Just Arrogant Enough

Here you are, enjoying the show. Maybe it’s a performance, or maybe it’s a martial arts tournament, but you like what you see. You’re a fan!

But you start noticing that there are some things that could be done better. There could be someone dedicated to mat efficiency, you think—that would make the whole event run much more smoothly. As a competitor yourself, you see things from a perspective that maybe the organizers of this event have forgotten.

A little seed begins to grow in your mind. You start to imagine yourself as the showrunner—the person in charge of planning and executing the event. You wonder if you might be able to do all of the things it would take to execute an event like this.

Then, you wonder if you might be able to do it better.

This little seed of hubris is exactly what has made the number of small businesses in the US more than double since the 1980s, although there’s certainly no guarantee of success. In fact, when you start a business, you’re just as likely to fall flat on your face as to succeed for more than five years.

As a society, we need lots of people willing to take big risks with their personal lives—that’s what happens when you run your own business. Unfortunately, it’s a very competitive game, with another half of businesses failing before they reach the age of 15.

The trade-off is that some small businesses will be successful breadwinners, although that doesn’t really mean a hands-off experience for the owners. People have a fantasy that doesn’t really match up with what business ownership really is.

A select few will go on to make their founders wealthy, but we’re talking about a very tiny subset. On average, most businesses won’t be around ten years after their founding. Most of those that remain will limp along.

Hubris helps, especially in the beginning. It’s clear that we need these arrogant jerks (myself included) to try to do things better.

Some of this arrogance is baked into the psychological cake:

Almost every driver thinks they’re above average. Most of us do this more than we’re aware, and this false confidence utterly destroys any chance of self-reflection and improvement over time. Instead of gradually making yourself better, Dunning-Kruger can make you more arrogant.

However, there’s one vital tool to combating this effect in your own life: knowledge of the phenomenon’s existence.

Clearly, there’s a limit to the good this sort of false confidence can do. If the condition persists for too long, you end up with a reckless idiot who nobody really likes.

To start a small business, then, you have to be just arrogant enough. There is a fine line between confidence and delusion, so understanding where this line should be drawn is the central challenge for every entrepreneur.

It’s also the same sort of activity behind your best creative impulses.

If you’re a writer here on Substack, maybe you saw someone else self-publishing and thought you could do something notably different. I won’t indict you by suggesting you thought you could do it better, but let me know in the comments if that ever did go through your head.

If you’ve ever formed a band or performed any music in front of a live audience, I would guess you felt the same way I did: I enjoyed the challenge of trying to do it better.

Sometimes, it’s delusion to imagine we can do something better. If you think you’ll be the greatest jiu jitsu athlete of all time, I might point out that 10,000 hours is the absolute floor for an endeavor of that sort, and the competitors you see are doing the easiest part of the work when they perform.

Other times, that little push of cockiness can be exactly what you need to try something new. I could do this, you think.

Maybe at some point, you think you could do it better.

Maybe you’re right.