The screenwriter and Hollywood insider William Goldman is credited with the line, “Nobody knows nothing”.
William Goldman - Novelist, playwright, screenwriter, 2-time Academy Award winner ( Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men ), and without whom, no Princess Bride.
It takes a guy as smart as Goldman to so accurately nail it, and while he was talking pointedly of the movie industry, the line applies pretty much across the board.
Of course, the more strict observers of to-the-letter English will note the double negative and suggest Goldman therefore infers that everyone knows at least something.
No, that’s not what Bill means; maybe further underlining his point.
Goldman means that no one knows anything for sure, that foresight is a hunch, that everyone is making it up as best they can, and that life’s winners are those who smile at the truth of it and can cut a wake through a Sargasso of ego, guesswork, bullshit and chance.
Short a bear market, go long in a bull market, either play, you do it on a hunch, harbour a whole lot of hope, then sit back and try not to bite your nails. As City Analysts occasionally say, “It’s a Specs Paradise”. And it really is All Speculation. Confidence, loss of confidence, “More Cristal!” peaks and “Sell the Aston!” troughs, all making for a white-knuckle paradise in as much as if you can ride the trends and pre-empt the twists and turns then you’re liable to do very nicely indeed.
So it’s time to start feeling reassured.
Yes, really.
While Goldman made few friends in Tinsel town by suggesting everyone’s hustling and bluffing, I’d say that tremendous opportunity derives from the reality that most folk, in whatever they do, are simply blagging and just aren’t that great at whatever it is they do.
The majority, in all things, are “mediocre”. This is a fact; I’m not being mean, it’s nothing more than statistical truth, albeit a little brutal. Most people are “average”, populating by greater and lesser degree, the big hillock that is the Bell Curve - meaning quite Major Opportunity lies in positioning yourself the “right side” of the curve. Because aside from the likes of building jet engines, decommissioning atom bombs, and conducting cardiothoracic surgery, there’s huge scope for honing your given expertise above a pretty large safety net that declares that no one knows anything categorically, and if you do get it wrong, no one’s going die.
The line holds and it always will; “It’s not life and death, it’s just advertising.”
Common sense, clarity of thought, single-mindedness, force of personality, non-delusional self-belief, conviction, concision of purpose – all hugely powerful tools that allow almost anyone’s performance to soar above the mainstream and the mediocre. If you’re packing even half of the aforementioned, you’re 90% there already.
I say this. Never be the norm, because “The Norm” is Unacceptably Average. Be “The Exception”. Be Exceptional. And in case you haven’t already started, then by exception to Goldman’s Rule know this, it can start now.
SP.
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