

The Single Most Important Secret to Success - avk
http://www.singlefounder.com/2010/03/16/the-single-most-important-secret-to-success/

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RiderOfGiraffes
My version of "The Secret" comes in two parts:

* Do _lots_ of stuff

* Make failure fast and cheap

Also, this was submitted 6 months ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1195535>

which in some way is a validation that it's an itme of (at least passing)
interesting. Comments are closed there so you can't add to that (rather
minimal) discussion, but it's interesting to see the points of view.

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tocomment
How specifically did this help you succeed?

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RiderOfGiraffes
By making sure failure is fast and cheap I become unafraid of trying things.
Each thing I try, I try to work out why it will fail. As I explore options
some things really do fail fast, others are more difficult to make fail. Some
simply refuse to fail, and as I push them through, they succeed.

There are corollaries.

You need to have things try, so you need ideas and the means to pursue them.

You need to be _sure_ they'll fail - it's important to understand that I'm not
giving up on things because they seem hard (although that happens too), I'm
exploring hard, testing hard, stressing hard. Only when I'm convinced it
simply cannot succeed (which includes being too hard to implement for the
calculated return) then I turn to the next idea.

I usually use this in the context of the research division of my company, but
the same has worked for me as starting a business, and for friends in other
contexts.

As with all the "Silver Bullets" it takes work to make it work, and it's not
suitable in all contexts. But perhaps you can try it and see if you can make
it fail ...

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mattparcher
There are two rules for success in life.

Rule #1: Don’t tell anyone everything you know.

~~~
kristofferR
If you even have the ability to tell someone everything you know, then you
don't know enough.

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wslh
I knew that answer! but there is something else for we, the mortals:

\- Try, and try, and try, and try... producing goals in the world championship
cup is not easy... but keep trying. Also, a minor league can be enough for you
or for me.

\- If you want an epistemologic suggestion, think in bounded rationality and
context bound realities, balancing (don't know how!) rules of thumb, thinking
and ignorance is good.

\- Maximize information (customer feedback, clicks, A/B tests) and talk with
different kind of people, don't believe in the wisdom of crowds.

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meric
"There is no secret ingredient" - Po from Kung Fu Panda.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441773/quotes>

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kranner
> "So the secret to success is to realize that there isn’t a secret."

Disingenuous title.

Allow me to contribute a short and glib alternative: "Keep failure cheap."

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MisterWebz
I believe that the secret to success is determination. You're bound to be
successful sooner or later, it's just that some people would need 50 years or
more to be successful and as far as i know, there aren't many people with that
kind of determination. So the ones who have the ingredients necessary to
become successful do so in a decade or less and don't even get the chance to
quit out of despair.

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Mz
I think everyone wants to know "the secret" when they can't figure out how to
do it themselves. "The secret" they are looking for will be specific to their
needs. It may not be secret at all, it is just not something they personally
know or understand yet. Lots of little stuff adds up overtime and then one
day, suddenly, it all gels. Then people start asking you what YOUR secret is.

Also, I would say one of the biggest secrets is learning to deal with
yourself: What are you good at? What are you bad at? What is your personal
Achilles heel? What is the missing ingredient for this specific project that
you have a blind-spot on?....etc.

