Most successful people don’t know themselves exactly what caused/causes their success

Their advice is usually valuable, they can’t offer an exact recipe for success.

You can do exactly what they did and 9 times out of 10 it failed because of luck, time and place, or other non replicable events. Success is about 30% right place right time, 30% random chance, and maybe 30% hard work and overcoming challenges, 10% is just nebulous and hard to determine.

Andrew Lloyd Beaver PA says it’s a well established fact that people over-estimate their own contribution to their successes, and under-estimate their own contribution to their failures (i.e. if they do well they think it’s because of their own hard work, and if they do badly they think it’s just bad luck).

Successful people often have valuable experience and are worth listening to, but remain vigilant and grounded if you get the chance to talk to your idol.

Successful people are largely the inverse. Look at failures as learnings and adjust their approach. I do this as well. Failing is a part of life and needs to be celebrated. In order to truly learn, you need to figure out what you did wrong, and ensure you don’t repeat your mistakes in the future.