Who Wins the AI Race? Probably Not Who You Think – Former Bain Capital Executive Mark Nunnelly

It's interesting hearing you reflect on your work that luck seems to be a central theme.

Like, when you think about the success that you had and how caveating, hey, a lot of it was luck, and your motivation to get into government, and, "Hey, I got lucky, and we need to help other people get lucky too." I'd love to hear you reflect more on luck.

Is there, is there anything that people can do to increase their luck? Or is it, or when you say luck, is it just what you get out of the bag?

Yeah, I think, I think you heard me say other things as well, though.

Hard, hard work, I think is an important ingredient.

Sure.

Talent, uh, you know, being honest with yourself about what you're really good at, um, which I think people have a hard time doing.

I think they, they have impressionistic views of, of the things that they'd like to be good at, but that sometimes can be different than the things they are good at.

Hmm.

Can you say more about that?

Sure.

You know what? The, the, there's a popular wisdom that you should follow your passion, uh, that that sh- that should be your, your guiding light.

And that, I, I think that's, that's a good instinct, but I, I wish we could put an asterisk next to that in that, that conventional wisdom and say, "Yes, and..." You need to, especially in today's world where everything is impressionistic, we, we have such images a- that surround us and bombard us all the time about who we would like to be.

Mm.

Um, and therefore, it becomes pretty noisy, uh, as to really stopping and being honest with yourself about the things that you really are quite differential, uh, in doing.

And so follow your passion and, um, and think about the things that you really have, uh, unique capabilities or feel inclined to, uh, evolve toward because you've been successful at.

You know, lots of different ways to describe that.

And I think if you get that right, then that begins to inform where luck begins to, uh, luck begins to happen.

Mm.

And, and I guess the, the other thing I would say is I, I, I think luck is, uh, is another way of describing bring some humility to, uh, you know, I accomplished almost everything I did with teams.

I accomplished almost everything I did because I happened to join an, an industry in its really early stages.

And the combination of all those things are all the things I just described, hard work, talent, but have the humility to appreciate that some piece of that is not just you.

I wanna circle back on your correction of follow your passions, 'cause I'm, I'm hearing another layer to it, which is follow the things that you are inherently good at.

Uh, yes, follow your passions, but the real caveat that I find fascinating is make sure they're your passions, right? Because you might-- That's right.

You might, through that, that noise, be following someone else's passion, but it might not be truly resonant.