Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life

by Ozan Varol

Success is the wolf in sheep’s clothing. It drives a wedge between appearance and reality. When we succeed, we believe everything went according to plan. We ignore the warning signs and the necessity for change. With each success, we grow more confident and up the ante. But just because you’re on a hot streak doesn’t mean you’ll beat the house. As Bill Gates says, success is “a lousy teacher” because it “seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”13 Research supports this intuition.14 In one representative study, financial analysts who made better-than-average predictions over four quarters grew overconfident and became less accurate with future predictions than their baseline.