Ever noticed how those who seem to be slightly ahead just keep widening the gap? Once you achieve some signal of success, you gain resources, opportunities, and confidence that drive even more momentum.

Life tends to favor those who are already ahead.

Unsurprisingly, celebrities and the wealthiest people often get the most perks for free simply because of their status. We tend to reward those we perceive as successful with even more opportunities.

This creates a cycle where perceived success becomes a proxy for actual merit, leading to the best opportunities going to those already in the spotlight, independent of whether they are the best.

This plays out in all aspects of society.

Malcolm Gladwell highlights this phenomenon in “Outliers” with hockey players: the oldest, slightly more developed kids receive the best coaching and resources, making it almost impossible for younger players to catch up.

Success, it seems, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This bias is present everywhere, so if you can play into it, you can get ahead.

When I started college, I saw an opportunity to reinvent myself after slacking off in high school. Determined to get ahead, I met with my career coach, first-year success coordinator, and academic advisor during the first week. I joined three clubs and leveraged my involvement to join three more, eventually landing an internship at a private equity firm through a cold email by my freshman spring semester.

It was unprecedented for a freshman.

This early success made a significant impression on my senior peers, who then invested countless hours helping me prepare for a career in investment banking. I am immensely grateful for their mentorship.

Momentum done right snowballs your life in an upward spiral. However, only some get a lucky break, so what should you do to help get you ahead of the curve?

Interesting is just as good as “cracked.”

Living an incredibly interesting life can generate as much momentum as being in the top percentile of your field. An interesting story can compensate for skill deficits, opening doors to opportunities that can eventually make you exceptional.

Most of the people I look up to combine both traits: they are not only exceptionally skilled but also lead fascinating lives.

The beliefs we form, consciously or unconsciously shaped by our experiences, impact every aspect of our lives. They influence our choices in how we dress, work, speak, select friends, and make the pivotal decisions that alter the course of our lives.

The trouble is that we can’t always know what we think we know is true.

Often, we inherit the beliefs of those around us as we grow up, and many of these inherited beliefs can be completely wrong.

Even if we don't admit to our own misguided beliefs, we all know people who live their lives clinging to beliefs that are clearly detrimental to them. I call these "belief burdens" and refer to the consequences of maintaining such beliefs as the "fallacy tax"—the price we pay for holding onto ideas that do not serve us and often actively harm us.

Everyone suffers from this fallacy tax, whether we know it or not. Some examples are glaringly obvious like the college student who thinks trying an addictive drug once at a party will be harmless, only to end up in the hospital from an overdose. If they survive that experience, the mistake is clear in hindsight. However, not all fallacy taxes are so apparent. Consider the person who continues to work in a job they dislike, earning just enough to justify his discomfort.  This fallacy tax manifests as constant dissatisfaction, chronic stress, and a significant impact on their overall happiness and mental health. When left unchallenged, these beliefs compound over time, gradually eroding one's quality of life. The accumulated effects of staying in such a draining situation can be just as detrimental, if not worse, than one overdose—resulting in decades of lost potential and declining mental well-being. 

From an outside perspective, it might look strange that just working in a horrible workplace over a long enough time horizon could have a worse effect than getting sent to the hospital for excessive drug use.

The challenge is a lot of the time, we don’t know what is hurting us.

So, how do you unload these belief burdens if you don’t even know what they are? We must question our stories and beliefs about the world and recognize that they may be illusions others have imposed on us.

Many of the answers to our most troubling questions have already been uncovered by others, but no one has told you.

So, why aren’t these solutions more evident?

There's substantial profit in obscuring the truth, which is becoming increasingly apparent. Consider why platforms like TikTok or other forms of short-form media wouldn't disclose their potential harms. Their revenue models incentivize them to conceal such truths from the public.

Some of the worst belief burdens exist because our world hides them.

There are entire industries built on suffering and belief burdens. Imagine believing you needed to buy a certain product or have the nicest things to be happy. Or if you believe the only way to become rich is through college, I can only imagine the suffering you would go through if that were constantly held as a true belief.

One caveat: not all belief burdens remain true forever. The world constantly evolves, and what may be true in one era can become irrelevant in another. There’s always the risk of once-valid beliefs becoming burdens as circumstances change.

Why does this matter?

People spend a lifetime shedding these belief burdens; the sooner we can shed them, the better.

Most of my early 20s are spent trying to question my implicit beliefs to see if they are worth holding onto. I will admit I’m probably wrong about most of my beliefs, and there are probably many wrong beliefs I hold, but I hope this series of posts helps others as I share the truths I believe in.

Best,
Wesley Sheh