How To Get Over The False Promises Of Self-Help And Actually Improve

A few years ago, I met up with a friend for a drink. We ordered two beers and started chatting. Always a junkie for the latest fad, he updated me on his last shopping spree.

“Dude, I just bought 10 pairs of the same black turtleneck,” he said looking excited.

I grew puzzled: “Why would you do that?”

Perching himself up, he stated matter-of-factly: “That’s what Steve Jobs used to do. He just bought several pairs of the same clothes. That way he could save time in the morning not having to choose what to wear. Time is money, man!”

I almost spit out my beer.

“Seriously?”

This was a guy who rarely woke up before noon, spent most of his time “curating” his Spotify list, and the last book he read probably had pages made out of papyrus. Yet, here he was thinking that the only thing keeping him away from genius was his wardrobe.

The Cargo-Cult of Self-Help

In the UK, Prince Philip is the husband of queen Elizabeth II. On Tanna, a tiny island belonging to Vanuatu, he is a god. What gives the British royal further divine-cred is that he is the brother of John Frum.

Tanna is one of the islands in the Pacific Ocean that adheres to something called a cargo cult. Many years ago, giant birds appeared in the sky and landed on some of the islands. To the astonishment of the islanders, groups of bizarre beings jumped out of the sky-things.

Thousands of strange men established themselves on these volcanic rocks in the middle of the ocean. Dressed in a particular way, and often seen marching up and down in circles, what these creatures brought was “cargo”. This consisted of all kinds of cool stuff, including food, clothes, and various types of trinkets.

Yet one day, the men packed up their things and departed, never to return. With them, “cargo” was gone as well. The Melanesian islanders got used to the cargo, craving it more and more. That got them thinking: How can we get the man called John Frum to come back?

Being quite perceptive, the islanders noticed that whenever the giant sky birds were coming, the John Frums would dress up, and parade themselves up and down the runway, holding special sticks on their shoulders. That must be the way to get the cargo.

So the Melanesians started wearing shirts emblazoned with the letters U, S, and A across the front. They built giant strips of gravel to attract the sky birds, and marched up and down with wooden sticks slung along their shoulders. Some even created giant replicas of the machines that come from the clouds, hoping that this would attract more of them.

The inhabitants of islands such as Tanna were quite ingenious. They wanted to improve their status and well-being. This was their version of self-help.

The Difference Between Correlation and Causation

As Aristotle so elegantly stated, knowing a fact is not the same as knowing the reason for the fact.

“Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reason for the fact.” — Aristotle

The Vanuatuan islanders saw American servicemen set up camp on their islands during World War 2. They noticed the soldiers drilling and practicing with their guns. While they were doing that, airplanes would land, bringing in supplies.

When the US armed forces left the area after the Japanese surrendered on the Eastern front, the goods that the locals got used to disappeared with them. In order to get them back, the islanders attempted to recreate the actions of the magical John Frums.

The problem was that they made a mistake, one that many people make when trying to recreate things that others have done. They mistook correlation for causation.

These two words are not interchangeable. The fact that something happened together with something else does not mean that it is also the cause of the other thing happening. Often people attribute success to a certain factor, when in reality something else was responsible.

Humans are storytelling animals and like to piece things together in order to make sense of the world. This tendency has its roots deep in evolutionary psychology. Pigeons, the self-help junkies that they are, behave in ways very similar to humans.

Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner performed an interesting experiment with these birds. He put them in a cage equipped with a feeding mechanism that would serve food at regular intervals. The curious thing was that the pigeons developed rituals meant to get at the little pieces of grain that they were fed.

“The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior.” — B. F. Skinner

Despite the fact that the delivery of food was linked to an automatic mechanism, the pigeons came to associate it with their own behaviors. As Skinner noted in his writings, the pigeon’s actions had no direct effect on its luck.

The food would appear even if the bird did nothing, or anything else for that matter. Yet, the pigeon persisted in believing that it was its own effort that brought about the result.

Doing the Right Things, and Doing the Wrong Things

Given the fact that humans are irrational creatures, you shouldn’t be surprised that they are prone to making errors. They create connections where none exist, and give significance to things which in reality are not that important.

