If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Turns out you're stupid.
You will never be Elon Musk trying to be Elon Musk
As someone who has recently moved to a new city, started my journey into venture capital, talking to people building crazy things everyday, it can be difficult to make sense of the world. But I felt solace in the fact that I was talking to people everyday, from whom I could imbibe good qualities. I wanted to learn “How to Learn”, but the answer was just a simple “just read what you find interesting”
In this quest of trying to learn from the best; I have recently become wary of the extreme. In a culture where successful people (actors, entrepreneurs, sportspersons) have literal cults, observing, analysing their every single move, trying to somehow reverse-engineer their success. You’re more worried about aping smart people that you’re forgetting being uniquely you is the only success you can get. And this person’s success was also just a case of hindsight & survivorship bias, (1000s with the same conditions as the successful person failed)
While growing up, we are always given red pills (read: everyone telling you to do this one thing, and then you will definitely achieve *insert love, success, independence). All these things are not even necessary for success but everyone equates them to be sufficient for success.
I was listening to Elon Musk on JRE, where he talked about how he’s the 19th best Diablo player in the world;
He is the richest man on the planet, meanwhile the rest of the world is just consuming hustle porn, thinking 18 hours of work, and 4 hours of sleep is the answer. While your parents scolded you for playing on your PSP for more than 2 hours, your favourite entrepreneur is gaming for 12 hours.
Every successful person is very unique in their own way with own quirks and idiosyncrasies. As I have grown up, I have seen everyone being sold a different map of success, not realising, the map is not the territory (meaning: people often mistake models of reality for reality itself). People will end up optimising for these qualities, but not actually end up optimising the said person’s success.
People often forget there is no playbook to success. Every tip given by any successful person is relevant only with context. Survivorship Bias is so rampant. There is no answer, for every person this is the toughest thing to actually learn.
The answer often lies in simplicity, I have tried rejecting simple answers to complicated questions, and then ended up rejecting those answers and not doing anything because surely it must not be that simple. Maybe things like hard work, constant learning, bias for action, being around smart people does help your odds of success, but they are most definitely not sufficient for success. Just these and 98% of lady luck. Nothing in life is guaranteed.
But even the “Nothing in Life is Guaranteed” is not actually guaranteed
A lot of success is random, very dependent on timing and luck. But I keep coming back to this quote from Michael Jordan.
Maybe nothing in life is guaranteed. Maybe everyone in your industry has decades of experience more than you. Maybe that is exactly why you can bring more “you” to the table. What is something uniquely you that nobody is doing? Maybe, belief precedes ability. Maybe you can be a little less self-aware, and still bet on yourself
Maybe you’re in way over your head. Maybe you are walking the equivalent of the tightrope on the Empire State Building. You know the one action that instantly kills you? Looking down. So keep moving forward, stay curious and remember that the best path to success is the one that feels right for you.