Study the pattern not the outlier

We are all attracted to the outlier. The individual case that represents an extreme grabs our attention. We wonder how someone got to be so much more successful or such a disaster.

We broadcast it on the news because it makes for good headlines. Those headlines translate into audience interest. That interest means more people tune-in, allowing the network to sell advertising. Money is the ultimate goal. The news media realized long ago, the way for them to make money is to emphasize the outliers.

In The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, the author says, “Studying a specific person can be dangerous because we tend to study extreme examples – the billionaires, the CEOs, or the massive failures that dominate the news – and extreme examples ore often the least applicable to other situations, given their complexity. The more extreme the outcome, the less likely you can apply its lessons to your own life, because the more likely the outcome was influenced by extreme ends of luck and risk”

Yet we all do it. We get caught up the star athlete. We read biographies on the presidents. We want to peek into the life of the rich and famous. We aren’t worried about the normal cases. We want those extremes because they are more interesting.

Systems thinking promotes the idea of using patterns to uncover hidden systems in life. By spotting patterns we can start to reveal the underlying structures that influence behavior.

This is valuable because we tend to get a more accurate idea of what is happening. It might not highlight the extremes, but it shows us the systems at play. Then we can adjust our own actions within the system to provide a better chance at success. This isn’t a better chance at extreme success. It will show us that extreme success often requires extreme sacrifice and extreme risk.

Most people would not sacrifice their family, friends, honor, respect etc. to have a shot at a billion dollars. But many of the extremes had to make these types of great sacrifices.

The systems perspective shows us how risk, leverage, sacrifice, and luck all intersect and interconnect to create any given outcome.

Housel goes on to say, “You’ll get closer to actionable takeaways by looking for broad patterns of success and failure. The more common the pattern, the more applicable it might be to your life. Trying to emulate Warren Buffett’s investment success is hard, because his results are so extreme that the role of luck in his lifetime performance is very likely high, and luck isn’t something you can reliably emulate.”

If you can shift to patterns instead of outliers, you can start to learn and improve. You can look realistically at your actions. You will see the odds that they work out and the odds they end in disappointment.

The world looks different through the systems lens. We better understand the world. We better understand the behaviors of others. We better see when 1,000,000 people take the same strategy towards extreme success and 1 reaches that level, that doesn’t mean it is a good approach for you to take. It means luck was present. Sure, that individual would point to the passion, hard work, intelligence etc. that they employed to succeed. But take the other 999,999 people and you will see many examples of that passion, hard work, and intelligence.

Patterns reveal underlying systems. Outliers reveal the lucky or unlucky few. We cannot rely on luck. To gain control of life we have to move from wishing and hoping through luck, to concrete actions to give us the best chance at success and happiness.