Why Is Balanced Success Closer to Art Than Science?

Chris Williamson says plain success is low skill because a formula can get you there, while success kept connected to the rest of life is much closer to art than to science.

Chris Williamson is much more impressed by success done with balance and fun. Success is hard, and it is nowhere near as difficult as doing it while having a good time, being a good person, feeling good, staying in a community, helping family, and not using people in a transactional way. No formula shows how to build a good business and keep a good marriage, how to avoid denying parts of yourself, or how to turn past pain into anything other than a chip on the shoulder that becomes an identity. The vacancy after achievement is sometimes called the arrival fallacy. On average, success is the precursor to doing the work, so someone who arrives successful and has done the work at the same time has held two full time jobs. The pairing is significantly rare.

Shaan Puri says the standard Chris Williamson just laid out is winning: the science of success meets the art of fulfillment, plus being a good dude, a good friend, a good dad, and a good husband, still doing cool shit with friends, and holding ambition without letting it get the best of you. Shaan Puri shares the same blueprint. One man's heaven is another man's hell.