The anecdotes here could be used to justify a range of different theories:<p>'Being Daring is the Secret Ingredient for Success';
'Innovation is the Secret Ingredient for Success';
'Not Giving Up is the Secret Ingredient for Success'
'Giving People What They Don't Know They Want is the Secret Ingredient for Success'<p>and so on... Can I have my book deal now?<p>EDIT: I'd also like to use this opportunity to invent the new verb "to Gladwell", which is to make up a spurious set of keys to success using the flimsiest of anecdotes. Hence my next book - 'Learning How to Gladwell is the Secret Ingredient for Success'
This is something that I've struggled with my entire life - how to be honest with myself about what my shortcomings are and how to overcome them.<p>For me at least, it's been incredibly difficult and at times impossible. I've come to believe that there is something deeply rooted inside the human psyche that refuses to completely accept that we are imperfect.<p>Of course this isn't always unwanted. If we didn't have a certain amount of pure egotistical madness, how else would we attempt our dreams? The real trick is to figure out what parts you'll have to have help with in order to get there instead of blindly believing we can do it all.<p>This is probably why YC is so fixated on funding partners. You need someone with a very high level of self-awareness to be able to tackle the challenge on their own. I suspect that those individuals are fairly rare.
<i>"Godlike genius.. Godlike nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! I've failed my way to success."</i> -- Thomas Edison<p><i>"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lives solely in my tenacity."</i> -- Louis Pasteur<p><i>"Men give me credit for genius; but all the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly."</i> -- Alexander Hamilton<p><i>"What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it."</i> -- Doris Lessing
It's not self-examination, it's taking action based on that self-examination, which is much more difficult to do...<p>Most people don't want to face their shortcomings, but of those who do, even fewer actually take the action necessary for success...
I started meditating consistently a few months ago, and it has led to some huge breakthroughs for myself. I can't recommend meditation enough as a way to take a step back from the hurried need to do something, and to really think deeply on every aspect of your approach.<p>Shameless self promotion:<p>I was measuring my meditation with an Arduino for the first 3 months and built a meditation app to help people get started meditating. If you have a Bluetooth LE heart rate monitor, the app also tracks your heart rate variance to let you know when you've entered a meditative state.<p>buddhamindapp.com
"People who are right a lot often change their minds"--Jeff Bezos
It seems this is a corollary of the principle of self examination.<p>There's certainly some personality trait (e.g. intelligence/experience) that's more fundamental than a propensity for self examination. Not sure what it is...but it's the difference between knowing when to stick to something and knowing when to draw the opposite conclusions from your self-examination.
The world is full of successful narcissists and psychopaths. Not the most introspective types, so how do they do it? A better predictor for successfulness is how successful your parents was. That is the only theory I know of that can explain how George W Bush became president.
Ray Dalio, the founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates includes self-examination, honesty and introspection as one of the key ingredients in getting what you want from life.<p>I take the article as another datapoint to support his theory.<p>A good read:
<a href="http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater-Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...</a>