1) Preamble:
A question as old as time is why some succeed in life while others fail.
The aim of this piece is to address specific areas of life most people care about and the traits that drive success or failure in these areas.
2) School, Grades:
The 2 best predictors of academic success are IQ and Energy/Industriousness.
Smart people who work hard tend to succeed, while dumb people who are lazy tend to fail.
3) Corporate Jobs, Complex Jobs:
In most corporate jobs (complex jobs), the 2 best predictors of success are IQ and Energy/Industriousness.
Notice that the best predictors of academic success and the best predictors of success in complex jobs are the same.
People who do well in school tend to also do well in the corporate world. This is not because the knowledge gained in school enhances performance in the corporate world; it doesn’t. Most of the information you learn in school has no real
world application.
It is because the traits that enable a person to succeed in school also enable a person to succeed in the corporate world; a high IQ and the energy to work 60+ hours a week.
Addendum: Low Neuroticism, Low Agreeableness, and being good looking are also advantages for succeeding in the corporate world. Having a high stress tolerance, being willing to harm others for one’s own gain, and benefiting from the halo effect (physical attractiveness) all boost lifetime earnings.
4) Job Interviews:
Despite what hiring managers might tell you, job interviews do not select for competence; they select for likeability.
The correlation between success in job interviews and performance in most complex jobs is dead zero.
IQ and Energy/Industriousness are what predict success in complex jobs.
What predicts success in job interviews? Extroversion, Agreeableness, Height, and Physical Attractiveness.
Job interviews select for people who are extroverted, agreeable, tall, and good looking.
5) Seduction, Dating:
There are traits that reliably predict how attractive or not attractive a man will be in the eyes of women.
Looks, Socioeconomic Status, and Confidence are the best predictors of a man’s romantic success with women.
Men who are good looking, high status in the macro dominance hierarchy (high socioeconomic status), and low on neuroticism (confident) tend to do very well with women.
Men who are ugly, low status in the macro dominance hierarchy (poor), and high on neuroticism (fearful) are considered repulsive by women.
In some sense, what men are like is a reflection of what women consider to be sexually attractive; all the men who our female ancestors didn’t consider to be sexually attractive failed to reproduce and were eliminated from the gene pool.