Luck, Survivorship Bias & Why Success Stories Mislead
Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug Show. I’m Doug Huntington, and today we’re gonna talk about luck a little bit, it’s a theme that I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, and I, I maybe did a, a few sort of shorter segments where I was like, Hey, I think I got really lucky now that the smoke has cleared and I haven’t been, uh, working on some of the same projects.
Over the past few years, when I look back, I’m like, oh wow. I actually am experiencing survivorship bias. Where in the past I was like, well, if I could do it, anyone can do it at any time and it, it should be able to work out, you know, you could work for yourself, you could make it work. However, looking back and seeing other people that have.
Maybe worked harder than me. They were smarter than me and they didn’t quite have the successful milestones that I did. And it’s a little puzzling and I’m like, well, I must just have something special. Maybe I’m a little bit smarter or better, or make better decisions. Turns out probably not. I think I probably got lucky.
So I’ll talk a little bit about that. Some of the times where I was making the most money and I was thinking, Hey, I’m really awesome. Maybe I wasn’t that awesome and maybe if I did the same thing now, it wouldn’t work out.
I’ll give you maybe some tips on what you could do with this. Some of it is, um, around like interpreting information because. If you’re like me, you watch YouTube, you listen to podcasts, you read books, and sometimes it’s easy to get sucked into someone’s story and then you think, well, they do have it figured out.
They didn’t get lucky. But it turns out you can’t really tell how much luck had to do with someone’s success. And it could be like something very specific, . You know, dumb luck timing sort of thing where it was external forces and other times it could be like the situations that they were in, maybe they had, um, a, a wealthy family that they were part of.
So they kind of had a safety net or a bit of a head start. But I’ll give you some tips on what you could actually do with this information. Um, including, not, not just interpreting it, but like what you can do in general.
Georgie the Needy Dog (Quick Detour)
If you are watching on YouTube, you may have noticed, uh, Georgie was, she’s right at my feet now, but she’s a extremely needy dog.
She’s, she’s, she actually is smart and, uh, she has this trained, basically, so hopefully she won’t poke me, but I’ve adjusted the camera, so at at the very least, you’ll be able to enjoy her poking me. And, uh, what she ends up doing is putting her. Her head, her snout, like underneath your hand, it like forces you to pet her.
It’s, it’s pretty funny. Or she just comes up and pokes you. She also like lays right under my feet, which is kind of fun, but sometimes when you’re actually trying to do something, it’s, it’s a little bit distracting.
Starting in 2013: Early SEO Wins and “Simpler Times”
So, moving on, I. It started in 2013 and I was, I think at the time I was reading blogs and listening to podcasts and.
It was a rocky start. I had some lucky times, which I, I think I actually thought, oh, I actually did get a little bit lucky. But when you think to yourself, Hey, I’m gonna do this, and here are the results that I expect. And then when you do that a couple times, you think you’re really smart. And I was a victim of that.
Now, again, looking back, I do realize that. Part of it was just dumb luck in the timing that I got involved. I did work hard, but I think back in the day, I would think, oh, I could probably outwork a lot of people out there. I think that’s also wrong. I think people work a lot harder than me and now it’s, it’s only been 13 years later, but I.
Like people work so much harder than me. Part of it is like getting older, and then you have like different priorities. So my priorities aren’t, you know, working. Like I don’t feel like I need to prove anything to myself or other people, and no issue. If you feel like you need to prove something to yourself or to other people, that’s, that’s fine.
Whatever gets your motivation going and float your boat out there. But overall, I. I see now that the SEO landscape was, it was a simpler time back then. Now we have like super sophisticated writing tools at the best. Back then it was like an article spinner and it was like a fancy thesaurus that would just make an article.
Read differently. Like they would use different words, but it was just like a word substitution kind of thing. And I think they used like a random number gener generator to make that work. So it was kind of a joke. Nowadays you could actually get like a really well written article.
