Hindsight is Hilarious

Hindsight bias is hilarious. 

Because it tricks you into thinking “it was always going to be this way”.

And then, “I can predict what will happen in the future”. 

It makes us believe that our judgement is better than it actually is. 

It was Steve Jobs in his ‘05 Harvard commencement speech (must watch btw) who said: 

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backwards.

You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

I reflect on this because over the last week at my uni gradation (a year late - cheers covid) I found myself thinking that it was always going to turn out with me being self-employed, moving toward my version of entrepreneurship and experimenting with start-ups. 

I looked back and thought back to my first job when I was like 12 and I (almost certainly illegally) cleaned a local entrepreneurs’ shop for £2 every week. 

I was such an enterprising spirit - even then!

I then moved my thinking towards the age-old question: 

“What do you want to be [when you grow up], [after university]? Etc”

Why do we ask this question; especially when we first meet someone? 

It got me thinking how this, as our core question of careers, is marred by hindsight bias. 

We connect our own dots looking backwards to confirm our present-day story to ourselves.

In reality, these events were random, those meetings happenstance, those relationships we developed serendipitously. 

We negate the role of luck or fate looking back on our careers. 

Have a think about your career or educational journey so far. How did you end up where you are?

I know there were events in your journey that were random.

So, when you’re asking that question of ‘what do you want to be?’ - check yourself. 

Acknowledge that you almost certainly didn’t know either. 

And ask instead about who someone wants to be. 

That’s something worth chatting about.