Success

When talking about the successful we always want to know what they're like. What kind of personalities they have, how intelligent they are or what kind of lifestyles they have. We assume that it is those personal qualities that explain how that individual reached the top. In the autobiographies publishes every year by celebrities or entrepreneurs, the story line is always the same: the hero is born in modest circumstances and because of their own grit or talent they fight their way to greatness.

These kind of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to our parentage/patronage. We are all the sum of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow us to learn and work hard and make sense of the world that surrounds us in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down to us shape our achievements in ways we cannot begin to fathom. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.

Biologist often talk about 'ecology' of an organism : the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not because it grew from the hardiest acorn. It is the tallest because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich and because no lumberjack cut it down.

The same applies for the success of a human.

Our notion that it is the best and brightest who rise to the top is much to simplistic. Instead success is the result of accumulative advantage. Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write people off as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. We overlook just how large a role society plays in determining who makes it and who doesn't.

So is there such thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes.

The problem with this view is that the closer psychologist look at the careers of the gifted the smaller the role innate talent seems to play in success. Instead the bigger the role of preparation becomes. The idea that excellence at preforming a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice has since surfaced. And how does an individual achieve these minimum levels of practice? Through opportunity.

- Juliette