"Greatness is something you do, not something you are."
—Sebastian Marshall
Positive Sum Games Don't Require Natural Talent
It just dawned on me–there's the "you can do anything, be anything, have anything" crowd, and obviously, that's not literally true. Could anyone play professional golf and win the Masters and perform as first chair violin at a prestigious symphony? Nah, probably not.
But I always think to myself, "I can do anything except the things I can't do yet, and I could learn those and do them if I want to." Most successful people I know think the same way.
Trying to reconcile that, I start thinking: You might need natural talent to win at a zero-sum game, or if you're competing for limited pieces of pie.
But you don't need natural talent for positive sum games. Positive sum games make multiple winners and expand the pie more than what the person eats.
NBA? On the court, it's a zero-sum game. Every "W" in the win column comes at the expense of putting an "L" in another team's loss column. There are 5 starters, and if you want to start, you've got to take someone else's spot when they retire or get sent to the bench. Then there are a few more rotation spots, and a few more non-rotation bench spots. And that's pretty much it.
That means that hard work, hustle, struggle, discipline might not be enough to play NBA-level basketball. Because there are only so many spots.
But positive sum games don't require natural talent–by building more, accomplishing more, facilitating more in a way that makes it possible for others to build more, accomplish more, and facilitate more–well, then you never run out of spots. To be an NBA player, you're knocking someone else off an NBA team. To get into an NBA rotation, you're taking someone else's minutes. To become an NBA starter, someone else is retiring or getting sent to the bench.
So maybe you can't be an NBA player. Because there's somebody that'll work just as hard as you but also might have been born taller, or put on denser muscle mass, or has a higher vertical jump even after you've trained like crazy on it.
But don't make the mistake that all of life is like this. Anyone could succeed teaching craftsmanship, because people learning more about art, engineering, machinery, and building stuff makes them willing, excited, and able to learn even more about art, engineering, machinery, and building stuff. There's a near infinite role for good craftsmanship and good teachers of craftsmanship in the world. There's a near infinite role for good business. For good science. For good art. It makes other things possible if you do a good enough job of it.
That doesn't make it easy. But if you hustle long and hard enough, you should be able to break through if you're playing a positive sum game.
Envy and schadenfreude are common emotions. People like seeing their opponents fail.
Is it possible to get over that? Would it be desirable to get over that?
I think envy and schadenfreude and hatred are usually a detriment to people feeling them. This is obvious enough when you're playing a positive sum game—because positive sum games don't require natural talent and have a near infinite opportunity for success. Disciplines like inventing, engineering, finance, entrepreneurship, mathematics, and the natural sciences work hand in hand. Every win by an inventor opens lots of doors for engineering, finance, entrepreneurship, math, and science. And indeed, for other inventors.
A lot of people mistake positive sum games—like the economy at large—for a zero-sum game. They think that if you get money, they'll get less money. Of course, it doesn't work like that, as our exponentially growing standard of living shows. Even if someone loses a local conflict (to gain market share in a new technology, for instance) they can still go on to invent and innovate in a new field.
Take Justin Kan from Justin.tv. His first startup was called "Kiko" and it was an online calendar. Google comes out with Google Calendar, which really put a hurting on Kiko, and Justin and team had a fire sale of the remains of Kiko following Google duplicating their effort.
Sucks, right? Well, maybe not. Because of that, he goes on to found Justin.tv which looks really promising. Even losing a local conflict (Google eating your lunch in online calendars) can be positive-sum if the person whose lunch was eaten goes on to do bigger and better things.
But what about true zero-sum games, like sports?
I got seriously interested in sports when I lived in Boston, so my primary teams were Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics. Now, if you don't understand the American sports scene, take my word for this—Boston fans were expected to hate the New York Yankees in baseball, Indianapolis Colts in football, and Los Angeles Lakers in basketball, due to long-standing rivalries.
But after some thinking about it, I decided that wasn't the best way to go. "Intelligent people who like baseball and statistics" is a very small subset of people. Why curse and alienate intelligent Yankee fans? Wouldn't it be possible to root for likable Yankees, and to hope for exciting, crisp baseball games between the two teams, and a general increase in popularity of the sport, especially among people who like statistics?
