This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)

by Seth Godin

Go to a conference of multilevel marketing distributors, NFT creators, or even stock market pickers, and you’ll come to the conclusion that these are reliable ways to make a living. After all, everyone in that room is doing pretty well. But that’s simply because the only people who are there are doing pretty well. What you’re not seeing are the folks who went broke, burned out, or walked away. During World War II, a lot of airplanes were shot down. The army hired Abraham Wald to inspect the planes that had made it back to base to suggest how they should increase their armor to improve their odds. The planes Wald reviewed had bullet holes throughout their wing area. The conventional approach was to add more armor there, where the holes were. He pointed out the counterintuitive truth: The fact that these planes made it safely home meant that the wings were fine. Put the armor where there weren’t holes, because the planes that got shot in the fuselage were the ones that never made it back. Another example: A company works hard to fix the things that lead customers to call in and complain. That’s fine, but it ignores the customers that aren’t bothering to call in but who are just walking away or badmouthing you to others. Figure out what those things are and you’ll make an even bigger impact on your long-term success. The utility of a strategy is not measured by how many people used it successfully. It’s measured by what percentage of the folks who used it succeeded.