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.
On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
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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