As a Boston fan, you were expected to dislike the top players of the rival team—Alex Rodriguez, Peyton Manning, and Kobe Bryant.
But I think, man, sports fans (and especially sports fans really into advanced statistical analysis) are somewhat rare. Why antagonize them? Alex Rodriguez is a hell of a hitter, it's a pleasure to watch him hit.
Peyton Manning has some of the best vision for small things of anyone in any sport ever. He'll see a small twitch in the opposing defense, and "audible"—change the play at the last minute. It's fine to watch him with some awe, thinking what the heck did he see?
And it's cool to admire Kobe Bryant's massive work ethic, and his skills and fluidity playing basketball. Seriously, he's more graceful playing basketball than most figure skaters are. The guy is a joy of an athlete to watch.
I think looking for things to like, respect, connect with—even if you're playing a zero-sum game—goes a long way. Instead of rooting for Peyton Manning to throw an interception, you start trying to figure out what he sees that causes him to audible … this is something most Patriots fan are blind to, because they hate the guy. They don't want to appreciate his skills, so they blind themselves to things they could learn about.
In the end, I think most sports fans would do well to root for exciting, quality games in their sport, and the sport growing in popularity. The more popular it gets, the more quality teams, clubs, and players will come into the sport. The more international competitions there will be in the sport. The more good games you'll see.
Could you root for your competition in business? I think to some extent, yes. Sure, give an all-out effort to win that market share. But also root for them to pivot and make massive dollars in (ideally) an unrelated field. Or to break new ground and new markets so you both prosper.
And this sort of goodwill means that if the company does fail, you can recruit some of their team on good footing.
This goes against human nature. We want enemies, and we want to root for our enemies to fail. This has been hard for me to adopt, and I'm still working at it. Maybe it's because I started reading the various war plans of historical communist leaders recently, like Lenin and Mao. I really dislike communism, but being open-minded enough to study "What Is To Be Done?" and "On Guerrilla Warfare" is increasing my knowledge of history and how things happen, and making me a better strategist.
Of course, there are no enemies in death. But maybe this same principle can be applied in life—yes, you can root for the Red Sox to win 110 games, and the Yankees to win 109, the sport to grow in popularity, and for an exciting championship series between the two teams. And if the Yankees win 110 and the Red Sox win less, well, you can still appreciate their quality pitching and hitting, and again root for the sport overall to grow in popularity.
This is admittedly hard to do. But I think it's good. It's not always possible, but I think it's healthy to start to want everyone to win.
Why I'm Very Skeptical of Genius
Gosh, I like The Wall Street Journal a lot. I like this piece, too: "No You Can't: Is genius a simple matter of hard work? Not a chance," by Terry Teachout, November 12, 2010.
I like the whole piece, except I disagree with the conclusions.
You'd need a certain baseline to be able to do the kind of work or craft you want to do. Enough to understand the discipline. But that's not such a high bar.
If you can understand the discipline, then, is it possible to make incremental progress every single week? Could you tighten your fundamentals, study related disciplines for synergy and crossover, and experiment on the hardest problems every single week?
Why not?
Really, why not?
Almost everyone sucks at almost everything when they first try it. But do they keep trying, and do they make focused effort at improvement?
If you wanted to be a writer, you could study some fundamental of writing every single week. You could study some related or unrelated field to see if there are some possible synergistic effects. And you could take a crack at doing something difficult in writing every single week.
For instance, you could reread a part of Elements of Style or On Writing every week. Then you could go through and edit and rewrite a piece that's already written to try to make it better using the newly learned rules you're adapting.
Then you could kind of scan around in related or unrelated fields. Personally, I was thinking of doing a sort of "DNA analysis" of successful writing. Have you heard of the Music Genome Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project)? It powers Pandora.com.
So I was thinking, you could probably do something like that for writing, and then try to craft a written work with elements known to appeal to people. For instance, if you wished to write a best selling detective novel, you might do an analysis of when the antagonists appear in the plot for the first time. You might find that 15% of bestsellers open with the primary antagonist committing their crime, 10% have the antagonist mixed in quickly into the plot, and 75% keep the primary antagonist a vague and shadowy figure until shortly before the climax.
