Following various (slightly alcohol-lubricated) conversations on Thursday on the nature of success, and reading this interesting opinion piece by Matthew Syed over the weekend, I thought maybe it was time I published Mingey’s Success Theorem for public peer review (and ridicule). So here goes.
Why are some people successful and others less so? Is it just talent? Luck, if you believe in such a thing? Mingey’s Success Theorem proposes that it is down to a combination of factors.
Mingey’s First Law of Success
Given
s = level of success
t = talent
n = nepotism
l = luck
Mingey’s first law suggests that success is based on a combination of talent and nepotism, factored by an element of chance (luck), i.e.
s = l(t + n)
In other words, someone with a lot of talent but few “connections” and average luck will be as successful as a more privileged individual with the same level of luck but less talent.
Mingey’s Second Law Of Success
Nepotism is a vague concept, but Mingey’s second law proposes that nepotism can be determined as a function of
a = age of the individual
p = innate privilege accorded by status
w = willingness to use privilege
A level of nepotism can be achieved by combining all of these, but as level of nepotism available is cancelled out if any of these factors is zero, the overall level n must be a product rather than a sum.
n = apw
Combining the two laws provides the overall premise.
s = l(t + apw)
Which resolves to
s = lt + lapw
To take this research further, I need to come up with some suitable metrics for each variable. Suggestions please?
