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Comment by md224 | Hacker News Reader

I've been kind of struggling lately with this sort of inspirational attitude. It seems like a good attitude, but it also comes with this hidden assumption: if you try hard and keep at it, there's a good chance you'll succeed. Is this actually true?

I mean I want it to be true. I'd like to live in a world where it's true. But I don't actually have any hard evidence besides the testimonials of people who have found success, and I'm not sure if it's survivorship bias or an accurate picture of how one can become successful.

My theory is that chances of success are incredibly variable, and trying hard and putting yourself out there will increase that chance, but I can't figure out a ballpark for the baseline.

Is it even possible to crunch the numbers on something like this? I feel like we'll never know.

Knowing you gave it a shot is the important part, I suppose.

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Steve Jobs started a personal story with [1]: "Most people don't get those experiences because they never ask..."

And he ends with "you gotta be willing to fail ... if you are afraid of failing, you won't get very far"

Which seems to be a surprisingly common theme among successful people:

Mark Suster has a famous mantra: "You don't ask, you don't get"[2]

Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, told a story of how he got Steve Balmer advise him once[3]

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkTf0LmDqKI

[2] http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/05/15/the-one-word-t...

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqm9NXug6WE

I've been thinking about this lately, too.

What I find weird is all that inspiration/motivation about hard work and going after your dreams is very big in MLM businesses yet ~16million people account for ~$32billion in annual sales (divided equally: $2,000/person) [1]. I don't have any specific source on startups, but the thought that working as hard as you can will make your dreams come through seems prevalent, too.

My thinking (and I'm really wanting a conversation over this because it's an interesting topic) is that not only should one work hard, but make smart moves. Using startups as an example, a person could hack away 100hrs/week on a social network for pets while another person could be putting in 20hrs/week on a monetization tool for Instagram. The former is putting in more hours, but the latter has a higher chance (if by only a tiny percent) simply because it's in a position to 1. be acquired and 2. solve the problem of Instagram not having a model. So they're both putting in work, assuming good attitude, and taking the chance as OP's point was. Yet it seems the defining factor is where all that energy is directed to.

[1] http://www.dsa.org/research/industry-statistics/

The failure rate for those who don't try is 100%.

But what if the failure rate for those who do try is 99%? Trying isn't always zero-risk... I wonder if ambition could be subject to a cost/benefit analysis, haha. At some point I suppose you just have to let go of the numbers.

What's the cost/benefit breakdown of not taking the risk?

I don't really understand how we've ended up at this line of argument. There is no significant risk to talking shit at a bar. Other than the fact that being in the bar in the first place is generally a good way to avoid opportunities.

If you are looking for reasons to not try, you're going to find an endless supply of them.

I've done a lot of things that people relentlessly told me I had no chance of accomplishing.

You are either...

1. Extraordinary, and able to achieve what others cannot. 2. Lucky, and by chance successful in an area where success is hard to find. 3. Being told that you have no chance of accomplishing things that are actually not very hard. 4. A living example of how anybody can do that which they set their mind to.

If you're 1, then other people can't use your experience as a guideline. If you're 2, then people can't use your experience as a guideline. If you're 3, then people can't use your experience as a guideline.

If you think you're 4, then you're either 1, 2, or 3, and just don't realize it yet.

I've done a lot of things that people relentlessly told me I had no chance of accomplishing.

Same here. I just use the commentary from the naysayers as "fuel for the fire", if you will.

On that note... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-qhWahjOgY

Well first you are correct in that there is a psychological cost of failure for sure. Which is why it's harder for some people to cold call than others.

I've found that since the advent of email (and before that postal mail) it's much easier though. You fire off an email and you forget it. If something happens it happens. So you don't really feel the rejection.

By the way separately some of the best cold calling salesman are people who can't register or feel the annoyance or discomfort of those they are pitching. People who are able to feel this (either visually or by vocal tone) have a much much harder time overcoming the negative feedback. (Source: This is based on anecdote and observation over many years in business.)

> ...there is a psychological cost of failure for sure.

I think this is one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs. Winston Churchill once said "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." A lot of people, however, can only tolerate so much failure. At some point, failure wears them down and they lose the will to keep trying.

> Trying isn't always zero-risk

Trying is never zero-risk but not trying is always 100% risk of failure.

The bigger the risk the bigger the reward usually, that's how capitalism works.

Work a 9-to-5 at a safe company, make a nice salary, have little risk

Work a 9-to-7 at a startup, make less money but have equity, have more risk of the company going under but have a bigger shot at reward

Start your own company, have no salary but 100% equity, risk being homeless, reward being a billionaire

Every choice you make is a risk-reward calculation and you have to decide what's important to you and whether it's worth risking for a bigger reward.

A failure rate of 99% is a great value

So, if you try 10 times, your chance of never succeeding is around 90%. Or, saying it another way, the chance of succeeding, at least once, is 10%

For a lot of those who try its also 100%.

The question is should you be trying this in the first place?

Did you know its actually more likely you will survive a plane crash than have a successful startup exit? Now, would you still hop in a plane you know its going to crash?

With that logic you should, chances are you will survive, maybe.

The question is should you be trying this in the first place?

Here's how I'd approach this scenario:

Did you know its actually more likely you will survive a plane crash than have a successful startup exit?

