I’ve read a couple of reviews of the book, and one of the things he notes about Bill Gates is that he had the freedom and support to spend a tremendous amount of time working/playing with early computers, particularly programming them. That, combined with a relatively well connected family and being in the right place at the right time, added up to multiple billions of dollars. People who are highly successful at a given skill put in a tremendous amount of time learning and developing the skill. I have read (and I can’t remember where) that the 10,000 hour threshold (of preparation) seems to be critical in distinguishing true experts from the rest of the crowd.
IMHO, the factors listed in the thread - perserverance, confidence, desire - all contribute significantly to a person’s ability to become “great” (a highly overused term IMO). But there is usually some luck, some degree of being connected, and often some level of charisma. Many connections are a consequence of personal effort and ability, others are being born in the right family (think Eisenhower vs. Kennedy). I doubt that Einstein’s looks or luck had much to do with his successes. It’s hard to say about connections - what if he hadn’t been able to attend university because he didn’t have the right status or live in the right place?
Too many different reasons why various people are “successful,” in my view, so I don’t see that there is a single factor.
I said that you need some amount of all three of the items, not just any one. The specific ratios will vary per person, but you will never make it without a touch of each of them.
I’m not sure there’s a number one reason but I’d say perseverance is important. The ability to make mistakes, fall down, get hurt, and get up and keep going after a goal.
I’d say the wisdom to see the opportunity and the courage to seize it when it happens.
I think we mostly agree. I’m just saying that determination (and very importantly, valuing the “goal”) matters more than the other ones, i.e. that someone with a higher degree of it will be more successful than someone with a corresponding lower degree of one of the other two.
As an example of what I’m talking about, look at people who become teachers. They will never be successful, in this thread’s sense of the word. They don’t want to be successful; they want to be teachers.
If I had sat down and imagined, “How would Der Trihs respond to this thread?”, I could not have come up with better. You are a truly irreplaceable member of the community. And I actually agree with you a little on the ruthlessness.
I"ve read it, and it is a very interesting book. He makes a lot of interesting points, and one of them is that luck, and another form of it – the circumstances surrounding ones life – play a much more important role in determining who becomes successful than we like to admit.
For example, elite Canadian hockey players are largely born in the first few months of the year – an artifact of the way the very competitive Canadian hockey system systematically selects the “best” players for the best teams, and in the early years the best 10-year-old players are usually just the older ones.
In Bill Gates’ case, he is certainly very smart and determined and ruthless. But he was also lucky enough to go to high school which was one of the only schools in the whole country with access to a time share system, and he was one of the only students to be granted essentially unlimited time on that system.
I don’t have any Microsoft/BillGates books in front me at the moment (or any google cites) but I thought it was the parents of the kids that pooled together to buy that timeshare. So the “luck” was to have parents with the foresight to predict that computer literacy would be important.
I think you may be right – I forgot the details. But in any case it was very unusual to have the kind of computer access he had as a high school student.
A person’s belief that she can actively control the events that affect her life rather than passively accepting whatever the environment provides --self efficacy --and a willingness to risk failure.
Ok, I think I know what you were trying to say here, but the words used in the order you put them sound fairly harsh. I thought this threads sense of the word was “who has ever achieved something significant to the lives of millions”, as the OP had laid out. There are teachers, and then there are successful teachers.
Sounds to like Vox is measuring success purely by financial terms, as are a few others in this thread. Lots of people are not that concerned with building a vast fortune. They measure their success in the ability to be comfortable financially and enjoy life, taking interesting vacations, spending time with friends, or family. Perhaps they measure it by adapting their lifestyle to pursue a career that is meaningful to them.
However, if we are talking about the great fortune builders, it takes a combination of skill, luck, connections, and timing to make it big. Until the next huge hardware revolution, we won’t see another Gates. Even then, the success of that person is dependent on his/her ability to carefully manage their new invention, find investors, and hope that the market is in good shape to receive them. Wealth is built on the bottom floor of major industries.
I believe they all have a desire to help others. To make the world a better place from a spiritual vantage point. Those are the really great people, the master teachers. The second tier are those that want to help others in a material way. Better water, transportation, health, places to live, etc. But all great people are humble, so they can learn more than others, compassionate with the desire to help others.
In a survey of top executives it was found the only thing they had in common was a large vocabulary, and the ability to communicate their ideas to others in a easy to understand format.