Already two millennia ago, Galen the ancient world’s greatest doctor, saw that people’s brains act rashly. That squishy blob inside your head often gives assent to things as being evident, when they are not so.

“People fall into error because, in their rashness, they give their assent to objects as clearly evident which are not yet clearly evident.” — Galen

Galen’s observations ring true through the ages. Seeing success, people frequently come to the wrong conclusions about how to replicate it. Imitation can be the way to riches. Unfortunately, most people pick the wrong things to imitate.

You can be like my Steve Jobs-wannabe incarnate friend, who decided that what was holding him back were the few seconds he spent picking out clothes in the morning. This was his solution for genius, while neglecting the true culprits of his misfires: his day to day habits.

Even worse is when people listen to gurus who preach to them a certain path, while hiding the fact that they just got lucky. How much can you learn about success from the winner of the lottery?

“One needs to go out and buy a lottery ticket in order to win. Does it mean that the work involved in the trip to the store caused the winning?” — Nassim Taleb

Even good advice often leads to totally different outcomes. In real life, if you put two people side by side and have them do the exact same thing, their results can vary wildly. While one person can achieve great success, the other can falter through no fault of their own.

“It is preferable to be lucky than competent.” — Nassim Taleb

You can do everything exactly like your hero, and still not see success. As Nassim Taleb, the bad boy of finance often pounds home, it’s better to be lucky than competent. Competence can take you only so far without luck.

Bringing Luck Back Into the Equation

Just like the pigeons, humans attribute much of their success to their own doings. While some of this is true, the modern world has a tendency to discount one significant factor of success: luck.

If you take a look at all the big self-help gurus, they rarely even mention this. Instead, they give precise prescriptions on how anyone can achieve success like they did. All you need to do is shell out 997 dollars and the secret will be yours. If you act now, you might even get a super-dooper booklet (a 249 dollar value) absolutely free!

While some of their advice is quite valid. There are crucial aspects missing in the narrative. What they did is fit the points going backwards. If you believe their story, you are falling for survivorship bias.

By analyzing anyone’s rise to greatness, you will realize that luck had a lot to do with it. There was always a moment or two where they got that lucky break, one that pushed them above the rest of the field.

Many people pretend as if the equation for wild success were simple: Good Idea + Hard Work + Talent = Success.

While this is part of it, it’s not the whole story. You need to bring luck back into the equation. Rather, the formula is: Luck + Good Idea + Hard Work + Talent = Success.

In fact, luck should probably be in all caps. That’s how important it is.

“Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.” — Nasim Taleb

How to Apply These Ideas

“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” — B. F. Skinner

In the immortal words of B. F. Skinner, education is what survives when what you learned has been forgotten. In order to get ahead, you need to keep on learning. Even if you later forget some of the facts, one particular message should stay etched in your brain forever. The most important lesson to retain out of all this effort is the realization that you can’t control everything.

The great ancient Roman statesman Cicero gave the perfect analogy for this when he compared life to archery. As an archer, what you can do is practice your skills. However, when it comes to competition time, the only thing you control is drawing your bow, and releasing the arrow.

This equals the formula: Good Idea + Hard Work + Talent = Result.

Once the arrow is in the air, heading towards the target, luck takes over. A little gust of wind can swerve it off target, or if it wasn’t shot well, it can put it back on track. For wild success, luck is a huge factor, resulting in this formula: Luck + Good Idea + Hard Work + Talent = Success.

Luck is the most important factor, but certain prerequisites are usually required if you want to have a higher chance of hitting it. Luck favors the prepared mind. This is what you should always remember when listening to the advice of successful people. Luck played a huge role in getting them to where they are.

However, there are also certain factors that tilted luck in their favor. This of course doesn’t mean that if you replicate these factors, you will also enjoy the same amount of success as they did. In all likelihood, you won’t.

When listening to their advice, take it with a grain of salt. See what applies to your situation and circumstances, and try applying it. The key is to test, test, and test some more. You will falter often, but maybe through these experiments you will tilt chance in your favor, and find a formula that works for you.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Note: I published this article first here.