Influencer, Streamer, and Actors. When you think about this, names will pop into your head immediately. A famous personality who makes it to the top of their field. And in some situations, you consider following their steps to follow your dream or whatever.
But reconsider it and think about the survivorship bias.
One of the most known Streamers I know is Ninja, a streamer who plays the popular Battle Royale Game “Fortnite”. He makes millions while playing video games and also played with a celebrity like Drake.
Also, Influencer, more commonly known in society, makes money with posts on Instagram. People mostly underestimate the work behind every success and typically say phrases like: “Wtf just doing this and you get a hundred Euros? I can do this too!”.
Well, do not overestimate yourself, my friend.
What is Survivorship Bias?
What most people see are the winners, the top of the top, the elite. But never take a look at the loser. Well, who wants to see the failures anyway? Here is where the Survivor Bias strikes and causes horrendous damage. People will only focus on the one who survives those competitions and never research themselves on what happened.
For example, you want to write a book like your favorite author. At the top are famous authors who made millions by writing a book and those winners are the ones you only look up to. With their success as a standard, you feel motivated to start a book. But those are the ones who succeed. Let’s take a look down off the road. After the famous authors are authors or experts who are famous in their specific field and are well known in the industry. Millions of authors presented their script to a publisher, but do not succeed. And also other authors who have billions of unpublished scripts in their basement and you are thinking about writing a book?
You can see, consider the survivorship bias in your life and your mind can take you back to reality. I am also aware of the survivorship bias. I am well aware that starting a blog will be hard, and I am pretty sure this blog will be unknown, but I do this anyway.
So be aware of the survivorship bias will force you to dig deeper into every theme and it will make you clear that success is never be granted. By visiting the cemeteries frequently you will learn about the mistakes unsuccessful people do. Learn from the losers, not the winners.
When did the survivorship bias affect your life also unconsciously?