January 21, 2023 · 3 years ago
The world tells two conflicting stories. One warns that:
Madness is doing the same thing over & over and expecting a different result.
The other insists:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
So which is true? The answer depends entirely on whether you succeed.
Society loves perseverance — but only in hindsight. Fail a hundred times, and you’re a fool. You should have gotten a stable job, played it safe. Scraped together a few wins, but not enough to match the company man? Well, you’re still a failure. Even if you surpass him, unless the difference is undeniably significant, people will just say the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.
But should you succeed dramatically on the 101st attempt, the narrative flips. Suddenly, you’re an inspiration. Your grit is legendary. The same people who doubted you claim they always saw your potential. This is the reality every aspiring entrepreneur, artist, athlete, or builder must come to terms with: until you win, society will treat you like you’ve lost.
Yet not all persistence is noble — sometimes, it really is just madness. The difference lies in growth. If you’re refining, adapting, and improving yourself with each attempt, you’re making progress. If you’re repeating the same mistakes, expecting sheer repetition to save you, it’s time to change your approach (think: guy taking the UPSC exam for the 11th time)
This curious phenomenon — where perseverance is mocked until it succeeds — is rooted in deep our psychological biases. Society judges individuals mercilessly on risk-adjusted returns against an index that tracks only three things — money, power and fame. Loss aversion makes volatility or underperformance seem unbearable, reinforcing the idea that the predictability is the is the only rational metric to proxy success. Conformity bias amplifies this, ensuring that those who step off the well-trodden path are met with harsh skepticism.
Survivorship bias distorts things further. We hear about the success stories but rarely about the thousands of failed attempts. Colonel Sanders’s recipe was rejected 1009 times before getting picked up. Dyson made over 5,127 prototypes before inventing the bagless vacuum cleaner. Doechii and Hanumankind made music for years in relative anonymity before their breakthrough hits. This selective memory tricks people into thinking only extraordinary people succeed, when in reality, they were just ordinary people who refused to quit. For the vast majority, skepticism toward those pursuing audacious goals becomes a form of self-soothing: if the risk-takers are deluded, then choosing the safe but uninspired life is the right call. To think otherwise would mean admitting that fear — not wisdom — held one back.
So, you’re one of the “crazy ones.” How do you know whether you’re onto something real? I think its 3 things:
Growth — Are you iterating, adapting, and improving with each attempt?
Conviction — Does the thought of quitting or never trying feel worse than the fear of failure?
Regret Minimization — Imagine yourself at sixty-five, looking back. In one timeline, you took the leap and faced every failure. In the other, you played it safe, followed the rules, and achieved “success” by every societal metric. Which version of you feels more at peace? (Best Worst-case vs. Worst Best-case)
I ask myself the last question often because while growth and conviction wax and wane, the regret minimization tends to hold constant. I know that even if I fail ten more attempts and never succeed, I would still respect myself more than if I had played it safe and never tried. I also know this could change later, or I may turn out to be extremely naïve in thinking this — that’s all right. Ethan Hawke put it well while speaking to a room of young actors: “if teaching acting at a high school in Seattle when you’re 62 doesn’t sound great to you, then get out.”
Note these indicators are entirely internal — they do not depend on external validation. But the right kind of perseverance evolves, and evolution never happens in a vacuum. This means knowing which voices to listen to and which to ignore.
Block out negative feedback from people who are not actively building anything — they probably don’t get it. Instead, seek guidance from those who have walked the talk. If you’re an artist, listen to your patrons and fellow creators. If you’re an entrepreneur, listen to your customers and peers. Ruthlessly cut out critics who are not constructive — for many of us this can be our own inner voice. This does not mean they have to be nice to you, it just means they can point out problems in your approach and provide useful insights on how to fix them.
And remember: perseverance isn’t just refusing to quit — it’s knowing when to pivot, when to adapt, and when to double down. Pivoting isn’t failure. Neither is doubling down on something only you can see. The only failure is letting fear decide for you.
For better or worse, this is just how the world works. Until you win, you will be treated like you’re losing. Until you prove them wrong, the disbelievers will actually be right.
The good news? None of that matters. If you’re building something worth fighting for, you don’t need the world to believe in it — yet. That part comes later. For now, just keep going.