Study Failures, Not Successes

I recently attended a meeting where we were going to be taught the secrets of becoming a “7-figure” professional speaker.  That is, we would learn how to make $1,000,000 a year.  The presenter is part of an elite group of speakers who earn at least this much every year.  His presentation was based on the lessons extracted from this successful group.

In the audience, listening to him, were about 60 professional speakers, ranging in experience from novices to highly accomplished individuals.

He shared ideas like, “Be controversial; say things that others are not saying or are afraid to say,” or “Don’t just speak; have a process.”

Listening to these words of wisdom, I have to say what others were not saying or were afraid to say: “His premise on how to be successful is flawed.”

The truth is, he has no idea how he really got to where he is. He only thinks he does. And no, he was not intentionally being deceitful. Not at all. He was just not applying critical thinking to the process.

Here’s the mistaken logic of so many people…

If we study a lot of successful people (companies) we will know what to do in order to replicate their success.

This is faulty logic for so many reasons.

One reason is “the undersampling of failure.”

When trying to learn what to do, we study those who are successful. But we rarely study those who tried the same things yet were not successful in achieving the same outcome.

I bet if we studied the speakers who make more than a million dollars a year, we will find that all of them shower every day. We could potentially therefore conclude that showering is the key to making a lot of money. Although I suspect that if you never shower, it will indeed impact your success, I do not believe that showering will make you successful. Why? Because there are many people who also shower yet are not as successful.  This is the undersampling of failure.

For every million dollar speaker who “is controversial and says what others are afraid to say,” there are 100 who have done exactly that yet were not successful. But we never study the people who never made it, because we don’t know who they are (unless they were colossal failures).  Their “failures” were not sampled, and therefore we wrongly conclude that this attribute leads to success.

My latest book is called “Best Practices Are Stupid.”   The undersampling of failure is one of three reasons why it is dangerous to blindly follow what others do.

Any time you receive advice, be skeptical.  Any time you read a book, don’t follow blindly.  Any time you study a best practice, carefully consider if it is right for you and if it truly will give you the results you want.

P.S. My hypothesis of why he was really success will be shared in a later blog entry (and he confirmed it without coming out and directly saying it). It has to do with how to “manufacture serendipity” as a means of creating non-linear success. And to be fair, listening to the speaker, I did gather some nice tactics for improving my business that I will be implementing. I only questioned his premise on how to be successful.

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Beyond the 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (by Tim Ferris) is the ultimate book title.  Who doesn’t want to work only 4 hours a week?*

I was hooked by the title, but disappointed by the premise.

In a nutshell, the book suggests that if you work 50 hours a week, you should outsource 46 hours, leaving only 4 hours of work for you.  He suggests that you should find people in India or the Philippines who can do your dirty work for very little money.  (I am admittedly oversimplifying, but this is not far off)

To me this is the wrong strategy.

This approach assumes that the 50 hours you are working are all worth doing.  This is rarely the case.  Why would you get someone to do the tasks that you should not be doing in the first place?

Don’t just do what you are doing today better, faster and cheaper.  Instead, question everything.

Find the 4-hours of work that will unleash massive value.  The key is leverage.  Where can you invest your time that will have the greatest impact?

When working on anything in your business, ask yourself how much value is being created.  It will typically fall into 3 categories (I know I discussed this in a previous blog entry, but some things are worth repeating):

1. Adding no value (or even detracting from what you need to do).
2. Adds a linear amount of value – one hour of work generates one hour of value
3. Adds exponential value – one hour of work generates 100 hours of value

Whenever I am doing something, I ask myself, “Is this creating exponential value?”

Interestingly, in most cases, there is little that I can do on my own that will create exponential value.  Leverage (or scale) typically happens through partnerships and relationships.

I have created several partnerships with organizations who have massive distribution, and large development/deliver capabilities.  I invest a significant amount of time and money researching potential partners and exploring those relationships.  By tapping into their reach and resources, I can generate exponential impact on my business.

Here are some simple questions/actions that will help you focus your energies:

• Who has access to the markets I want to tap into?  Partner with them.
• Where are the people in my target market gathering? Go to them.
• What is it that these individuals and organizations want/need most? Deliver this instead of what I have to offer.
• Who needs something similar  to what I offer?  See if I can modify my product/service to meet this untapped need.

Generate your own questions.  Anything to shift your thinking.

The more leverage I get from a particular activity, the more time (and emotional energy) I want to invest. Because I know that the more I invest in activities with leverage, the less time I will have to invest in the long-run.

How much value does your current 50 hours of workweek generate? 50 hours?  40? 4?  Outsourcing tasks that create linear value is fine.  But what if you partnered with people on tasks that generate exponential value.  And what if the 4 hours you choose to work only focused on activities that creates exponential value?  50 hours of work could generate 5,000 hours of value.

No more linear thinking!

*  I don’t really think that I want to work only 4 hours a week.  I love the intellectual stimulation of work and the contribution I get to make.  So working that little is not really a goal for me.

