I guess we all love stories about successful people, and sometimes we try our best to imitate them. But are you aware you're making a grave mistake by only considering to follow success stories?
If you look closely at our modern society or even ourselves, you may notice, we love those people who tried something and came back with a fortune. For example;
I personally love the success story behind Mark Zuckerberg, from being a college dropout to being a billionaire through his social app, Facebook. I guess we may call him, the successful man who dropped out of college. But, here is the thing, Do we consider the millions of drop out that never made it? Do we ever hear of them? And why didn't they make it after dropping out of college just as Mark Zuckerberg? Think about it.
That's a grave mistake we all make by overlooking something more important than a success story. In this article, I'll talk about a Logical error called Survivorship bias
Where it all started
It was during world war II, when the United States armed forces faced a problem regarding their bomber planes. They could cause colossal damage, but they were pretty slow. And for being slow, it was an easy target.
It was a very frustrating situation for them. Yes their planes were lethal, but if they sent 100 bomber planes, only 4 or 5 planes managed to survive and return. So, they decided to analyze the problem.
After putting their aircraft through a series of test, they found out that their bomber planes were riddled with bullet holes, and they needed better ways to protect them.
So, guess what they thought to do next?
They planned to put more armor to protect their planes, but here is the question, "Where should they put it?"
When they observed the plane, which returned to their base after tests, they drew all the damaged area. Looking at the picture above, we can see it was concentrated mainly around the tail, body, and wings. So, they were convinced they have to use armor on these damaged parts.
And this is where Abraham Wald, a statistician at the statistical Research Group (SRG), made a glaring observation. The United States military would have made a terrible mistake if they had upgraded the armor along those sections of the plane.
Why?
Because the military was only looking at the damages on returned planes, but not the damages on planes that didn't return.
Think about it, why do many of their bomber planes not return? Maybe because they suffered the most damage?
Planes that didn't return were the ones that suffered the most damage in ways not seen on returned planes. Unlike the body, tail, and wings, the engine was highly vulnerable. Only one hit on the engine, the planes went down, and they didn't make it back home to have their damage charted out.
Where we do it
We can see the same error like this in our daily life. One might hear that the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was a college dropout and still became one of the World's Billionaires. And, He or she might try to imitate something similar that he did. But for some reason, they don't succeed.
Why is that?
It's because they only heard about Mark Zukerberg's success stories, and they didn't observe the people who were like Zuckerberg but still failed. What were the flaws he made, and how was it done?
We never thought from which college Mark drop out. He was a drop out from Harvard University. Do you think it's easy to get admitted to Harvard university in the first place?
He was already a genius with the potential to make a huge difference. He knew what he could do. And that is how he had the gut to drop out and start something new.
He also avoided some problems which unsuccessful people did. People focus only on successful people, but they don't consider what shouldn't be done by anyone who reaches their desired destination.
By this, they do everything successful people do with the things they shouldn't do. Then the result becomes something they never wanted.
Not just Mark Zuckerberg. Let me give you another example. Let's say you want some relationship advice. So, you go to the happily married couple of 40 years for some quality relationship advice. You ask them, "what's their secret to marriage?"
They may give great advice too, like, "Always take care of each other." Trust me, it's excellent advice, and It will work.
Yet, it's only when you consider both the happily married and bitterly divorced couple that you get a better picture of what's going on.
Take a look at the graph. (the upper part is no divorce and the lower part is the Eventual divorce) It follows the lives of about 2500 german participants for ten years. As you can see, those who are happily married are just happier, to begin with. Even before they met their husband and wives, they were already living happier lives. On the other side, those who ended up divorcing were naturally more depressed. Now, this is something many people don't realize.
Because not many would say: "I'm happy with my marriage because I'm just happier about stuff in general."
This is such an essential factor. It tells us we should focus on improving ourselves before we think of improving our relationships.
No one knows what it takes to become a successful person
Therefore, while listening to the advice of successful people, don't take it to heart right away. Instead, consider the failures, and perhaps you'll learn more than listening to the stories of a successful person.
To avoid making these grave mistakes, run your SWOT analysis and look at it from all sides. What you can do will determine your future. Not by imitating the successful people you fully don't know about.
Final thoughts
According to Wikipedia, Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that didn't, typically because of their lack of visibility. It can lead to some false conclusions in several different ways.
So, instead of listening only to the stories of successful people, we should also listen and analyze the stories of unsuccessful people. Analyze all possible aspects before jumping to any conclusions. This way, you can be truly successful in your way.
Written by Tasnimul Hasan Ebon
Reference
Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: A Longitudinal Study of Reaction and Adaptation to Divorce on JSTOR
7 Lessons on Survivorship Bias that Will Help You Make Better Decisions - I Done This Blog
Why you shouldn't trust successful people's advice - VoiceTube