AI Changes Everything: Fake Podcasts, Better Content, More Competition
In fact, just it’s related to ai.
But a little bit earlier, I, uh. W was downloading, I, I was looking for some specific information that was Georgie shaking her collar there. Um, some specific information from a specific author. So I searched for something on, uh, apple Podcast, and I found a podcast episode that covered the topic. Turned out I think it was.
Created with Notebook, lm, I think it was those fake podcast host. I was like, I kind of recognize this voice. I played around with it a couple times and if you don’t know what that is, notebook, lm, you could put in like the sources that you want to use and then it will create a podcast and use these uh, voices.
There’s two hosts and they go back and forth. It has filler words they say, uh, and uh, and. They think for a second they chuckle at each other’s jokes and it’s relatively entertaining. They do a really good job anyway. I’m pretty sure someone just like grabbed a chapter of a book and then like threw it in and then they’re like publishing a podcast where they’re not actually creating any, they’re just putting a notebook.
They’re not creating anything real. Anyway, AI is pretty amazing these days. So looking back, I. Thought that I was pretty smart and I figured a few things out. I might have figured a couple things out, but I wasn’t unique. I think a lot of people were successful following the kind of game plan and framework that I was using, or slightly different or completely different.
But at the same time, I think, um, it was just a little bit easier back then. The other thing in my favor, at least back then was maybe a fewer competitors out there. So just less competition maybe in the niches that I was working in. And, and keep in mind, I mean, I am talking about like niche websites, which I mean, they exist still, but they are much different than they were in the past.
People use the internet differently than they did really five years ago, 10 years ago, for sure. Maybe in five years it was, it’s only been a slight difference. But the way people use the internet is much, much different. So all that to say, I did get, um, a little bit lucky, and I do see that. Now. One interesting thing is.
I didn’t think I was lucky back then. I thought I was smart and good. I started to see this pattern and I talked to other successful people that have had some separation from hold on. Georgie’s. Really? She’s leaning on me now. Hold on. Georgie’s really making this challenging. It’s like totally distracting me and I’m losing my train of thought.
So appreciate you bearing with me on this one.
Others Don’t See Their Luck Either: Interviews & Coaching Wake-Up Call
Okay, so I noticed the thing, and that was other people were also blind to the luck that they might have had. So I would actually do. Some success interviews. I think in like the last year or two, I would do success interviews, chat with people, and then I would ask them, Hey, do you think you got lucky in any way?
And they said no. And then they would point to reasons why they didn’t get lucky and why they were good. And I’m pretty sure I did the exact same thing. So I was like, oh, that’s super interesting. The the biggest eyeopener was probably.
When the Game Changed: Google Updates, AI, and Sites Going to Zero
Some of the coaching calls that I would do with folks in, say, about 2023.
It, it was right when I, um, was starting to retire the courses. I was seeing that AI was playing a much bigger role and that the standard process was not working anymore, and it had worked for like, whatever, seven plus years. The way I was doing it, it had worked for a while and then. The number of people that were successful, it kind of dropped down a little bit and it was a little bit surprising, but I would coach people and they were doing all the right stuff.
They were working very hard, they were smart, and the thing is, they were actually like starting to earn money and they were earning 700 a thousand dollars per month. It was a little bit slower to get started. In 20 22, 20 23. But once they got traction, they actually like went up and they saw the growth curve and it was just, it was flatter for longer and it took longer to get started.
But once they did, and some people earned even more. Right. So they, they were making it work, but then algorithm changes were popping up all the time. Google wasn’t forthcoming or honest about some of the processes that they were doing, and there were big stories about it. And basically people lost traffic.
The revenue went down and they did at least as much work as I did, and they were probably smarter than me. And they put the time in and they were really trying hard and they really. We’re working on like that, the content and trying to provide value to like the reader, which is like the goal per Google.
