School of Hard Knocks: ‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough | Hacker News Reader

School of Hard Knocks: ‘How Children Succeed,’ by Paul Tough

nytimes.com

75 pointstokenadult33 comments

Nothing in the world can take the place of Luck. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Luck and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Good Luck' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

- A reality based Calvin Coolidge

Hard work and luck are what's needed to succeed. If you ignore luck - you will end up bitter, sad and depressed.

If you were born female in the 1920s - you will not do well.

If you were black in the 19th century - you will not do well.

If you are poor in the 21st century - you will not do well.

If you die before you get anything done - you will not do well.

Luck > determination - always has been - always will be.

You can increase your chances at success but don't lie to people and say success is by hard work alone - that's a lie.

While we must all acknowledge the crazy amounts of luck we've been privy to - it's not super useful except as a salve for your lack of success - which could totally be due to luck, or to temper your success.

Luck and work on dependent - we need to acknowledge that. I've had some damn lucky moments that I had to work my ass off for. Where's the utility in knowing that much is left to luck? The only way I can think is optimizing for luck - networking a lot, giving talks, giving help, etc. all, as some HNer put it "expands your luck surface area" - an apt term

Reading about the 1920s stock market crash recently it struck me that many men ruined themselves because they were unaware that their previous success owed more to luck than to their mastery of the situation.

I think a public stock market is a hard game to "good" at - far more luck based than other things. I mean it's a pretty efficient market with really high incentives to get information, and hence pricing, reflected in your positions.

Whereas - a person opening a construction company just has to beat all the super-flakey contractors that already exist and of course sell like hell. This is far less luck than the stock market is.

The whole point of determination is so that you have many chances at having luck swing your way.

There's an old saying... Luck favours the prepared.

If you are not prepared for an opportunity, then luck will almost certainly pass you by.

There's another saying: in order to be ready when necessary, you must also be ready when unnecessary.

The importance of luck, and the importance of being able to capitalize on good fortune, are both true.

The important thing is to recognize that both agency and lack of agency will have very strong influences on your life. There is a certain merit in knowing that you tried and gave your best, regardless of success. There's also a lot of merit to expressing a certain level of humility at your success. Correctly selecting your parents and childhood ZIP code had a lot to do with it.

Luck is the product of preparedness and opportunity.

Your place of birth and genetics are two gigantic factors in the likely "success" of your life, and you zero influence on either of them.

There are a lot of billionaires born in places where is hard to succeed for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshmi_Mittal and genetics can give you some abilities or others but is up to you to train them to succeed and also intelligence has nothing to do with race or genetics.

Exceptions don't make the rule.

Nobody said it couldn't happen. The problem is that we want it to be always possible. It isn't.

> Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born into a Indian business family [son of steel magnate] in ... Rajasthan, India. ... He graduated from St. Xavier's [rich private school] College, Calcutta with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in business and accounting. His father, Mohan Lal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro. [the magnate]

So a rich steel magnate's son in a developing country about to explode under the greatest GDP growth seen in world history, along with the greatest demand for steel seen in world history becomes a billionaire.

How ... predictable.

> intelligence has nothing to do with race or genetics.

Nothing to do with race, sure. Plenty to do with genetics, though. Intelligent parents tend to have intelligent kids.

Maybe: http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/23435743973/peter-thiels... : but perhaps the way we believe or don't believe in luck also affects the extent we succeed or don't succeed in a given situation.

Belief in talent over luck might make us more likely to succeed at a given endeavor.

What is luck? a set of favorable conditions for solving your problem, some can be in your control and some may not but in the end is up to you.

You can work on fixing the unfavorable conditions and take control of your luck, immigration, education, determination, courage, these are the tools that can shape your luck.

Hard work is the only thing you can control, that's why it makes sense to focus on it. You can't do anything about your luck. Working hard offers you more opportunities to be in a situation where you can then become lucky.

Actually, I view luck as being an euphemism for perseverance, because it's easier for people to say "I'm unlucky", as an issue of destiny, rather than accept that there's something wrong with them.

