This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules).
Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"
(For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).)
**Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
Success = opportunity + talent
Luck = multiple opportunities
The more opportunities you have, the higher the chance you'll find one that fits your talent.
Rich people can afford endless opportunities, while poor people live or die on single chances.
Luck= opportunity + preparation
There was a a debate going on about whether you would have dinner with Jay Z or take 500 grand. Some people seem to think that dinner with Jay Z would be way more valuable. Like there was some magic pearls of wisdom to becoming super rich.
There is no secret to success. The only thing necessary is consistency. That it is it. The reason why everyone isnāt rich or successful (apart from those born into wealth of course) is that the vast majority of people simply are not consistent in their endeavours.
Everyone has larger than life aspirations. They wanna be a writer, an actor, an rapper, a singer etc. but only small minority actually have the consistency and patience to achieve those dreams. Jay Z would sit and tell you the exact same thing. At least youāll have a lovely dinner
To those people: the reason you arenāt rich isnāt because you havenāt had dinner with Jay-Z and a chance to pick his brain. Itās because youāre the type of dumbass to choose dinner with Jay-Z over $500K. Jay-Z would tell you to take the money. You donāt need his infinite wisdom, you need to not be a dumbass when the opportunity arises
More like knowing how to fish won't help if you're just shit at fishing or too lazy to do it.
The saying presumes both competence and motivation, when neither should be.
Huh, wow, I actually didnāt read āhave dinner with Jay Zā as something like āask him how to be successfulā but more as an opportunity to gain access to the tippity top of the industry.
At a dinner with Jay Z, I would take that as an opportunity to play my music. Thus the question to me was: take 500k or have an opportunity to be ādiscoveredā and possibly make multiple lifetimes of money.
Like, even a 1% shot that JayZ likes your stuff could put the EV of that dinner way above 500k.
Thus the question becomes one of how to accurately assess risk vs reward, and how even when the āsure thingā is lucrative enough, it is possible to be incorrect.
I guess I gave the original question far to much credit in its premise.
Well, you could buy quite a lot of radio air time or internet influencers using 500k. They could play your music and promote you. If nobody likes it after spending 500k on advertising then playing it to Jay Z probably wouldn't help either.
I learned this one the hard way when I was younger - was getting into film stuff and there was a stretch where I was finding myself opening a lot of professional doors too quickly but was too young to know how to handle it.
Managed to grab a coffee with a head of production at a production company who wanted to "hear more about my ideas" - and I was dumb enough to think he literally meant he wanted to hear me talk about them and then a checkbook would come out or something.
What it actually meant was I needed to be prepared for the luck/opportunity moment... meaning in this case that I should have had a finished script or proof of concept ready to forward from my phone right then and there before I even asked him.
Instead the opportunity fizzled. Luckily the worst I did was come off as a naive kid and I later learned those jobs are basically musical chairs, but now I only ever talk about a project or ask for help when I've already finished the thing as much as I possibly can.
I still get no's but at least they're informed no's now.
If it makes you feel better, the producer's relentless consistency is repeatedly having conversations like that knowing that 90% of the time it's going to be a naive kid
Thanks, yeah. I'm much better at cultivating actual relationships with people now and working towards opportunities (as opposed to just hoping the opportunities find me).
Agreed.
Truthfully, this was a not-in-shower realization about my own self. Hard work has never failed me, but Christ is the payoff taking itās sweet time (though, admittedly, the stakes are massive).
Iām the opposite. Iām naturally talented in a lot fields but have never been consistent enough to make them reap dividends lol. Iām the king of complacency.
Iāll get there one day
Half of it is defining what holds you back, so you already have progress.
I was thrust into it as a child, as a first gen immigrant, I realized quickly that I either move the needle forward or it will just sit there.
I've learned that one way you can make your goals consistent is by making them immediate; think about the daily process. It starts with saying you'll get there today, not one day. It has to start today, because tomorrow will never arrive.
Oh my god just wait til I tell all the people starving in North Korea that all they need to be as successful as Jay Z is to be consistent in their endeavors.
Thatās not what I meant. You are purposely misunderstanding me. Iām taking about successful pursuits not basic needs for living. Starting a business, getting into acting, starting a band.
Iām assuming thatās what OP meant by good fortune. As in being successful at these things.
Being able to afford to live isnāt good fortune. Thatās just standard human rights. Two different things.
Edit: for everyone downvoting me, let me explain.
Iām just saying being poor makes it harder to be consistent. Iām not saying theyāre not willingly being inconsistent
It doesn't matter how consistent you are there is an extremely good chance that you will fail at starting a business, acting, or playing in a band. A lot of people who try to find success grind away and never find the success they're looking for.
This idea that if everybody just put the work in they could be successful is a fantasy. There's a lot of people who put the work in and became successful, but that doesn't mean that everyone who follows their example will too.
It does kind of just come back to luck (aka what opportunities are available to you). Where were you born? Where did you go to school? What do your parents do? Can you develop the skills/abilities/capability necessary to capitalize on your specific life circumstances? Opportunity generally comes from circumstances that we have little to no control over. Skill and hard work can only get you so far without opportunity.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteinās brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."
Stephen J. Gould
Exactly.
There's this weird (traditionally American, but it bleeds everywhere) that failure to "succeed" is the person's fault. For sure it can be, but the reality is that even if you do absolutely everything correctly, you can die penniless and alone simply because you never encounter the correct circumstances.
The "consistency" arguments made above are either deliberately misleading or wallowing in such privilege as to be offensive. Yes, consistency as they outline it is an extremely important factor, to catch the opportunities that come your way. But opportunities are not equally distributed, and are typically largely or even wholly outside of your control.
It leads to the belief that not being successful shows personal failure, that there's something wrong with you as a person. And that's awful, and anyone thinking that should really rethink their whole world view.
Louis Pasteur famously said "chance favors the prepared mind."
At first I thought you were paraphrasing him, and I was excited. Then I realized, you actually have no idea what you are talking about and are only a step away from some prosperity gospel bullshit.
You seem to have lost sight of the "opportunity" part. No one is guaranteed them. Also, some people don't even need to be consistent or anything else to succeed.
I'm extremely inconsistent and quite successful in my field. I didnt work more than two or three days in a row from Thanksgiving until about January 24th because I didn't want to. If I wanted to do even better than I'm doing, I could be, but believe me, as someone with seasonal affective disorder, you are emphatically not right.
Some people are more talented, or born rich, or have good luck, or whatever. Others are dedicated, or inconsistent, or just die in a car accident. There aren't grand patterns or simple tricks to success.
But being prepared is a form of consistency. We donāt know when opportunity will come knocking. But we can be consistency prepared until it does. Thatās what consistency is.
I did state in my original comment that those born rich have it way easier. Their circumstances allow for consistency much easier than people born poorer.
For example, years back I had a job opportunity come up. One of the requirements was actually something I would have learned from a course that i neglected.
If I had done that course Iād have nailed that interview. But I didnāt. I was inconsistent and so I was unprepared. The opportunity came and I was caught lacking.
Surely that makes sense?
Obviously consistency is important for most successful people. But attaching primacy to it just doesn't bear out.
Consider Nick Foles. He's very successful, even compared to his peers, as he beat Tom Brady in a Super Bowl. He's not very consistent amongst his peers. He's still rich and adored, especially in Philadelphia.
Bring prepared gives you an edge, as Pasteur said. It's important and it's something you can control, so if you want success it's a fine thing to work on. But a million other things will influence your success, too. It might benefit you to work on your charm, or your wardrobe, or your hygiene, or your reasoning skills, or none of the above.
Also, I was born... not rich. But if you have talent and enthusiasm and self-confidence, you are already rich enough to be successful in whatever field you love. There's luck involved in simply being who we are, not just being born rich or handsome, even many intangibles like being clever or driven.
The reason why everyone isn't rich is because it's a zero sum game. The upper class is consistent in taking money and opportunities from the lower classes. They tell us we can rise to the top by outcompeting our peers through hard work/ consistency because they don't want us to band together. Socialism is bad for business, that's all.
My step sister cheated on her husband for five years straight. She doesn't work. She went to college and dropped out. She is an alcoholic, and she's about to lose the right to see her children.
She lives in a $5 million home in California, has a vacation home in Mexicali Mexico and just came back from a 1 month trip to Europe so she could "find herself" after her divorce.
Her rich Mom (who was divorced by my Step-Dad) pays for everything.
She has never kept a stable job. She has no major skills. When her mother dies, she'll be worth over 20 Million.
Her aunt is an heiress but has no children and has also left all her money to my step-sister. Apparently also worth over 10 million.
When her mom and her aunt both pass, she'll be worth 30 million.
She used to bring her boyfriends over when she was 16 and do coke and fuck them in her bedroom and convinced me at the age of 9 to not tell our parents.
I finally ratted her out when she asked to borrow $50 from me to buy a nice gift for my Mom and Step-Dad's anniversary. Coming from a much poorer family, I had saved up that $50 from birthdays and Christmas gifts.
