Winning the Career Lottery Through Definite Optimism

A world class entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, venture capitalist, and renowned angel investor, Peter Thiel has no small track record to refer to validate his credibility. In all of his social and financial successes, Mr.Thiel has remained consistent in displaying and making evident what he believes are fundamental principles on which to live.

While these learnings are numerous, in this article, I’ll outline one of the most impactful frameworks that Mr.Thiel describes in the text below.

Definite Optimism

In the book Zero to One, Thiel outlines four frames through which one can observe the future:

• Indefinite pessimism-The belief that the future is out of one’s control, and holds more negative circumstances than the present.
• Indefinite optimism-The belief that while the future is out of one’s control, it holds circumstances that are better than the present.
• Definite pessimism-The belief that the future can be understood through a reliance on ‘cause and effect’, but has circumstances worse than the present.
• Definite optimism-The belief that the future can be understood through a reliance on ’cause and effect’, but has circumstances better than the present.

It seems that we live in an increasingly indefinite society. Billions across the world approach the future as an unknowable lottery: great if you’re lucky enough to win, and poor otherwise.

The concept of a random future seems to be the an enemy of progress and eventual success. How can one visualize the future acquisition of wealth, power, or influence, when the underlying fundamental of their vision is a reliance on the unknown.

Definite optimism, however, allows one to approach the future through a lens, not of chance, but of result. This way of thinking creates in the individual a motivation ‘to do’ because the results are objective.

Take an example:

Imagine that you’re being chased by a hungry lion, your natural instinct is to flee from the big cat with all your strength, as not doing so will surely result in death or harm.

In this example, you’re being motivated by the rather clear consequence of physical harm, not simply the belief that something might go awry if you were to stop or slow down.

This is very much applicable to the way many of us approach the future: for those who see an objectively positive result in taking a series of actions, a higher level of motivation is experienced. For those who view the future as a circumstance determined by the performance of random actions throughout a period of time, an intrinsic motivation is rather difficult to come by.

For those who argue against the power of cause and effect in determining the state of one’s future, all that is necessary is to acknowledge the existence of ‘serial entrepreneurs’.

Under the belief the future is indefinitely positive or negative, how can individuals like these even exist. One can argue that after building a successful venture, an entrepreneur has also built a network of world class mentors and assets, which can result in the ability to build out an additional project with relative ease.

While this argument is not completely invalid, I believe that there are a collection of flaws that can be understood after a degree of analysis.

Let’s take the example of Elon Musk. After selling his first internet venture for north of $300 million, he went on to build up or establish four other multi-billion dollar companies.

Now, with the understanding outlined above, it would seem that Mr.Musk won at least five powerball-like lotteries thus far in his professional career.

How many people do you know of that have won five powerball lotteries?

Probably none.

This is very much the point of my writing this article. It’s difficult to comprehend the probability of one creating four multi billion-dollar companies without having a core methodology or belief by which to follow.

Understanding the events in one life as reliant upon the principle of cause and effect, is quite counter to many fundamental beliefs the have built up our society as we know it today.

With the understanding that your actions result in effect, innovation becomes not the end game of good luck, but the product of hard work.

Takeaways

• There are four frames through which one can view the future.
• Definite optimism relies on the foundation of ’cause and effect’.
• Being definitively optimistic allows for innovation to be a result of hard work.

Contact

Hey, I’m Jack. I’m a 15-year-old Innovator at The Knowledge Society. Over the past few months, I’ve been diving deep into machine learning and AI. Recently I have been diving specifically into computer vision. Over the next few weeks, I will be detailing the technical specifics of the concepts I learn. Stay tuned. Navigate to the links below to connect!

Email: mmcd.jack@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-mcdonald-a960ab194/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmmcd123