How to leverage your unfair advantages
👋🏻 Welcome to the inaugural book club blog post - also, my first blog post.
📚 I love to read books and think about productivity, health & wellness, and success - in other words, nonfiction self-help books are my jam. I’m planning to give a short write-up on whatever I’m currently reading as a part of this “Book Club” with the hopes of offering a convenient learning experience for the reader of this blog - however few of those there may be.
Again, this is my first blog post so please forgive any weirdness that may develop as a result, I assume that said weirdness will iron itself out as we move along - or maybe not. Who knows. Weirdness is an central component of my personality. Anyway, here we go -
📘 Unfair Advantages by Ash Ali and Hasan Kuba.
This book is a great read. Overall, it is full of insightful commentary on many of the concepts that underpin success in today’s world. The nuggets of wisdom are certainly there, though the book is full of fluffy stories designed to illustrate the author’s point that can mostly be skipped through. This can be construed as a pro or a con depending on how married you are to reading every word of a book. Regardless, it made for a quick, informative, and actionable read for me which I always count as a win.
🩳 Short Form Summary The authors take the perspective that life is inherently unfair. Not unfair in the sense of the word that has become fairly typical in today’s world, an unfair-ness that is intentional and toxic and insurmountable. “Unfair Advantages” posits that everyone - everyone - has access to certain advantages in life (i.e., money, intelligence, luck, education, and status) that may give them an upper hand in their lives and their careers. The authors contend that one’s road to a successful life (whatever that means) may be smoothed out by understanding, continually developing, and appropriately leveraging one’s unfair advantages.
🔑 Key Takeaways
The current corporate and startup cultures worship at the altar of meritocracy - the idea that success is earned through merit often portrayed as a “gritty” person “grinding” for long periods of time to achieve success. The authors contend that this meritocracy is a myth and that leveraging Unfair Advantages is often integral in achieving success.
The foundation of every successful person is their mindset. This is your starting point. Having a reality-growth mindset - i.e., knowing when to accept reality while simultaneously believing that anything is possible - is essential. Characteristics of leaders with a reality-growth mindset are clear vision, resourcefulness, constant growth, and perseverance. The authors emphasize developing the ability to deploy the appropriate mindset at the appropriate time in your career to address the issue of the day.
Everyone has a set of Unfair Advantages that they can leverage to their benefit. These characteristics may take the form of inherent intellectual or personality traits or may be attributes that can be developed over time. Taking account of, continually developing, and appropriately leveraging these benefits in your life may facilitate success.
Once developed and appropriately leveraged, the benefits from Unfair Advantages compound over time - i.e., a snowball effect. This positive feedback loop can lead to runaway success, which is (should be) the goal of any upstanding young-ish professional.
👖Long Form Summary
There is no doubt that the current corporate and startup culture worships at the altar of meritocracy. I can hardly mindlessly scroll on Instagram for 30 seconds without encountering a reel or post depicting a “gritty” person “grinding” through an 80-hr workweek working for themselves and making millions doing it. Can this really be true for every single one of these people?
The portrayal of the success stories of Silicon Valley magnates, and really anyone else who has accomplished great things, has this same theme - only through inhuman genius, hard work, and perseverance were they able to achieve success. See the myth-like stories of the successes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc, etc. The authors contend that this meritocracy is a myth; that, in addition to working insanely hard, these people all had - as we all do - a certain set of Unfair Advantages that they leveraged to their benefit to achieve uncommon levels of success in their time. Importantly, the authors do not knock hard work or grit. They establish the need for hard work and perseverance as a given. There is no substitute. But, there is a supplement.
Of perhaps equal importance, in the author’s mind, is a person’s Unfair Advantages. One would be forgiven for equating Unfair Advantages to strengths or competitive advantages - it is essentially the same concept. The use of the word “unfair” is interesting here. Importantly, these advantages are not “unfair” in the most typical use of the word that makes it seem like they are cheating or exploiting to the detriment of others. The authors use this term in a more realistic and down-to-earth sense that recognizes an inherently un-level playing field. But, if you have an understanding of the extent to which it is un-level, perhaps that can help you better play the game.
These Unfair Advantages are not reserved for the most inhumanly intelligent, rich, or famous of us. Everyone - and they mean everyone - has a certain set of characteristics which they may leverage to their benefit in their career. Thus, this system of thought must start with an honest accounting of one’s own strengths. For this purpose, the authors have offered a simple tool to encapsulate a fairly complex topic - the MILES framework:
Money: No need for more elaboration from me here. The immense advantage of having money - as fuel for a growing business, as a way to diversify and invest, as a cushion, as a fallback, etc, etc - is no mystery to anyone, I don’t believe. Interestingly, the authors posit a lack of money as a creativity engine, which makes me think they are people who probably currently have enough money.
