Why Being Delusional is a Superpower

Studies show that people consistently overestimate their own contributions. Multi-author papers have contributors claiming percentages that add up to 140% on average, and couples report doing over 100% of housework combined.

People vividly experience and remember all of their own work but not everyone else's work, leading to systematic overestimation of personal contributions and underestimation of others' contributions.

This bias causes us to underestimate the influence of luck and external factors on our success, leading to incomplete understanding of how we achieve our goals.

Professional hockey players attribute their success to hard work and coaching but overlook that 40% of top-tier players are born in the first quarter of the year versus 10% in the fourth quarter.

Early birthdays provide compounding advantages: slightly older and bigger children get more ice time, better coaching, and tournament experience, which compounds year after year until professional selection shows heavy bias toward early-year births.

• About 50% of global income variance is explained by country of residence alone • Being born in a prosperous country is one of the most significant fortunate circumstances • Birth country essentially determines income ceiling regardless of individual talent or work ethic

All eight track and field world record holders were extremely talented and dedicated, yet seven of eight achieved their records with a tailwind. Success requires both skill and luck.

In the NASA astronaut selection example with 18,300 applicants for 11 positions, even when luck accounts for only 5% of selection criteria, the average selected applicant had a luck score of 94.7 out of 100.

Believing you control your destiny improves success likelihood because perceiving outcomes as uncertain reduces effort investment. Not acknowledging luck actually increases your chances of success.

The creator would have quit YouTube at the start if he had fully understood how difficult it would be and how small his chances were of success.

Overlooking lucky breaks makes it easier to justify your place in society, accept inequality, and believe you earned your position through merit alone.

In an experiment where random team leaders were given an extra cookie, they felt entitled to it despite earning their position by chance. High status makes people feel they deserve their advantages.

Successful people and leaders have all worked hard and succeeded, so the world appears fair to them. They lack experience with all the people who worked hard and failed, leading to skewed perspectives.

When successful people lack awareness of their own luck, they conclude that less successful people must be less talented or less hard-working, making them less inclined to be generous or give back.

Leaders and policymakers set society's rules but often lack awareness of how luck contributed to their success. This reduces investment in maintaining the public infrastructure and systems that enabled their good fortune.

Much of our luck comes from country of residence, which exists because of roads, schools, public services, and infrastructure built by previous generations—the very systems successful people underinvest in.

In a study of a fictional biotech entrepreneur interview, those who read that luck played a significant role judged the entrepreneur as kinder and more likely to be a close friend compared to those who read a version where they took full credit.

Awareness of fortunate events enables gratitude, which increases happiness and psychological well-being.

• Grateful to Michael Stevens for a Vsauce shout-out that tripled subscribers within three days and doubled them within a month • Grateful to a newspaper writer's electricity error that led to meeting his future wife through an Instagram post

Acknowledging fortunate circumstances brings understanding more in line with reality rather than the distorted view created by egocentric bias and survivor bias.

• First, believe you control your destiny and success depends only on your talent and hard work • Second, recognize that belief is not actually true for you or anyone else

When you achieve success, remember that luck played a significant role. Use your good fortune to increase the luck of others.

To increase luck for others, the creator is giving away 100 snatoms kits to people who can't afford them. For one month, buying snatoms at 10% off with code 'giveluck' will result in one free kit donated per purchase, up to 100 kits.

Snatoms is a magnetic molecular modeling kit designed to teach that bonds don't store energy. The newly retooled 'snatoms X' version has stronger magnets through direct contact and is backwards compatible with original snatoms.