Right? However, it didn’t work out, and then their, their sites went down basically to zero. So at some point it’s just like. This is not worth the time and effort. Even if it came back. I mean, I would say most people wouldn’t, wouldn’t trust it. I, I mean, I wouldn’t, so at this point I realized, oh, I definitely got lucky because oth other people were doing the same or better than what I was doing just at a different time period.
And there was external factors and all that stuff. So that is when it kind of hit me in the face and I realized. Things are, you know what? You’re not as good as you think you are. To be specific.
Types of Luck: Timing, Platforms, and Getting in Early
There’s a few areas of of luck that you might experience. So one is the timing that I ta talked about, and I’m not gonna cover all the different areas that you might get lucky.
Keep your mind outta the gutter here, but the other one could be what platform you’re building on in that, it kind of comes down to timing, but it, it is also just like external factors. All, all these things are obviously external factors, but maybe you decided, Hey, I’m gonna try out this new app, TikTok, and it’s a few years ago, and you’re like, you know what?
I kind of know some video stuff. I know quick edits and I’m gonna give it a shot. Maybe you don’t. You’re not even that good. You think you’re good, but you put the time in and you start creating on that new platform, and then you get traction. And because you’re there early. You are, you know, one of the, one of the masters out there and you’re like, things are working really well and here’s what you do and here’s how you do it.
And you know, you don’t realize that you actually got lucky, but I mean, there’s no issue. Like, we want to get lucky, right? I mean, we, we do want to get lucky. When I was in high school, that’s all I really wanted. Right? And then later too, but basically. You could get lucky on a specific platform based on timing.
And I think back to when I was starting with, uh, niche sites and stuff, people were doing more FBA fulfilled by Amazon. Now it’s, uh, way more saturated. But if you got in early and you kind of, you know, learned your way around and things changed, and al algorithms changed and the platform changed and there was more competition.
Different suppliers and different ways to get the product and all that. But if you got in early, you could learn a little bit, um, faster, or at least you’d be ahead of the other people. Maybe you don’t learn it faster, but you get the information and you have like a feedback loop more quickly than other folks that are just getting started.
So now if you’re like, oh, I wanna give FBAA shot, I mean, it’s a pretty established ecosystem and is way more competitive than it was 10 years ago. Or, you know, 12 years ago when people were starting to, to get in there and you could actually like, make some traction really with, you know, no background. I mean, you, no one really knew what they were doing.
It might, the years might be off a little bit.
You Only Need a Few Wins: Small Shop, Consistency, and Pivoting
So one of the key things is, um, you don’t have to be successful a high percentage of the time. You just need to have a few wins. And I think that was what worked out for me. And actually I never had any super huge wins. I mean, you see headlines and I have friends that had like software companies and stuff like that, and they were able to, you know, build up a user base.
Run it for a few years, sell it. They did fucking awesome. Right? I never had any big wins like that. It was a lot of consistent wins. And then, um, just consistency over time.
So my wins weren’t, you know, huge, giant wins that other folks are like, oh, really wanna cover your story, or that are super impressive. They were impressive to me at the time. ’cause I thought, I mean, I had a. Full-time job. And I was like, I’m really busting my ass to get like a 3% raise and then to get promoted seemed like impossible.
It was like, ah, you gotta put in your time for like another three years or something like that. And then you have to, uh, perform at the next level before you can even get promoted. So for me to earn like the same amount of money that I did before. Was pretty impressive. And to exceed it was absolutely amazing because when you’re your own boss, then you, you just feel better about it and there’s a much less waste in the system.
So what would happen is I would work, I would be able to work less or put in less effort and get basically all of the returns. If you’re working for a big company, you’re putting in a ton of effort and there’s waste all along the way, and there’s a lot more overhead to operate the business, which is necessary to run like a big, like full scale business.
But I was like, you know what? If I have a very small shop, I don’t need to earn as much. There’s not as much overhead because it’s just me and a few contractors out there, so. I wasn’t thinking, Hey, I have to make this work. I’m like, eh, you know what? If this works out okay for a little while, that’ll be cool.
