A young adult, about the same age as me, has an idea for a website. Launches the site and within a few years he find himself and his website priced at $6 billion dollars by Google. Meanwhile, I worked a five years and after going to a graduate school for two and am striving hard for few more thousands of dollars. If you don’t know it already, a billion is a thousand million which in turn is a thousand thousand.
Clearly, I am in orders of magnitude less than being great. That only on a logarithmic scale I don’t look too far behind.
The metrics of success is a touchy topic. I find stiff opposition to my argument when I push forth the idea that your net worth is a reasonable indicator of success. I am bombarded by newer parents that having a child will re define purpose of life. I am told by poorer content folks that money is irrelevant to happiness. Meanwhile, a recent study by a Princeton analyst indicated that $75k per year is all you need to feel happy day-to-day. Artist, who generally fail to make it and reside by street corners stick to their argument that as long as you are passionate about what you do, success will follow.
I find these arguments slightly sour grapes like. I cannot confirm if Andy Mason was passionate about building a website. Nor can I argue that Andy Mason won’t discover the joys of parenting. Yet, he finds himself worth billions of dollars and I find myself being successfully average.
The only thing that isn’t average is my persistence in trying to be not average. I have always believed that I am destined for great things but that belief seems like it is only a few steps away from being classified as having disillusions of grandeur. I find myself time and again in the thickest portion of the Gaussian distribution or perhaps being slightly to the right of the average. I look endearingly at the top 5% and wonder what I can do to slide further right.
There are countless books and several TED talks on what makes a successful Outlier. The usual suspects are passion, hard work, perseverance and luck. But when you include a non-linear variable like luck, it seems like a pointless equation to solve. You can’t model or estimate luck. And you certainly can’t make your own luck. For every one Andrew Mason or Mark Zuckerberg, I am sure there are countless others with similar brilliant ideas but rotten pieces of luck to go with them.
If you have followed my ambling this far then you have to be wondering where exactly I am going with this. You have already decided to question my discrete linking of happiness to success to money. And you are well aware that some are just chosen to be great by sheer destiny.
Sadly none of this I can deny. Nor can I find an appropriate conclusion for this post. One that will end with a bang or that sounds well reasoned, even remotely rhetoric. In fact, I don’t ever want to conclude this train of thought. Accepting that you are average is perhaps a sure shot way of cementing your place in the middle of the Gaussian.
And I am not done moving yet.
hehe! U are persistent! That I buy…there's talk of acceptance amidst i'm still moving. And then the goat will always scale mountains. And now we can go cheese please 🙂
I didn't say this but I quote unabashedly:
"It is easy to see fine qualities in successful books or to see unpublished manuscripts, inexpensive vodkas, or people struggling in any field as somehow lacking. It is easy to believe that ideas that worked were good ideas, that ideas and plans that did not were ill conceived. And it is easy to make heroes out of the most successful and to glance with disdain at the least. But ability does not guarantee achievement, nor is achievement proportional to ability. And so it is important to always keep in mind the other term in the equation – the role of chance."
~Leonard Mlodinow
Ups: Not sure if you are rooting for me or mocking me 🙂 But either ways, goats scale mountains even the made up ones!
Pallavi: The role of chance is undeniable. The question is if that is the leading role or a really awesome supporting role.. (sorry oscar fever :-))
My cousin sis tells me "Its always a fight, it never gets easier. But you gotta find that inside yourself to go from good to excellent. There are lots of mediocre people in the world and the fear of being one of them keeps me going. This doesnt apply just to exam scores and results, but also to relationships, attitudes etc."
She told me this when I was 18 and has been with me throughout! This always gives me immense hope.. But I don't know why, but there's a hint of pessimism added to this post! Stop thinking so much, slow down a bit and look around. If you believe-truly believe, you never know.. luck shall follow too 🙂
Ash: I think there is a difference between being average and being mediocre. Being average takes effort and talent. The post wasn't meant to be pessimistic but rather a self questioning piece where I wonder if just having "belief" will do the trick. I think your sis is saying the right thing. I am only trying to understand timelines better.
I think I put it in a very absurd way, it did not go well with you, sorry about that, now I get your pt AND belief works – when everything else fails, just don't question it 🙂
I don't know if I should be offended at you questioning it, or going ahead making minced meat out of it, by not caring about it anyway. But I guess I like u enough to not be offended :). It will never been a supporting role, cos everyone (goat included) is the hero of his own story.
I remember reading something quite recently, very coherent and believable.. there's a reason why immensely successful(self made) people are all born within a few years of each other in every generation, and the link to their exposure, environment and their personalities. It doesn't ofcourse explain why only those few are successful amidst the many that could be, but still does a good job. Let me see if I can look it up for you :).
But I totally agree with you. It sucks big time.
Oh wait! thats what you are talking about… outliers. 🙂
MysticRose: Yeah! Of all the books that Malcolm Gladwell wrote, I like his "Outlier" the best. I too find it reasonable and rational and he too mentions luck 🙂