life after success

The Wall Street Journal started a new series of articles, "The Fallen: The declining fortunes of leading business figures." William H. Miller is one of the featured characters. Mr. Miller spent almost twenty years building a reputation as the era's greatest mutual-fund manager. During the last year he destroyed it.

Bill Miller is not a swindler, like Bernie Madoff, just a business man who made lucky decisions for nearly two decades. We love to call that 'success.' A succession of bad moves during the recent twelve months brought his business to its knees. Bad luck.

We are tempted to ascribe a series of consecutive decisions to business acumen when they turn out to be profitable. Luck would be too insulting a label for such a person's skill and foresight, wouldn't it?

And yet, the same man's inability to keep his success on a steady level or to increase it indefinitely shows that he has never been in control of his destiny. It just looked like that for a relatively long time. Bad luck during the past year proves that his twenty years of profit were to a certain degree subject to luck as well.

Now, I am not a friend of the term luck. People's successes are random, and so are their failures. Our endeavors are subject to probability, and it is incredibly dumb to believe that one of us can master it and find a system to succeed all the time and forever.

It's not in the cards, baby! You cannot control the markets, or why do you think a 160-year-old company like Siemens paid bribes of $1.4 billion between 2001 and 2007 (according to the SEC) to round up clients, or General Motors and Ford combined make less money than you do?

Not even banks can handle the markets and manage money: banksters have destroyed tens of trillions of dollars within the past nine years before they begged you and me--the tax payers--to save their worthless asses from the abyss.

The same reprehensible leeches who expect your children's children to assume financial responsibility for the grandest fraud and recklessness economic history has seen, will doubtlessly call the police when a beggar asks for a nickel at their doorstep. I have a thousand times more respect for the dirtiest beggar than for the bank and investment scumbags who called their old buddy Henry Paulson to keep them afloat.

Yeah, I know. I will stop ranting, but you better realize how utterly SCARED our society--liberals and conservatives alike--truly is of a free market. Economic freedom? God forbid! Capitalism, my arse. The last couple of months have shown that hardly anyone wants a free market or capitalism. People want to be saved, powdered, and pampered. We talk a great deal of freedom. Do YOU want it? Are you sure? That would make you a rather exotic animal nowadays.

I am serious: belief in perpetual control of anything is utter nonsense. Success is temporary, and so is failure. One of the most difficult lesson to understand for someone who has never been wildly successful--or lucky--is the fact that there is life after success. Failure can follow success just as easily as a new success may occur after previous success. Freedom has no guarantees, no safety net, and it will never be reliable.

Success is not the end. It is not likely to last. Success will not end your worries. Success makes for an exciting moment, a great day perhaps, and a fun celebration. But success is not a permanent form of life. "Oh, I will get rich one day and then I'll let my money make more money." Too often I have heard that sentence, and I usually assume some kind of brain damage is its cause. Reality works differently.

Even a so-called breakthrough is an isolated event. There is no "other side." Breakthroughs must be repeated if you want them to "last." Your first breakthrough will be one of many to follow, or it was something else. Roll a die, and the probability to get a six will remain identical with each new attempt. Same with success: after each success, you will start over almost at square one.

Here is the crazy part. Someone who has never tasted success is in a similar position as the person who experienced incredible success yesterday!

We have heard it all: 'Nothing breeds success like success,' for instance. And throughout past decades we have endured hoards of seminar quacks selling us that fire walking, bungee jumping, and other exotic nonsense helps to prepare us for business related fear and risk factors. Because "everything is connected with everything else," supposedly.

And if you walk over glowing coals, you will be able to go through tricky business transactions as well. Rubbish! Good grief, every dork can walk through fire without getting burned: just take your stinky socks off and don't hesitate until you are on the other side. Mental preparation? That's only a sales argument to lure you into the seminar. Not more, not less.

Shock of shocks: not even success prepares you for the next success. You need to bring your keister in the right position for upcoming events, similar to a goalie who needs to get back in position after each catch. Getting in position can increase the probability of success, but it won't be any easier the next time. The success after success demands all of you, and possibly MORE of you than the previous winning experience.

But, what about the techniques we have learned? Writing down goals, time management, or new age inspired pseudo-therapy in the name of corporate productivity? Motivational mood elevators, The Secret, communication training, strategic games, or sales boot camps?

PLACEBO effect, baby!

All theories and techniques that you and I have invested too much time and money into, don't have the slightest influence over your next success. Like a placebo, details of your education may "work" in your favor in spite of their existence. Our minds like to identify reasons for successes as well as for our failures. We deny the fact that life is not as linear as we would like for it to be.

What if success is not a succession of events that you can mentally line up in a row, like ducks? We are indeed free to fail after each success. We may be dead five minutes from now.

Depressing ideas? On the contrary: a person who believes to be the greatest failure the world has ever seen is not further away from future success than someone who believes to be on top of the world this minute!

Both got work to do. They are free to go in the direction of their choice. Neither of the two controls the outcome. Everybody else is in charge and equally free to vote with their pocket books.

And believe me, they will!

Egbert Sukop


P.S.: Have you bought a copy of my book yet? 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is likely to turn your stomach inside out, and maybe it has some positive effects on your future endeavors as well. Who knows?