GC Mouli's Blog

Shrug effect

Ramit Sethi in his blog I will teach you to be rich, writes an excellent piece on Sucess and the Shrug effect. He talks about how, when we compare ourselves with a famous person - lets say a CEO, we tend to put ourselves behind and compare, find excuses to prove why we are not there as the CEO and then shrug it off . Very well written. Some snippets from the article:
CEOs don't just magically flip a switch and start wearing a fancy suit one day, directing their staff to do this and that. Getting to the top isn't about knowing how to execute a leveraged buyout, or negotiating anti-dilution provisions, or whatever. (This is true for both CEOs and other successful people in other domains!) It starts earlier. For that CEO, it probably started when he took a paper route in junior high, or started a Web site in high school, or designed an interesting product in college. It started by knowing how to get in touch with the right people and learning--through lots of experience and failure--that senior executives are just people. They're regular people who started their path to being extraordinary by taking small steps.
He defines the shrug effect as :
Pointing at someone successful, attributing it to external factors, and shrugging because you don't have identical qualities.
Read the full article here .