Do you look up to intelligent people?
I think it’s important to emulate success where you desire it. If you’re trying to build a house, I think it’s a great idea to examine other excellent houses and how they were built. There are eight billion humans experimenting on things every day, and you’d be crazy not to try to gain the benefits of their experience!
But a common pitfall is to defend a bad behavior by finding the smartest or most successful person you can who also engages in that behavior and then say, “See? That person is smarter than me and they do this! So it’s a good idea to do it!”
That’s a heck of a selection bias.
Instead, find the people whose success and even life most closely matches your aspiration, and find out what they do – and don’t do. Emulate those behaviors even – especially! – if they’re different from what you want to do.
If you routinely drink to excess, for example, you can certainly find a smart, successful person who also does that. But if they’re smart and successful, it’s A.) likely that it’s despite that behavior, not because of it, B.) probably true that they could therefore be even more successful if they didn’t, and C.) very possible that they have some other quality that’s actually contributing to their success that you aren’t emulating because you’re focused on justifying the booze.
Emulate the people whose success is virtuous!
