During the covid lockdown, this headline went viral. Nearly half of men say they do most of the homeschooling three percent of women agree. I bring this up not to debate who's right, but because it's a great example of something called egocentric bias. Most people think they do most of the work.

For example, researchers have asked authors of multi-author papers what percentage of the work they personally do and when they add up those percentages. The sum is on average 140 when couples are asked to estimate how much of the housework they do. The combined total is almost always over a hundred percent. Now you might think this is because people want to appear more helpful than they actually are, but that's not it when couples are asked what fraction of the fights they start or how much of the mess is theirs.

The total is again over a hundred people think they do more of the work, but they also think they cause more of the problems. So why is this? I think it's simply because you experience and remember vividly all of what you do, but not all of what everyone else does. So naturally, you overestimate your own contributions and underestimate others, and i think this bias leads us to underestimate the influence of other things on our lives, like the role luck plays in our success. This is like when you play a game of league or whatever, and you get like two kills and you're like dude.

I did everything where the is the team's damage dude. But in fact you didn't do anything. You didn't actually do anything. You got half a kill and you died literally players.

For example, if you ask a professional hockey player how they managed to reach the nhl, they might mention their hard work, determination, great coaches, their parents, willingness to get up at 5am and so on, but they probably won't acknowledge how lucky they were to be born. In january, and yet in many years, 40 of hockey, players selected into top tier leagues are born in the first quarter of the year compared to just 10 percent in the fourth quarter. An early birthday can make you up to four times as likely to be a pro hockey player and the reason for this disparagingly we've seen this video, though cut off date for kids. This is a great video january 1st.

Those born in the first part of the year are a little older and so on average, bigger and faster than kids in their league born late in the year now as they grow up. This difference should eventually shrink to nothing, but it doesn't because the young kids who share the most promise, are given more time on the ice and enter more tournaments where they receive better coaching and improve their skills and these advantages compound year after year. So, by the time you get to the pros, birthdays are heavily skewed towards the start of the year, but does any professional hockey player feel thankful for their birthday? Probably not, and we are all like that - largely oblivious to the fortunate events that support our success. Sure, probably the most significant bit of luck, many of us enjoy, is being born into a prosperous country.

Around half the variance in income received by people around the world is explained by their country of residence and that country's income distribution. If you were born in burundi, for example, which has the world's lowest gross national income per capita of just 730 a year, it doesn't matter how smart or hard-working you are you're unlikely to earn much as an adult. Now many people get offended. If you point out how big a role chance plays in their success - and i get it if we are just a product of our circumstances - then our hard work and our talent seem to count for nothing.

People think it has to be either skill or luck. That explains success, but the truth is, you need both take these eight track and field world records. All the athletes who achieve these records are obviously world class, extremely dedicated and talented, and yet, when they achieved their world records, seven out of eight had a tailwind. Now these athletes all had the ability to win a gold medal, but to set the world record required a bit of luck as well.

The importance of luck increases the greater the number of applicants applying for just a few tailwind. Consider the most recent questions from over 18 300 applicants in 2017 only 11 were selected and went on to graduate from the astronaut training program, and we could make a toy mode of the selection process. I would let's assume that astronauts are selected mostly based on skill, experience and hard work, but also say five percent. As a result of luck, fortunate circumstances for each applicant, i randomly generated a skill score out of a hundred, and i also randomly generated a luck score out of a hundred.

Then i added those numbers together weighted in the 95 to 5 ratio to get an overall score. This score represents the selector's judgments, meaning the top 11 by this metric would become astronauts, and i repeated this simulation a thousand times representing a thousand different astronaut selections, and what i found was the astronauts who were picked were very lucky. They had an average luck score of 94.7, so how many of the selected astronauts would have been in the top 11 based on skill alone. The answer was, on average only 1.6.

That means even with luck, accounting for just 5 of the outcome, 9 or maybe 10 of the 11 applicants selected - would have been different if luck played no rule at all yeah. But that's because it compounds right right when competition is fierce, being talented and hardworking is important, but it's not enough to wear that margin to where that margin is the difference right guarantee success. You also need to catch a break, largely, i think, we're unaware of our good luck, because by definition, it's not something we did like the housework done by your significant other. It goes unappreciated and yes, there's so many exactly so.

At the end, you need your contestants to be very smart and very lucky and if not, then, if they can't make it in just because of that factor, right, here's the crazy thing downplaying the importance of chance events may actually improve your probability of success, because if You perceive an outcome to be uncertain, you're less likely to invest effort in it, which further decreases your chances of success. So it's a useful delusion to believe you are in full control of your destiny. I mean if i had known how bad i was when i started youtube or how much work it would take. I might have given up right then welcome to veritasium an online science, video blog now there may be another benefit.

