Practice Management

Do you feel smart?

By Dan Hull

Well, do you, punk?

This World is run by self-involved creatures (yours truly included) prone and programmed for at least optimism's sake to think that a success means "I am smart". And why not? We all like to think that hard work pays off. And certainly work done right helps your odds. But for years I've wondered why things, especially certain strategies, work out--or don't.

Is it generally the talent of the doer(s)? Or something else? Is there a formula?

I started thinking about it again reading Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life, an earlier book of Black Swann author Nassim Nicholas Taleb. This is a humbling and wonderful book. However, if you are not 99% certain and accurate of your true abilities (most of us, of course, are not) don't give this book as a gift to your immediate boss who made you rich. It will shatter you both. It concludes: Yes, Virginia, smarts are out there--but they are probably not yours.

And if the company you work for ever figures that out, it might try to get the stock options back.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).