I don't know if the pattern fits that–I don't read many detective novels–but it would be a bit of a surprise if it did. You might think, well, hey, I better either introduce the antagonist right away and have them commit their crime, or keep them shadowy for a while.
Or, to use an easier example–perhaps you could wholesale adopt the use of engineering checklists into your chosen discipline? It seems to me like lots of fields don't use checklists that could benefit tremendously from them. I run this through my mind again and again–what kind of checklist could be built here? I first came across the concept of checklists being adopted in surgery from engineering, and then having surgical accidents and mistakes go way down.
And finally, can you try to do something hard in your field regularly? And ideally, complete and perhaps ship some version of it? I mean, why not?
Paint isn't so expensive.
Typing is basically free these days.
How much to do a rough recording of a piece of music nowadays? Like, close to nothing?
So you know, make a painting, or write something, or write and record a song every week. Or whatever your craft is. If you write 52 iPhone apps per year, I reckon one of them is going to be good. (Ideally more than one)
Or game designers who actually write and ship games regularly–one of them is going to be a winner eventually, no?
Well, I certainly think so. I'm working on doing important stuff. And I really think it does come down to:
1.) Constantly improve fundamentals
2.) Look for synergies in other fields
3.) Regularly complete attempts to do significant work (and ideally ship them)
I think if you do those three regularly, you're pretty likely to produce some genius-quality work.
Could You Do Genius-Quality Work?
Could you do genius-quality work?
I know the word genius gets thrown around pretty casually these days, I certainly throw it around pretty casually. But honestly, I don't think it's very hard to do genius-quality work, if you decide to try. Most people don't try. But if you did try, I think you could do some.
What's genius-quality work? Hard to define. Let's try, though. "Something that makes a large, permanent impact on an important field." That's not quite right, but it's close enough for now.
Here's the interesting point, here's why I wrote this post: I reject the notion of a person who is a "genius"–you're either doing genius-quality work or you aren't. Regular, normal people (you and me) who keep trying to make large, permanent impacts on important fields are likely to do so at some point, and that's genius-quality work. Yes, most people won't try. But if they did try, they'd probably get around to doing some genius-quality work sooner or later.
Now, there's a whole other level–timeless-quality work. That, I'm not so sure we can just do that. That's the kind of work made by da Vinci and Socrates and Tsai Lun and Confucius. That's Special Relativity and the Parthenon and things like that. Timeless work, I don't know if anyone can do timeless work.
But genius-quality work? Large, permanent impact on important fields? I think we're in the easiest era of history to do that. There's so much low hanging fruit available–just cross-reference two important disciplines that haven't talked to each other enough yet, BAM, genius-quality work. Not so hard. And I mean, you've got the whole internet at your command if you're having a hard time. You've got summaries of almost everything online and why they're important, you can get quick access to almost any book throughout history, and you can get into contact with almost anyone for free.
Timeless work? I don't know if anyone could do that. Maybe not. Genius work? Oh yeah, certainly, if you try. What are you working on these days?
Things More Important Than Intelligence for Getting Wealthy
Well, I think intelligence isn't the only thing. Maybe not even the most important thing. I'd rank effectiveness, desire, and consistency/persistence all higher than intelligence for tangible success.
By "effectiveness", I just mean the ability to get shit done. I don't have a fancy definition of it, but some people can obviously get shit done, and others can't. You need to be able to get shit done to get wealthy (or otherwise do meaningful things).
Then "desire". A lot of people—it doesn't really occur to them to get wealthy. Or they don't want it. Or they don't think it's possible for them. Or—and this is totally fair—they rank other things as more important than wealth. That's fine, if that's what they choose.
On cultivating desire, I'd recommend Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich if you haven't read it. I mean, it's not as good as the hype about it (it's good, but waaaay overhyped in my opinion)—but there are some very, very valuable points in there. Recommended.
Then "consistency/persistence". I think you've got to be working on your long term objectives almost daily, or at least weekly. If you put them off until some undetermined date in the future, it's very likely they never happen. So, the ability to consistently put in time and persist when things suck (and keep putting in time, even if you're sick/tired/demoralized/whatever), I think those are all important.
Intelligence is maybe #4? I'll take an effective-gets-shit-done person who is desirous of success and consistent/persistent over someone who is more intelligent but not those things.
