May 28, 2013

Why you can’t learn to be Successful by studying Successful People

Attitudes

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Talk to people who’ve been married a long time about why their marriages last and you’ll hear that they’re in love. Great. But so is everyone who gets married – even those who will be divorced in 18 months. So obviously love is not indicative of a successful marriage.

Learning about success comes from understanding the difference between successes and failures. Unfortunately, in business that comparison is rarely done. Largely because it doesn’t make an entertaining speaker series, or an easy to write article. And because business failures tend to disappear and not subject themselves to scrutiny. 

The term for the logical failure in this is called “survivor bias” and if you don’t think you’re guilty of it – you better read this article.

You’ll also learn why these things are true:

  • “A stupid decision that works out well, becomes a brilliant decision in hindsight”
  • “If you group successes together and look for what makes them similar the only real answer will be luck.”
  • “Luck is actually a pattern of behaviors that coincide with a style of understanding and interacting with the events and people you encounter throughout life.”

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About the author 

John Seiffer

I've been an entrepreneur since we were called Business Owners. I opened my first company in 1979 - the only one that ever lost money. In 1994 I started coaching other business owners dealing with the struggles of growth. In 1998 I became the third President of the International Coach Federation. (That's a story for another day.) Coaching just the owners wasn't enough for some. So I began to do organizational coaching as well. Now I don't have time to work with as many companies as I'd like, so I've packaged my techniques into this Virtual CEO Boot Camp.

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