There’s the ordinary — and there’s the extraordinary.
There’s ordinary men, taking ordinary actions, getting ordinary outcomes.
And there’s extraordinary men, taking extraordinary actions, getting extraordinary outcomes.
It anything wrong with that logic?
Only one thing. It’s not set in stone, obviously.
There’s the element of luck
Quite a significant one.
You can have ordinary man take ordinary action and get extraordinary luck, for an extraordinary outcome.
You can have ordinary man stumble upon extraordinary resources, accidentally utilise those extraordinary resources to actually take some extraordinary actions, and get an extraordinary outcome.
And of course you can have extraordinary man taking extraordinary actions, doing extraordinary work, and get very ordinary, mediocre outcomes out of it.
Randomness exists
But otherwise, the GENERAL RULE is:
To get extraordinary outcomes — you must take extraordinary actions
And most will agree that what defines extraordinary man is actually EXTRAORDINARY ACTIONS he takes.
Therefore we can DEDUCE:
To GET EXTRAORDINARY OUTCOMES — one must be an EXTRAORDINARY MAN (taking extraordinary actions)
If that’s true
Then WHY do you believe that you can BE ORDINARY — and yet get EXTRAORDINARY OUTCOMES?
Why do you believe you can:
-have ordinary attitude
-do ordinary work
-work ordinary hours
-have ordinary health
-consumer ordinary information, probably some ordinary garbage entertainment
-hold ordinary beliefs
-acquire your beliefs via ordinary mimicry
how can you believe you can do all that — and get extraordinary outcomes?
Obviously you believe there’s a “SECRET”,
Obviously you believe it’s the “SECRET” which sets apart those who acquire extraordinary outcomes — from those that acquire ordinary outcomes.
Perhaps secret is the evil order of this world.
Perhaps it’s chance indeed.
Perhaps it’s the secret is acquiring a secret, secret magic key to unlock the magic outcomes.
Once again: the only secret is randomness.
And this randomness is NOT the only factor.
The main factor is how EXTRAORDINARY you are.
And the ORDINARY getting EXTRAORDINARY — is merely chance.
If you care about the extraordinary — you go get it — REGARDLESS of chance.
Therefore it’s irrelevant.
To summarise, the confusion stems from:
The chance factor obfuscating the general rule (of the extraordinary doing extraordinary to acquire extraordinary)
i.e. fools getting some extraordinary outcome, and “geniuses” struggling
The vague definitions of extraordinary
is extraordinary outcome the extraordinary wealth? extraordinary happiness? extraordinary impact? extraordinary fame? extraordinary virtue? extraordinary talent? etc.
is extraordinary action extraordinarily hard work? extraordinarily smart work? extraordinarily cunning work?
is extraordinary man extraordinarily smart? or extraordinarily determined? maybe extraordinarily original? or maybe extraordinarily level-headed and focused?
Perhaps extraordinary is different to what you believed to be “extraordinary”
The wishful thinking and economy approach to value
always seeking a fucking bargain, always getting things for cheap, always saving energy, never having to pay too much, best get it for free, best not have to earn it at all
Preference to think WELL of oneself over actually DOING WELL
=normalisation of excuses, since excuses absolve the ego, at the cost of preventing you actually humbling up and doing better
All of those reasons is why you’d rather believe that there’s a “SECRET”,
And repudiate the simple empirical truth, AND logical truth:
EXTRAORDINARY ACTION (over the long term) RESULTS IN EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS
ORDINARY ACTION (over the long term) RESULTS in ORDINARY RESULTS
EXTRAORDINARY MAN is best defined in terms of EXTRAORDINARY ACTIONS HE TAKES — which THEN results in his EXTRAORDINARY OUTCOMES
ORDINARY MAN is best defined in terms of ORDINARY ACTIONS HE TAKES — which then result in his ordinary outcomes
We overcomplicate this “success” thing and “extraordinary” thing,
Start from first principles, start with this fucking rule.
Then start IMPROVING EVERYTHING — thus making your foundations a bit more extraordinary… extraordinarily well-founded.
Then look for more improvement and more improvement.
The true “secret” of the extraordinary is THAT it’s extraordinary. That the extraordinary resulted from the extraordinary actions.