What makes people successful?

I came across Ali Abdaal's video “What Makes People Successful?” a few years back. It’s an interview with one of the authors of the book "The Unfair Advantage".

The idea is great, and Ali’s video is fantastic.
The book is a lot of fluff, so don’t buy it.

Here’s the premise:

Success = fair play x unfair advantages.

Fair play means hard work, unfair advantages are dumb luck.
If you can combine both, you’ll increase your chances of success.

The Unfair Advantage teaches to:

Identify your advantages
Using them to manufacture luck

First, you need to figure out what your unique advantages are.

These are the lemons life gave you.
All that’s left is for your to make the lemonade.

If you can combine your unique advantages with doing more, you effectively increase your chances of ‘getting lucky’.

To find yours, the authors created the M.I.L.E.S. framework.

M: Money
I: Intelligence
L: Location & Luck
E: Education & Expertise
S: Status

It ain’t rocket science.
Just use these 5 categories to brainstorm potential advantages.

Go really wild and combine them for extra creativity.

Perhaps your childhood friend’s upbringing makes him the perfect co-founder. Or the way your mom made pancakes on Wednesday showed you what love is.

Figure yours out and then do something about it.

What do you think of this idea, have you used it in the past?