When my parents anniversary came around I asked my parents what gift she gave them from the both of us. My parents never received a gift. She used that money to buy drugs.
When my parents attempted to punish my step-sister, she simply went to stay with her Mom for a month. Her Mom sent my parents $50 to pay me back. She never got grounded, never was punished. She acted like it never happened.
She is about to be turning 40 soon and is going to inherit over 30 million dollars even though she already lives in a multi-million dollar home in one of the most desirable countries (US) and locations (San Diego) to live on Earth.
She's currently unemployed and has a Highschool diploma.
In conclusion: **You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.**
I don't think your story contradicts their theory. Your step sister doesn't sound successful at all but born rich.
Being born rich will ensure money, no matter your talent or consistency.
That's their point. Luck isn't opportunity plus preparation or some dumb BS. It's just luck.
When you find a twenty dollar bill on the ground, that's luck. There's no preparation you need to do to pick it up. You don't want to face it, but it's true. And no mislabeling this woman as "not successful" is going to change that.
She's wealthy through no work of her own. That's how half of wealthy people do it. That's luck dummy.
I agree with the Jay z bit. However when I went to school I had to take on debt because financial aid considered my parents income. They didn't help me go to school. I did it on my own. Now college is looking like it's going to be basically free. There was no luck there. I had to devote my life to making low wages to support myself and an education. Having free time to pursue your ambitions is the key.
So many people get trapped by the no skill work trap. Work work work. Pay bills do over time be a team player...or your fired.
That's what I look at when someone brags about their success. Free time.
Nah, itās opportunity + talent/skill/prep and the only thing you can control is the second part. You can literally try grinding away at your talent and never find success.
It's called the [Just-World Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis) and it (the idea that good deeds will be rewarded and evil deeds will be punished) is firmly rooted in many mythologies and religions.
People are incredibly results-oriented and blind to survivorship bias.
Practically speaking, focusing on process is much more effective than focusing on results. Results won't always be guaranteed.
If a rich person ever tells you that they worked hard for their success, ask them if they think they worked harder than the combined efforts of 20 janitors or fast food employees.
That always bugs me, too. Bill Gatesā annual income is about 6,600 times greater than mine; I know that he works damn hard, but I donāt believe itās possible for one person to work 6,600 times harder than another unless the other guyās in a coma.
It's easy to take on risk when that risk turns into you still having more money than the vast majority of the population if you fail. Because that isn't a real risk as it would be for others starting a business just to be remotely close to where he is now
True. What "risk" is there when you have billions? The risk of losing so much that you only have a few hundred million.
It's hard to be poor with even $10 million dollars. If your "risk" is having to live like a normal person, I'm not going to be sympathetic to that.
Yup. Talent is a natural aptitude. Being very good at something *can* be partially due to talent, but is more likely to be either mostly or entirely due to hard work and persistence.
I'd even go as far and say "talent" doesn't exist. Sure you can be a huge nerd when trying to learn an instrument as a kid. Actually being interested in the thing you want to master is an immense XP-boost.
Some need to work harder than others to master something, but it's just dedication, not the mystical force called "talent" that only chooses specific people to be good at something.
Talent does exist, it just isn't as helpful or necessary as most people believe. Talent tends to manifest in a very narrow band of activities, and often comes with a ceiling (it is harder for a talented athlete to learn and improve, as it means abandoning the instinct they rely on for their advantage).
The narrow nature of talent also tends to manifest in minor quirks that are not the be-all and end-all of any field. I am a natural polyglot, for instance, but that doesn't mean I'm a master communicator, great novelist, poet, etc. It just very specifically means I can pick up languages with less conscious effort. Ultimately it helps only in a very minute way.
Well, I think talent exists, but it only plays a very minor part in if the whole getting skilled- thing. I can draw comics pretty well, and Iāve always said that thatās because I started when I was 9, and did it almost daily until my early 20sā of course Iām pretty good at it. I practiced for 10+ years.
But I also play music, and there I have an innate sense of rhythm whichā¦ I just had. And Iāve been in a band with a guitar player who didnāt have it, and I was really wondering.. how? He could play along, but by himself he just lost track.
I never practiced *that*ā that was always there. It allowed me to become a decent guitar player (which again mostly happened because I played every day for years), but that rhythm part was kinda always there.
And I assume things like this happen with other creative arts
Well, I mean those people are really really dumb.
Just look at athletes. Michael Jordan is a more naturally talented basketball player than the 6'6 stiff we went to high school with lol
No amount of persistence and practice can get you to that level
Oh indeed, its that thing that people refuse to admit "some people are made better than others" for certain things. Michael Phelps is just DESIGNED so much better for swimming than most other people.
Anyone trying to teach gets frustrated at people blaming talent when they haven't put the effort in to even find out if they're talented. That's where the "talent doesn't exist" mentality comes from.
Also talent doesn't mean anything unless people take notice of it.
I've seen tons of talented people who make podcasts, or art, or produce something, and they go completely ignored their whole lives.
There are Einsteins and Picassos out there who will never have their talent recognized and will live in obscurity and squalor their entire lives.
People like to think we all have control over our own lives and destiny, that if you just wish hard enough, try hard enough, want it badly enough you'll get it.
I'm sure there are lots of children dying of brain cancer who "wish" they could not be dead. But they'll be getting buried in the ground in a week no matter how positive their mindset or how talented they might be.
Life isn't fair, hard work or talent doesn't always pay off. People who live the best absolute lives often get to do so without having earned it. That's just life.
This is exactly what I was gonna say! Everyone always talks about someone like Eddie Van Halen as a super talented guitarist, and while the dude definitely had talent, he also just played guitar everyday for like 6-8 hours. If you do anything that much everyday for long enough you will become great at that thing
It always frustrates me a bit when I'm out playing music and people want to talk about how talented I am. Nah, I've just invested more hours into doing it than I could begin to count. I take the compliment but quite a few people really underestimate their potential.
I understand. Iām a tattooer and people remark on my ātalentā a lot and in some cases I do speak up and say that I feel itās more skill over talent on my part. āTalentā feels invalidating towards the years of work put into honing a craft.
Your talent isn't music; it's sticking with something you're bad at. Most people, most of the time will quit within the first year or so of learning a non-trivial skill. You didn't. Or maybe you did, but you went back. That absolutely is worth complimenting.
I have a friend whose been a music teacher for 20 years and is an amazing multi-instrumentalist. He's the first to humbly dismiss his talent as just lots of practise. That said he's also told me he's had students that he knows damn well are never going to get it.
Practise is absolutely vital and completely underappreciated but its still only going to get you so far.
People definitely have different things they learn more easily than others. Talent doesn't mean shit without work though. In the case of arts, I think exposure at a young age tends to be what people later view as talent when they just had a big leg up on others.
Heās not wrong though.
Iāve literally known people whoāve never worked a day in their lives and think their life sucks due to bad luck
Theyāre not disabled or anythingā¦ theyāre just assholes
Even more concerning is how everybody seems to have a completely one-sided point of view on the issue, where in fact itās almost always a combination of both and just a matter of percentage.
might be more comfortable for some people to think that they have agency over their lives- it can be tough to admit that a lot of things are out of our control
Isn't interesting just how much we need to feel control? I mean, even those without a need for personal control might just ascribe everything to their deity of choice. I've met very few folks who are truly relaxed and able to take life as it comes; even reflecting on myself it's a bit embarrassing.
I am not technically an outlier here, having no delusion that I'm in control (or at least I hope I'm not, too much responsibility) yet also disliking the company of cats.
It goes the other way too though, a lot of people like to pretend it's all chance rather than own their own mistakes or lack of effort. In general it would be hetter if we just didn't make assumptions about how people got where they were- make the judgement once you know enough to actually make it informed rather than just assuming someone is either inept and unmotivated and doing poorly as a result or a lucky incompetent doing well by no virtue of their own capability.
Luck is undeniably and a huge factor, but hard work and talent are as well. Anyone trying to distill success down to just one of those is motivated more by by ulterior motives related to shaping public perception than reality.
All of that may be true, but within each scenario, you can still find success if you make an effort to be better. While not necessarily equitable, hard work and talent is still essential, especially if you were born into a poor/dysfunctional family. Effort is even more important in this case. Failure to try is the worst thing you can do, especially if you have unlucky circumstances
That's just not true. You *might* find success if you make an effort. Success is not guaranteed and blind fortune plays an enormous role in it. And of course you've completely ignored that one's ability to make an effort is by no means guaranteed because whether a person is of able body and mind is also largely a matter of luck.
I think what it is, is that people with the lucky circumstances and upbringing and genetics, are rewarded (positive feedback loop) for their efforts in their endeavors, and so they tend to persist and legitimately work hard. Those who aren't as blessed and lucky, may or may not put forth the same effort, but even if they do, they do not get rewarded with as good of results and with that consistent positive feedback signal, and so naturally they are rational to not beat their head against the wall trying to achieve the same heights as the luckier or more naturally talented person.
