In this episode we ask what really produces success by looking at what separates truly successful people from the rest, we examine many common and conflicting “success maxims” and look at what the data actually says really works, we dig deep into the vital importance of knowing yourself and your own strengths, look at the power of aligning your work with your environment, and discuss the dangers of constantly overcommitting your time with Eric Barker.
Eric Barker is the creator of the blog “Barking Up The Wrong Tree” - with over 290,000 subscribers. His work is syndicated by Time Magazine, Business Insider and he has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and more. Just recently, his new book Barking up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong was named a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.
The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed
How Eric took a myth-busters approach to success maxims and figured out what really works
Vital importance of knowing yourself and your strengths
Why you need to align with a context and environment that rewards your skills
What really produces success? What separates the very successful from the rest of us?
We take a lot of the common maxims we hear that conflict about success and look at what the DATA actually says about them
What are intensifiers and why should you know about them?
When are negatives positives? How can you know when it’s important?
Context really reveals when and how these maxims work or not
Do nice guys really finish last? What does the science say?
Why, in some contexts, being a jerk can pay off (and when it can backfire)
Strategies to improve self knowledge and know yourself more deeply
Pursuing your passion doesn't always lead to happiness, but pursuing what you’re good at more frequently does lead to happiness
Research is clear - focus on what you’re good at - and find a way to compensate for your weaknesses.
Understanding your strengths allows you to plan the right way to go about achieving your big picture goals
Deluding yourself is often worst situation of all and you frequently end up working against yourself
Do quitters never win? Should we quit or persevere? How do we think about Grit?
The vital importance of opportunity cost - we only have so much time in the day - we have to focus in on the biggest things
Strategically quitting is not the opposite of grit, but enables you to focus in on the most important things
People consistently over-commit their time and don’t understand how little time they have
Find a balance - look at what’s producing results - show grit with those things - things that aren’t producing results
Why you should absolutely dedicate 5-10% of your time to what Peter Simms calls “little bets”
The key litmus test on whether or not you should apply GRIT or QUIT
What research reveals (Richard Wiseman in the UK) on how you can improve your luck!
How do we “walk the tightrope” between confidence and delusion? How often should we “believe in ourselves”?
Confidence as a whole is a problematic paradigm, confidence follows success, it doesn’t lead to success - it has NO effect on outcomes, only impact on trying to build confidence is that it increases narcissism
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The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong with Eric Barker | The Science of Success podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