I want to make sure I have some diverse, uh, you know, revenue streams that was, you know, maybe a smart thing to do, but not novel in any situation. And it wasn’t super diverse. It was like a couple revenue streams and just the willingness to pivot if needed, if things changed. Which things always do change.
Of course, at the start I talked about how I’m not that great I’m not that smart. I like, I’m. I’m probably average, right? Probably average smartness. There might be areas that I’m a little bit better, but there’s other areas that I’m a little bit worse. I feel like it probably follows a pretty good bell curve, but I would say pretty average, uh, across the board.
And that’s totally okay. And the thing is, like I, uh, realized I wasn’t that great when I got to college. May, maybe before that in different areas, but like when I got to college, then it was like so many, much smarter people than me, so I was like, oh, this is what it’s like. And then when I got to the, the job world.
Then, uh, it was even more clear because those were even better people. Somehow I managed to stay, like probably, um, at the, the bottom third of like good places. So I, I did go to a good school, uh, for, for engineering, right? And I worked at a good company, but I, you know, it was definitely on the, the lower end.
So maybe, maybe pulled. People pulled me up to do better, but more likely I, I pulled, I pulled them down and uh, you know, with my bad attitude, I’m like, ah, you know what, it’s probably we should just take a longer lunch. It’d be a little bit more fun. Right. Don’t you think that would be fun? I’m the, the. The one with the pitchfork on the left shoulder.
You know, just trying to encourage people to do less.
What I’m Actually Good At: Finishing Projects (and Quitting When Needed)
And that said, I do realize there’s a couple things that I am pretty good at. I’m good at long-term projects that have a slow pace, which is really good for some things. It’s bad for certain things, but it’s good for. Business and working on something for a long time that’s at a slow pace without seeing many results.
That worked out perfectly for the kind of businesses and air quotes that I was running. And the other thing is I’m very good at finishing projects. I don’t get into the trap of, um, perfectionism. W or maximizing results or anything like that. I’m a much more, if we could ship this and get it out the door, that that’s a win.
You know, get it out the door. The scope that we determined beforehand, like, we’re gonna do that. We’re not going to let the scope creep and think, Hey, I’m gonna do a bunch of extra shit that is unnecessary. I’m like, I’m just meeting. The minimum requirements in most cases, not always, but most cases just meet the minimum requirements.
And honestly, just doing the things that you say that you’re gonna do and finishing something is pretty huge. I definitely ran into people o over and over again where it’s just like, ah, I’m about to do this thing, or am going to get started on it, and I would just, I’m like, ah, pretty quick to start. And I mean, I, I have quit stuff and bailed, but I’m very good at finishing stuff, especially when it shows promise that it’s going to be, um, that it’s getting traction.
And here’s a side tangent, caveat area. Basically any of the things that I’ve started that ended up being successful. And these, we’ll put it on a scale of like, um, you know, one to 10 where it’s like, you know, one is a little bit successful but not a big deal. So one to 10, even the things, um, that were. The, the smaller wins, like a four or something like that.
And, and probably the biggest wins that I had, they were like a six, right? Maybe a six, five or six average. Again, just average based on my expectations and everything, but all that to say. It’s like if, if I just had a little bit of traction and things got a little bit better, anything that was successful that made a difference.
It got traction early on. It wasn’t like, this is not working at all and I just need to put more time in and I’m gonna blindly put in more brute force effort if it was not getting any traction. I was. You know, it’s not as fun to work on that kind of stuff, number one, but I’m like, this is not working, and I could see it’s not working and I would adjust, right?
Like part of the project management background, I’m observing, uh, results and I’m looking at the inputs of those results and I’m like, okay, like, why don’t we change the fuel that we’re using here to see if it changes anything in the results area. We have a theory, we, we try to test the hypothesis and we’re like, if we do this, we think this other thing is going to improve.
