How to succeed
Simply surviving long enough increases your chance of success.
A surefire way to lose
“There are many ways to win in business,” writes James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. “But there’s one surefire way to lose: run out of money. Entrepreneurship is a game of survival.”
Clear’s referring to the game of business, but the same is true for life, work, and any form of creative hobby.
How simply surviving long enough increases your chance of success…
That’s what I’ve been thinking about this week:
Let the competition punch itself out
After the first round in the famous Rumble in the Jungle boxing match, Muhammad Ali knew he was fighting a superior opponent in George Foreman. Ali used all his skills to catch Foreman off guard, including throwing 12 right-hand leads in the first round, but none hurt him, or came close to knocking him down. It was clear that Foreman was bigger, younger, and simply more powerful than Ali.
“The nightmare he’d [Ali] been awaiting in the ring had finally come to visit him,” said writer Norman Mailer. “He was in the ring with a man he could not dominate, who was stronger than him, who was not afraid of him, who was gonna try to knock him out, and who punched harder than Ali could punch.”
In the ensuing rounds, Foreman anticipated Ali would try to gain an advantage by dancing around the ring in his usual style. But instead, to the surprise of everyone, including Foreman, Ali went to the ropes. As Foreman’s fists thundered into a weak-looking Ali round after round, everyone thought Ali was done. But with 30 seconds left in round 8, Ali spotted his moment. A wobbly Foreman was so exhausted after exerting all his energy hurling body shots into Ali that his arms began to sag. Finally, Ali came off the ropes and connected with three successive right-hand punches before unleashing a brutal combination that sent Foreman teetering over to the floor. Ali stood over him, victorious, while the crowd of 60,000 people went berserk. His strategy for beating the bigger, meaner Foreman was simple: let him punch himself out, and stay alive long enough to win.
“If something lasts long enough, eventually it comes back to you.”
Ron Livingston’s big break in acting happened essentially because he was the last man standing. When Mike Judge was making Office Space, the Fox network wanted him to cast a big-name movie star in the lead role. Judge, on the other hand, wanted to cast a nobody. The two sides went through a long list of male actors in search of the right person, but neither could agree on who should play the role. As the decision dragged on, the executives at Fox grew impatient. Finally, thanks to Judge’s success as the creator of King of the Hill, which had become a massive hit for the Fox Network, the executives relented. Ron Livingston was the last name on the list of actors for the lead role, and with the network’s approval out of the equation, Judge cast him on the spot.
“There’s this thing that if something lasts long enough, eventually it comes back to you because they’ve run out of everyone else,” Livingston said of the experience. “On one hand, it’s serendipity because you’re in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, the reason you’re in the right place at the right time is you’ve been standing there in that place for 10 years, waiting for something to happen.”
The reason he’s so successful…
Having amassed a net worth of more than $150 billion, Warren Buffett’s investment strategy is one for the record books. His trades and stock picks are analyzed and scrutinized by both novice and seasoned investors alike as they try to replicate his success. The problem? Buffett’s astronomical success isn’t just about making smart trades. The real influencing factor is something else entirely: Time.
What most people don’t realize is that the majority of Buffett’s wealth was accumulated after his 60th birthday. A normal person is satisfied with a certain level of wealth—whether it’s $10 million, $100 million, or $1 billion. At that point, they’ll take their foot off the gas and enjoy the fruits of their hard work. Buffett, on the other hand, doesn’t operate that way. His desire to keep working, decades after accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars, is an inherently unique quality, and one that, according to writer Morgan Housel, “plays a massive role in his success.”
“The whole reason he’s so successful,” says Housel, "Is just endurance.”
Tilt the odds in your favor
So much of success is outside our control. There will always be someone who’s smarter, faster, stronger, or more talented than you. What can we control? Staying in the game. If you keep showing up—on the good days, the bad days, and all the days in between—the odds of success tilt in your favor.