By Jane Sonnenschein July 21, 2026

“Success is never an isolated event. It always happens within a particular environment, with certain resources, and at a particular moment in history.” — Anonymous

We often come across stories like these.

A child shows extraordinary talent at a very young age, publishes a book as a teenager, and becomes successful and famous in their twenties. Someone from an ordinary background, with no connections or resources, manages to change their life through hard work alone. An entrepreneur starts a business in a tiny room and eventually builds a huge company. A mother looks after her children while using whatever spare moments she can find to write, and a few years later, she has built a career of her own.

These stories are not necessarily false.

The people involved may genuinely be talented, and they may have worked harder than most of us can imagine. They may have experienced failure, poverty, and self-doubt. Some may really have started with very little and gradually worked their way toward success.

The problem is that a story can be entirely true, sentence by sentence, and still leave people with a completely mistaken impression.

Because what many success stories do best is not invent things that never happened. It is leave out the conditions that others cannot easily reproduce, while keeping the results that appear to be within everyone’s reach.

I

Some time ago, while thinking again about Shang Zhongyong (伤仲永)¹, I gradually realized that our understanding of a “genius” comes not only from that person’s actual abilities, but also from the stories society later builds around them.

If a child can write poetry at an unusually young age, that certainly suggests a level of language ability beyond what most children of the same age possess. But there is a considerable distance between “this child can write poetry” and “this child becomes a famous prodigy known to everyone.” And much of what happens in between has little to do with talent itself.

First, someone has to notice the child.

That child needs to be born in a time when written records can be preserved. There must be people nearby who can read and write, someone capable of recognizing that the child’s work is unusual, and someone willing to share the story with others.

And even after the child has been noticed, someone must believe the story is worth telling.

An equally intelligent child born into a family without access to books or writing materials might have their abilities mentioned only occasionally by relatives. If the child grows up in an environment that places little value on those abilities, their efforts might even be dismissed as a waste of time.

The fact that we remember certain child prodigies from history does not necessarily mean they were the most intelligent or creative children of their time. It may simply mean they happened to become part of a social network in which their abilities could be recorded, discussed, and preserved.

The children whose stories were never recorded did not necessarily lack talent.

They simply never entered the historical record.

II

A person’s ability and their influence are not the same thing.

Ability belongs to the individual, but influence always depends on conditions beyond the individual.

Someone may be an excellent writer, but without a publisher, a platform for sharing their work, or access to readers who might appreciate it, their writing may never reach a wide audience.

On the other hand, someone’s work may not necessarily be better than everything produced by their contemporaries. Yet with better publishing opportunities, stronger connections, or a message that happens to capture the mood of the time, that person may quickly become widely known.

This is not to suggest that successful people have no ability, or that every achievement can be explained by luck and privilege.

I’ve simply become increasingly convinced that we need to separate several things we often treat as though they were the same.

Talent helps explain why someone is capable of creating something. Resources help explain why that creation has a chance to reach the wider world. And the circumstances of the time help explain why this particular person, at this particular moment, becomes visible to so many others.

These three things are connected, but they are not interchangeable.

Without ability, resources may not be enough to sustain someone’s influence over time. But ability alone, without resources or opportunities, may not be enough to carry their work beyond the boundaries of their private life.

Perhaps this is what the Chinese expression tiānshí, dìlì, rénhé² is getting at: the importance of timing, favorable conditions, and human support.

Yet when someone’s achievements are later turned into a success story, resources and historical circumstances often gradually disappear from the telling. What remains is individual talent and hard work.

As a result, the visibility created by resources is reinterpreted as evidence of personal ability. The achievements that follow from that visibility are then used to prove that the person was an unquestionable genius from the very beginning.

III

Why do we so often leave out these conditions?

One important reason is that complicated success does not make a very good story.

If we acknowledge that someone’s achievements are influenced by family resources, educational opportunities, personal connections, historical timing, physical health, geographical location, and unexpected events, the story becomes much harder to turn into a simple lesson.

Readers can no longer easily conclude, “If I do the same thing, I can succeed too.”

But a story that spreads widely usually needs to be simple enough for people to understand and remember.

He succeeded because he worked hard enough.

She succeeded because she never gave up.

That child became a genius because the parents valued education from an early age.

That ordinary person changed their life because they worked two hours longer than everyone else each day.

All these factors may genuinely have played a role. But they are only parts of a much larger chain of causes.

Once the other conditions have been removed, success begins to look like a question with one correct answer. Repeat the successful person’s actions, and you should be able to reproduce the same result.

Stories like these can give people hope and encourage them to take action, so they are not without value.

The real problem begins when someone puts in the same effort but does not achieve a similar result. The story that once seemed encouraging can suddenly turn around and judge them.

If someone else managed it, why can’t you?

Perhaps you haven’t worked hard enough.

Perhaps you didn’t really stick with it.

Perhaps you only talk about wanting to change your life, while constantly making excuses for yourself.

A story originally meant to inspire people ends up becoming a way to prove that those who haven’t succeeded are somehow not good enough.

