Before my post for the week, there are two things I want to do: Thank you and give a preview of things to come.
First, thank you for your patience as I continue to tweak the formatting. When I knew I wanted to start a newsletter, I knew what I wanted to write about, but not the particulars of the tools to make that happen. I selected WordPress to host the site where I could put the content for the long-term, but settling on newsletter tools has been tougher. So, I acknowledge inconsistency can look a bit bush league, but I hope the reading is worth bearing with me.
Second, I’m going to be working to grow this newsletter this year. I’ll spare you the details, but they include using another platform for boosting exposure to more readers, and possibly adding a video element. I try to be careful about the platforms I will patronize, which is why I didn’t just blast out the door on one of the best known newsletter platforms. But now you’re the first to know and you won’t be surprised or feel like you missed something when you suddenly see something about Warm Current elsewhere.
Thanks for coming on the ride! Now for this week’s Warm Current:
This is part two in my first series related ot a recent article in The Atlantic that explored how luck shapes athletic careers. Reading it reminded me of something I talk about with all my athletes: There’s only one thing you control and that’s yourself.
The author, Alex Hutchinson, describes simulations where success depends 49% on talent, 49% on effort, and just 2% on luck. Logic says the most talented, hardest-working athlete succeeds. But that’s not the case. He shows that studies say someone with pretty good talent and effort who also gets lucky is who usually finds success.
This is uncomfortable for some people to accept. We want to believe if we just work hard enough, make the right decisions, show up consistently, we’ll achieve our goals. And I have written before that there are certain paths I believe are helpful in achieving goals. But we never plan for luck, that’s just a thing that happens. And the idea that randomness plays a bigger role than we might like can feel destabilizing.
I see this create anxiety in myself and in other people, especially men. And I see this in the “manosphere” all the time. We believe we should be able to control outcomes through discipline and effort. When things don’t work out the scapegoats are “failure,” “low effort,” “bad decisions,” or we’re “just not good enough.” I challenge you to visit the comment section of any sports news app and read the comments. They’re full of toxic bullshit like this.
And this happens beyond sports. You can ace a job interview, but the role might still go to someone less qualified who happened to know the hiring manager. You can be a great partner, but your girlfriend might still cheat on you. You can imagine other scenarios.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, or that you should blame all failure on bad luck. Talent and effort still matter – 98% according to studies in Hutchinson’s reporting. And you have to be good enough to be in the position where luck can help you. But accepting that you can’t control everything is actually liberating.
That means you can work hard, show up consistently, be a good person, and give yourself grace when outcomes don’t match your effort. It means you can stop beating yourself up for every setback and instead ask yourself what I tell all my athletes: “All you need to be able to do is look yourself in the mirror and answer yes to “Did I do the best I could in this situation?”
I’m guilty of falling for the control trap. I don’t race often, so when I do, I tend to think of it as my personal Super Bowl. One shot and the outcomes says so much about my abilities. But I know that it’s not really true and to succumb to that is not good for me.
You can do everything right and still not win. That’s not failure. That’s life. What matters is if you’re willing to keep showing up and working.
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Thank you!