Intelligence and Insight: The authors discuss the advantages of a person’s baseline intelligence level and the ability to process large amounts of information in the world of business which, again, will likely surprise no one. However, they emphasize that more important traits that contribute to success in business are those that help you interact and negotiate with other human beings - emotional and social intelligence. These are intelligence traits that can be developed with understanding of the underpinnings of social interactions; so, you’re not stuck if your IQ isn’t 160. Additionally, creativity makes it on the list of Unfair Advantages that a person may have. The author’s conception of creativity is fantastic and very accessible in a society that enjoys mystifying the topic; they posit that creativity is living at the intersection of seemingly disparate fields - i.e., interdisciplinary thinking - which suggests that it is a skill that can be trained and developed over time.
Location and Luck: The most important concept here is that serendipity matters and that you can increase your likelihood of having a “lucky” or “chance” encounter by modifying your environment and your mindset. A person’s physical location may serve as an Unfair Advantage by increasing their access to necessary resources and increasing their likelihood for having a “lucky” encounter if they live in a startup-friendly location. There is a reason that the vast majority of uber successful startups cluster in the same few geographic locations and access to intellectual resources is a key characteristic. Reading this chapter made me consider whether this is still true in the age of remote work and endless Zoom calls. I suspect that these barriers to accessing intellectual resources and manpower will break down in our increasingly digital age. Additionally, the authors pose that luck is a characteristic of a person that can be developed. The more opportunities a person takes, coupled with an optimistic mindset, leads to more lucky encounters in their mind.
Education and Experience: “Education” refers to your formal education and “Experience” refers to your less-than-formal education that comes from your lived experience. The authors pose that education plays an integral role in your professional success. What doesn’t matter as much, is how you get that education. Whether it comes from a formal education or from your own lived experience, knowledge is knowledge and it will serve as an Unfair Advantage and help you achieve success. This day and age is replete with options for self-learning (i.e., books, mentors, online classes, YouTube, etc.) that may serve as a supplement to whatever formal education you may have. Thus, this is a skillset that can continually be developed over time and leveraged if lifelong learning is a concept that you respect. A formal education from a great school has its own benefits, including the opportunity be an extra status and networking benefit but it isn’t the only way to educate yourself.
Status: Status is your personal brand - i.e., how you are perceived by others. High-status people draw others to them and have more influence than those of low status. Status is about perceived, and not true, value which makes it one of the most readily-modified and developed Unfair Advantages on this list. There are many - probably innumerable components of a person’s status - but a few highlighted by the authors include: Title/Rank/Qualification, Age, Economic Capital, Cultural Capital, Social Capital, and Inner Status (i.e., self esteem). Many of these components of status are in our immediate and imminent control and can be continually developed and nurtured over time.
Concluding their argument, the authors pose that “runaway success” is the goal that we should all be striving for - a success so great that it exists in spite of you. This comes, in their mind, from compounding small successes over long periods of time. Respecting this tenant of all current productivity and wellness thought, early recognition and utilization of your particular set of Unfair Advantages becomes crucial. The use of Unfair Advantages leads to the development of more Unfair Advantages - and on and on with the snowball effect - until you have a success that is undeniable and exists in spite of you. As with anything in the world, the consistency over long periods of time is powerful.
To offer a slight critique of an excellent body of work, this book may be a frustrating read for anyone who insists on reading every word of every book that they pick up. I can’t sympathize with this group of people but I am aware of their existence. The book, as wonderfully (if I do say so myself) illustrated in this blog post, is full of insight on many things that may underpin a successful career. However, the authors include many verbose and fluffy examples designed to illustrate their point that can easily be skipped through to find the nuggets of nonfiction wisdom gold at the beginning and end of the chapter. This made this book a quick read for me, though, which I almost always count as a win.
Overall, I found this book to be really insightful. It contains a lot of actionable concepts that have the potential to enable success in your life. The authors don’t subscribe to the myth of meritocracy or conclude that achieving success is something that is likely completely out of the control of the individual and is the result of some cosmic event. I found this concept - that Unfair Advantages underpin many of the success stories that are commonly misrepresented in our culture - to be a refreshing, encouraging, and actionable take.
👋🏻 Thank you for reading. I really enjoyed the process of reading the book and writing this post and look forward to doing many more posts similar to this one on a weekly basis if I can stick to such a schedule. Feel free to get in touch and ask any questions you may have!
