The Minority of Averages

Writing a blog on LinkedIn requires lot of breathing space, lots of research, citations, tips from the "7 secrets to Writing Well on LinkedIn", I thought and decided nah! Let me recall my school days and start the way I always did back then. Ask questions, get confused about why answers might not be available and end by painting a Utopian picture. Oh yes and a whole bunch of Hyperlinks, voluntarily indicating that there was some loose research done and cartoons.

Everyone has heard about “Law of averages”, less famous but highly scientific “Gambler’s Fallacy”. How about the "80-20 Rule" also less famously known as "Pareto principle". How can the significantly large human thinking diaspora fall to such many predictive theorems, even though every individual may biologically be a "Homo Sapien" but distinctive and uniquely have thought about questions like "What the hell am I doing on this earth?" or "Who the flipping leaf am I?"

I thought hard as to find an analogy that can somehow trick my mind in accepting the above theorems as facts of life and reluctantly gulp sip the hot truth that success is not everyone's cup of tea. I could only think of a Large Asteroid entering a Planetary Atmosphere. Let’s just call it "George - the Son of the Morning Star". Filled with zest and firred up, the planetary surface is its Ultimate destination and fate. George wants to make on impact on the Planet's face and make its Star Parents proud. He accelerates with speed and enthusiasm and fearlessness just as a child grows up into his teens with the belief that mountains can be moved. Scientists call George "NEO" just like people call teenage kids Wannabe (such a Matrix Irony - NEO the Wannabe). Just like all Asteroids George perishes to its own speed and Earth Atmospheric resistance and doesn't even get to get across the Nitrogen layer.

Despite George being the son of the Morning Star it did not reach its desired fate like the millions of other Asteroids. Meanwhile here on earth George the teenage boy who could not complete his education because of his father’s death and still rose to be a President of his migrated country was at the other end of the statistics.

Now coming to the second phase of my write-up where I create confusion and ask even more ridiculously sometimes hysterical questions and try to create havoc in a critics' mind, I ask. I ask that if everyone is born equally and as the image of our Holy Father, What makes some Georges a vegetable and some Presidents and of course I'm not comparing George the NEO and George Washington. How thick can be the atmosphere where George Washington rose to be a president and many many of his acquaintances and friends and relatives just remained vegetative Homo Sapiens and by Atmosphere's thickness I am referring to the conditions that he grew up in and formed his life's ideologies in, developed the right mindset, attitude and did make mountains move.

Despite everybody being equally potential of success why is 80-20 rule the rule of thumb? Everyone is average, yet only a few out of the average become the successful minority. What is it that carves out of rusts out averages into minorities? Can we average out all the minorities and still be able to set the 80-20 Rule and the Law of Averages? Why is Bill Gates best friends with Warren Buffet and not so friendly with Steve Jobs?

Again I find myself lost imagining Analogies to explain this. But Eureka and Spicy food lover I had to have this up my sleeve. The recipe to many famous Indian Curries and Cuisines are well known and well-practiced across the globe (OK it’s just Indian who cook India food and make the Firefighters run rampant whole month long). But still there are grades of tastes and variety of restaurants and unending flavors and many more different opinions of the same dish that people savor at different places. What creates this contrast? Probably is not the recipe. It’s the hand of the cook, immaculate appetite for betterment, and a heart for feeding (not eating).

The main ingredients remains same, but the spices vary, their amounts, their degree of exposure to heat, and the period of prolongation of cooking. The human child too grows up in the similar manner. His teachers, parents, friends, society (George's Atmosphere) would all be the extra spices to which he would be exposed to. Many perish as they get cooked by themselves rather than allowing a coach to enter their kitchen and sauté their lives to success. Some learn from the nearby cooks and like experience becomes their coaches.