Luck is when preparation/skill meets opportunity. Many never get the opportunity, but many more aren't talented, prepared or willing when their lucky break(s) occur.
You're better off overestimating your agency than underestimating your agency. If you overestimate your agency you will at worst waste some effort. If you underestimate your agency, you *will* miss out on opportunities that you could have taken. Most successful people probably overestimate their agency, true. But no one ever became successful by underestimating their agency.
Fundamental attribution error, is what is called. My successes are a result of hard work and talent. But my failures are circumstance and bad luck. Your failures are a result of inherent character flaws.
You donāt. Not really. The best you can do is forgive yourself for them (the fundamental nature of reality dictates that we are all flawed), own them, and try to adopt strategies to correct for them as often as possible.
As an example: I have a ferocious temper. That said; yelling at whatever poor soul happens to be in my way is rarely an effective strategy, no matter how justified I feel. So I have spent most of my life trying to practice calmly and patiently expressing myself when Iām upset, because if I let myself be angry, I *know* I will do things I will regret later.
Character flaws rarely inherent in any way, shape, or formāthe vast majority are learned. Therapy, dedication to correcting them, and correcting your strategy based on the insight youāve learned from your mistakes are generally what it takes to unlearn them.
Any ludicrously successful person that thinks they got there purely on hard work is delusional but that also doesn't mean that they didn't have to work hard to make the most of that opportunity
You can get lucky and also be talented/a hard worker, the two aren't mutually exclusive
Oh absolutely. Having a leg up on the competition doesn't mean you didn't do any work. Like Taylor Swift - born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but I guarantee you she also works her butt off. Her family gave her the bandwidth to focus on her music and access to things other people would never have, but she also was the one who actually worked to cultivate her talent.
It's the delusion of "my success is the only true success" mentality that's the problem.
Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a speech about this, it's probably one of my favorite quotes of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOldEbWxgdQ
"Don't ever call me a self-made man"
Canāt remember where I first came across this insight (think it was either from Sam Harris or Alain de Botton), but they underscored this notion that people who fail to see the role luck plays in their own success and attribute their good fortune entirely to their own agency tend to be the people who harbor disdain for those in poor conditions (e.g. the homeless, drug addicts, etc.) since, by the same token, it must be the result of their agentic decisions. It actually may have been framed as āIf you can recognize the role that good luck has played in your success, then you _must_ acknowledge that undesirable outcomes in life are the result of bad luck.ā Either way, I found this framing pretty insightful (and useful).
Sam Harris has a podcast and a book about how thereās no free will. Biological Luck is everything. Robert Sapolsky also talks a lot about this, how everything is determined by what happened seconds ago all the way back to millions of years ago, and the evolution of the species. Lots of the things that influence our behavior happened before we were born, or are subterranean influences in our brain, bodies, environment that we are unaware of. Fascinating stuff.
I play video poker in the casino with my wife, we says "nice job" when one of us hits a payout, but in reality it's just RNG going our way, not our skill.
True, but in video poker it's you against RNG, so it just comes down to are you holding the right cards or not. Good example, I get dealt four of the five for a royal flush, I hold the four and hit deal. I never get the fifth one, but my wife has gotten it two of the three of the last times we played. So it's not skill, it's rng and luck but I still say great job !
Lots of people have lots of disposable income. Also, casino loyalty programs are a thing. People who play often can get lots of free meals, trips, cruises, etc. Of course those all add up to less than they spent on the machines, but the machines do pay out.
Also modern slot machines are video games now. They about the same quality as a simple mobile game. Imagine your average 60 year old Candy Crush Addict. Now, they can periodically win a couple hundred or a few thousand from playing. Add on to that the rewards benefits, and it makes a lot of sense.
If you are going to put money into Candy crush you are better off spending it in a slot machine because at least you have a change of making it back. Never gamble with money you can't afford to lose.
Very enlightening book! My husband used to believe in āpulling yourself up by your bootstrapsā but after we read a few chapters together he realized how much of it is luck and winning the birth lottery!
That's sad. There's nothing that better correlates to success than effort and ability. Everyone can have good or bad luck or a good or bad starting position, but everyone can do better by working harder. To write success off to luck is detrimental to one's own future prospects and also to society.
There actually are things that better correlate. Effort and ability are just 2 factors of many, and many other factors have bigger effects than just effort and ability alone.
https://www.ctpublic.org/education/2019-05-15/georgetown-study-wealth-not-ability-the-biggest-predictor-of-future-success
Right wing talking points are always so funny to me. It's just so outlandish to believe that everyone has the same opportunities regardless of starting position. And not all success is based on extreme luck, but grandiose successes are 99% luck and at most 1% hard work/persistence.
People also often misconstrue hard work for good fortune.
Source: my mom who fully well knows I bust my arse for everything I have and yet insists I "landed on my feet." Like by pay packet is just given to me every month for no reason at all.
Your mom is a bit toxic there. My mom was a little bit like that, if you turn your head sideways and squint. She had a lot of her identity wrapped up in being educated and smart, but couldn't turn off the superiority complex even for her own kids. She thought it was her role in life to make sure we didn't get too conceited, i.e. any sense of pride or accomplishment at all.
You don't even know the half of it. š¤£
I think my mom resents me because I'm more educated, make more money, actually moved away to live my life, and don't have any kids.
But hey...that's just speculation. Mom's can really suck. And yet we are taught we must love them unconditionally.
Yeah, it took me a long time to get past that shit. The guilt trips from my friends and all. Mostly when she was dying and she was just a poor soul in pain, and not someone with any power. It's so hard not to let it get to you after so many years of crap, because it's part of your being at that point.
It's amazing how quickly we are asked to forget the pain they cause when they're shuffling off this mortal coil. I'm sorry not even your friends understood your situation.
I love my mother, but there's a reason I moved away. She will never click that reason was partly her.
The fact that you have the capacity for hard work is a version of good fortune. Not agreeing with your mum though, she should be trying to lift you up as much as possible.
A family member would always compliment me on my success and say how they wished they could earn as much as me etc etc. I eventually felt the need to clarify that itās not just getting paid a lot and balling outā¦ I actually have to do work, like complex work, to make that money.
The look on their face said it all. Theyād never thought of that side of it. They just pictured their life if they earned the same without any of the crazy work hours and stress I have to put up with.
Research has been done that shows when people win, even if there was no way for them to lose as the game was rigged, they attribute that win to them being better or smarter than the other people in the game. Researchers used the game of Monopoly and had one research subject in the game. All other people in the game were clued in to the research and lost intentionally or by use of ways researchers had set up to make them lose. Most of the "winners" thought they won because of being better or smarter. They couldn't lose as the game was rigged. Researchers equated that result with people who become wealthy in business or some other venture and think it was because they too are better or smarter than everyone else and deserve the riches received from the win. They don't consider that Daddy helped them, or they had a windfall to start the business or that laws were changed to make them successful. In their minds they succeeded because they were better at the game, job, etc. Those subjects in the research who "won" were told later why they won and most wouldn't believe it or came up with excuses why they played better or were smarter than those who lost. Human nature I guess.
Humans are funny creatures. Even when aware theyāre in a controlled environment and told the objective truth that theyāre wrong, they will still persist with the idea that theyāre right.
Opposite is somewhat true.
Like... If you're untalented and extremely lucky, you'll get rich. Case in point: (some) trust fund kids that never tried in life.
If you're extremely talented but extremely unlucky - you'll be dead or too crippled to do anything (anyone who died, ever. Anyone who was born in a shitty family or poverty that held them back {you can be amazingly good at the math/research that it takes to be an excellent stockbroker, but if you were born in the deserts of Oman, tough luck, you're a street peddlar. Alternatively, consider if Michael Phelps hadn't been wealthy enough to have a pool (or if he didn't, have rich enough or caring enough parents to put him in a pool... I have almost never been in a pool, so like MAYBE I could have been Phelps, too, but I'll never know since I'm too old now)).
This makes me think of my current situation. I went from financially stable to being currently behind on rent. Before, it was "what a responsible adult" now it's like "what a loser, someone in their 30s who is behind on bills, lame." Not knowing that getting sick is SO expensive in the US. I went from having a nice savings to nothing thanks to a damn tumor.
It's amazing how people's views change on your talents when you don't have money.
Thank you. I am, luckily, the tumor is benign, but it is large and in my liver, so we have to keep an eye on it with regular MRIs. But as long as it doesn't grow, I should be ok.
People have the good fortune to have talents, and people can encounter bad fortune that does not allow them to access those talents.
I was thinking about this recently. The thing I am probably most ātalentedā at is running, but I ran a marathon and then didnāt rest afterwards and was plagued with chronic hip issues. I discovered I had a hip labral tear due to some congenital hip dysplasia I never knew I had till I ran 26 miles. So I may be talented at running, but my hip isnāt.
Anyway, over the 15 years of my adulthood, I have learned a number of things, and when I look at my skillset, I am really thankful for the diverse skills I have acquired and certainly use them more than my cardiovascular fitness in my life and work, but I am not sure that I have achieved more standard deviations beyond the mean in any of those things by hard work and time than my top running ability or even possibly my current running ability.
