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What is the converse to "luck" in your argument? Is it effort, or work, or something like that? If so, it seems that you are saying that white males just put mo

by mrow84 13y ago

What is the converse to "luck" in your argument? Is it effort, or work, or something like that? If so, it seems that you are saying that white males just put more effort in than other people. I'm not convinced that that is true. In my opinion, when averaged over the population, a significant component of individual success is "luck", that being the opportunities that are presented to certain individuals, and not to others.

ericabiz 13y ago
It starts with a belief that you can be one of those successful people. That you can do this. If you believe you are lucky, you are more lucky. Here's the study behind that (PDF): http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the_luck_factor.pdf http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the_luck_f... I also believe that, in a similar manner, people who believe they have what it takes to be successful (whatever that is in their minds) are more likely to be successful. I went through most of my teens/20s with pretty bad beliefs about myself. I was a college dropout, a woman in a male-dominated industry, fighting with depression and (then-undiagnosed) ADHD. When the tech industry crashed in 2001-2002 I couldn't even get an interview for a job. I did not believe I could be successful. Slowly, though the years, I started changing those beliefs, and as I did, more opportunities opened up for me. Now, I'm able to mentor others (especially women) who want to get into development. One of the things I always work with people on is believing that they can do it with what they have, that they don't need to be or do something that is "more" in order to be successful. My inner outlook changed my external life. I had to change my beliefs before my external reality changed. Sitting where I was in 1999, I'm not sure I would have believed that--but I do now.
jeffdavis 13y ago
"What is the converse to "luck" in your argument? Is it effort, or work, or something like that?" There are more inputs than hard work and luck. An obvious example would be the decisions one makes in life. For instance, having a child at 20 years old, outside of a stable relationship has long been known to have different results than having a child at 25 in a stable relationship. Decisions themselves have lots of inputs, so it's a complex issue. For instance, family and culture have a big impact on decisions, so those with different backgrounds would be expected to make different decisions, and therefore have different results. It would be quite a surprise if different families and cultures produced the same results, after all. Note that I'm certainly not saying that cultures are better or worse than other cultures. They may have different measures of success, for one thing; and even on one measure (like financial success) the rankings of various cultures might change radically if the environment changes. I guess you could say that it's "luck" to be born into a family and culture that encourage the kind of decisions that are best for the environment you're in, or something like that. But that just doesn't seem to usefully inform any policy proposal. If bad decisions are a major factor in bad outcomes, it might be more effective to encourage better decisions than to try to deal with the consequences after bad decisions are already made.

by mrow84 13y ago

ericabiz 13y ago

It starts with a belief that you can be one of those successful people. That you can do this. If you believe you are lucky, you are more lucky. Here's the study behind that (PDF): http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the_luck_factor.pdf http://richardwiseman.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the_luck_f... I also believe that, in a similar manner, people who believe they have what it takes to be successful (whatever that is in their minds) are more likely to be successful. I went through most of my teens/20s with pretty bad beliefs about myself. I was a college dropout, a woman in a male-dominated industry, fighting with depression and (then-undiagnosed) ADHD. When the tech industry crashed in 2001-2002 I couldn't even get an interview for a job. I did not believe I could be successful. Slowly, though the years, I started changing those beliefs, and as I did, more opportunities opened up for me. Now, I'm able to mentor others (especially women) who want to get into development. One of the things I always work with people on is believing that they can do it with what they have, that they don't need to be or do something that is "more" in order to be successful. My inner outlook changed my external life. I had to change my beliefs before my external reality changed. Sitting where I was in 1999, I'm not sure I would have believed that--but I do now.

jeffdavis 13y ago

"What is the converse to "luck" in your argument? Is it effort, or work, or something like that?" There are more inputs than hard work and luck. An obvious example would be the decisions one makes in life. For instance, having a child at 20 years old, outside of a stable relationship has long been known to have different results than having a child at 25 in a stable relationship. Decisions themselves have lots of inputs, so it's a complex issue. For instance, family and culture have a big impact on decisions, so those with different backgrounds would be expected to make different decisions, and therefore have different results. It would be quite a surprise if different families and cultures produced the same results, after all. Note that I'm certainly not saying that cultures are better or worse than other cultures. They may have different measures of success, for one thing; and even on one measure (like financial success) the rankings of various cultures might change radically if the environment changes. I guess you could say that it's "luck" to be born into a family and culture that encourage the kind of decisions that are best for the environment you're in, or something like that. But that just doesn't seem to usefully inform any policy proposal. If bad decisions are a major factor in bad outcomes, it might be more effective to encourage better decisions than to try to deal with the consequences after bad decisions are already made.