Why Winners Keep Winning
Article Round-Up: 4.23.23
Enjoy this week’s curated round-up of articles, podcasts, and more from the web to help you live a better, more joyous life.
Featured Thoughts: Why Winners Keep Winning
Takeaway: Why does it seem that already successful people have an easier time continuing to see success? The author explains the phenomenon with this great analogy:
Imagine you have a bag of four different colored marbles, each with an equal number. Let’s say 100 each of red, yellow, green, and blue. Now, you draw one marble at random, and whichever color your draw you add one additional marble of that same color to the bag.
For example, if I draw a green marble, then I add an additional green marble. Now there are 101 green marbles, 100 red, 100 yellow and 100 blue. The next marble I draw is disproportionately likely to be green. Each subsequent draw over time favors this bias, and you begin to see more and more green marbles compared to the other colors.
Soon enough, each marble you draw from the bag is more and more likely to be green.
Now, adding just one extra marble each turn means it would take quite awhile before any serious advantage shows. What if you added 100 marbles after the first draw?
Instead of 101 green marbles, you have 200 green marbles—double that of the other colors. The advantage becomes immediately obvious and only continues to grow with little hope for the other marbles.
This simulation highlights the immense role of luck in peoples’ success. One lucky break—being at the right place at the right time—could mean giving yourself an advantage that sets you up for the rest of your life.
Not to mention, this can also be applied to inherent advantages and disadvantages afforded at birth to certain groups of people. This is why working to eliminate bias and striving for equality across different groups of people is so important.
All of that aside, how can you apply this principle in your life to begin gaining an advantage for your own success?
First, push hard when momentum is in your favor. Did you just close a big deal, get published for work you’re proud of, or in some other way get recognized for our hard work? Leverage this momentum to get new deals, open the door to new opportunities, and continue to build upon the back of prior success. It’s best to strike when you’ve had a fresh success that’s still relevant.
Second, make sure you are working to maximize your chances of catching a lucky break. Check out this prior article where we discussed this idea of creating your own luck.
Check out the article for the full breakdown of this concept.
“Believe In People Before They Believe In Themselves”
Takeaway: Leaders who constantly ask team members to prove themselves before they are trusted or viewed as talented are demotivating and exhausting. Believing in people before they have proved themselves creates confidence and energy, and it is a habit of great leaders. Give your team members benefit of the doubt and trust that they are capable, talented individuals until proven otherwise.
See Also: The Pygmalion Effect
“Connecting The Dots: Why Learning 'Useless' Information Is Vital For A Good Life”
Takeaway: Learning seemingly random and "useless" information is important for creativity and connecting ideas to generate new solutions. Keeping a diverse range of information in your mind can lead to unexpected insights and ideas. Even seemingly irrelevant information can provide inspiring metaphors or insights for solving complex problems. Therefore, it's important to learn as much as you can about everything that interests you and stay curious.
Takeaway: Before the internet, companies that controlled distribution made the most money. But now, with the internet, anyone can distribute things easily and for free. Today, the companies that make the most money are the ones who give the best experience to the people who use their website or app. Big companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Snapchat, and Uber have used this strategy to become very successful.