Winning against all odds

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An interesting bit of Twitter conversation fleshed out.

chrisbrogan: 10,000 hours of practice: the magic number of skill mastery. – Gladwell.
cspenn: Gladwell failed to answer how to overcome advantages that other outliers have. Only major flaw in that book.
chrisbrogan: meaning, in a pool of many 10k folks, what causes one person to rise?
cspenn: more like his hockey example – if you were NOT born in the 3 golden months, how can you still excel?
chrisbrogan: I thought he posited that you can’t.

You can.

The art of the ninja is more about perseverance and psychology than throwing stars and swords. Ultimately, the ninja faced Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers to an opposite extreme: they were outnumbered, outfunded, outgunned, and outdone in nearly every way. They faced an unforgiving wilderness, a hostile government, treachery at every turn, and no room for error. By any rational standards, they should have been instantly wiped out, quickly condemned to the dustbin of history as a mere footnote.

Yet amidst all this, they still had to win, against impossible odds. How do you win against the outliers, against people who have all the advantages of resources, time, energy, manpower, and culture?

One of the “hidden secrets” of ninja sword fighting that we’ve been exploring recently in the Boston Martial Arts Friday black belt classes is that the outcome of certain sword kata (patterns) is more dependent on mastery of yourself and your emotions than on what your attacker does. Certainly, you don’t take lightly someone in front of you with a four foot razor blade. You pay attention to them. You guard against them. But your success doesn’t hinge on just them.

The “secret” to “winning” in these routines is more about finding the weaknesses inside of yourself that are holding you back or causing you to make stupid mistakes, and minimizing their impact. I can’t speak for my classmates, but overcoming the desire to “win” (even though it’s just a practice exercise with nothing to “win”, not even a cookie) is one of my biggest weaknesses that I’m working on. If I can get past that, if I can just be there without trying to force an outcome, if I can get out of my own way, I am successful more often than not.

Sun Tzu, the war strategist, is often quoted:

One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles.
One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes win, sometimes lose.
One who does not know the enemy and does not know himself will be in danger in every battle.

Most people, most businesses, most everyone falls in the third category. We don’t really know ourselves. We don’t really know what we’re up against, and frankly, it’s amazing we succeed at all. Make inroads even just a little at knowing yourself or knowing what you’re up against, and your chances of success go up.

The ninja won against all odds because they didn’t face perfect opponents. Certainly, they faced incredible odds, but by dedicating enormous time and energy towards knowing themselves and their own weaknesses, and doing their best to mitigate those weaknesses, they were able to win against enemies who statistically should have beaten them to a pulp 100% of the time – but didn’t.

Here’s the second-greatest “secret” of all: it’s easier to know yourself than it is to know the unknown future ahead of you. If you’re going to invest a ton of time and energy trying to even the odds, your best bet is to start with yourself. Yourself, your team, your organization or company, the things that you have control over and that you can study in great depth.

How do you do that? I leave that to my seniors, my betters, and recommend you pick up a copy of How To Own The World, by Stephen K. Hayes. An-Shu Hayes does a far better job laying out a practical means of figuring out what’s holding you back than I ever could. If you want to win more, go grab his book, read it, and practice the lessons in it.

(yes, there is a greatest secret of all, too. not for now.)

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Comments

12 responses to “Winning against all odds”

June 3, 2009

John Wall

HTOTW should be available as a Kindle book, any chance that could happen?

Reply
June 3, 2009

John Wall

HTOTW should be available as a Kindle book, any chance that could happen?

Reply
June 4, 2009

whitneyhoffman

Matt is reading Outliers right now, so we are debating this book yet again. I think you have to stitch many things together to begin to answer the big questions, for example:

Outliers + The Dip = 10K of experience gives you the experience and perseverance to know what's actually going on, and hopefully some insight into whether or not you can get through tough times towards success, or whether it's time to cash in your chips and try something new.

Tipping Point + Buying In + Predictably Irrational= You can make a guess at what people will or will not buy, product or service, by whether it fits a need, but success overall requires the ability to sustain a business through the rough patches to the Tipping Point, after which general popularity, fads, and the business model become self-sustaining. People won't always act perfectly rational and make the best decision, so if you can make your best case of why you have a better product or service and why you fill a need, you have a better than average shot at success.

