This article is written at age 23. My views will be more informed in the future.

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Success can be defined in many ways. This article talks about achievement.

Randomness and Survivorship bias

We often hear people tell stories about why they are “successful” was because they worked hard, something they controlled themselves and ignore the possibility that they were lucky.

Lucky seems bad for many people. But I would argue that the world has always been unfair and some things just happen randomly.

Example: Maybe they were just born in a fortunate time when social media was not made and without much technological innovation someone could build a fortune of a company. Time of birth is a random thing that we don’t have control over.

You’ll always find someone who has it easy

Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight and you don’t know where to start. So you decided to starve is a good path to follow and soon realize that it is not.

Then you spend 4 years trying to follow the path of starvation and lose about 5-7 Kg. And you’re happy about it.

Now someday you hear someone close to you or a friend of friend lose 9 Kg in a month. And he did not take medications or had surgery but a good diet plan which was expertly supervised.

You might have “struggled more” but someone was “lucky” enough to have resources (doctors) that lead to better results in less time.

Probabilities

Luck/Randomness will always be there.

There will always be things outside of one’s control and we cannot do anything about it.

But there are some ways that we can increase the “probability” of luck being on our side.

Work

We may already be “lucky” but not prepared.

Overcoming Obstacle

The obstacle is the way. ¹

Facing an obstacle means you are on the path and the only way forward is to overcome it.

We can overcome obstacles faster by being flexible. Trying new things out.

If a process/method you are following does not work, it will likely not work in the future too. Be flexible and open. ^{2 3}

Increasing Leverage

These are things you can control and develop

The Not So Unfair Luck ⁴

• Mindset
  • Being calm and disciplined
• Education
• Network
  • Help people

Multiplying Skills ^{5 6}

These are skills that apply to multiple areas and are deeply impactful.

• Maths
• Learning Faster
• Communication
  • Writing
  • Speaking
• Focus
• Programming

Footnotes

1. Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday ↩

2. Samurai to Modern Army in 10 years ↩

3. If it’s not a hit, switch by Derek Siver ↩

4. The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba ↩

5. Naval ↩

6. Derek Sivers ↩