One cannot count on waking up early to achieve success in life

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how to do it, and self-help section in bookstores are full of hacks on how to wake up early. The often unsaid but generally well understood belief is that waking up early will make you successful in life. Humans love stories, especially linear, straight-forward ones where A leads to B.

There is no ambiguity here, as the chain of events is watertight. Reality is different, though, and every time I hear a ‘A leads to B’ statement, I am reminded of a Michael Lewis quote: “Man is a deterministic device thrown in a probabilistic universe." Back to our early risers. We nod when we hear, “Waking up early is key to success." Linear story: A leads to B.

It appeals to our intuitive sense, and we lap it up. But whenever one hears such deterministic statements, it is useful to put on a probabilistic hat. Instead of thinking of a straight line, one should think of a probability distribution; even a pie chart will do.

The question to ask in such situations is, “What percentage of A leads to B?" and “What percentage of B is caused by A?" Assuming success can be objectively defined, the relevant question is, ‘What percentage of early risers are successful?’ Apart from Jamie Dimon and Jack Dorsey, you now think of newspaper boys, milkmen and janitors. Then you ask, ‘What percentage of successful people are early risers?’ and you start considering famous late risers like Winston Churchill and Mark Zuckerberg. Once you go down this path, there can be many supplemental questions.

If, let’s say, a large portion of humanity comprises early risers, then a large portion of successful people will likely be early risers too. The cult of early morning success stories starts to lose some sheen then. Instances of such easy correlations abound.