Or if we change this, maybe a negative test, maybe it’s going to decline. Right? If you’re a little more advanced and you’re like, well, we, we prove that this does improve the AR area that we expected, but if you test the negative, then it actually shows the decline or whatever the alternative is, right? All that to say.
When shit was not working out, then I bailed and I’m like, this is a good time to quit.
Ranking Revolution Case Study: When Timing Is Off
Most recent example that I could think of that I actually put in, I don’t know, a lot of hours, at least a hundred hours, probably more, was a podcast that I launched called Ranking Revolution, and I was like, alright. My idea is to launch this podcast.
I know how to podcast. I like it, and then I’m gonna sell it. I think I published about 40 episodes or so, which is more than most podcasts that start, by the way, most podcasts people record like three to 10 episodes or something like that, and then they quit. So 40 is like, I mean, you gave it a shot, right?
But it wasn’t getting traction like I thought. And it was potentially too similar to other stuff that I was doing, and SEO was shifting and it was all about like SEO and marketing. So I was just like, oh, okay. Actually that was a great example. Timing was off on that. So if I started ranking Revolution in 2016, it probably would’ve been fucking awesome and it probably would’ve worked out and it probably could’ve sold it to like, say.
A software company like EMR or Keywords Everywhere or something like that. I’m just like, Hey, I set up this show. Here’s all the intellectual property, and you could do whatever you want, and then I’ll host it for whatever few weeks, and then I’ll transition to your new host or whatever you want. But all that to say, after a little while, I realized.
This isn’t that fun. It’s not getting traction like I thought. And it was a cool idea. It didn’t work out. I think it’s still a decent idea to start a podcast and then sell it, but for me, I was just like, you know what? I don’t have to do this, so I’m quitting. Time is better spent elsewhere. So that’s what I did.
Actionable Takeaway: Create More Chances to Get Lucky
I did promise that I would give you something actionable here. It’s probably obvious, but you wanna have opportunities for luck to help you out. So it’s not always gonna work out. You’re probably gonna do. Certain projects where things are right, you did everything right.
It was just some external factors maybe held you down a little bit artificially. But what you wanna do is try enough things where you have the opportunity for external factors to help you out. And there’s no way to know, like I said. You may try some things and do everything right, and it just doesn’t work out.
You may have someone in parallel doing the same exact stuff and it works out for them, and it could be really frustrating for something like that. I probably wouldn’t try the exact same thing again and be like, I just had bad luck. Probably try something else. Right? Like I mentioned things that worked out, they tended to work out pretty quickly and I was like.
Wow. Th this was easier than I thought it was gonna be. Like that was the feeling. This is easier than I thought it was gonna be, and it really kind of took off. So essentially you’re just creating, creating more opportunities. Essentially you’re just creating more opportunities for you to be lucky. You don’t have to have like a huge, massive win where you’re like, I’m searching for my million dollar idea That is really gonna pay off.
That is so much smarter than someone else’s idea. It’s probably gonna be. Something like slightly different than other things that are working out there. And if you try things out, like give it a shot, have a good plan, you know, do have follow through, know how to finish a project, and you could refer back to some of the recent episodes on project management over the past few weeks.
And it’s, it’s not that you have to be like so good or so smart. Smarter than someone else. It’s pretty tough. Again, I, it’s, um, it’s a sad realization, but most of us, the majority of us are, you know, we’re average. You, you’re in the middle. Like, if, if you’re lucky, you, you could be exceptional and. Perhaps has its own burden.
I suspect I see a lot of really smart people and they, uh, they struggle with like, uh, maximizing and optimizing, and sometimes they’re, they’re too smart, so they think too much and they get in their head a little bit. Don’t have that problem. I don’t have that problem. So it, it works out pretty good for me.
But the thing is like, you know, try to set up stuff out, like execute, like take action essentially, like take action. And, you know, this, this could apply to many different areas. When I’m feeling, um, it’s rare, but when I have sort of a down, usually it’s a couple days, um, not exactly like, um, depression, but.