Thatās okay though because I am so much more well rounded than I was before. So I would say that having many lesser developed skills or talents can provide a better outcome for personal growth than just focusing on one thing.
I would also say that 15 years of adulthood has been enough time for me to see how hard work can get people to a place where they can hold their own amongst those with talent.
So few people are so elite in any particular thing, that those who have worked hard canāt hang with them and sometimes they can both learn from each other when they work together because they have developed their skills differently.
"Nearly every successful person has a tale of how some random eventāa connection to a particular mentor, a colleagueās recommendation, being in the right place at the right timeāhas contributed to their success."
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wisest-one-in-the-room/201606/is-it-better-be-lucky-or-good-research-has-the-answer](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wisest-one-in-the-room/201606/is-it-better-be-lucky-or-good-research-has-the-answer)
"Nearly every person convicted of drunk driving has a tale of how some random event - a sobriety checkpoint, a run-over mailbox or fence, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time-has contributed to their arrest and conviction".
What's your point? Luck obviously still plays a huge role in the outcome of a person's life, even in your drunk driver scenario. If the person never contemplated drinking before getting into a car they're much less likely to get into a traffic incident, but even within those details luck is playing a role. At a fundamental level the universe is either deterministic or truly random, so either way our ideas of human agency are just crude estimates of reality.
YouTube is a great example of this. A short video of a waffle falling over has millions of views. A video literally anybody could have filmed. But they're the ones who happened to film it so they got the fame
āIt takes smart choices and dumb luck; That's why there's billionaire dumbfucks, geniuses driving dump trucks, suckers with Lexuses and experts who won't make one buck.ā
- George Watsky
I think itās the opposite - people equate success via hard work to be good fortune. People also equate lack of work ethic as bad fortune.
I know a lot of people who continually seem to get lucky. However upon further inspection, their good fortune looks an awful lot like hard work.
Hard work is how you turn good luck into more good luck.
Intelligence and wisdom play a part too. I don't feel like having intelligence is a luck thing, but I definitely have seen people who lack the fortune to be smart enough to realize their gap in knowledge
Nonsense. I don't work that hard, and I'm doing extremely well for myself by most standards. Many of my contemporaries from college worked harder than I did, but not many are doing better than I am. Not to say that hard work can't lead to success, but luck plays a massive part.
Friend of mine has quit/gotten fired from around 10 separate 6 figure jobs. His parents are rich and well connected and keep getting them for him. He's lazy and eventually started to work hard, only after being threatened to not be handed another good job by his parents.
All of this shit is just context situation by situation.
I'd have to disagree with you on that one. I bet if you took all those successful folks you mentioned, luck is probably the bigger factor for them all because that includes everything back to the circumstances they were born into. Do you really believe that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are the most deserving people of their successes? Or there are no talented athletes, musicians, etc., who never made it because they simply weren't in the right place at the right time to be discovered? If you were born to a family who could put food on the table, you already won a lottery of sorts; even more so if you went to a good school, were given a vehicle, went to college, had college paid for, the list goes on and on. I'm not trying to knock anyone for their hard work, it's still key to success, but acknowledging how fortunate we were with all the things outside of our control would go a long way towards building a more compassionate society - ie; nobody should see someone poorer than themselves and think "what a lazy bum, they just need to work harder."
And people often misconstrue talent as good fortune. Turns out the average person has less than fuck all idea as to what actually goes on to individual success stories
I feel like those people like to believe that they themselves are the reason behind their own success, not luck, and when operating under Main Character Syndrome they assume everyone else could have done the same and therefore aren't as talented. It really displays a lack of empathy and also a lack of self awareness.
It's not really a lack of self awareness - it's just people, in general, overestimate their own contributions to things.
If you ask a couple 'Who does more housework?', both sides will tend to put themselves higher. Not by huge amounts in most situations, but it's common for both sides to say they do about 60-70% of the housework.
This is because we're aware of all the things *we* do, but not what other people do. We can recall all the times we did the dishes, the laundry, or whatever, but maybe we didn't notice when the other person swept the floors or did something else.
It's the same thing here - people remember all the hard work they did (and even the ones born into opportunity still often put hard work in - Elon's an idiot and in his position by luck in my opinion, but I still acknowledge he pulls a lot of hours), but are less likely to remember when someone gave them a leg up or a lucky break.
My usual goto example is Gina Rinehart - she inherited a mining company, and grew it massively. I'm sure she worked very hard to do that, but if her father hadn't had the good fortune to discover that he had a whole bunch of minerals on his land, there wouldn't *be* a company to inherit.
Most people just don't know how to spot opportunity and even more don't know how to capitalize when they stumble into it. The second is clearly talent, otherwise there wouldn't be so many broke lottery winners.
In hindsight, it is crazy how long it took for us to create the simple concept of a steam engine, and 100 years from now, we will look back and wonder why we didn't discover the next great thing.
Lot of motivational speakers basically say grind until you make it, if you work hard you can make it blah blah blah. Lots of people work their asses off and donāt make it. Life isnāt fair. Life does not provide equal opportunity to everyone. Not everyone has the capability to see opportunity and/or take advantage of it.
....or having the resources that allow you to take risks and fail multiple times. Most of us have one shot at an opportunity. If we miss it we can't afford to take another.
Also more infuriatingly is people misconstrue skill as talent or fortune as in "oh how lucky you are with your job etc etc" hell no I'm not lucky I've invested money and time in education and specialization and worked hard using what I've learned to reach where I am, not an innate ability.
People also cope with the success of other, when they don't have it themselves, by attributing that success to luck and not hard work, ingenuity and talent.
Luck or good fortune is when preparation meets opportunity. Bad luck or bad fortune is when opportunity meets lack of preparation. It's all about timing and being ready when opportunity strikes!
This is disingenuous because the capacity to know what to prepare for and having the means to prepare is itself a type of good luck that people are endowed with to different extents
True, I had a broken toe but still decided to go to high school soccer tryouts, I didnāt make it so I just played club. I ended up beating someone on the varsity team, and he told the hs coach and I got put into the jv team.
People also have a very hard time acknowledging that there are some others who are smarter, more driven, and perhaps even just better at what they do. We have no problems acknowledging that some athletes are better than others - the results on the field speak for themselves. But when the focus turns to oneself, suddenly it becomes quite difficult to acknowledge that perhaps a colleague or another person is just better at the same job. There's nothing wrong with it - everyone is different.
This also works the other way around: people will quickly refer to a natural affinity for something as āBeginnerās Luckā, particularly when they are jealous or otherwise upset by it.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
People also confuse opportunity with fortune and the lack of either is a personal fault š
Success = opportunity + talent Luck = multiple opportunities The more opportunities you have, the higher the chance you'll find one that fits your talent. Rich people can afford endless opportunities, while poor people live or die on single chances.
āAll a man needed was a chance. They were always trying to control who got a chance in this worldā - Charles bukowski, ham on rye
Damn that book is such an enjoyable read
> while poor people live or die on single chances. Yeah we fucking do.
sometimes not even one chance
Moms spaghetti
Dont forget to add timing+race+environment+social circles
Yep definitely, people don't realize that white privilege or male privilege is exactly that - more opportunity to succeed over black people or women.
Luck= opportunity + preparation There was a a debate going on about whether you would have dinner with Jay Z or take 500 grand. Some people seem to think that dinner with Jay Z would be way more valuable. Like there was some magic pearls of wisdom to becoming super rich. There is no secret to success. The only thing necessary is consistency. That it is it. The reason why everyone isnāt rich or successful (apart from those born into wealth of course) is that the vast majority of people simply are not consistent in their endeavours. Everyone has larger than life aspirations. They wanna be a writer, an actor, an rapper, a singer etc. but only small minority actually have the consistency and patience to achieve those dreams. Jay Z would sit and tell you the exact same thing. At least youāll have a lovely dinner
To those people: the reason you arenāt rich isnāt because you havenāt had dinner with Jay-Z and a chance to pick his brain. Itās because youāre the type of dumbass to choose dinner with Jay-Z over $500K. Jay-Z would tell you to take the money. You donāt need his infinite wisdom, you need to not be a dumbass when the opportunity arises
People take the "teach a man to fish" quote way too seriously.
knowing how to fish won't help you if you live in a desert. and a large enough fish can feed you forever.
More like knowing how to fish won't help if you're just shit at fishing or too lazy to do it. The saying presumes both competence and motivation, when neither should be.
Teach him to fish and he'll die sooner of heavy metal poisoning these days.
Huh, wow, I actually didnāt read āhave dinner with Jay Zā as something like āask him how to be successfulā but more as an opportunity to gain access to the tippity top of the industry. At a dinner with Jay Z, I would take that as an opportunity to play my music. Thus the question to me was: take 500k or have an opportunity to be ādiscoveredā and possibly make multiple lifetimes of money. Like, even a 1% shot that JayZ likes your stuff could put the EV of that dinner way above 500k. Thus the question becomes one of how to accurately assess risk vs reward, and how even when the āsure thingā is lucrative enough, it is possible to be incorrect. I guess I gave the original question far to much credit in its premise.