Jesus he breaks, he looks actually cooked. Is it makes it easier to do there may be any other benefit? Why look so high veritasium an online science, video blog now there may be another benefit to overlooking your lucky breaks, which is it makes it easier to justify your place in society? If you have a lot of wealth or power, you can just chalk it up to your own intelligence effort and perseverance. It makes it easier to accept inequality in one experiment. Participants were put in groups of three in small rooms to discuss a complex moral problem and one person in each group was randomly designated the team leader half an hour later.

The experimenter came by with four cookies for each team so who got the extra cookie in each case it went to the team leader, even though they had no special aptitude. They didn't have extra responsibilities and they'd gotten their position through chance alone. Once you have achieved a certain status, it seems natural to feel like you deserve it and all the other good things that come your way now. This is just an anecdote, but whenever i've been upgraded to fly a business class, i've always observed the worst behavior.

In my fellow privileged passengers, they just act so entitled and uncourteous and research has found evidence for this as well. In another experiment, participants were asked to think of a good thing that happened to them recently, and then one group was asked to list their own personal qualities or actions that made that good thing happen. Another group was asked to list external factors beyond their control. How does that mean? I fly economy premium and i use the seat with the with the they say.

If, if things like start exploding, do you agree that you're gon na help - and i i have to sign yes, i will help or some some yeah. That's that literally led to the event and a control group with somebody gives you more leg: room dude. I always choose that where they explode the no, i wouldn't open the door as we're told they would be paid a dollar, but at the end they were offered the option to donate some or all of the money to a charity results showed those who listed their Own personal attributes contributed 25 less than those who listed external factors beyond their control, now think of what all this means for people in our society, specifically for people in positions of power like business leaders and politicians. Now, undoubtedly, most of them are talented and hardworking, but they have also been luckier than most and like most of us.

They don't realize just how lucky they are, and this gives them a distorted view of reality. They're kind of living in a form of survivor bias. All these leaders have worked hard and ultimately succeeded. So to them the world appears fair in their experience.

It rewards hard work, but what they don't have is the experience of all the people who have worked hard and failed. So what are they to make of people? Less successful than themselves well, the natural conclusion is that they must just be less talented or less hard-working, and this perspective makes them less inclined wait. This is a what i don't know who said work, but what they don't have is the experience of all the people who have worked hard and failed. So what are they to make of people less successful than themselves? Well, the natural conclusion is that they must just be less talented or less hard-working, and this perspective makes them less inclined to be generous to give back and they are the ones who set the rules for how society operates.

You know that is literally the opposite of me. I i was fortunate to to to stream twice that you don't know because nothing, you guys don't know this. Okay, i used to be both. I used to be a streamer in french, literally, it was from the bottom and then i i grew this trimmer and i was a a french trimmer.

So i grew from from there to the bottom and i grew the skills and i swapped entirely to english and overwatch and went back to completely zero. I redid it again literally, and this is particularly unfortunate since one of the main ways many of us are lucky is in our country of residence. But what is a country except for so not only did i did. I did i not get insane boosts whatever at the beginning, medium or end.

I did it twice from the beginning, put there by people who came before the roads and the schools, public transport, emergency services, clean air and water. Everything like that. It seems a cruel trick of our psychology that successful people without any malice, will credit their success largely to their own hard work and ingenuity and therefore contribute less to maintaining the very circumstances that made that success possible in the first place. The good news is that acknowledging our fortunate circumstances not only brings us more in line with reality.

It also makes us more likeable in a study where people had to read the transcript of a fictional 60 minutes interview with a biotech entrepreneur. Experimenters tried changing just the last paragraph where the interviewee is talking about the reasons for their company's success. In one version, the entrepreneur personally takes credit for the success they've had, but in the other he says, luck played a significant role. Now people who read the luck version of the transcript judged the entrepreneur as kinder and thought they'd be more likely to be close friends with him than those who read the other version of the transcript and raising our awareness of fortunate events can also guys it was Pure luck, it was you guys, it was all literally all look.

I just roll the dice many times and i just hit ahead yeah. I hit a yahtzee every roll boys guys every role was pure luck insane dude because it allows us to feel gratitude. Personally, i am grateful to michael stevens of vsauce who, on october, 7th 2012 posted the video. How much does a shadow weigh which shouts out my slow motion? Slinky drop video and within three days my subscribers had increased by a third and within a month they had doubled, leading me to quit my part-time job and work exclusively on youtube videos, and i'm grateful to the writer of the free newspaper they give out on the Trains in sydney who didn't quite understand electricity, leading me to post this picture of their article to my instagram with a caption.

