Thread by @ryanseamons

The price of success is usually higher than we realize. (thread 1/12)

"Why doesn’t a musician go straight to a “greatest hits” record and save everyone a lot of time and hassle? Because no one knows anything." via @ThisIsSethsBlog 2/12

So many successes come through a combination of hard work, perseverance, not running out of money, luck, and experience. But then some creator or reporters will claim a simple set of principles helped them succeed. 3/12

While not wrong, talking about why someone won a single game is very different than winning another unplayed game. So many people have much more failure than the article/book says. 4/12

I worked for a company that had a book come out about the internal culture. While not untrue, a number of stories were quite idealized. After reading about one perk the company supposedly had our team started asking "Wait, can we really use this perk?" 5/12

Ends up that perk was isolated to a small team and a lot more complicated than the story let on.
6/12

The book said that the company paid for any employee to have a networking lunch. Ends up that was one engineering team that had a practice of doing so if the employee did a presentation back to the team for learning. Cool idea, way oversold in the book. 7/12

What you read in business press is never the full story. This doesn't mean there aren't good principles to take from reading about other businesses but realize they are rarely the full story. 8/12

If you feel down when you see the success of others, thinking they have it all figured it. Just stop. The appearance of success ≠ real success. 9/12

Success in one domain can mean complete failure in another domain was the price. Read anything about Steve Jobs as a parent to get one stark example. Same with Einstein as a husband. 10/12

In his book The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch tells about how people asked him how he got tenure so early. He'd offer to share his secret if they came by his office late on a Friday night. 😁 11/12

- Success in a single domain usually has a high price
- Those who are very successful in one domain often pay dearly in others
- Comparison is toxic, especially comparing your current work to the greatest hits of others
- Keep calm and carry on. You're doing great. 12/12