Easiest person to fool

Physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman famously said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

This quote has stuck with me over these past few weeks. I was convinced of my proficient knowledge of any certain topics (wellness, financials, etc.) that with all of the reading and videos I do. I am far from it, and it was only through a third party that this realization hit me smacked right in the face. I fell for one of the oldest traps that ego sets: you don’t know how little you know with how little you know.

An easy example is how one can select a few stocks and you immediately see gains from your purchase. You might think “wow! I’m an amateur investor and have done better than professional investors this year. Maybe they don’t know THAT much more”. These thoughts crossed my mind often and I felt on top of the world. But the fact is that I was extremely lucky. I did not do the research nor did I understand the ramifications of investing in such a business or industry. I was there at the right time and at the right price. Any “skills” or intuition I used were not a positive attributing factor.

Success truly blinds us. It makes us believe that what we currently have is enough and is the reason for our success. It misdirects us to be content or even lazy, instead of pursuing and pushing forward towards mastery. Sometimes, we believed we’ve reached mastery when we are so far from it. The Dunning-Kruger effect is so strong that by not believing we are competent, it’ll lead us to think that we are in fact not as good as we think we are and that is demoralizing.

To know that you are not the result of your own success is a demoralizing feeling. It feels like you are not in control and you didn’t work hard for it. Instead, we should ravish with the reality that we have so much to grow and to learn. In doing so, we will fall in love with the effort and process instead of the false truth of success.

It’s easy from the outside looking in on how so many people fall victim to their own success or through blind luck. We all are fools in many ways and by having a system that recognizes that quicker, we can hastily get back on the true path of self-improvement.

If you’ve enjoyed my articles, please subscribe and share! Please connect with me on :

Instagram: stayingkonnected

Twitter: Stayingkonnect

Youtube: Staying Konnected

Originally published at https://scottnguyen.substack.com.