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How Goals Kill Luck

Richard Wiseman is the author of many great books, including The Luck Factor.  I’ve spoken with Richard on several occasions, and we share a similar perspective: a myopic focus on goals can reduce how lucky someone is.

Dan Pink (an endorser of my Goal-Free Living book, and author of A Whole New Mind and Drive), interviewed Richard for Fast Company magazine. Here is a small excerpt…

What are some of the ways that lucky people think differently from unlucky people?
One way is to be open to new experiences. Unlucky people are stuck in routines. When they see something new, they want no part of it. Lucky people always want something new. They’re prepared to take risks and relaxed enough to see the opportunities in the first place.

But the business culture typically worships drive — setting a goal, single-mindedly pursuing it, and plowing past obstacles. Are you arguing that, to be more lucky, we need to be less focused?
This is one of the most counterintuitive ideas. We are traditionally taught to be really focused, to be really driven, to try really hard at tasks. But in the real world, you’ve got opportunities all around you. And if you’re driven in one direction, you’re not going to spot the others. It’s about getting people to have various game plans running in their heads. Unlucky people, if they go to a party wanting to meet the love of their life, end up not meeting people who might become close friends or people who might help them in their careers. Being relaxed and open allows lucky people to see what’s around them and to maximize what’s around them.

Much of business is also about rational analysis: pulling up the spreadsheet, running the numbers, looking at the serious facts. Yet you found that lucky people rely heavily on their gut instincts.
Yes. You don’t want to broadly say that whenever you get an intuitive feeling, it’s right and you should go with it. But you could be missing out on a massive font of knowledge that you’ve built up over the years. We are amazingly good at detecting patterns. That’s what our brains are set up to do.

Read the entire article

Be sure to read my article from yesterday which provides mathematical “proof” for why a focus on specific goals can reduce luck.

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How to Increase the Probability of Your Success

My next article in the series on success…

You can mathematically increase the likelihood of your success when you are not obsessed with specific goals or approaches to achieving those goals.

Let me illustrate this with the famous “birthday game.”  Here’s the extremely short version…

If you have a room of people…

• for there to be a 50% chance that two people have the same birthday – any birthday, you need only 23 people in the room (matching day and month)
• for there to be a 50% chance that two people have a specific (e.g., April 25) birthday, you need over 600 people in the room

If you want more details on the birthday mathematics or on how to better leverage the concept, read my American Express article on the topic.

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Never Trust An Expert

Given my recent articles on success, I felt it was appropriate to dig up an old one (from 2007) which talks about how we never really know what made us successful….

A couple of nights ago, I gave a presentation to a group of eager individuals who are either launching or advancing their speaking careers. During our 90 minute discussion, I gave dozens of tips and techniques for growing their business.

At the end of the evening, one attendee asked, “What is the MOST important tip?” I thought about this for a minute and replied, “I don’t know.”

Although this answer may seem like a cop out, it is in fact the truth. No one REALLY knows what made them successful. More importantly, they have no idea how others can replicate their success. They may be able to look at a series of events that led to a particular outcome. But most likely the “most important tip” is something completely different than what is seen on the surface.

Last year I attended a “book marketing” conference led by a well known author who has sold millions (and millions) of books. His promise was to provide steps and tools that made him successful so that others can also reap the rewards. Thousands of people have tried his formula over the years and as far as I can tell, none have come even close to his level of success. Those that achieved some level of success did so by riding on the coat-tails of this author, leveraging his name and network. [NOTE: leverage is one key to success, so this is not necessarily a bad formula]

I am not implying that these experts are misleading or malicious. Not at all. The issue lies in our inability to find the correct correlations between cause and effect. Too many hidden factors play a major role – ones that we might never consider or notice. Most experts use anecdotal evidence to support their conclusions. “It worked for me and a few of my buddies, so it should work for you.” This is faulty reasoning. Maybe the expert’s “10 Steps to Financial Wealth” were not the true causes of their success.

There are many, harder to measure factors that often play a substantial role. Your attitude plays a larger part than you might think. Your Rolodex of contacts can be a huge part of the equation. Being in the right place at the right time has launched many businesses, including Microsoft (see my Sliding Doors Success article).

Or sometimes plain old dumb luck is the real cause. Fortunately, in the case of luck, people can create their own luck. Studies show that those who are less goal-oriented are luckier than “goalaholics” because they are open to possibilities outside of their narrow goal-focus. [NOTE: This is a significant part of my new research on innovation and success.  Stay tuned.]

So the next time someone makes a suggestion – or someone tries to sell you their 5 steps to success – be skeptical. Although it may be great advice, it may also be (unintentionally) misinformed counsel. They may not know the REAL cause of their success. Then again, this blog entry is my advice to you – so it too should be taken with a grain of salt.

P.S. Notice this entry is entitled, “Never TRUST an Expert” and not ‘Never LISTEN to an Expert.” There is a lot that can be learned from others.  

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