Leap before you look?

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1498-leap-before-you-look

by bdotdub • 18 years ago

19 17 18 years ago

37signals.com

pchristensen• 18 years ago

An inspiring article about survivorship bias. And look how much money professional athletes make too!

shimon• 18 years ago

Exactly. A lot of the rich people I see have taken big risks and turned out rich. Let's all take big risks!

mixmax3• 18 years ago

Bear in mind that if you take big risks there's a 99% chance you'll be the reason it's a risk :-)

wallflower• 18 years ago

Thinking is something that is overrated when it comes to doing

> Diener puts it this way: "Failure is information - we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.’ During one unforgettable moment, one boy something of a poster child for the mastery-oriented type - faced his first stumper by pulling up his chair, rubbing his hands together, smacking his lips and announcing, "I love a challenge."

Stanford professor Carol Dweck via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=422625

motoko• 18 years ago

Not knowing what you're doing isn't sufficient for success, but it's not sufficient for failure, either.

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

He's confusing two things. "We’re always taught to look before we leap, but it’s interesting to hear about the Segals of the world - those who succeed by rushing forward without thinking."

My guess is that the guys didn't rush forward without thinking at all. They probably put a lot of thought into it. But their thoughts were along the lines of "how should we do this?" rather than "how do other people do it?" It's not about "going with their gut" or anything like that. It's about thinking the right way.

computerofmeat• 18 years ago

I agree. I think that it's more a question of naivete. I always remember the saying 'Never get the memo' which means that when someone works hard and thinks carefully, but ignores the received knowledge about how things are done, it can sometimes give them an advantage over the majority who can anticipate each others motives and intentions due to certain codified or unspoken rules. Unorthodox approaches are underestimated at one's peril.

walterk• 18 years ago

He isn't confusing anything. You're just taking that sentence woefully out of context.

It's pretty obvious from the rest of the post that he's just saying, "Don't look for all the reasons to not do something." He's not saying you shouldn't use your brain once you've started doing it.

steveplace• 18 years ago

I think Seth Godin just hijacked their blog.

fuzzmeister• 18 years ago

I don't think the point about quarterback IQs is necessarily valid. McNabb got a 14 on the Wonderlic (IQ 88), but Tom Brady got a 33 (IQ 126) and Eli Manning got a 39 (IQ 138). All are very good quarterbacks.

johns• 18 years ago

And Peyton Manning 28. There's nothing to it. The author pulled out an anecdote based on limited information (using the anecdote to support a theory instead of the inverse) by Gladwell, which surprise, is postured as fact.

nanijoe• 18 years ago

I hesitate to call Eli a very good QB, and I'm a Giants fan

ChaitanyaSai• 18 years ago

Quarterbacks have about 3-4 seconds in which they need to throw the ball. What they do on the field has more to do with quick spatial intelligence and not something the Wonderlic tests.What the Wonderlic is supposed to gauge is how well the quarterback memorizes all the possible plays and arrangements before the game. So a quarterback needs to have that special ability to take in the situation in 3 seconds and narrow his predetermined options down to one. Is this what we commonly label "gut" thinking? I don't think so.

jayair• 18 years ago

I've never found much merit in this approach to situations that you have little intelligence about.

The way I see it there are two approaches, you can either ignore the details like the article says or you can try to think it through, find that the odds are not in your favor and still go ahead with it (assuming that you want to go ahead with it). He mentions that you should take the first approach for situations that have little downside. But the risk involved only plays a part when the cost to analyze a situation outweighs the advantage/disadvantage caused by the outcome of the decision. According to his conclusion he is implying that it is not worth doing the analysis before starting a business because the outcome is not worth it which I think is wrong.

If we were to look past that and look at the real idea of article, I find that the second approach gives you better chances of success and also has an interesting psychological affect. Using his analogy of looking before you leap; if you were to use the second approach I would expect you to have a better chance landing on your feet. You also have a better chance of not getting blindsided by problems (or using his terms, the rules). This is simply because you were slightly more prepared and you had given the possibilities some thought. You wouldn't be shocked and would be more "quick on you feet".

It should also be remembered that if we were to consider the percentage of people that actually take the jump and also look at the chances of success (regardless of the two approaches), it is certain that we are dealing with small numbers and coupling that with the fact that human beings are bad at translating odds into practical actions we have a lot of people that give out such advice. Like somebody mentioned in the comments "Not knowing what you're doing isn't sufficient for success, but it's not sufficient for failure, either.", this applies because the the chances that second approach would increase the odds are small. Even thought the advantage is small I would rather take confidence in the fact that I have done my homework rather than go in blind.

There is also one final aspect of people that take the jump; these are people that regardless of the approach they take are clearly in love with what they do. It is easy to underestimate as an outsider the amount of work that goes into doing tasks like starting a business and doing it with passion. It is funny because even for the people that take the jump, they tend to underestimate the work that is put into it since they are having "fun".

Since he brings up the QB analogy here, let me share what I always find interesting while watching athletes that perform at the top of their game. They make seemingly impossible throws effortlessly but it is impossible to tell the thought and work behind that single decision by watching them on screen. We will probably never know what went on inside that head while making that throw, for all we know it could have been luck.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

Makes you wonder: How many others have succeeded because they didn’t know the rules

A lot less than the ones that know the rules.

While these stories of people knowing absolutely nothing about what they're getting themselves into and go onto stellar success may make for great reading they are the absolute exception.

mixmax3• 18 years ago

Oh, and another one: Maybe these quarterbacks succeed in part because they don’t have the highest IQs. Maybe they go with their gut instead of overanalyzing things.

More likely there's simply no correlation because intelligence isn't the defining factor of a quarterback.

Tichy• 18 years ago

Hm, how to transfer this article to my life? Put "leap without looking" on my TODO list? Sorry, but I have to rank this among the less useful advice I have heard...

Leap before you look?

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