First, I'm not actually convinced that this is true at all, but let's go with it for the sake of argument...

Now, would you still hop in a plane you know its going to crash?

Since we're working with analogies here, I'll say "yes". Why? Because continuing to work a routine, corporate 9-5 job, is such a mind-numbing, soul-sucking, draining life of desperation, that - by analogy - it's about equivalent to "remaining in the burning building, on the 99th floor, surrounded by flames, falling beams, and smoke" versus "get on the airplane that might rescue you, but will probably just crash".

So, get on the airplane (or start the startup) and at least have a chance at living, or keep the corporate job (stay in the burning building) and consciously choose death.

Of course this is all somewhat subjective. Not everybody will agree that the soul-sucking corporate bureaucratic world is analogous to death. But for some people, with certain personality types, biases, whatever, it is.

Only in perfect cases.

There are plenty of places where a person can BS the whole day, build gangs, do no productive work for years and yet take away a fat salary, get travel opportunities, big bonus and manage to get routinely promoted.

Its called politics, and luck.

Such people win more often than the hard working ones.

"Management"

"there's a good chance you'll succeed. Is this actually true?"

Depends on what you mean by "good chance" obviously. And "succeed".

"accurate picture of how one can become successful."

I looked at your website from your profile.

Being successful at the "creative" things you are good at would be much more difficult than some of the other less creative things you have listed.

There are (from my observation and I believe this is common knowledge) many people who have really good creative skills in music, art, acting etc and no where near enough opportunities for those people to make a good career out of it. In that case the hustle is probably even more important than the skill level (not that that's not important). But even with hustle it can be random. And there are many people hustling to get ahead. You aren't competing with people to get a job as a dental hygienist who really isn't super into their job, right? Some of your competitors are really totally over the top in their commitment to doing what you want to do. They aren't phoning it in or anything.

Like with dating or landing a job you only have to be right one time (well assuming you find "the right one").

Not like selling where you have to find a certain number of sales per time period. So you have to assess how much time and effort it takes to get a sale and extrapolate.

I don't think you're going to get the numbers you're after, and hopefully you can live with having given an honest effort if you fail. The truth is, having this kind of attitude, and doing the work that comes along with it, is necessary but generally insufficient for success. Meaning, you can get there with with work + (some Other Factors), but you absolutely won't get there without it. Which is why the stories you hear about successful people all include the "hard work paid off" bit.

Other Factors can include but are not limited to: having the right contacts, being in the right place at the right time, having a unique insight into the market, etc. Looking at a list like that might be dispiriting because the items all appear to be frustratingly correlated with random chance. And that's partly true. But what is also true, is that doing certain kinds of work often has the interesting side-effect of raising your chances for bumping into one of those other factors. Which is what you were saying above.

For example, working hard in, and paying attention to business in a given industry for a while might a) Give you insight into how something might be done better, and b) introduce you to people working in that industry who could help you out by b1) teaching you more about it, b2) directing you to others who can, b3) becoming a collaborator with you, or b4) pointing you to capital resources interested in solving relevant problems.

I mean, yeah in the end, in business you're likely to fail. Most businesses fail. Most people who have the right attitude and do the requisite work fail. But you can't get to the top of the mountain without hiking.

When you hear that an entrepreneur should not be afraid of failure, I think you are misunderstanding it. It doesn't mean that failure is unlikely, it means that failure is not a big deal.

Corollary: whatever bold move you want to try, make sure that failing is not going to be a problem, especially a financial one. Note that in this context it is assumed that embarrassing yourself is most definitely not a big deal, which is way easier to say than to act upon.

In the story linked, what was the worst thing that could happen to this lady? The CEO taking the remark the wrong way and being pissed? Or laughing at her, maybe? Who cares?

You quit your job and start a company? Depending on the kind of company, your chance of success will vary considerably. After you failed, you just get a new job/go back to your previous job and that's it. You lost a couple months of incomes, some savings, and you can laugh at your epic failure with your friends.

The dirty secret is that your friends will probably love you more after you failed, because truth being told, they are unlikely to want you to be more successful than themselves...

Of course it's true. I'm a terrible bowler, I could roll the ball in the gutter a million fucking times but if I keep TRYING to get a strike, EVENTUALLY i'll get one.

That's different from just rolling the ball down the lane. If I don't change something up and learn from my mistakes and learn how to angle the ball and learn how much force to give it then i'll keep rolling the ball in the gutter, sure i can shrug to my friends and tell them I "tried" but i'd know deep down that I didn't... Don't fall into the fallacy of staying in your comfort zone and trying just for the sake of trying.. You'll never grow. You have to be willing to challenge yourself and do things just a little different next time to really become better and finally get that strike.

And when all is said and done you'll probably be a pretty good bowler..

then you can blog about it.

Trying is a way to create and execute on opportunities.

You could think about it as creating your own luck.

The only problem is that at the end of the day it's still luck.

It is, it has been done, statistically when it comes to financial success America is fast becoming one of the countries where its most unlikely to go from rags to riches.

Its not a lie, its big data crunching the numbers that are out there, and those numbers say if you are poor you are most likely going to end poor, or perhaps dirt poor.

Nothing against you or the person who did that research, but: fuck statistics. Eventually one gets to defy them!

Seriously? Fuck statistics?

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