random acts of success

Nylon is one of the more useful human inventions and its discovery was an accident. Someone forgot to turn a bunsen burner off in the lab and in the morning there was a stringy mess in the beaker of chemicals that was there the previous night. It took quite an effort to reproduce the process and eventually a very viable commercial product resulted.

Every year I get a cool book from my father-in-law, who seems to always find an author to send a skud missile directly into the heart of my most cherished beliefs and ways of thinking.

Last December's effort was a book called the "Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives." Like the Black Swan, this book argued convincingly that a vast amount of what goes on in business and life is random and has little to do with talent and ability. These of course play a role on success but not as great as we like to think in North America.

As a designer, I grew up believing that anything that does not happen by accident, happens by design. I believe in choice rather than fluke. But as a coach who has a very successful coaching practice, I am now looking back on my success with a great deal more humility.

Although I have become a very skilled coach out of sheer practice (I've logged over 10,000 hours coaching professionally), much of my success has nothing to do with my coaching skills and more to do with the fact I started thirteen years ago. There was very little competition back then and I have always been a good sales person. I started getting clients when I actually had very little coaching skill. Most of the skills I have developed have been a direct result of the clients I have worked with. I coach very sophisticated, very successful, very high networth entrepreneurs. These people demand a lot from me and they have forced me to grow. The first one I coached led to everyone else and that first one was a random act. He came out of the blue at a chance meeting. I don't think I'd want to be starting out now. No offense to me (none taken).

Luck, as the saying goes, is when opportunity meets preparation. Chance does favour the prepared mind. Bill Gates was prepared. Steve Jobs too. And it helps to be born in a particular 5 year period if you want to be a tech billionaire. Are they talented and skilled. Obviously. But that's just entry into the arena. They made the best of what came along and what came along was largely outside of their control.

Skill is not necessarily a cause of success. Success and skill are highly correlated for sure but the most skilled are not always the winners. Take Steven Bradbury who won the Gold medal in 2002 in the 1000m speed skate after everyone in front of him crashed.

And let's don't even get started on mutual fund managers where it takes decades to determine if there results are truly due to their abilities. Most of the time they aren't.

The conclusion of this book: if you're really successful, don't get too cocky; if you are struggling, don't get too depressed. It seems that one of the biggest factors in success is simply to be in the game. Pick a game, learn to play it well and watch for the scoring chances when they pop out.