Life and LucksteemCreated with Sketch.

in #psychology8 years ago

It's not all about success stories and learning from successful people.

Great video by Bite Size Psych.

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Americans are especially in love with success stories. It fits in the national myth of "pulling yourself by your bootstraps".

Why are myths necessary if something works? It either works or it doesn't and the need for myths is a symptom.

Hard facts, social mobility is not rising by numbers. Myths are irrelevant when determining your chances. Social mobility statistics reveal your actual chances. Most people born into poverty will die in poverty according to the data.

Readers have a choice, to either listen to feel good myths or accept the data for what it's saying.

we find that lifetime earnings mobility has declined since the early 1980s as inequality has increased. Declines in lifetime earnings mobility are largest for college-educated workers though mobility has declined for men and women and across the distribution of educational attainment. One striking feature is the decline in upward mobility among middle-class workers, even those with a college degree. Across the distribution of educational attainment, the likelihood of moving to the top deciles of the earnings distribution for workers who start their career in the middle of the earnings distribution has declined by approximately 20% since the early 1980s.

This decline is going to effect your odds of financial success and if you are in vulnerable demographics your odds are decreased even more. Low odds doesn't mean impossible but it takes a very exceptional person to beat the odds and hard work alone isn't going to be good enough.

References

  1. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-social-mobility-parents-income/399311/
  2. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/social-mobility-america/491240/
  3. http://equitablegrowth.org/working-papers/the-decline-in-lifetime-earnings-mobility-in-the-u-s-evidence-from-survey-linked-administrative-data/

Wonderful ! I am glad I am lucky. So, you better don't ask me now what success means to me 🙄

Absolutely Agree with the message in the video!

I actually believe indeed that any successful company requires some luck. Without the luck, yu may be able to survive as a company, but will not be one of the market leaders. To become market leader, luck has to play a roll. But the opposite also happens, and maybe even more than having luck, companies with good products and services will not make it due to having the opposite of luck.

I would think (not knowing all the details), that companies like Microsoft, YouTube, Apple all had their shares of luck. Google for sure, I know that story a bit better; They were not their at all if it was up to the founders. They wanted to sell their PHD assignment to Yahoo and others. Then some angel investor heard their story by chance, gave them a couple of million and the advise to start a company themselves. More companies go bankrupt then survive. I believe this is 80/20 in SF/silicon valley.

Being critical, have financial planning as the most important element in the company, and never never overestimate (internally; externally you may have the paint to world more positive than it really is, but that is called 'Marketing' and 'Sales') + good execution of the plans are key for any success. And hopefully along the way, some luck come towards you and you are propelled into the next level with your business.

Just look at Facebook? There were other social networks around with better technology. Yet Facebook became the dominant social network despite it's flaws.

VHS versus Betamax, Microsoft versus Macintosh, Yahoo versus Altavista; all examples of good marketing, good execution of the business and additional luck.