How do some “idiots” become so successful?

So what are these other elements that help one’s ability to make an impact to their surroundings? There are four specific attributes I’ve noticed, and people like Donald Trump have all of them in good supply.

Before I go further, let me cover my ass and first say that nothing can guarantee success. Everyone seems to be looking for a sure-shot formula but the world is too complicated with too many moving pieces for any formula to succeed every time.

It would be impossible to replicate Bill Gates’s or Warren Buffet’s success. Even if you were sent back in time with their exact abilities & networks.

In the absence of surety, you can only aim for one thing — increasing the probability of you finding “success”.

The following four attributes can help increase your probability — serendipity, pattern recognition, courage, and perseverance.

Let’s briefly tackle each one.

1. Serendipity

I’m refraining from using the word ‘luck’ here, although serendipity comes very close. With serendipity, I mean being at the right place at the right time.

This may be the most important attribute in the pursuit of becoming more impactful / successful. And serendipity can overcome shortcoming in most other attributes. Unsurprisingly, the Donald Trumps of the world have this attribute in large supply.

So can you do anything do change you luck? Amazingly enough, I believe you can.

While forces out of your control play a major role in bringing about serendipity, you still retain some level of control. Exposing yourself to new & unique experiences is one small way for you to move the needle.

Specifically, to be in the right place at the right time, you should increase your probability of being in such a privileged position. This usually happens when you try out new things.

A simple behaviour you can incorporate in your life — set aside some dedicated time each month/week to do the following:

• meeting people you wouldn’t otherwise have,
• going places you wouldn’t have,
• trying out things that you wouldn’t otherwise have

But be careful! As you can imagine, it is easy to spend all your time networking without having anything to show in return. I.e., there is a high probability that the new experiences will not result in any significant change to your life, with a small probability that it could really change your life.

Spend your dedicated time in a way that is reflective of that strategy.

Simply put, give a little bit of sustained effort here (not a lot or nothing — extremes aren’t great for luck).

And another thing, don’t waste time on activities you find unpleasant — remember, life’s short & probability isn’t on your side here to begin with.

This is the ability to detect patterns and make predictions about the future based on said patterns.

The ability to be right (consistently) also falls within the pattern-recognition category. But pattern-recognition is more than simply being “smart”.

There are probably an infinite number of patterns out there & “smart” is usually defined as excellent pattern-recognition in a small sub-set of them — maybe financial markets, business events or science/math.

However, it is very possible to be unintelligent in Maths & yet be an amazing pattern-recognizer, albeit in another field.

In fact, I believe that the most important area to improve pattern recognition isn’t one that is usually associated with being “smart” at all. Instead, it’s the ability to recognize patterns in people’s behaviours & use it to influence them.

As much as you may hate him, Donald Trump has this ability in good supply. He may not be intelligent or “smart”, but he has an excellent understanding (even if sub-conscious) of the precise patterns of his voting base.

The good news is that improving your pattern-recognition has very little downside. Sure, you have to invest the time but there is a sure-shot return that you will get from it no matter what.

What can you do? For me, it’s been about identifying which area of pattern recognition I’d like to focus on, and then learning more about it & improving through practice. Be it through books or watching videos or taking action & receiving feedback.

One important point to note here — you’ll be competing against other humans in pattern recognition (at least till our robot overlords win). Therefore, what you should be aiming for is a relative advantage in pattern recognition against other humans.

Basically, learning is good but targeted learning is better.

And the way to prioritize which learning to target & how far to take your learning is through a closer look at who you’ll be competing with. Don’t waste your time with Ph.D level Mathematics if your competitors are all working at the 5th grade pre-algebra level.

Risk of failure is a real thing that holds us back. It is well known that humans have a strong loss-aversion bias.

I suspect that this is what makes failure especially scary — to think that we will lose. It may not have to be in monetary term — the loss could be of reputation, of assets, even self-image.

The last loss (self-image) looms particularly large in our heads. Without taking action, we can imagine ourselves to be amazingly accomplished (if only we put our minds to it). However, if we start something and fail there is a possibility that our self-image suffers. And to take that risk seems foolhardy.

I don’t want to paint a rosy picture — risk is a real thing. For all the risk-takers who became successful, there are many more people from whom the risk didn’t work out. But this is where psychology & statistics can help you get an edge.

Humans are usually so averse to loss that we overprice risk — i.e., give it more weight than it deserves from a statistical point of view. In other words, if you can continue to take risks, you will come out significantly more ahead of someone who is always playing it safe.

Similar to other facets of life though, there’s a line between being courageous & fool-hardy. The key phrase in the previous sentence is “continue to take risks”. You should avoid taking risks that could ruin you or your ability to take further risks.

In the event that you are compelled to take big risks, at least make sure to do one of two things: (a) become comfortable with failing, or (b) irrationally convince yourself that you won’t fail.

People like Donald Trump focus on the (b) option. They are naturally good at convincing themselves of their inevitable success. This allows them to take bigger risks and, with the occasional help from our old friend serendipity, achieve things that most people wouldn’t be able to.

Just remember option b isn’t risk-free though. That’s just what you’ve convinced yourself of. If you’re always under-pricing risk so badly (unlike most of humanity), it is bound to catch up to you eventually.

In fact, I’m sure that there is a huge “silent cemetery” of people like Donald Trump who are much worse off because of their seemingly insatiable risk-appetite.

I don’t recommend the delusional approach. Take smaller risks or become more comfortable with failing. Chances are that if you are like most humans, you stand to gain a lot by doing so consistently over your remaining lifetime.

Recommending that you be comfortable with failure sounds strange. But it doesn’t mean that you adopt a fatalistic mindset.

It’s almost the opposite. You have to be open to the fact that chances of failure are high BUT there’s always a next time. In other words, being comfortable with failure means an ability to accept reality & still keep going without discouragement.

Failure & boredom are very seductive when it comes to convincing you to quit on something. And if you can keep going in the face of failure or boredom, there’s hardly anything that can discourage you.

Unfortunately, developing a persistent outlook is easier said than done.

Personally, the best way I’ve found to improve the ability to persevere is training your mind & changing your mindset. Stick to something & keep doing it again and again, till your brain believes that it should apply the same dedication to the cause in other areas of your life.

A word of warning. There’s a fine line between being persistent and being delusional.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe it’s a clear line. Many successful people (such as Donald Trump) seem to lie on the wrong side of the line. But with enough serendipity thrown into the mix, this delusion can easily become an asset instead of a liability.

I would still advise against being on the delusional side of that line though. For one thing, you don’t have too much control over serendipity, so going into the delusional mind-set is a very high-risk endeavour.

Self-awareness may be key to understanding when you may be crossing over to the delusional side. I use the following symptoms to regularly check if I’m being delusional (vs persistent):

i. Do I still experience mild-bouts of self-doubt from time to time? I treat this as good news! This is the best evidence that you still haven’t crossed onto the delusional side.

ii. Even if I’m confident and without any self-doubt, what type data would change my mind? If the answer is that no amount of data could convince me to quit, then I’m probably being delusional.