I hear people talk about luck a lot. Straightup—luck doesn't exist.
If you believe in luck, then you believe either:
1.) some people consistently defy probability, or,
2.) some things aren't a result of cause and effect.
Life is a series of probabilities. Every day, there's a chance that a given set of things will happen. If you want to have a successful life, expose yourself to as much high-upside low-downside probability as you can. Any given thing you do might not work out, but if you expose yourself to high-upside low-downside, good things will happen. Read books, reach out to people, try to get projects working, keep trying to write and build things, keep learning new skills, keep treating people well.
If you want to fail at life, expose yourself to high-downside no-upside probability. This is short term gain at long term expense type stuff. Cigarettes. Unsecured debt for consumption. Most TV.
You'll keep getting "lucky" if you keep exposing yourself to things with upside and limited downside. If you get an amazing job or contract that you had a 1 in 1,000 chance of getting, were you lucky? No, especially not if you applied and pitched 1,000 other places. If you say, "OK, I'm going to keep trying to get what I want until I do" you'll get it, as long as it's a positive sum game you're playing.
How about people who are born into a good situation vs. a bad one? Were they "lucky"? No, of course not—they've got their background, training, country they live in, city they live in, whatever, as a result of the conscious decisions of the people that came before them. Luck has nothing to do with that.
My great-grandparents were dirt poor. Like, dirt poor. My grandparents were quite poor—after my grandfather got back from serving in the Pacific in WWII, he married my grandmother, and they had nine kids. They never had any money. My Mom was #8, she (and I) only exist because they kept having kids because they thought it was important. My Mom worked really hard to dig out of being poor, and I was born with a little more opportunity than the generation before. I also owe a debt of gratitude to all the inventors and scientists and engineers and businesspeople who invented and built and improved the world before I was born.
But is that luck? No, it was conscious, deliberate actions by humans to build the world. Were Mayer Rothschild's sons lucky? No, they were successful because their Dad decided he wanted to work really hard, save his money, raise his kids well, and build the next generation instead of just consuming for himself and having "a nice life" like most people do.
There wasn't too much luck involved in the building of House Rothschild. Hustle, yes. Hard work, yes. Discipline, yes. Strong family ties, yes. Luck? No. It was all cause and effect, with some probability mixed in.
What about people who get killed in an earthquake? Bad luck? Or is it that there weren't enough safeguards and well-built emergency-proofings in the buildings they were in? Now, just because I say "Luck doesn't exist" doesn't mean "Everything is under your control"—but really, did you build two years of savings and diversify? If not, then when disaster inevitably strikes, you're more high and dry and in worse shape. Is that bad luck? Could you have sacrificed earlier in life and thus been prepared for [layoffs/disaster/changing political situation/whatever]? Some people are in trouble when crisis strikes, some people are ready. Is that luck? No. Luck doesn't exist.
Well, how about when someone dies senselessly, in a car crash or some such? Well, that's the closest you can get to something that's "bad luck", but even then, were you as careful about safety as you could be? I was in Cambodia and got hit by a motorcycle whose driver was a teenager driving fast on the wrong side of the road … and I was walking in a crosswalk at the time. Bad luck? No, probability. You go to a Third World country, your chance of dying this year goes up quite a lot. I got hit by a motorcycle, went to the clinic, got patched up, survived. Life goes on.
But what if the bell does ring for you early? Well, after you've done all you can do, you really can't control that. But again, I'm saying, no luck there. And also, no tragedy. Your time will come. I try to think about this every day—we don't have too much time on Earth. Whether it's one month, eight years, 50 years, 70 years, or 100 years—this isn't too much time, it's not enough time to do all the good things that are capable of being done. The question is, were you spending your life right, doing all the best things you could, searching out the most meaningful things, taking the best courses of action, training yourself, building your talent, spending your time well, serving people, appreciating life? If you were, it's no shame to go when you go. The bell rings for all of us at some time. No luck there either—it's all cause and effect, and probability. There's a chance you're not breathing tomorrow and today's your last day. I meditate on that daily—when the bell rings for me, it's not bad luck or good luck, it's cause and effect and probability. If I've spent my time well, there's no bad luck when the bell rings. It'll happen. It'll be too soon, no matter when it happens. But luck will have nothing to do with it. Luck doesn't exist.
