Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • Luck or Hard Work?

    Uploaded by

    bey lu
    53 views3 pages
    Tu Youyou was not lucky in terms of traditional measures of success like education or career experience, but she was extremely hard working. Through decades of diligent work, she helped develop an antimalarial drug that saved millions of lives. While some success is due to luck, hard work makes a difference, especially compared to others with similar advantages. Absolute, extreme success is mostly due to luck, but relative success compared to peers is more dependent on choices and effort. The role of luck increases as outcomes become more exceptional.

    Original Description:

    Original Title

    90

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    Tu Youyou was not lucky in terms of traditional measures of success like education or career experience, but she was extremely hard working. Through decades of diligent work, she helped develop an antimalarial drug that saved millions of lives. While some success is due to luck, hard work makes a difference, especially compared to others with similar advantages. Absolute, extreme success is mostly due to luck, but relative success compared to peers is more dependent on choices and effort. The role of luck increases as outcomes become more exceptional.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    53 views3 pages

    Luck or Hard Work?

    Uploaded by

    bey lu
    Tu Youyou was not lucky in terms of traditional measures of success like education or career experience, but she was extremely hard working. Through decades of diligent work, she helped develop an antimalarial drug that saved millions of lives. While some success is due to luck, hard work makes a difference, especially compared to others with similar advantages. Absolute, extreme success is mostly due to luck, but relative success compared to peers is more dependent on choices and effort. The role of luck increases as outcomes become more exceptional.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Luck or Hard Work?

    Tu Youyou was not fabulously lucky. My favorite fact about her is that she
    has no postgraduate degree, no research experience abroad, and no
    membership in any of the Chinese national academies—a feat that has earned
    her the nickname “The Professor of the Three No’s”. 

    But damn was she a hard worker. Persistent. Diligent. Driven. For decades
    she didn’t give up and she helped save millions of lives as a result. Her story
    is a brilliant example of how important hard work can be in achieving
    success.

    Just a minute ago, it seemed reasonable that the Ovarian Lottery determined
    most of your success in life, but the idea that hard work matters feels just as
    reasonable. When you work hard you typically get better results than you
    would with less effort. While we can’t deny the importance of luck, everyone
    seems to have this sense that hard work really does make a difference.

    So what it is? What determines success? Hard work or good fortune? Effort
    or randomness? I think we all understand both factors play a role, but I’d like
    to give you a better answer than “It depends.”

    Here are two ways I look at the issue.

    Absolute Success vs. Relative Success

    One way to answer this question is to say: Luck matters more in an absolute
    sense and hard work matters more in a relative sense.
    The absolute view considers your level of success compared to everyone else.
    What makes someone the best in the world in a particular domain? When
    viewed at this level, success is nearly always attributable to luck. Even if you
    make a good initial choice—like Bill Gates choosing to start a computer
    company—you can’t understand all of the factors that cause world-class
    outcomes.

    As a general rule, the wilder the success, the more extreme and unlikely the
    circumstances that caused it. It’s often a combination of the right genes, the
    right connections, the right timing, and a thousand other influences that
    nobody is wise enough to predict.

    As a general rule, the wilder the success, the more extreme and unlikely the
    circumstances that caused it.

    Then there is the relative view, which considers your level of success
    compared to those similar to you. What about the millions of people who
    received similar levels of education, grew up in similar neighborhoods, or
    were born with similar levels of genetic talent? These people aren’t achieving
    the same results. The more local the comparison becomes, the more success
    is determined by hard work. When you compare yourself to those who have
    experienced similar levels of luck, the difference is in your habits and
    choices.

    Absolute success is luck. Relative success is choices and habits.

    There is an important insight that follows naturally from this definition: As


    outcomes become more extreme, the role of luck increases. That is, as you
    become more successful in an absolute sense, we can attribute a greater
    proportion of your success to luck.
    As Nassim Taleb wrote in Fooled by Randomness, “Mild success can be
    explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.”

    You might also like