Below, I outline 13 approaches to predicting high levels of success with differing levels of complexity, including my own mega model at the bottom.
Note: here, I use the term “success” merely in terms of achievement, career success, or high levels of expertise, NOT in terms of happiness, living a good life, morality, having strong social bonds, etc. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be successful in the way this post focuses on. But if you DO want “success” in the sense in which it is used in this post (or you are interested in being able to predict it in others), you may find some of the models here useful.
I’m also interested to know: which model (below) do you find most useful for thinking about success, and which one of these factors (used in the models) do you think is currently most limiting your success?
1. Noise theory:
success = luck
2. Genetic determinism:
success = (innate) aptitude + luck
Note: whenever I use “luck,” I mean random factors not already accounted for in the other factors in the model. So in the case above, “luck” means luck other than the random chance of what your aptitude is.
3. Traditional right:
success = aptitude + surrounding culture + hard work
4. Social justice left:
success = privilege + luck
5. Economic left:
success = social/economic class you’re born into + luck
6. Cynical theory:
success = some combination of self-promotion, bullshitting, social skills, good-lookingness, starting resources, and luck
7. Gladwell:
success = whoever practiced for 10,000 hours + luck
8. Dweck:
success = aptitude + growth mindset + luck
9. Duckworth:
success = aptitude + growth mindset + grit + luck
10. Seligman:
success = skill * effort * self-promotion * luck
11. Psychometrics:
success = IQ + conscientiousness + low neuroticism + luck
12. Ericsson:
success = luck + hours spent doing “deliberate practice” (i.e., with specific goals and tight performance feedback loops, while analyzing mistakes and dividing skills into micro-skills that can be practiced independently, ideally all done under the supervision of expert coaches)
13. My mega model:
success at a fixed goal = luck^a
* (resources+opportunities)^b
* (community/collaborator quality and supportiveness)^c
* (innate aptitude at relevant skills)^d
* intelligence^e
* rationality^f
* (creativity and resourcefulness)^g
* (social skills)^h
* (hours of deliberate practice)^i
* (unitary or obsessive focus on the goal)^j
* (conscientiousness and self-control)^k
* (physical or mental health)^l
* confidence^m
* (ambition and agency/self-directedness)^n
* (self-promotion skill and effort)^o
* courage^p
* (goal/task-specific factors)^q
* (efficiency and prioritization)^r
Each exponent a, b, c, …, r is a different number from 0 to 1. Note that each of these traits is selected because I believe, on average, having more of them improves the chance of success – that’s why I exclude negative exponents. Furthermore, I’m claiming that these factors, on average, each have diminishing marginal returns. That’s why the exponents are each less than 1 (making a concave function).
The values of the exponents vary depending on the field and type of skill. For instance, in some areas, courage is a minor factor (in which case the courage exponent, n, would be close to 0, and in other fields, courage is essential, in which case n would be close to 1). So, in other words: success is a PRODUCT of roughly 18 factors, and how much each factor matters depends on what you’re trying to do.
Note that this is designed so that if you have literally 0 of any factor, then the level of success is automatically 0 (since 0 times any number is 0). For instance, if you have literally no physical health, you are, presumably, dead, and if you have literally no ambition, presumably you just sit around all day or do the minimum you need to eat.
It’s worth noting that the factors above are not completely statistically or causally independent in reality (becoming higher in one may make you higher in another, on average). But I think the enormous extra complexity of trying to account for these dependencies probably is not worth it in practice.
How do you improve your odds of success?
A lot of times, when people are extremely successful, I think it’s because they avoid being TOO low in any of the factors, and they have one or two factors where they are exceptionally high. Many factors are “bounded” ones: for instance, you can’t work more than 24 hours per day. So it’s impossible to work more than 3x the amount the average person does. But there are some “unbounded” factors where you can potentially be WAY higher than the average person (e.g., “creativity”), which can drive the success score very high (as long as no other factor is close enough to zero to drag it back down). Hence, this model leads to an approach for thinking about how to be more successful (if that’s something you care about).
Put simply, success often flows from not being TOO weak on really important factors and having one or two really strong (and relevant) strengths.
Getting into more detail, here is a process you might use to consider how to increase your odds of great success:
1. For the goal/task you’re trying to succeed at, figure out which of the above factors matter substantially (which maps onto trying to – very roughly – figure out the exponents for each factor).
2. If your strong/weak factors are not a good fit for the goal, consider changing the goal to better play to your strengths, or consider teaming up with someone (e.g., a co-founder) to compensate for your weaknesses.
3. Once you have settled on a goal, identify any especially low factors (relevant to that goal) that are driving your potential for success down, and think about how you can improve at those. Due to multiplicative effects, very low factors can really drag down your potential for success. For instance, if you have severe mental health challenges that interfere with your day-to-day tasks, working on that first can be a great idea (even if you’re just optimizing for success).
4. Identify your strongest factors (that are relevant to that goal) and think about how you might improve at them or hone them to get them VERY high. You can also figure out how to make even more use of these great strengths of yours to achieve good outcomes. Often, one of the most effective things we can focus on is leaning into our greatest strengths (for instance, by designing a path towards our goals that leverages them or working to enhance them even more). This is especially the case once we’ve gotten barriers to success out of the way (i.e., we’ve worked on improving our especially low factors).
A question for you: right now, which of the factors listed above is the one that is most significantly limiting your success?
This piece was first written on September 12, 2021 and first appeared on this site on March 25, 2022.
So the luck is a constant factor in majority (all?) of models?
And how make luck beyond à la Naval way?