If Luck Doesn't Exist, Then Should We Give Way to Fatalism?
Some people might say that if luck doesn't exist, shouldn't we be fatalistic and just accept things? Question the current order less? Here are my thoughts.
Should a person be responsible for their good or bad starting point?
I've got a belief, a value, a way of living. Everything is my responsibility. I got mugged by a psycho criminal? I should've been trained in martial arts. Some idiot crashes their car into me? I should've been paying more attention and had faster reflexes. My bank suspends my only credit card in a foreign country? I should've had a backup card, enough cash, and notified them beforehand that I was traveling. It's hailing outside? I should've moved somewhere warm if I didn't want to deal with that.
This isn't for abstract thinking reasons. This is because it makes me always take responsibility for what's happening in my life, even if it's not my fault per se. Everything is my responsibility. I was born without the opportunities that would've been nice? Well, suck it up and build those opportunities for myself and my children. Someone did. We evolved from being apes—we crawled out of jungles, forests, and caves with nothing. All civilization is the result of building the world. I can do that. You could do that. Anyone could do that. It just takes trying, really. I don't think it's even all that complicated.
Isn't any person just one of a multitude?
I reject that stance. I'm not one in a multitude. I am. I will. No one can say I'm part of a multitude without me joining voluntarily—you can threaten me, and I might submit out of a mix of cowardice or pragmatism. But no moral authority can be asserted over me—not by a vote, not by the head of a religion, not by a dictator, not by the mandate of heaven. You're not one in a multitude unless you want to be. You can become one in a multitude if you want—that's your choice—but you can never ascribe someone else as part of a multitude without their consent. Threaten them for trying to break free? Yes, certainly, that's common. It might work, even. But now we're into questions of war and combat and violence—this is straying from the base philosophy. I am. I will. Individually. Not "We are". I am. Not "We will". I will.
If we are individuals, then how can you say an individual is the result of a long chain of ancestors?
For all that I just said, I am a believer in individualism, but I am also a believer in voluntary interdependence. I'll absolutely join with others for a common purpose. If a man takes a post in law enforcement or a military by choice, he swears oaths and becomes part of the group—interdependent on his fellowmen. But the key is—it's voluntary. I say that I see a bond with my ancestors and my future descendants, but this is by choice. If a man were to say, "I will have no descendants"—this may be a sad thing to me, but who am I to tell him this is a mistake? It is his choice. We choose who we become interdependent with. Voluntary interdependence is good. (Though, don't mistake a 51% vote as voluntary—this is a common misconception)
If people realize there are connections between them, that they are products of cause and effect, won't that make people question less the current order?
I don't like fatalism. The fact is, the chain exists, like it or not. That's how you came to exist—a chain of cause and effect. Gravity exists. The weather exists. Like it or not, y'know? So saying, "I'm where I am as a direct result of cause and effect" isn't giving myself over to fate or fatalism or anything, it's just acknowledging reality as it unfolded behind us in the past.
Is that luck? Again, I think not. You make your own luck, more or less. To an extent it's not true that you create your own life—your life is insignificant, trivial. Honestly, I believe that—if you're taken to the grave early because the dice landed in a fluke way for you, there's no tragedy there. You do what you can; some of us go before we want to.
Does this make sense? If you a flip a coin and it lands against you—were you unlucky? I don't think so. I think that's normal. I think that's life.
This isn't just a high level, theoretical, academic thing—I see this general sentiment in successful people. I am responsible for all of my life, there are no accidents, everything is cause and effect, I can improve my outcomes by taking the best actions possible, it's no tragedy if I do all the best actions I can and things don't work out as I hoped.
And then—start with individualism. No one can take that from you. They can threaten you, beat you, whip you, chain you, insult you, mock you—but they can't break you inside unless you let them. Once freed from other people's would-be control, you are able to volunteer yourself to the causes you believe in and become interdependent with those—though I'd recommend respecting people who don't want to join in. No luck! I really think this way. Most successful people I run this by do too. And most people who feel this way before they're successful become successful too.
