The Success Paradox

What if someone told you that your success is an outcome of your luck? Is that enough for you to lash out and explain how your hard work and dedication have gotten you to the position where you are right now? What if I told you that your success is indeed a product of two contradictions?

So why is the nature of your success contradictory? Before you could understand that, let's take a couple of minutes to get to know these contradictions.

Contradiction 1: Your belief that it's your hard work and countless sleepless nights that have abled you to climb that success ladder and stand at the top. But, on the other hand,

Contradiction 2: Your awareness that Contradiction 1 is a lie and your luck has played an important role in getting you where you are.

This antithetical concept is the Success Paradox. But why does your success require to be paradoxical? The truth is, it doesn't. But it's the best approach that one should take to remain in touch with reality. It is human nature to overestimate our individual efforts to achieve a goal and underestimate the efforts of others or the help we get from others in the accomplishment of the same goal.

Studies conducted in this area tell us that whenever a particular work is divided into fractions that have to be done by different individuals, the combined percentage of the total work, obtained by adding the fraction of work done by each individual always comes above 100%. So if you had divided a piece of work among 3 individuals, the amount of work done by each of them, in their own opinion, will almost always be above 33.33%.

Surprisingly, in a similar study conducted between couples to figure out who between them is more responsible for an argument, the combined total for them also comes above 100%. They almost always blamed themselves for instigating a fight. So it doesn't matter if people are being over productive or just argumentative, they almost always believe their share of work to be more than the others'. 

So it can't be ego that compels people to overestimate their contributions. But then what else does? A piece of work is often an output of a well functioning team. When we indulge ourselves in any work, we become hypersensitive to all the efforts we are putting in to achieve a particular goal, but at the same time, we also become oblivious to the favourable position we are in where others are also putting in efforts to achieve the same goal. And this failure to acknowledge the favourable chances manifests itself in the form of overestimated individual contributions.

Why does the world seem fair to those who succeed but unfair to those who don't? Of course, one could claim the unsuccessful ones to be not persistent or hard-working enough. This could be true but, what if the successful ones had luck by their side? 

To prove this, an experiment was conducted where participants were randomly divided into three groups where each group received a unique set of questions. Upon answering the questions, they were promised a guaranteed cash prize.

SET 1: In this set, the researchers asked the participants to list 10 of their personal qualities that have enabled them to achieve success in their professional lives.

SET 2: The researchers asked the participants to list 10 reasons for their professional success which were a part of the external environment that was out of their control.

SET 3: The researchers simply asked the participants to list 10 reasons for their success.

After the experiment, the three groups were given an option to donate their cash prizes to a charity. Can you guess which group donated the most? 90% of the participants in the group which received the SET 2 donated their prize because they felt thankful to the world for their success.

Subsequently, the answer sheets were given to the recruiters of 10 different organizations. Upon reviewing the answers of one person from each group at a time, 8 out of 10 recruiters showed a preference for SET 2 individuals, 7 out of 10 times on an average. 

Would the successful hiring of an individual who received SET 2 be not a matter of luck?

What if there was a subsequent contest of being humble where the most humble group was given a million dollars? How many of them would have thanked their luck for receiving SET 2?

Of course, I don't want to undermine the importance of your hard work. It most certainly forms a significant portion of your success, but you can't overlook the boost you receive simply by being at the right place at the right time.

Tomorrow's Tuesday. Ms. Jenny has an important interview tomorrow. One that has the potential to change her entire life. She sets the alarm and sleeps early, but the battery of her alarm clock died at midnight. Her bad luck. She woke up late and now she's getting on a train an hour late. The train driver felt thirsty and had an extra cup of water before. He stops the train for 5 more minutes, one station before Ms. Jenny's. She's now very late for her interview. There's no way that she's going to get hired after showing up an hour and five minutes late in the interview. She hesitantly enters the office and gets shocked upon receiving a reply from the front desk, "Today's Monday! Ma'am."

Ms. Jenny is one hell of a lucky lady. Ms. Jenny should be grateful for her future success.

I first became aware of this concept through a Youtube video by Derek from Veritasium. How did I get it in my feed? Let's just ignore the algorithm and call it luck. 

Thanks for reading this article on NotionWave.

Follow me on Instagram @notionwavepodcast