I'd go further than the video and not even really differentiate between hard work, skill and luck. The former two to me are also a kind of luck. In the sense of "you can do what you want, but you can't want what you want."
Whether I'm extremely skilled or have the behavioral tendencies to work hard is also pretty much just a factor I have no control over.
I didn't choose to have an interest in technical things or an aptitude for math yet it's what got me into development which is superficially a 'successful' job. And even if I did 'chose' that? How did I choose that? This dichotomy between skill and luck seems to come from a dualism that doesn't even conceptually make sense to me.
There is also the notion of “hard work” - like WHY are some people hard working and others are not? Is hard work more pleasurable for some people than others? Why do some choose to work hard and others do not? I’d contend it is also a kind of luck.
If you can change how hard working you are, what determines HOW much you can change? Can everyone go from the laziest person to the most hard-working person? If not, why?
I tend to think, like intelligence, hard working-ness for everyone falls somewhere on a distribution. For some, working hard - physically or intellectually - feels good, so they do it more than others. For others, it does not feel as good, so they don’t do it as often.
As someone who’s likely on the upper end of the “hard working” distribution, I have no pretenses about why I fall where I do. I like the sensation. I didn’t choose it. I just do what I do and that’s it, and I have ever since I was a little kid. Some people do not like “hard work” and we shouldn’t blame them for it.
> For some, working hard - physically or intellectually - feels good, so they do it more than others. For others, it does not feel as good, so they don’t do it as often.
I apply this belief to the act of forming human relationships. Unfortunately, failing to remain interested in people long enough until they can act as your support network might lead to dire consequences.
I'm still debating whether or not human contact should be considered a human need, instead of just a human want. Denying someone food or water is cruel, but denying someone else your friendship or attention is considered healthy if the person is too much of a burden to be worth the effort. I once had someone I considered my friend suddenly start to explain to me what the definition of "codependent" was, and shortly after I could no longer view them as a friend.
At that point, all you're left with are the people who will forgive you no matter how you act and no matter how long you've known them, whom are nearly impossible to find outside of compensated therapeutic relationships. I suspect that most of them are already giving that limited store of attention to someone else or were taken advantage of in the past.
It would be interesting to know which people benefit from the phenomena he mentions in the video - luck, conferred status, survivor bias - with those who experience imposter syndrome, and how the two outcomes come about.
Which circumstances lead to people believing that they are solely responsible for, and deserve their success, and which cause people to to feel the opposite. Not sure what the literature says on this.
Whether I'm extremely skilled or have the behavioral tendencies to work hard is also pretty much just a factor I have no control over.
I didn't choose to have an interest in technical things or an aptitude for math yet it's what got me into development which is superficially a 'successful' job. And even if I did 'chose' that? How did I choose that? This dichotomy between skill and luck seems to come from a dualism that doesn't even conceptually make sense to me.