Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

by Eric Barker

What defines success for you is, well, up to you. It’s about what you personally need to be happy at work and at home.

Success doesn’t have to be something you see only on TV. It’s less about being perfect than knowing what you’re best at and being properly aligned with your context.

“That is a hallmark of a true eccentric—not thinking you’re all that eccentric, even when your every thought, word, and deed seems to set you apart from the rest of the world.”

Let’s talk about orchids, dandelions, and hopeful monsters.

There’s an old Swedish expression that says most kids are dandelions but a few are orchids.

The same genes that lead to bad stuff can actually lead to great stuff in a different situation.

Most people are dandelions; they’ll come out okay under almost any circumstances. Others are orchids; they’re not just more sensitive to negative outcomes but more sensitive to everything.

“A hopeful monster is an individual that deviates radically from the norm in a population because of a genetic mutation that confers a potentially adaptive advantage.”

In the right environment, bad can be good and odd can be beautiful.

The same traits that make people a nightmare to deal with can also make them the people who change the world.

By the same token, with intensifiers, qualities that seem universally awful have their uses in specific contexts. They’re the Formula 1 cars that are undriveable on city streets but break records on a track.

Often intensifiers masquerade as positives because we give successful people the benefit of the doubt. It’s the old joke that poor people are crazy and rich people are “eccentric.”

With the idea framed by the term “expertise,” we are quick to associate positive notions, like “dedication” and “passion,” but there’s little doubt that spending so much time and hard work on anything nonessential has an element of obsession to it. While the valedictorian treats school as a job, working hard to get A’s and follow the rules, the obsessed creative succeeds by bearing down on his or her passion projects with a religious zeal.

Full-blown mania renders people unable to function in normal society. But hypomania produces a relentless, euphoric, impulsive machine that explodes toward its goals while staying connected (even if only loosely) with reality.

Boys who acted out ended up working more hours, being more productive, and earning 3 percent more than boys who didn’t.

The Gospel of Thomas says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

it all comes down to exactly what Mukunda said: knowing yourself. And knowing yourself, in terms of achieving what you want in life, means being aware of your strengths.

Consider the people we’re all envious of who can confidently pick something, say they’re going to be awesome at it, and then calmly go and actually be awesome at it. This is their secret: they’re not good at everything, but they know their strengths and choose things that are a good fit.

Drucker offers a helpful definition: “What are you good at that consistently produces desired results?”

Modern positive psychology research has shown again and again that one of the keys to happiness is emphasizing what are called “signature strengths.” Research by Gallup shows that the more hours per day you spend doing what you’re good at, the less stressed you feel and the more you laugh, smile, and feel you’re being treated with respect.

This leads to Mukunda’s second piece of advice: pick the right pond.

You were successful because you happened to be in an environment where your biases and predispositions and talents and abilities all happened to align neatly with those things that would produce success in that environment.

When you choose your pond wisely, you can best leverage your type, your signature strengths, and your context to create tremendous value. This is what makes for a great career, but such self-knowledge can create value wherever you choose to apply it.

You can do this too: know thyself and pick the right pond. Identify your strengths and pick the right place to apply them.