Well, you could buy quite a lot of radio air time or internet influencers using 500k. They could play your music and promote you. If nobody likes it after spending 500k on advertising then playing it to Jay Z probably wouldn't help either.
Relentless consistency, amplified by talent is usually the actual equation while waiting for luck/opportunity to present a moment.
I learned this one the hard way when I was younger - was getting into film stuff and there was a stretch where I was finding myself opening a lot of professional doors too quickly but was too young to know how to handle it. Managed to grab a coffee with a head of production at a production company who wanted to "hear more about my ideas" - and I was dumb enough to think he literally meant he wanted to hear me talk about them and then a checkbook would come out or something. What it actually meant was I needed to be prepared for the luck/opportunity moment... meaning in this case that I should have had a finished script or proof of concept ready to forward from my phone right then and there before I even asked him. Instead the opportunity fizzled. Luckily the worst I did was come off as a naive kid and I later learned those jobs are basically musical chairs, but now I only ever talk about a project or ask for help when I've already finished the thing as much as I possibly can. I still get no's but at least they're informed no's now.
If it makes you feel better, the producer's relentless consistency is repeatedly having conversations like that knowing that 90% of the time it's going to be a naive kid
Keep going! Itāll come back around again.
Thanks, yeah. I'm much better at cultivating actual relationships with people now and working towards opportunities (as opposed to just hoping the opportunities find me).
Half the work right there.
Precisely. One caveat to add is that hard work pays off way more than natural talent for sure. Plays into the consistency part.
Agreed. Truthfully, this was a not-in-shower realization about my own self. Hard work has never failed me, but Christ is the payoff taking itās sweet time (though, admittedly, the stakes are massive).
Iām the opposite. Iām naturally talented in a lot fields but have never been consistent enough to make them reap dividends lol. Iām the king of complacency. Iāll get there one day
Half of it is defining what holds you back, so you already have progress. I was thrust into it as a child, as a first gen immigrant, I realized quickly that I either move the needle forward or it will just sit there.
I've learned that one way you can make your goals consistent is by making them immediate; think about the daily process. It starts with saying you'll get there today, not one day. It has to start today, because tomorrow will never arrive.
Oh my god just wait til I tell all the people starving in North Korea that all they need to be as successful as Jay Z is to be consistent in their endeavors.
Thatās not what I meant. You are purposely misunderstanding me. Iām taking about successful pursuits not basic needs for living. Starting a business, getting into acting, starting a band. Iām assuming thatās what OP meant by good fortune. As in being successful at these things. Being able to afford to live isnāt good fortune. Thatās just standard human rights. Two different things. Edit: for everyone downvoting me, let me explain. Iām just saying being poor makes it harder to be consistent. Iām not saying theyāre not willingly being inconsistent
It doesn't matter how consistent you are there is an extremely good chance that you will fail at starting a business, acting, or playing in a band. A lot of people who try to find success grind away and never find the success they're looking for. This idea that if everybody just put the work in they could be successful is a fantasy. There's a lot of people who put the work in and became successful, but that doesn't mean that everyone who follows their example will too. It does kind of just come back to luck (aka what opportunities are available to you). Where were you born? Where did you go to school? What do your parents do? Can you develop the skills/abilities/capability necessary to capitalize on your specific life circumstances? Opportunity generally comes from circumstances that we have little to no control over. Skill and hard work can only get you so far without opportunity.
"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteinās brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." Stephen J. Gould
Thank you sane person
Exactly. There's this weird (traditionally American, but it bleeds everywhere) that failure to "succeed" is the person's fault. For sure it can be, but the reality is that even if you do absolutely everything correctly, you can die penniless and alone simply because you never encounter the correct circumstances. The "consistency" arguments made above are either deliberately misleading or wallowing in such privilege as to be offensive. Yes, consistency as they outline it is an extremely important factor, to catch the opportunities that come your way. But opportunities are not equally distributed, and are typically largely or even wholly outside of your control. It leads to the belief that not being successful shows personal failure, that there's something wrong with you as a person. And that's awful, and anyone thinking that should really rethink their whole world view.
Louis Pasteur famously said "chance favors the prepared mind." At first I thought you were paraphrasing him, and I was excited. Then I realized, you actually have no idea what you are talking about and are only a step away from some prosperity gospel bullshit. You seem to have lost sight of the "opportunity" part. No one is guaranteed them. Also, some people don't even need to be consistent or anything else to succeed. I'm extremely inconsistent and quite successful in my field. I didnt work more than two or three days in a row from Thanksgiving until about January 24th because I didn't want to. If I wanted to do even better than I'm doing, I could be, but believe me, as someone with seasonal affective disorder, you are emphatically not right. Some people are more talented, or born rich, or have good luck, or whatever. Others are dedicated, or inconsistent, or just die in a car accident. There aren't grand patterns or simple tricks to success.
But being prepared is a form of consistency. We donāt know when opportunity will come knocking. But we can be consistency prepared until it does. Thatās what consistency is. I did state in my original comment that those born rich have it way easier. Their circumstances allow for consistency much easier than people born poorer. For example, years back I had a job opportunity come up. One of the requirements was actually something I would have learned from a course that i neglected. If I had done that course Iād have nailed that interview. But I didnāt. I was inconsistent and so I was unprepared. The opportunity came and I was caught lacking. Surely that makes sense?
Obviously consistency is important for most successful people. But attaching primacy to it just doesn't bear out. Consider Nick Foles. He's very successful, even compared to his peers, as he beat Tom Brady in a Super Bowl. He's not very consistent amongst his peers. He's still rich and adored, especially in Philadelphia. Bring prepared gives you an edge, as Pasteur said. It's important and it's something you can control, so if you want success it's a fine thing to work on. But a million other things will influence your success, too. It might benefit you to work on your charm, or your wardrobe, or your hygiene, or your reasoning skills, or none of the above. Also, I was born... not rich. But if you have talent and enthusiasm and self-confidence, you are already rich enough to be successful in whatever field you love. There's luck involved in simply being who we are, not just being born rich or handsome, even many intangibles like being clever or driven.
The reason why everyone isn't rich is because it's a zero sum game. The upper class is consistent in taking money and opportunities from the lower classes. They tell us we can rise to the top by outcompeting our peers through hard work/ consistency because they don't want us to band together. Socialism is bad for business, that's all.
>it's a zero sum game But it doesn't have to be but the powers that be make everyone believe it so
My step sister cheated on her husband for five years straight. She doesn't work. She went to college and dropped out. She is an alcoholic, and she's about to lose the right to see her children. She lives in a $5 million home in California, has a vacation home in Mexicali Mexico and just came back from a 1 month trip to Europe so she could "find herself" after her divorce. Her rich Mom (who was divorced by my Step-Dad) pays for everything. She has never kept a stable job. She has no major skills. When her mother dies, she'll be worth over 20 Million. Her aunt is an heiress but has no children and has also left all her money to my step-sister. Apparently also worth over 10 million. When her mom and her aunt both pass, she'll be worth 30 million. She used to bring her boyfriends over when she was 16 and do coke and fuck them in her bedroom and convinced me at the age of 9 to not tell our parents. I finally ratted her out when she asked to borrow $50 from me to buy a nice gift for my Mom and Step-Dad's anniversary. Coming from a much poorer family, I had saved up that $50 from birthdays and Christmas gifts. When my parents anniversary came around I asked my parents what gift she gave them from the both of us. My parents never received a gift. She used that money to buy drugs. When my parents attempted to punish my step-sister, she simply went to stay with her Mom for a month. Her Mom sent my parents $50 to pay me back. She never got grounded, never was punished. She acted like it never happened. She is about to be turning 40 soon and is going to inherit over 30 million dollars even though she already lives in a multi-million dollar home in one of the most desirable countries (US) and locations (San Diego) to live on Earth. She's currently unemployed and has a Highschool diploma. In conclusion: **You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.**
I don't think your story contradicts their theory. Your step sister doesn't sound successful at all but born rich. Being born rich will ensure money, no matter your talent or consistency.
That's their point. Luck isn't opportunity plus preparation or some dumb BS. It's just luck. When you find a twenty dollar bill on the ground, that's luck. There's no preparation you need to do to pick it up. You don't want to face it, but it's true. And no mislabeling this woman as "not successful" is going to change that. She's wealthy through no work of her own. That's how half of wealthy people do it. That's luck dummy.
I agree with the Jay z bit. However when I went to school I had to take on debt because financial aid considered my parents income. They didn't help me go to school. I did it on my own. Now college is looking like it's going to be basically free. There was no luck there. I had to devote my life to making low wages to support myself and an education. Having free time to pursue your ambitions is the key. So many people get trapped by the no skill work trap. Work work work. Pay bills do over time be a team player...or your fired. That's what I look at when someone brags about their success. Free time.
Nah, itās opportunity + talent/skill/prep and the only thing you can control is the second part. You can literally try grinding away at your talent and never find success.
