11–20 of 188 posts
My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…
This is why I like Lewis' writing. Liar's Poker had a huge influence on me at an influential age.
There's always a sense that he's playing the same game that he's writing about. And not in a George Plimpton sense. But he's often got a message to deliver that other players will not touch. The message always seems worth hearing.
I interpret his reference to the Berkeley study as not one that explains "luck", but of one that explains how life is role-based. People take roles and play them, as if "all the world's a stage". It is. We are all willing to go along either as the audience or in our appointed roles. What I think Lewis means to say is that the assignment of roles, the "casting" if you will, is often arbitrary.
I only wish Lewis had made this longer. There is so much more to say. Not only do people not like success explained as "luck" but they insist on success being attributed to "brilliance", "genius", "hard work", etc. In this case, when the cause of an effect is not clear, we are very quick to find one that suits our purposes.
I've enjoyed two great books that discuss this: "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.h... ) and "Fooled by Randomness" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness ) I think people dislike talking about luck's role in our successes (but not failures) because it hints at a deterministic world view where our free will is less important…
It reminds me of the story about thousands of people flipping coins. Out of those thousands of people, some of them are going to flip a long string of heads. Does that mean that those people are "good" at flipping heads? Is someone who flips a string of tails "bad" at flipping heads?
I've enjoyed two great books that discuss this: "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.h... ) and "Fooled by Randomness" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness ) I think people dislike talking about luck's role in our successes (but not failures) because it hints at a deterministic world view where our free will is less important…
Alternate explanation: People know they can't do anything about true luck, so they want to focus on things they might be able to do something about.
My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…
My success and failures in life have had nothing to do with luck. I've been both lucky and unlucky at various times, but none of them have determined my level of success over the short or long term to any significant degree. At the same time I've had periods where I worked hard and was focused and passionate about what I was doing, and periods where I was not passionate, unmotivated by a crushingly poorly run organiz…
I'm surprised by how defensive people can get about their own success. It seems to me that you can never know if your success was due to your own hard work or some lucky breaks (or, more probably, a combination of both to which you'll never know the balance). It reminds me of the story about thousands of people flipping coins. Out of those thousands of people, some of them are going to flip a long string of heads. Do…
"This isn't just false humility. It's false humility with a point." This is why I like Lewis' writing. Liar's Poker had a huge influence on me at an influential age. There's always a sense that he's playing the same game that he's writing about. And not in a George Plimpton sense. But he's often got a message to deliver that other players will not touch. The message always seems worth hearing. I interpret his referen…