You may not be the best, but being the best is not a requirement to get what you want in life
Hello there,
I have written a lot this week that I am not even sure which to share with you my friends. After much thought though, I settled on sharing with you a personal story about accepting myself for who I am. The title of the newsletter may have given it away but braise yourself for a long read.
A great level of self-awareness is needed to be a high performer in any endeavour. The advantage of self-awareness is also self-awareness. You know what you are good at and what you need help with to move mountains. I never stop to reflect on this topic for myself and this is yet another attempt to help at least one person who is reading this recognise this great advantage of reasoning from a normal distribution, how that means greater self-awareness and what sorts of advantages that brings with it.
I also want to mention upfront that I have written about this topic before. That was back in 2019. And the moment I published it back then, I knew I had not done justice to the topic and promised myself to be back to write about it.
When things happen in my life, I am usually quick to search out if it was happening to me alone or to too many others as well at the same time. What I am searching for really is to know if I was special or just like everyone else. I care about this for two reasons. One, I like to know myself. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, he said “if you do not know yourself on a battlefront, you will always be at risk.” The other reason is more altruistic. Because I maintain some level of public life, which means at least one person is out there watching me, and using me as some benchmark, I want to always be able to convince them about things I have done that they can do as well and this is mostly all things as you will see.
So let’s talk a bit about normal distribution. In the 2019 article, I described it as this:
Given a population of 100, and say the average age of 30, if the distribution of the population looks like that of a bell shape, then when you pick a member of the population at random, you can be sure such will have an age between 3 + or – 30, i.e. age range between 27 and 33 (assuming standard deviation is 1).
To bring home that definition let me reflect on two of my experiences.
The first. When I was in university, I started to notice a pattern. After writing an exam if the average person found the exam easy, I most likely will find it easy as well. And if the average person found it tough to answer the questions, so would I. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Then when the results are released, the same pattern ensues. By my third year at the university, I accepted the veracity of this pattern. In my fourth year, I think the pattern has become so obvious, albeit subtly, that a friend once guessed my result correctly consecutively. “David, you got a B in that course, right?” she said. To which I responded, Yes.
The same thing I have noticed in my work environment. Although not as obvious as writing an exam in the university with more than 400 other people, I have also seen that there’s nothing I am doing, or have done that no one else could do. I don’t have a skill that no one else has and I don’t know anything that no one else knows. So if you drew a distribution curve again, I will fit in just somewhere in between as well. You won’t find me on either extreme.
Why is this level of awareness important?
For me, the most important reason that jumps out is the knowledge that I may not be as special as my mind would want me to believe. You see we all go about life thinking we are unique, special, and different from others. Trust me it hurts to accept that I am just like every other average person. I want to be special. Our parents made us believe we are special. They told us how unique and qualified we are and indeed we are. But maybe not just in the things that we would like to be special at. I got a B on that exam and so do you. Your special got you a B and my special got me a B. Lol. No difference.
Let me point out here that just as there are extremes on the normal distribution curve, there are those that are indeed different. Those who will get an A when the average person got a C or D. Those who will birth something new when others maintain the status quo. The point here is not to say that everyone falls on average. Rather, it is a call to action to know where you fall on the curve in all the areas that matter to you. I noted in the 2019 article, “after knowing where you fall on the curve…, you may work on moving yourself closer or farther from your current state depending on where you fall.”
Well, although the awareness that I am not special may hurt, there’s something giving here. For most things that we would all desire to achieve in life, being special is not a requirement to get them. A great relationship, a great family, a great career, some riches etc are all stuff that anyone can get without being special. What is required to get them is a combination of energy, patience and (you get it) awareness.
Energy and Patience
Energy and patience rather than being special as a human are what is required for most things that we want to accomplish in life.
In a conversation with Paul Graham at a Y Combinator event, PG said this:
It turns out it is much more important to be determined than smart. If you imagine this hypothetical person that is 100 out of 100 for smart and 100 out of 100 for determination, and then you start taking away determination, it doesn't take very long until you have this ineffectual but brilliant person. Whereas if you take someone who is super determined and you take away smartness eventually you get to a guy who owns a lot of taxi medallions, or a trash hauling business, but is still rich.
Simply put, PG is teaching us that given the choice between being determined and being smart, we should choose determined. Do you know another word for determined? Yes, energy + patience.
For most things in life, all you need is to work on them for a long enough time and do so patiently. Eventually, you get rewarded for nature's non-cheating.
Unfortunately, most of us have erstwhile prioritised smartness (being special) over determinedness (energy + patience). Hopefully, after reading this, that will change.
Where do you fall on the normal distribution curve?
Other things I’ve shared this week
The workings of nature:
The first feedback I received from working at EY and how that can help you as well.
Some measure of procrastination is good in our life
See you next week friends!