There are two distinct types of business activities:
- One where achieving success is highly accessible and predictable (accountant, plumber, dentist).
- The other where success is dominated by chance, good timing, and randomness (musician, author, startup founder, youtuber).
If you want to pursue unpredictable businesses, you can’t treat them as a regular job. What works at your regular workplace doesn’t work in a world where randomness dominates in what makes it and what doesn’t. You need to unlearn almost everything and work differently. Instead of:
- Hard work → Trial & error
- Focus → Many things at once
- Optimization → 80/20 rule
- Consistency → Intensity
- No distractions → Embrace randomness
- Practice 10,000hrs → 100 small bets
- Efficiency → Slack in the system
- Goals → Stay in the game