It’s less motivation when I’m like, ah, I kind of wanna just not do anything. And often I’m 90% sure it has to do with not getting enough rest. But that said. Taking action usually snaps me out, me out of it. And you know, there’s so many areas where it’s just like, ah, like I feel a little stuck. It’s like, take some action, like do some stuff.
And typically that pulls me out of it personally. And I, I think, you know, I’ve heard other people say it, of course, but yeah, I’m, I’m usually like, alright. Even though I don’t really feel like walking outside or going to the gym, it’s just like, do a little bit. You don’t have to do that much. Just take a little bit of action and do something.
So essentially, you’re increasing your chances of being lucky, which is great just by taking action, trying some projects, and as simple as that, you don’t have to overcomplicate it. And maybe in a future episode. I could talk a little bit about knowing when to quit, although it’s such a difficult topic.
Seth Godin has a great book and, um, is it called Just the Dip? It’s on the shelf. Be Behind Me. A couple, few years ago I was like, I think I’m gonna buy all of Seth Godin’s book. So I went over on eBay, uh, little Pro hack. I do like the print books, especially like a small book, like a, a Godin book. Go over to eBay.
You could buy ’em used. Usually it’s insane. I think it’s free shipping and it’s like $4 a book or something like that. And if you buy ’em new, obviously more expensive. And typically people. They don’t like beat the hell out of their books or anything like that. So they’re in pretty good shape most of the time.
Never had any issues. It’s kind of fun to get one with a little character, you know? It’s like someone took notes in there or something like that.
Final Thoughts: Show Up, Take Action, and a Missed AI Opportunity
So anyway, I think I got lucky a bunch and I, you know, I welcome more luck to come my way, but so much of it’s just out of your control obviously. And all you can do is like show up.
Try to do a good job again. Take action. Try to be there for things that can work out for you. And I’ll, I’ll give just, uh, one more tiny thing when I was. Slightly more interested in AI stuff. I started doing more content on ai. Those videos actually did very well, and I had my own personal take. I didn’t, I wasn’t studying as much and getting as much hands-on experience, but I was like, this is kind of interesting, kind of cool.
And then after a while I was like, I’m not. As interested, and I think that’s part, I mean, I wasn’t getting in and messing around and testing the tools and all this stuff, so basically I don’t think I was as interested. It was kind of interesting, but I wasn’t obsessed. That would’ve been an area where, you know, now it’s probably like three years after I was doing those videos, if I just would’ve kept doing like, say two of those videos per month.
Maybe slightly in depth, maybe tutorial style. I’m pretty sure like that would have traction that, I mean, I saw people like selling. Courses in those areas, or they were running, you know, workshops or something like that where they were getting traction. I mean, I actually, I bought a couple, um, they were eBooks even, right.
Someone I’m sure used chat GBT to write eBooks, but I mean, it was well organized and I bought I whatever I paid. Whatever, 27 bucks for an ebook on how to use, um, different prompts and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, like this is totally a route. Like, you, you can teach people how to do this stuff. And I’m sure, you know, now it’s like scaled up a little bit and you could probably like run some sort of like coding tutorials and I’m sure I’m a hundred percent sure people are doing that on YouTube.
They’re like. Use AI to code. Here’s how you do it. And they’re publishing videos and they’re like, if you want more, you can enroll in my, whatever the thing there is. You know that they’re selling totally valid and a great way to, you know, teach people. Again, if you’re obsessed with stuff, it’s a great route to take.
Wrap-Up & Thanks (Georgie Finally Sleeps)
So that’s it for today. Thank you for, um, putting up with, uh, georgie’s noises and stuff like that. She’s now sleeping and I’ll go play with her in the backyard. I thought about recording outside today, but it was, it got a little windy, so I was like, eh, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna wrestle with Mother Nature right now.
Okay, catch you on the next episode. Thanks a lot.