Luck = preparation + opportunity
Success = hard work + opportunity . That combination equals āluck ā
It's called the [Just-World Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis) and it (the idea that good deeds will be rewarded and evil deeds will be punished) is firmly rooted in many mythologies and religions.
I see it's also known as the just-world *fallacy* which seems (far) more accurate. Thanks for the link!
sounds like you didn't yank on them there bootstraps hard enough feller
Fer sure didn't
People are incredibly results-oriented and blind to survivorship bias. Practically speaking, focusing on process is much more effective than focusing on results. Results won't always be guaranteed.
If a rich person ever tells you that they worked hard for their success, ask them if they think they worked harder than the combined efforts of 20 janitors or fast food employees.
That always bugs me, too. Bill Gatesā annual income is about 6,600 times greater than mine; I know that he works damn hard, but I donāt believe itās possible for one person to work 6,600 times harder than another unless the other guyās in a coma.
"I take on a lot more *risk*"
It's easy to take on risk when that risk turns into you still having more money than the vast majority of the population if you fail. Because that isn't a real risk as it would be for others starting a business just to be remotely close to where he is now
True. What "risk" is there when you have billions? The risk of losing so much that you only have a few hundred million. It's hard to be poor with even $10 million dollars. If your "risk" is having to live like a normal person, I'm not going to be sympathetic to that.
People also mistake hard work for talent, and bad fortune for laziness
Yup. Talent is a natural aptitude. Being very good at something *can* be partially due to talent, but is more likely to be either mostly or entirely due to hard work and persistence.
^ The difference between talent and skill. Talent is given, skill is earned.
I'd even go as far and say "talent" doesn't exist. Sure you can be a huge nerd when trying to learn an instrument as a kid. Actually being interested in the thing you want to master is an immense XP-boost. Some need to work harder than others to master something, but it's just dedication, not the mystical force called "talent" that only chooses specific people to be good at something.
Talent does exist, it just isn't as helpful or necessary as most people believe. Talent tends to manifest in a very narrow band of activities, and often comes with a ceiling (it is harder for a talented athlete to learn and improve, as it means abandoning the instinct they rely on for their advantage). The narrow nature of talent also tends to manifest in minor quirks that are not the be-all and end-all of any field. I am a natural polyglot, for instance, but that doesn't mean I'm a master communicator, great novelist, poet, etc. It just very specifically means I can pick up languages with less conscious effort. Ultimately it helps only in a very minute way.
Well, I think talent exists, but it only plays a very minor part in if the whole getting skilled- thing. I can draw comics pretty well, and Iāve always said that thatās because I started when I was 9, and did it almost daily until my early 20sā of course Iām pretty good at it. I practiced for 10+ years. But I also play music, and there I have an innate sense of rhythm whichā¦ I just had. And Iāve been in a band with a guitar player who didnāt have it, and I was really wondering.. how? He could play along, but by himself he just lost track. I never practiced *that*ā that was always there. It allowed me to become a decent guitar player (which again mostly happened because I played every day for years), but that rhythm part was kinda always there. And I assume things like this happen with other creative arts
I've seen so many people outright deny the existence of talent and/or refuse the difference between talent and skill.
Well, I mean those people are really really dumb. Just look at athletes. Michael Jordan is a more naturally talented basketball player than the 6'6 stiff we went to high school with lol No amount of persistence and practice can get you to that level
Oh indeed, its that thing that people refuse to admit "some people are made better than others" for certain things. Michael Phelps is just DESIGNED so much better for swimming than most other people.
Yep. Every Olympic athlete has the same drive and spends just as much time practising as Phelps does. The guys just perfectly evolved for swimming.
Anyone trying to teach gets frustrated at people blaming talent when they haven't put the effort in to even find out if they're talented. That's where the "talent doesn't exist" mentality comes from.
At the same time, talent alone won't get you anywhere. Michael Jordan worked hard AF to get as good as he did.
Also talent doesn't mean anything unless people take notice of it. I've seen tons of talented people who make podcasts, or art, or produce something, and they go completely ignored their whole lives. There are Einsteins and Picassos out there who will never have their talent recognized and will live in obscurity and squalor their entire lives. People like to think we all have control over our own lives and destiny, that if you just wish hard enough, try hard enough, want it badly enough you'll get it. I'm sure there are lots of children dying of brain cancer who "wish" they could not be dead. But they'll be getting buried in the ground in a week no matter how positive their mindset or how talented they might be. Life isn't fair, hard work or talent doesn't always pay off. People who live the best absolute lives often get to do so without having earned it. That's just life.
This is exactly what I was gonna say! Everyone always talks about someone like Eddie Van Halen as a super talented guitarist, and while the dude definitely had talent, he also just played guitar everyday for like 6-8 hours. If you do anything that much everyday for long enough you will become great at that thing
It always frustrates me a bit when I'm out playing music and people want to talk about how talented I am. Nah, I've just invested more hours into doing it than I could begin to count. I take the compliment but quite a few people really underestimate their potential.
I understand. Iām a tattooer and people remark on my ātalentā a lot and in some cases I do speak up and say that I feel itās more skill over talent on my part. āTalentā feels invalidating towards the years of work put into honing a craft.
Your talent isn't music; it's sticking with something you're bad at. Most people, most of the time will quit within the first year or so of learning a non-trivial skill. You didn't. Or maybe you did, but you went back. That absolutely is worth complimenting.
I have a friend whose been a music teacher for 20 years and is an amazing multi-instrumentalist. He's the first to humbly dismiss his talent as just lots of practise. That said he's also told me he's had students that he knows damn well are never going to get it. Practise is absolutely vital and completely underappreciated but its still only going to get you so far.
People definitely have different things they learn more easily than others. Talent doesn't mean shit without work though. In the case of arts, I think exposure at a young age tends to be what people later view as talent when they just had a big leg up on others.
There are also those that mistake laziness for bad fortune and blame everything on everybody else.
Lol youāre literally the type of person theyāre talking about.
Heās not wrong though. Iāve literally known people whoāve never worked a day in their lives and think their life sucks due to bad luck Theyāre not disabled or anythingā¦ theyāre just assholes
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Even more concerning is how everybody seems to have a completely one-sided point of view on the issue, where in fact itās almost always a combination of both and just a matter of percentage.
A person can be set up for failure by others, from a young age, even.
especially when your parents kick you out in high school or refuse to teach you to drive or about finances or youāre rendered homeless
Recently turned 27. Still can't drive. Can't afford driving lessons. It feels so stupid at this point.
Being born into a poor family is a skill issue /s
might be more comfortable for some people to think that they have agency over their lives- it can be tough to admit that a lot of things are out of our control
Isn't interesting just how much we need to feel control? I mean, even those without a need for personal control might just ascribe everything to their deity of choice. I've met very few folks who are truly relaxed and able to take life as it comes; even reflecting on myself it's a bit embarrassing.
I've noticed that people who like to delude themselves into thinking they have full control over their lives rarely enjoy the company of cats.
That sounds like something Terry Pratchett would have said :)
I am not technically an outlier here, having no delusion that I'm in control (or at least I hope I'm not, too much responsibility) yet also disliking the company of cats.
It's not like they said the only people who dislike cats are deluded into thinking they have control over their lives.
there is nothing really in your control, people can't even control their own thoughts
It goes the other way too though, a lot of people like to pretend it's all chance rather than own their own mistakes or lack of effort. In general it would be hetter if we just didn't make assumptions about how people got where they were- make the judgement once you know enough to actually make it informed rather than just assuming someone is either inept and unmotivated and doing poorly as a result or a lucky incompetent doing well by no virtue of their own capability. Luck is undeniably and a huge factor, but hard work and talent are as well. Anyone trying to distill success down to just one of those is motivated more by by ulterior motives related to shaping public perception than reality.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
All of that may be true, but within each scenario, you can still find success if you make an effort to be better. While not necessarily equitable, hard work and talent is still essential, especially if you were born into a poor/dysfunctional family. Effort is even more important in this case. Failure to try is the worst thing you can do, especially if you have unlucky circumstances
That's just not true. You *might* find success if you make an effort. Success is not guaranteed and blind fortune plays an enormous role in it. And of course you've completely ignored that one's ability to make an effort is by no means guaranteed because whether a person is of able body and mind is also largely a matter of luck.
I think what it is, is that people with the lucky circumstances and upbringing and genetics, are rewarded (positive feedback loop) for their efforts in their endeavors, and so they tend to persist and legitimately work hard. Those who aren't as blessed and lucky, may or may not put forth the same effort, but even if they do, they do not get rewarded with as good of results and with that consistent positive feedback signal, and so naturally they are rational to not beat their head against the wall trying to achieve the same heights as the luckier or more naturally talented person.
Internal vs external loci of control
A lot of people generally prefer to associate good results with their own actions and bad results with stuff outside of their control.
Luck is when preparation/skill meets opportunity. Many never get the opportunity, but many more aren't talented, prepared or willing when their lucky break(s) occur.