It is true that if you were born a female, or black, or poor in the wrong century, then odds were definitely playing against you. But we now live in an age where there's less and less discrimination based on race, gender or money.

I can't find a link now, but there have been studies with the conclusion that lucky people tend to be resourceful people that put themselves in the way of success. You don't win the lottery if you don't play the game. You won't find a suitable mate to marry if you don't have a social life or if you're too shy. You won't have success in your startup if you don't start a startup or if you don't survive for long enough.

The absence of luck is just an excuse. It's true that many people will never win the lottery, even if they play the game for their whole life. But this is an issue of probabilities and luck tends to favor those that increase their chances of having success.

Don't disagree. Problem is this is one hell of a lottery. Each one of us is almost certain to lose.

Good thing though - if all you can do is lose - then you have nothing to lose - get rich or die trying.

Luck is very real. Luck not as in winning a lottery but the place you're born, the kind of people in your family who support you in your endeavors, the talented people you get to surround with - it's all luck.

Luck is not everything, but a lot of things depend on luck for a majority of people.

"For both rich and poor teenagers, certain family characteristics predicted children’s maladjustment, including low levels of maternal attachment, high levels of parental criticism and minimal after-school adult supervision."

'maladjustment' seems quite a strong word, but I have seen this pattern with some teenagers I teach, including the ones whose parents have bought them cars, iPads, clothes &c, but don't seem to spend time.

A handful this year decided not to go to University (UK: 18 year olds) but to get jobs or training positions in a different city. Sounds hopeful.

I'm probably too paranoid, because first things I think about are "appeasement": reading that article you can think "ah, it was just my laziness that made me fail, hard work still brings success even to poor people" and "even rich kids fail because they have callous parents". At the same time, a lot of people don't have to work at all, and probably sponsor articles like this to keep the working population calm.

As a parent, I find these kind of books, well, silly. They generally leverage a series of small studies and then provide a handful of examples to reinforce their thesis. Now, maybe this book uses larger studies, but they are pretty hard to come by.

So what we're left with is essentially nothing new - poor children don't succeed, and rich kids can go off the tracks. Is this news? Is it news that perseverance matters?

I would love a book on parenting that is based on a large enough data set to make it relevant, and then provide some suggestions based on those studies - anyone know of any?

My guess is that anyone that reads this kind of book is already likely a decent parent - but I would need to look at the data. :)

What do you do when your most determined best effort is still inadequate?

As harsh as it sounds, I'd probably re-read Taskstrike's comment above.

EDIT: On a more practical note, I find reading biographies of those who've succeeded in the face of adversity gives me motivation to "press on". Dyson's autobiography is a good example.

OK, so what do I do when my most persistent determined effort fails? I.e., if I never win and never give up?

You wouldn't ever know, because it would mean being persistent up until the last moment of your life.

This is difficult without context, but first I'd replace "never win" with "haven't won yet". And even if you haven't won yet, you've surely learned something along the way (even if it's what not to do). Can this knowledge be used to try again more effectively, or to try something similar in a different field with a higher chance of success (or less risk)?

Reset your goals. If you never win and never give up, you're probably working on the wrong problem.

I almost hate myself for quoting W.C.Fields here, but I can't resist sorry :-)

    "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
     Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it."

It maddens me when they use 'success' in such narrow terms. There are other kinds of success than a poor kid achieving a university education (as great as that might be).

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

-Calvin Coolidge

I know too many people who work too hard but accomplish too little to believe that. Sure, some persistence may be necessary but it is by no means sufficient!

Put another way, I'm sure as many determined people fail as talented, intelligent or educated ones do.

Persistence often fails, even among smart people, because people don't know how to work productively. They think because they work hard, and are smart, they deserve some particular outcome.

They aren't try to produce, they are trying to earn a result. It isn't until people focus on trying to produce and create things of value to other people, rather than "earning" success, "doing the right things", that they begin to succeed. You have to take responsibility for your failures, no matter how unfair they may seem, look for the lessons in them and learn to be more effective.

Or at least that is how it seems to me.

The distinction here is very subtle, and possible to miss entirely. I think that subtlety may explain a great deal of confusion.

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