The author of Moneyball was asked to give a commencement speech at Princeton recently and he made this very obvious yet surprising remark to the so called IVY league graduates. To paraphrase - Success in most cases is a series of fortunate events that can be chalked up to dumb luck. I do think that once someone gets lucky it requires intellect to recognize it as such and put your whole effort behind it to maitain momentum and indeed savor the flavor of success.
The author Michael Lewis is himself a graduate of Princeton and has since had different careers including a bond salesman and now an author of popular books some that have become a movie.
He went on to emphasize that those lucky ones then somehow owe it to themselves and to society to return the favor in the form of helping others achieve what they seek, in most cases success itself. Although an intangible idea the message was to pay it forward.
He calls it the graduating generations' responsibilty to take the effort to help others.
He wrote a new book called Boomerang with ideas that I get and quoted here -
In Greece the banks didn't sink the country. The country sank the banks;
Fishermen are a lot like American investment bankers - like bankers, fishers' "overconfidence leads them to impoverish not just themselves but also their fishing grounds";
Countries borrow not only the best practices, but the worst;
Nothing lasts forever, even real estate.
This autumn the weather gods cooperated as we took a family trip in the northeast to see six states that qualify or makeup what is known colloquially in America as New England. Mass, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island (tiniest state in the union). The outing helped tally up the states we either lived in, visited or have worked in to 47. Guess which three have eluded this intrepid traveling family. Any rate the drive was all in about 1,800 miles and included some memorable geographic wonders or points of interest. Easternmost part of state of Massachusetts being one. Furthest drivable road east in Mass being another. Visit to all Ivy League schools (term harkens to a collegiate athletics conference and generally regarded as elite academic institutes of some repute worldwide) is another random bucket list item of which this trip afforded the chance to knock two more of the list. Dartmouth in Hanover, NH and Brown (and its sister institute the RISD - school f
Although as I have noted somewhere before 'Success' itself is a very vague idea. After all its in the mind of the beholder. Just because a lot of people believe something does not make it gospel. A perfect heist is also considered a Successful Job in the mind of the one pulling said heist. As is the destruction caused by fundamentalists. One parent in Afghanistan may be overheard to say - Aziz went on to be a successful terrorist.
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