for a wake up call, all us 300k wantepreneurs cannot generate unicorns and produce a successful exit. That is just statistically impossible. https://twitter.com/sokirill/status/1314138323951050753 https://twitter.com/sokirill/status/1314138323951050753
- dogma1138 5y agoI don’t think it’s just a question of money, as far as Europe goes it’s still also very much a question of the legal and cultural “frameworks” that inhibit SV style ecosystems from forming. The availability of cash is a factor for sure but it’s not necessary the main cause. And you can see this with some of the less developed European countries where the lack of incumbent large employers, large unions and as well as a weaker social security net do often lead to them being more entrepreneurial than some others. And it’s also very important to distinguish between “tech” and startups. Ireland been very successful at attracting large tech companies but it’s startup scene is still pretty poor. Whilst Eastern European and Baltic states are somewhat opposite. On the other hand you have countries like Israel that managed to attract both whilst being pretty much at risk of war since it’s inception. It’s also important to note that there are many paths to success, Europe found a path even if it doesn’t include startups at the same level as the US or other countries. And while it’s also clear that in some cases it does hurt them in the long term as evident by the current dominance of US tech giants it doesn’t mean that the only way out of that is to adopt the SV model.
- WalterBright 5y agoDoing what successful people do increases your odds of success. It doesn't guarantee anything. Doing what losers do decreases your odds of success. > they should not be your guide of how to become successful yourself. Of course they should be.
- lampe3 5y agoCan you explain a little bit more? What odds? What part of that successful people do? What do you mean by loser?
- bennysomething 5y agoWell it seems that most people do end up the average of their friends.
- WalterBright 5y agoThat's an astute observation. Choosing winners for friends, and cutting loose the losers, will increase your odds of success. For example, if you want to be good at skiing, hang out with people who are good at skiing.
- GameOfFrowns 5y agoThis only works if your peers aren't following the same strategy of maximizing potential otherwise they would just cut you out for being the least successful friend.
- WalterBright 5y agoIf you look hard enough for a reason to fail, you'll surely find one.
- lampe3 5y ago[flagged]
- ChildOfChaos 5y agoYes. I'm starting to see this for myself and now i'm basically decided to ignore a lot of advice after consuming a lot of it. Instead just to have a few goals and spend time in reflection to decide if they are still what I want and how that is working for me, what I need to do to get closer to them etc and let that decide the best routines. So many things I hear that are apparently the answer to everything just doesn't work for me. Lots of popular productivity systems, journaling, getting up early, morning routines etc. I get that they can and do work for a lot of people, but the advise I feel is close to worthless as it matters what works for you and if you use trial and error and a reflective process you can figure that out for yourself, without needing the advice or at least i've heard enough of it to know what my options are now so what I need to do is consume less of that and adjust behaviours in my own life accordingly. I think it comes down to the basic idea that life is way more complex than we can imagine, there is just so much at play and every little thing affects everything else, everyone works quite different and each environment and situation is also unique, bringing the exact same solutions to those things is silly, the only thing to do is adapt to it along the way, it's the system of evolution, but somehow we forget that and want some magical universal solution to avoid the chaos that the real world brings.
- lampe3 5y agoDon't start with all these productivity systems... I tried them all. Keeping a second brain for me was just waste of time and being busy with writing stuff down. A quick google search was most often faster. Journaling after a full journal did not give me anything in return. Just a journal full of crap. Planing my whole week in a calendar when to do what... Good luck with a child doing that. Specially if you don't have the money for a nanny of sorts. A 5 months old baby gives a shit about your plans. The only thing that really helped for me when I wanted to write a blog post every week was to do with a friend together and beetling money on who loses will pay a good meal.
- cheeko1234 5y agoHealthy competition is the best motivator. Challenging each other does work but both parties have to give a shit. Another great motivator is being told you will never be able to do something, which gives fuel to the motivation in the form of spite.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoI have a theory that a huge amount of what contributes to success, and effective advice for people seeking success, boils down to the placebo effect. If I'm right, the content of what success stories encourage us to do matters much less than how well we expect it to work. I'm unsure how widely I should share that theory, since naming a placebo robs it of its power...
- 1kcah 5y ago> since naming a placebo robs it of its power... Search "knowing placebo still works"
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoVery interesting, thanks for sharing! Though I wonder how that study accounted for the placebo effect ;^)
- designium 5y agoIn psychology, there is a concept linked to that: the labelling theory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory Another way to see the points above, from philosophy, is https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophism https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophism