{"id":331,"date":"2010-04-27T21:10:17","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T04:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=331"},"modified":"2010-04-27T21:10:17","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T04:10:17","slug":"can-success-be-a-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/04\/27\/can-success-be-a-formula\/","title":{"rendered":"Can success be a formula?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve talked a bunch the last few blog posts about being better at achieving success. This whole notion of being more successful has really spawned in me an effort to understand what it means for me personally to succeed, and to try and decipher what I need to do differently to make it happen.<\/p>\n

I’ll go ahead and answer both questions here, and then work towards gluing together a system that I hope will be one that I can repeatedly go back to when I want to succeed against a challenge.<\/p>\n

Let it never be said that being the son of Raif nor Nur is easy. It’s tough enough being their son, but then being the first-born has its own set of challenges as well. This isn’t a rant about my parents, but instead a more matter of fact statement that good enough never was for them. And so, in that monkey see, monkey do style that all children seem to fall into, it was never good enough for me either.<\/p>\n

That said, success for me has become that satisfying feeling of going from vision to execution in such a way that you surprise even yourself. It’s rare, and if you ask me that’s the way it needs to be. You should accomplish most of the tasks you set out to do, but you shouldn’t necessarily come out of them having succeeded. I guess that’s where I differ from the norm.<\/p>\n

The tough bit is quantitatively being able to understand that surprise <\/em>factor. It isn’t something one can measure or plan for. It almost has to serendipitously arrive as your journey ends. This is why I think success is so difficult to achieve. Not only do you have to consciously do everything to the best of your ability, but you’ve got to get a little bit lucky too.<\/p>\n

And so coming to that realization made me ask myself if there’s anything that I can do to make the chance that I get lucky a little bit better.<\/p>\n

As a compulsive gambler<\/a>, I’m always looking for that little something extra. Step one, in my opinion, is asking does playing the\u00c2\u00a0“Don’t Pass” line<\/a> on a slow roller give me enough cash to catch the next streak? The philosophy there is simply stay low, and do what you can to survive until you can really make a push for it when you think lady luck has made her way back into your sights. It’s painful because you’re betting against the popular choice. It’s frustrating because you only win if others lose, and often they lose big. But it can also be rewarding when you find yourself able to take advantage of the tables turning because of your patience and willing to go against the current.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure how that translates into organization, measured progress, visible results and the like, but as a mantra I really like it. Bet the “Don’t Pass” long enough to be there for the hot streak that’s coming.<\/p>\n

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I’ve talked a bunch the last few blog posts about being better at achieving success. This whole notion of being more successful has really spawned in me an effort to understand what it means for me personally to succeed, and to try and decipher what I need to do differently to make it happen. I’ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-5l","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/04\/23\/learning-to-succeed\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":0},"title":"Learning to succeed","date":"April 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I think that one thing that I do very poorly is succeed. Succeed in the sense that I dream it, I build it, and execute it successfully. This idea goes much deeper than the lunch table \"state school\" jokes. Instead, it's something that I've really been thinking about lately. As\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":500,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2012\/02\/03\/getting-back-to-writing\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":1},"title":"Getting back to writing","date":"February 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In an attempt to focus on writing more, I plan to post one thing per day. If Fred Wilson\u00c2\u00a0can pull it off with his hectic schedule, then so can I. Today the focus is just declaring this new resolution, and from tomorrow onward the challenge will be to follow through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Year Resolutions"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":319,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/03\/29\/the-self-an-introduction\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":2},"title":"The Self - An Introduction","date":"March 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Personal growth is a constant reflection of the choices one has taken to aid the Self in making better decisions at forks in the path to come. Personal growth isn't something one does by reading a book and executing against its vision. That isn't personal growth, but instead a cheap\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the Self essay"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":563,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2012\/10\/01\/what-happened-to-aboutmydive-com\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":3},"title":"What happened to AboutMyDive.com?","date":"October 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I wanted to do a post-mortem on aboutmydive.com. This was my first attempt at building something that I hoped would become more than a project. It didn't, and I think it failed for a few simple reasons that I wanted to share here. 1) No audience interest I thought that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rainbow Hat Guy transition"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2009\/09\/20\/memories-from-king-tut\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":4},"title":"Memories... from King Tut","date":"September 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I went to the King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Just walking through the ten rooms that they set up really took me to another place and time. Clearly, the exhibit itself takes you back over 3000 years, and gives you that glimpse\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/03\/25\/dawning-instead-of-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":5},"title":"Dawning instead of morning","date":"March 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a really tough week for me. I feel as if I laid myself on the line on a couple of different matters, and got burnt pretty badly as a result. I don't handle those situations very well. Maybe it's because I wear my heart on my sleeve to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}