I Think Greatness Is Something You Do, Not Something You Are
I don't think I'm a particularly great man. I hear this kind of shit from people all the time. I don't think people realize what's possible yet—look, you've got the whole world full of information available to you. You've got summaries of every era of history, every notable inventor, every science paper, every kind of music—all of it available for free at your fingertips. Do you know about Sengoku, Japan, and why Ieyasu won where Nobunaga and Hideyoshi didn't? Do you know how the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, why Mark Anthony and Augustus fell out, and how Augustus defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra's forces? How come America became America, whereas the French Revolution became a bloodbath and led to Napoleon? Do you listen to classical music? You can watch Karajan conduct Dvorak's ninth symphony for free on Youtube, it's really nice. Check out some Beethoven while you're there.
I hear this great man shit from people. Who am I? I'm nobody. I'll probably become the greatest strategist of our generation, make great works of art, write books, found a virtuous dynasty, sponsor artists and scientists and engineers, build schools and hospitals and universities, improve and serve good governments, serve law enforcement and military and other guardians of society, perhaps liberate some people from tyranny … . I don't know, I'll do those things, but why aren't you? Who am I? I'm fucking nobody. I'm just trying.
Don't get me wrong. It sucks. It's hard. It's really, really hard sometimes. It's neurosis-inducing sometime. I hate to lose as much as anyone, and I've lost a lot. I push myself to the edge of what I think I can handle, and sometimes I lose and get beaten down. I broke my hand training in fencing, I broke my teeth on separate occasions, I broke my ribs racing an ATV down a canyon, taking a turn too hard and rolling it. Yeah, it sucks. I don't like it. But it's not such a big deal.
Have you been poor? I've been poor. Like, no money at all and "damn them, I'll take nothing from them" poor. I've been there. It's okay. It's not much worse than having a normal middle class life. You do it, you survive. Take some risks. Try. Please, please try. I'm not great. I devote myself to great causes. I try. Oh, it's hard. Don't get me wrong. Broken hand, broken ribs, broken teeth, failures and disappointments, long nights burning midnight oil trying to turn ideas into reality. But—why not do this? What else is life? Drinking a beer, or a glass of champagne, or watching television? I've drank the best beer in the world—I always liked the Trappist beers myself, Chimay, Duvel, and Dubbel. I smoked the best marijuana and hashish in Amsterdam. Television? Sure, I've watched plasma TV. It's great. But it's nothing like producing. Creating. Oh, it sucks. It's hard. You'll go crazy a little bit. But I promise it's worth it. Nothing else compares. You could do it if you try. Why not try?
Do you think that "greatness" is the domain of "great people"? Look, when General Washington had to go to the bathroom, he pulled his pants off and took a shit. So did Tokugawa Ieyasu and Miyamoto Musashi. So did Cosimo Medici. So did Meyer Rothschild. So did da Vinci. So did Jefferson and Franklin. So did Sejong and Zhuge Liang. So did Augustus and Marcus Aurelius and Aristotle and Socrates. All those guys got bitten by a mosquito from time to time and had to scratch the itch and were aggravated. Sometimes they'd be walking and step in a muddy puddle and they'd curse. What's the difference between them and us? Nothing. Except they tried.
Who am I? Nobody. If the bell doesn't ring too early, I'll write works of strategy and history, I'll found branches of science and make great works of art, I'll fund artists and researchers and engineers working on great projects, I'll be a visage of hell and misery to criminals, and I'll make myself into a warrior and guardian of society and support the law enforcement and military that keep us safe. Perhaps I'll serve in combat, or in governance. I don't know. I'll do something. What else is life, but doing things?
I'll have many children, and raise them to be strong and virtuous. Why not? I'll write books. Why not? Sit for an hour each day in the morning before anything else in front of paper or a word processor. Either type, or sit and don't type, but don't do anything else. A book will come from this. Want to write a great book? Free yourself to write a bad book first.
I've tried painting and making music. Why not? It's simple and inexpensive try. I've had a couple lessons on drawing. I study history—why don't you study history? It's all free to study, and it's fascinating. I train my mind and body. Why not? I'm friends with people like you, reader, who are smarter than me, who are wiser than me, who help me and guide me forwards. You have as much talent as I do, probably more. I don't have so much talent. I just try. I'm not a great man. I'm just working on great things. We'll see how it pans out in the end.