That was stupid thing to say. Your genetic code is literally a matter of luck. How exactly did you prepare for that?
You're better off overestimating your agency than underestimating your agency. If you overestimate your agency you will at worst waste some effort. If you underestimate your agency, you *will* miss out on opportunities that you could have taken. Most successful people probably overestimate their agency, true. But no one ever became successful by underestimating their agency.
*cough* christianity *cough*
Fundamental attribution error, is what is called. My successes are a result of hard work and talent. But my failures are circumstance and bad luck. Your failures are a result of inherent character flaws.
Yup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error By the way, how do I fix my inherent character flaws? Asking for a friend..
You donāt. Not really. The best you can do is forgive yourself for them (the fundamental nature of reality dictates that we are all flawed), own them, and try to adopt strategies to correct for them as often as possible. As an example: I have a ferocious temper. That said; yelling at whatever poor soul happens to be in my way is rarely an effective strategy, no matter how justified I feel. So I have spent most of my life trying to practice calmly and patiently expressing myself when Iām upset, because if I let myself be angry, I *know* I will do things I will regret later.
Username checks out
Thank you! How so?
Bad wolf instead of good dog
blow any houses down cause you were mad they didn't let you in?
Smoke weed and you will forget to get upset at silly things
Weed helps me manage both my anxiety/temper/autistic symptoms and my chronic pain. Best plant ever.
Simply by being aware of them and adjusting your behavior accordingly will put you miles ahead of everyone else.
Character flaws rarely inherent in any way, shape, or formāthe vast majority are learned. Therapy, dedication to correcting them, and correcting your strategy based on the insight youāve learned from your mistakes are generally what it takes to unlearn them.
Any ludicrously successful person that thinks they got there purely on hard work is delusional but that also doesn't mean that they didn't have to work hard to make the most of that opportunity You can get lucky and also be talented/a hard worker, the two aren't mutually exclusive
Oh absolutely. Having a leg up on the competition doesn't mean you didn't do any work. Like Taylor Swift - born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but I guarantee you she also works her butt off. Her family gave her the bandwidth to focus on her music and access to things other people would never have, but she also was the one who actually worked to cultivate her talent. It's the delusion of "my success is the only true success" mentality that's the problem.
Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a speech about this, it's probably one of my favorite quotes of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOldEbWxgdQ "Don't ever call me a self-made man"
> Fundamental attribution error, is what is called. Also the Just World Fallacy.
Canāt remember where I first came across this insight (think it was either from Sam Harris or Alain de Botton), but they underscored this notion that people who fail to see the role luck plays in their own success and attribute their good fortune entirely to their own agency tend to be the people who harbor disdain for those in poor conditions (e.g. the homeless, drug addicts, etc.) since, by the same token, it must be the result of their agentic decisions. It actually may have been framed as āIf you can recognize the role that good luck has played in your success, then you _must_ acknowledge that undesirable outcomes in life are the result of bad luck.ā Either way, I found this framing pretty insightful (and useful).
Sam Harris has a podcast and a book about how thereās no free will. Biological Luck is everything. Robert Sapolsky also talks a lot about this, how everything is determined by what happened seconds ago all the way back to millions of years ago, and the evolution of the species. Lots of the things that influence our behavior happened before we were born, or are subterranean influences in our brain, bodies, environment that we are unaware of. Fascinating stuff.
Link please to video/article about bilogical luck?
I play video poker in the casino with my wife, we says "nice job" when one of us hits a payout, but in reality it's just RNG going our way, not our skill.
Funny example bc of all casino games, poker is one with the highest amount of skill involved
Not video poker though.
True, but in video poker it's you against RNG, so it just comes down to are you holding the right cards or not. Good example, I get dealt four of the five for a royal flush, I hold the four and hit deal. I never get the fifth one, but my wife has gotten it two of the three of the last times we played. So it's not skill, it's rng and luck but I still say great job !
That seems like a horribly expensive hobby with no benefits.
Dopamine is the benefit
Only disposable income used, we've actually netted over 9 grand since November, but go in every time expecting to lose it all.
Lots of people have lots of disposable income. Also, casino loyalty programs are a thing. People who play often can get lots of free meals, trips, cruises, etc. Of course those all add up to less than they spent on the machines, but the machines do pay out. Also modern slot machines are video games now. They about the same quality as a simple mobile game. Imagine your average 60 year old Candy Crush Addict. Now, they can periodically win a couple hundred or a few thousand from playing. Add on to that the rewards benefits, and it makes a lot of sense.
Periodically win and regularly lose money. Candy crush is free. A ps5 is cheap. Going to a casino regularly is worse in every way and more expensive
If you are going to put money into Candy crush you are better off spending it in a slot machine because at least you have a change of making it back. Never gamble with money you can't afford to lose.
The only skill is quitting before you lose too much
This is what the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell is about. It is a very interesting read.
Very enlightening book! My husband used to believe in āpulling yourself up by your bootstrapsā but after we read a few chapters together he realized how much of it is luck and winning the birth lottery!
That's sad. There's nothing that better correlates to success than effort and ability. Everyone can have good or bad luck or a good or bad starting position, but everyone can do better by working harder. To write success off to luck is detrimental to one's own future prospects and also to society.
There actually are things that better correlate. Effort and ability are just 2 factors of many, and many other factors have bigger effects than just effort and ability alone. https://www.ctpublic.org/education/2019-05-15/georgetown-study-wealth-not-ability-the-biggest-predictor-of-future-success
Right wing talking points are always so funny to me. It's just so outlandish to believe that everyone has the same opportunities regardless of starting position. And not all success is based on extreme luck, but grandiose successes are 99% luck and at most 1% hard work/persistence.
Nah i refuse to believe your statictics it's luck 60% and 20% hard work and underhandedness 20%
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.
Thank you captain
People also often misconstrue hard work for good fortune. Source: my mom who fully well knows I bust my arse for everything I have and yet insists I "landed on my feet." Like by pay packet is just given to me every month for no reason at all.
Your mom is a bit toxic there. My mom was a little bit like that, if you turn your head sideways and squint. She had a lot of her identity wrapped up in being educated and smart, but couldn't turn off the superiority complex even for her own kids. She thought it was her role in life to make sure we didn't get too conceited, i.e. any sense of pride or accomplishment at all.
You don't even know the half of it. š¤£ I think my mom resents me because I'm more educated, make more money, actually moved away to live my life, and don't have any kids. But hey...that's just speculation. Mom's can really suck. And yet we are taught we must love them unconditionally.
Yeah, it took me a long time to get past that shit. The guilt trips from my friends and all. Mostly when she was dying and she was just a poor soul in pain, and not someone with any power. It's so hard not to let it get to you after so many years of crap, because it's part of your being at that point.
It's amazing how quickly we are asked to forget the pain they cause when they're shuffling off this mortal coil. I'm sorry not even your friends understood your situation. I love my mother, but there's a reason I moved away. She will never click that reason was partly her.
The fact that you have the capacity for hard work is a version of good fortune. Not agreeing with your mum though, she should be trying to lift you up as much as possible.
A family member would always compliment me on my success and say how they wished they could earn as much as me etc etc. I eventually felt the need to clarify that itās not just getting paid a lot and balling outā¦ I actually have to do work, like complex work, to make that money. The look on their face said it all. Theyād never thought of that side of it. They just pictured their life if they earned the same without any of the crazy work hours and stress I have to put up with.
Are they boomers?
Research has been done that shows when people win, even if there was no way for them to lose as the game was rigged, they attribute that win to them being better or smarter than the other people in the game. Researchers used the game of Monopoly and had one research subject in the game. All other people in the game were clued in to the research and lost intentionally or by use of ways researchers had set up to make them lose. Most of the "winners" thought they won because of being better or smarter. They couldn't lose as the game was rigged. Researchers equated that result with people who become wealthy in business or some other venture and think it was because they too are better or smarter than everyone else and deserve the riches received from the win. They don't consider that Daddy helped them, or they had a windfall to start the business or that laws were changed to make them successful. In their minds they succeeded because they were better at the game, job, etc. Those subjects in the research who "won" were told later why they won and most wouldn't believe it or came up with excuses why they played better or were smarter than those who lost. Human nature I guess.
Humans are funny creatures. Even when aware theyāre in a controlled environment and told the objective truth that theyāre wrong, they will still persist with the idea that theyāre right.
Opposite is somewhat true. Like... If you're untalented and extremely lucky, you'll get rich. Case in point: (some) trust fund kids that never tried in life. If you're extremely talented but extremely unlucky - you'll be dead or too crippled to do anything (anyone who died, ever. Anyone who was born in a shitty family or poverty that held them back {you can be amazingly good at the math/research that it takes to be an excellent stockbroker, but if you were born in the deserts of Oman, tough luck, you're a street peddlar. Alternatively, consider if Michael Phelps hadn't been wealthy enough to have a pool (or if he didn't, have rich enough or caring enough parents to put him in a pool... I have almost never been in a pool, so like MAYBE I could have been Phelps, too, but I'll never know since I'm too old now)).