What's wrong guys people forget people, often forget and downplay the existence of the fact that um, knowing how to receive luck, is a skill that you can hone they can learn and that you can become better at learning. How to be lucky is just as important as luck itself. If you learn how to receive luck better than other people, you will be more lucky. The reality is, you were lucky a bunch of times and you weren't receiving it.

You weren't ready, or you weren't skilled enough to receive that luck. That's how it works. Literally with this picture, and i'm lucky that the first person to answer correctly. Yes, you can learn.

Yes, you can learn learning how to see an opportunity that flies next to you. Learning learning how to see an opportunity as an opportunity is literally it is very important. It's very important like like, if you're, if you're uh, if you're a at your as you're yeah, it's it's how it works, though down playing that is pure delusion is a pure delusion guys. I said this last time i could literally host a a a bad streamer.

10 times and the reality is he probably wouldn't break the 500 viewers after a week of streaming right available every day. Why simple? Because sometimes people aren't ready for it they're? Not they they they, don't they don't see as a possibility right. So when it happens, they don't know what to do right, it's kind of like when you're playing a game and you become better at it and you're like a pro you're like a diamond player. What happens when you guys look at a player who's more than you like, a bronze player dude, he could have flash altered it dude.

Did it dude flash alt, dude jump, headshot jumper shot right, but he doesn't see it. He has an opportunity to get a kill right now right, but he doesn't see it as opportunity right. He isn't ready to receive that luck right if you're, a good player and you've learned that you know, when an opportunity is there, because you are not you're, not blind to it. You now see it as an opportunity.

Seeing is important and you can learn that and hone that as a skill, dude dude, it's what i meant by putting your names in the hat. Okay, how can you expect to be drawn from a hat with names in it? If you have no names in the hat, it's impossible, it's literally impossible. If you have no names by learning how to be lucky, but by by by learning how to catch the the raindrops right, then you'll catch a raindrop, but if you're inside all day, what are the odds of you getting a wrench up on your head? Zero percent! Zero, you will never get a raindrop and it's often the people who stay inside all day, who complain that they're not getting raindrops, that every people out there are only or only in some positions because they got raindrops or they got a lot of raindrops when, in Fact they were stuck inside all day, never ready, never prone to get a raindrop. It was a bunch of that's who ass suckers.

Do that ass, like who's, that, i hope you guys don't do that! Don't do that don't be like that was a beautiful woman who became my future wife yep. That is how i met your mother now, initially, i wanted to make this video just to say our circumstances and psychology conspire to make us oblivious to our own luck. This leads successful people to view the world as fair and those less successful than them as less talented or less hard-working, and this is before you factor in any discrimination or prejudice, but it also became apparent to me that i should talk about what to do. If you want to be successful in such a world - and i think the best of the the skill paradoxical yes, that is a skill.

Okay, there are imagine a world dude where you were lucky like 10 times. That would have been life-changing and you were too dumb to see it as an opportunity, and you completely missed it. Imagine that imagine you're about to die. Okay, you're, like 89 years old and tell you hey man: let's do a review of your life here, man.

I got the stats here, man, there was 12 times where you could have made it. You went hard and you didn't you were lucky, but you were too much of a dumb to get it. How would that make you feel how make you feel? How would you feel if you got those stats, i mean you'd feel like garbage. First, you must believe that you are in complete control of your destiny and that your success comes down only to your own talent and hard work.

But second, you've got to know. That's not true for you or anyone else, so you have to remember. If you do achieve success, that luck played a significant role in good fortune. You should do what you can to increase example.

I guess i have a good example guys. How many times have you seen your crush? What the person you think looks nice or the girl right right, and you saw her right and you didn't say anything it and they're just gone. They gone, never saw them again, never whatever right right. You were lucky enough to find that cool person and they were right there and what did you do? Nothing, absolutely nothing right and in the future, be like it was whatever dude but think about it.

You were lucky that that happened, that they were melee range, but you didn't do anything right, so you were lucky, but you were just bad. It is what it is: priests, the luck of others hey. So i had an idea for what i could do to increase the luck of others, and that is to give away a hundred snatums kits to people who couldn't otherwise afford them. It's okay now you're aware, maybe when you're lucky next time, you know you'll be ready for luck.

So if you didn't know, snatums is a product that i invented and kickstarted five years ago. It's a molecular modeling kit, where all the atoms snap together magnetically. Now i made it because i really wanted to tackle the misconception that bonds store energy. They don't it takes energy to break them, and you can feel that with snatums recently i completely retooled snatums.

Okay, that was cool to enjoy that video, though, and i'm very i'm very grateful though i was very lucky, though overall overall i was, and i'm extremely lucky right. So i'm aware i'm aware that i was extremely lucky, but but you know gon na still get a combine it. You know what tonight.