The Formula

While the results are unequivocal that confidence and self-belief play a huge role in success, they have to match strong performance.

but what is universal is that there is no upper limit on how much of it a superstar can earn. It’s unbounded.

Not because they’re more creative during this burst of activity. They succeed because they try more often. It just so happens that for most

Realizing that success is a collective phenomenon throws that perception out the window. Once we defined success along external lines, a whole new set of possibilities opened up. We could measure and quantify it, using tools of scientific inquiry. And once we did that, we could unveil the laws that govern our success.

But the engine that makes these hubs or superstars is preferential attachment—success breeds success.

and impact if you hope to make a difference in virtually any field. These success measures all have one thing in common: they are external, not internal; collective, not individual.

That means that we have a better chance of successfully competing with superstars if we see them as unthreatening as they see us.

Taking all this in and thinking about the young artists I admired, I had every reason to be concerned, especially for my friend Botond Részegh, a Transylvanian artist whom I’ve known for over a decade. His fantastic illustrations helped tie together the science and history narratives in my previous book, Bursts, and I’ve long admired his paintings,

I beamed in astonished pride when the teacher praised me. I don’t think I was particularly gifted at physics, and I certainly wasn’t passionate about it yet. The only reason I’d earned a decent 80 percent score was because a friend of my parents’, an engineer, happened to be staying with us, and the night before the quiz he’d coached me through my