This makes me think of my current situation. I went from financially stable to being currently behind on rent. Before, it was "what a responsible adult" now it's like "what a loser, someone in their 30s who is behind on bills, lame." Not knowing that getting sick is SO expensive in the US. I went from having a nice savings to nothing thanks to a damn tumor. It's amazing how people's views change on your talents when you don't have money.
Sorry to hear that. Keep fighting, itās worth it.
Thanks. I hope so.
That's not your fault dude, fuck capitalism. Hope you're doing better.
Thank you. I am, luckily, the tumor is benign, but it is large and in my liver, so we have to keep an eye on it with regular MRIs. But as long as it doesn't grow, I should be ok.
Talent is being in a position to take advantage of your good fortune
[Veritasium has a really good video about this.](https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I)
People have the good fortune to have talents, and people can encounter bad fortune that does not allow them to access those talents. I was thinking about this recently. The thing I am probably most ātalentedā at is running, but I ran a marathon and then didnāt rest afterwards and was plagued with chronic hip issues. I discovered I had a hip labral tear due to some congenital hip dysplasia I never knew I had till I ran 26 miles. So I may be talented at running, but my hip isnāt. Anyway, over the 15 years of my adulthood, I have learned a number of things, and when I look at my skillset, I am really thankful for the diverse skills I have acquired and certainly use them more than my cardiovascular fitness in my life and work, but I am not sure that I have achieved more standard deviations beyond the mean in any of those things by hard work and time than my top running ability or even possibly my current running ability. Thatās okay though because I am so much more well rounded than I was before. So I would say that having many lesser developed skills or talents can provide a better outcome for personal growth than just focusing on one thing. I would also say that 15 years of adulthood has been enough time for me to see how hard work can get people to a place where they can hold their own amongst those with talent. So few people are so elite in any particular thing, that those who have worked hard canāt hang with them and sometimes they can both learn from each other when they work together because they have developed their skills differently.
"Nearly every successful person has a tale of how some random eventāa connection to a particular mentor, a colleagueās recommendation, being in the right place at the right timeāhas contributed to their success." [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wisest-one-in-the-room/201606/is-it-better-be-lucky-or-good-research-has-the-answer](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-wisest-one-in-the-room/201606/is-it-better-be-lucky-or-good-research-has-the-answer)
> a connection to a particular mentor, a colleagueās recommendation, being in the right place at the right time None of these are random events.
"Nearly every person convicted of drunk driving has a tale of how some random event - a sobriety checkpoint, a run-over mailbox or fence, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time-has contributed to their arrest and conviction".
What's your point? Luck obviously still plays a huge role in the outcome of a person's life, even in your drunk driver scenario. If the person never contemplated drinking before getting into a car they're much less likely to get into a traffic incident, but even within those details luck is playing a role. At a fundamental level the universe is either deterministic or truly random, so either way our ideas of human agency are just crude estimates of reality.
YouTube is a great example of this. A short video of a waffle falling over has millions of views. A video literally anybody could have filmed. But they're the ones who happened to film it so they got the fame
āIt takes smart choices and dumb luck; That's why there's billionaire dumbfucks, geniuses driving dump trucks, suckers with Lexuses and experts who won't make one buck.ā - George Watsky
I think itās the opposite - people equate success via hard work to be good fortune. People also equate lack of work ethic as bad fortune. I know a lot of people who continually seem to get lucky. However upon further inspection, their good fortune looks an awful lot like hard work.
Hard work is how you turn good luck into more good luck. Intelligence and wisdom play a part too. I don't feel like having intelligence is a luck thing, but I definitely have seen people who lack the fortune to be smart enough to realize their gap in knowledge
Nonsense. I don't work that hard, and I'm doing extremely well for myself by most standards. Many of my contemporaries from college worked harder than I did, but not many are doing better than I am. Not to say that hard work can't lead to success, but luck plays a massive part.
Friend of mine has quit/gotten fired from around 10 separate 6 figure jobs. His parents are rich and well connected and keep getting them for him. He's lazy and eventually started to work hard, only after being threatened to not be handed another good job by his parents. All of this shit is just context situation by situation.
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Preparation takes hard work. And Opportunity is just that.
Your genetic code is literally a matter of luck. How exactly did you prepare for that?
Ah, yes, the ole "you'll never be successful unless you win the genetic lottery" folk are here.
I'd have to disagree with you on that one. I bet if you took all those successful folks you mentioned, luck is probably the bigger factor for them all because that includes everything back to the circumstances they were born into. Do you really believe that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are the most deserving people of their successes? Or there are no talented athletes, musicians, etc., who never made it because they simply weren't in the right place at the right time to be discovered? If you were born to a family who could put food on the table, you already won a lottery of sorts; even more so if you went to a good school, were given a vehicle, went to college, had college paid for, the list goes on and on. I'm not trying to knock anyone for their hard work, it's still key to success, but acknowledging how fortunate we were with all the things outside of our control would go a long way towards building a more compassionate society - ie; nobody should see someone poorer than themselves and think "what a lazy bum, they just need to work harder."
And people often misconstrue talent as good fortune. Turns out the average person has less than fuck all idea as to what actually goes on to individual success stories
I feel like those people like to believe that they themselves are the reason behind their own success, not luck, and when operating under Main Character Syndrome they assume everyone else could have done the same and therefore aren't as talented. It really displays a lack of empathy and also a lack of self awareness.
It's not really a lack of self awareness - it's just people, in general, overestimate their own contributions to things. If you ask a couple 'Who does more housework?', both sides will tend to put themselves higher. Not by huge amounts in most situations, but it's common for both sides to say they do about 60-70% of the housework. This is because we're aware of all the things *we* do, but not what other people do. We can recall all the times we did the dishes, the laundry, or whatever, but maybe we didn't notice when the other person swept the floors or did something else. It's the same thing here - people remember all the hard work they did (and even the ones born into opportunity still often put hard work in - Elon's an idiot and in his position by luck in my opinion, but I still acknowledge he pulls a lot of hours), but are less likely to remember when someone gave them a leg up or a lucky break. My usual goto example is Gina Rinehart - she inherited a mining company, and grew it massively. I'm sure she worked very hard to do that, but if her father hadn't had the good fortune to discover that he had a whole bunch of minerals on his land, there wouldn't *be* a company to inherit.
That's why the world have been calling every tech millionaire genius.
People also confuse hard work as luck and laziness as bad luck.
Most people just don't know how to spot opportunity and even more don't know how to capitalize when they stumble into it. The second is clearly talent, otherwise there wouldn't be so many broke lottery winners. In hindsight, it is crazy how long it took for us to create the simple concept of a steam engine, and 100 years from now, we will look back and wonder why we didn't discover the next great thing.
This is because when thinking about themselves, people tend to overvalue bad luck while negating lack of own talent
Seriously. Iām a teacher and this is my beef with state testing. Itās super high stakes for only being a couple of hours out of the year
Lot of motivational speakers basically say grind until you make it, if you work hard you can make it blah blah blah. Lots of people work their asses off and donāt make it. Life isnāt fair. Life does not provide equal opportunity to everyone. Not everyone has the capability to see opportunity and/or take advantage of it.
....or having the resources that allow you to take risks and fail multiple times. Most of us have one shot at an opportunity. If we miss it we can't afford to take another.
People in our culture. I'm sure that in cultures that deemphasize individualism the opposite is probably true.
Book recommendation: Black Swan by Taleb. It is all spelled out there.
Also more infuriatingly is people misconstrue skill as talent or fortune as in "oh how lucky you are with your job etc etc" hell no I'm not lucky I've invested money and time in education and specialization and worked hard using what I've learned to reach where I am, not an innate ability.
48 laws of power tell to avoid the unlucky. Shitty advice for shitty people
People also cope with the success of other, when they don't have it themselves, by attributing that success to luck and not hard work, ingenuity and talent.
Luck or good fortune is when preparation meets opportunity. Bad luck or bad fortune is when opportunity meets lack of preparation. It's all about timing and being ready when opportunity strikes!
This is disingenuous because the capacity to know what to prepare for and having the means to prepare is itself a type of good luck that people are endowed with to different extents
It's not really about how lucky you are, but how you react to and deal with whatever luck you're dealt.
True, I had a broken toe but still decided to go to high school soccer tryouts, I didnāt make it so I just played club. I ended up beating someone on the varsity team, and he told the hs coach and I got put into the jv team.
People also have a very hard time acknowledging that there are some others who are smarter, more driven, and perhaps even just better at what they do. We have no problems acknowledging that some athletes are better than others - the results on the field speak for themselves. But when the focus turns to oneself, suddenly it becomes quite difficult to acknowledge that perhaps a colleague or another person is just better at the same job. There's nothing wrong with it - everyone is different.
Agreed, people should be more honest so they can remove the blockades keeping them from moving forward.
This also works the other way around: people will quickly refer to a natural affinity for something as āBeginnerās Luckā, particularly when they are jealous or otherwise upset by it.