We like to think in sound bites, but I think we all know these possible pearls are not yet a necklace. And even the outliers, like General Motors, can be vulnerable to opponents that know the game as well or better, and are willing to take chances, experiment, and make mistakes the well established companies may not. Even Outliers are outlived and replaced by new outliers. I think we have to focus less on the being lucky part, and more on building a strong foundation with tools on hand to leverage the assets we do have and make the most of it.

It works for me, every day.

Reply
June 4, 2009

billhanifin

If you've ever been surprised by an interview question “what are your greatest strengths or weaknesses?”, then you know how important it is to know yourself. Add this to the mix: to go a little deeper, make a list of 5 things that scare you aand knock them off one by one. You'll find that the big brick wall of fear is paper thin.

Reply
June 4, 2009

whitneyhoffman

Matt is reading Outliers right now, so we are debating this book yet again. I think you have to stitch many things together to begin to answer the big questions, for example:

Outliers + The Dip = 10K of experience gives you the experience and perseverance to know what's actually going on, and hopefully some insight into whether or not you can get through tough times towards success, or whether it's time to cash in your chips and try something new.

Tipping Point + Buying In + Predictably Irrational= You can make a guess at what people will or will not buy, product or service, by whether it fits a need, but success overall requires the ability to sustain a business through the rough patches to the Tipping Point, after which general popularity, fads, and the business model become self-sustaining. People won't always act perfectly rational and make the best decision, so if you can make your best case of why you have a better product or service and why you fill a need, you have a better than average shot at success.

We like to think in sound bites, but I think we all know these possible pearls are not yet a necklace. And even the outliers, like General Motors, can be vulnerable to opponents that know the game as well or better, and are willing to take chances, experiment, and make mistakes the well established companies may not. Even Outliers are outlived and replaced by new outliers. I think we have to focus less on the being lucky part, and more on building a strong foundation with tools on hand to leverage the assets we do have and make the most of it.

It works for me, every day.

Reply
June 4, 2009

billhanifin

If you've ever been surprised by an interview question “what are your greatest strengths or weaknesses?”, then you know how important it is to know yourself. Add this to the mix: to go a little deeper, make a list of 5 things that scare you aand knock them off one by one. You'll find that the big brick wall of fear is paper thin.

Reply
June 6, 2009

obilon

Another great post Chris. I wondered the same thing when reading Gladwell's book. How do you account for the Outliers that didn't get the same advantages the examples in his book received. Certainly there are many who overcome the odds and didn't go the way of his one example in Chris Langan. The Business Week review stated exactly what I was thinking: ” One wonders: Did he leave out evidence that contradicts his thesis about success?” http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08…

Reply
June 6, 2009

obilon

Another great post Chris. I wondered the same thing when reading Gladwell's book. How do you account for the Outliers that didn't get the same advantages the examples in his book received. Certainly there are many who overcome the odds and didn't go the way of his one example in Chris Langan. The Business Week review stated exactly what I was thinking: ” One wonders: Did he leave out evidence that contradicts his thesis about success?” http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08…

Reply
June 7, 2009

lida diyet zayıflama

If you’ve ever been surprised by an interview question “what are your greatest strengths or weaknesses?”, then you know how important it is to know yourself. Add this to the mix: to go a little deeper, make a list of 5 things that scare you aand knock them off one by one. You’ll find that the big brick wall of fear is paper thin.

Reply
June 8, 2009

blancastella

Hi Chris, I was looking for your post on backups and found this article. Thanks. It is just what I needed. Having encountered many challenges, I would say that getting to the first position of knowing yourself and your enemy is worth the uphill battle.

So number one priority is finding yourself…and even though it is a lifelong process..there is a point of inner strength that you just know won't fail you. At that point then, finding the team with the same mindset is what I find the most difficult.

Reply
June 9, 2009

blancastella

Hi Chris, I was looking for your post on backups and found this article. Thanks. It is just what I needed. Having encountered many challenges, I would say that getting to the first position of knowing yourself and your enemy is worth the uphill battle.

So number one priority is finding yourself…and even though it is a lifelong process..there is a point of inner strength that you just know won’t fail you. At that point then, finding the team with the same mindset is what I find the most difficult.

Reply
June 9, 2009

blancastella

Hi Chris, I was looking for your post on backups and found this article. Thanks. It is just what I needed. Having encountered many challenges, I would say that getting to the first position of knowing yourself and your enemy is worth the uphill battle.

So number one priority is finding yourself…and even though it is a lifelong process..there is a point of inner strength that you just know won't fail you. At that point then, finding the team with the same mindset is what I find the most difficult.

Reply