Do this exercise before you read rest of the post.
Round 1: List in 3 minutes all the head winds and tail winds in ur life.
Round 2: Them double the number of tail winds in 2 minutes.
Round 3: Double them in 2 minutes more.
Count the # of head winds and tail winds after each round.
Typically the # of head winds and # of tail winds are very similar or the former is more at the end of round 1.
At the end of three rounds, most people were surprised to remind themselves the # of tail winds in their lives. And how they underestimate them.
Why is it that people easily recognize head winds in their lives more than tail winds? When they do people mostly recognize ‘other people’ than ‘systems / environments / intangibles’ in tail winds. And vice versa in head winds.
Why this asymmetry?
Listen to this NPR talk on Why is my life so hard? or read the transcript
What do you think about this concept?
What would you do with this asymmetry?
References:
Sridhar Turaga's blog 