What Makes People Successful?

This edition is about a great YouTube video and a mediocre book on the concept of Unfair Advantage.

It will help you increase your chances of “making it”.

I’ll explain it to you in 2 minutes.

The Unfair Advantage explained

I came across Ali Abdaal’s video “What Makes People Successful?” a few years back. It’s an interview with one of the authors of The Unfair Advantage.

The idea is great, and Ali’s video is fantastic.
The book is a lot of fluff, so don’t buy it.

Here’s the premise:

Success = fair play x unfair advantages.

Fair play means hard work, unfair advantages are dumb luck.
If you can combine both, you’ll increase your chances of success.

How to manufacture luck

The Unfair Advantage teaches to:

1. Identify your advantages

2. Using them to manufacture luck

First, you need to figure out what your unique advantages are (more below).

These are the lemons life gave you.
All that’s left is for your to make the lemonade.

If you can combine your unique advantages with doing more, you effectively increase your chances of ‘getting lucky’.

How to find your unfair advantage

What is an unfair advantage?

To find yours, the authors created the M.I.L.E.S. framework.

M: Money
I: Intelligence
L: Location & Luck
E: Education & Expertise
S: Status

It ain’t rocket science.
Just use these 5 categories to brainstorm potential advantages.

Go really wild and combine them for extra creativity.

Perhaps your childhood friend’s upbringing makes him the perfect co-founder. Or the way your mom made pancakes on Wednesday showed you what love is.

Figure yours out and then do something about it.

Your homework

You’ve now read or skimmed over this edition, what are you going to do with it?

Here’s an exercise for you:

• Watch Ali Abdaal’s video on this concept (12min).

• Take 15min and a piece of paper to brainstorm your unfair advantages and first ideas on potential projects.

• Take 3min to hit reply on this email, and send me your ideas. I’ll give you my thoughts.

I’ll be expecting your email in 30 minutes.

Cheers,

Carlo