IV

We rarely stop to ask what those apparently repeatable paths to success were actually built on.

We hear that a writer published their first book at twenty, but no one mentions that they grew up in a home filled with books, had parents who knew the publishing industry, and enjoyed enough financial security to spend years writing.

We hear that an entrepreneur started a company in a garage, but the story leaves out their strong educational background, established social connections, and the fact that they could afford to fail and still have another chance to begin again.

Or we hear that a nine-year-old child has published a book, and the story is presented as proof that age is never a limitation.

But for a nine-year-old to publish a book, adults must at least help organize the writing, find a suitable publishing platform, arrange the layout, design the cover, handle copyright matters, and take care of promotion and sales.

The child’s creativity may be entirely genuine. But the process of bringing that work to market is clearly not something a nine-year-old has completed alone.

If we tell only the part about publishing a book at nine, while leaving out the family’s investment, the technical tools, and the adults working behind the scenes, the story can easily become another source of pressure.

Look, another child has already published a book at nine. Why are you still just playing?

But perhaps the more interesting question is not why this child became successful so early. It is why the child’s ideas were taken seriously in the first place, and why the family was willing to help turn an idea into an actual book.

Talent explains why the child was able to write. Resources explain why the child was able to publish. And the circumstances of the time help explain why that child came to be presented as a remarkable young creator.

All these conditions are part of the story, yet usually only the first one remains.

V

I used to believe these stories quite easily myself.

I thought that if someone genuinely had ability, and if their work was good enough, sooner or later people would notice.

It wasn’t until I began writing regularly over a longer period that I gradually understood how many different abilities and circumstances lie between writing something good and having that work seen.

Writers need to understand how platforms work. They need to learn about titles, cover images, and ways of reaching readers. They need enough time to keep producing work, and they also need to carry on during long periods when little or no feedback arrives.

Even after a piece of writing becomes visible, whether readers stop to read it depends on many other things: how a platform distributes content, which subjects people are interested in, their reading habits, and sometimes a recommendation that happens by chance.

Someone may spend years developing a mature and thoughtful writing style, yet reach only a small number of readers because their work never finds a suitable way to circulate.

Another writer’s work may not necessarily be any more insightful, but because the topic, format, and timing happen to fit together, it may attract enormous attention in a very short time.

This doesn’t mean the second writer doesn’t deserve to be noticed, nor does it mean the first has necessarily been treated unfairly.

It simply shows that the value of a piece of work and the attention it receives are not the same thing.

Yet we live in a time when numbers are constantly used to judge value.

A high number of views seems to mean an article must be better. Having more followers seems to prove that someone is more capable. Selling more copies appears to confirm that a work has greater artistic value.

When visibility is repeatedly mistaken for ability, we gradually begin to judge ourselves by the same standards.

If nobody likes my writing, does that mean it isn’t good enough?

If nobody follows me, does that mean my ideas have no value?

If someone else succeeds much faster than I do, does that mean I was never talented in the first place?

What we forget is that the response someone receives from the wider world tells us only how many people happened to notice them on a particular platform, at a particular moment.

It cannot fully demonstrate what that person is capable of, and it certainly cannot determine their worth as a human being.

VI

Does acknowledging the conditions behind success risk becoming a way of making excuses for failure?

This is often the first concern people raise when they hear words like “resources,” “environment,” and “opportunity.”

They worry that once we begin emphasizing external circumstances, people will stop taking responsibility for their own lives and blame everything they have failed to achieve on the world around them.

That concern is not entirely unreasonable. People can indeed use broad explanations about society and its structures to avoid taking action on things they could actually change.

But recognizing the importance of circumstances does not mean denying the value of effort.

Quite the opposite. Only when we understand the conditions we are dealing with can we begin to see where our efforts might actually make a difference.

If the problem is that our work is not yet good enough, then we need to keep practicing and improving it. If the problem is a lack of ways to reach an audience, we need to learn how to make our work more visible. If we don’t have enough time, we may need to rethink how our daily lives are organized.

And if a particular path requires resources that an ordinary person simply cannot afford, perhaps the sensible thing is to adjust the goal rather than keep punishing ourselves for not having enough willpower.

Taking responsibility for our lives in a mature way doesn’t mean pretending that everyone starts from the same place. Nor does it mean believing that hard work can remove every objective limitation.

It means recognizing those limitations and then deciding what we can still do, what we are willing to take responsibility for, and which comparisons we would be better off letting go.

Effort matters, but effort is not a kind of magic that can erase real differences between people’s circumstances.

VII

Rethinking the way we tell success stories is not about destroying hope or suggesting that people’s achievements are unworthy of respect.

We simply need a more honest way of telling these stories.

Someone may succeed because they genuinely have ability, because they have worked hard over many years, and also because they had access to certain resources, met certain people, and found themselves in the right place at the right moment in history.

Acknowledging these conditions does not diminish what they have achieved.

On the contrary, it helps us understand more accurately how a person’s life came to take the shape it did.

And only when we see this fuller picture can we avoid turning someone else’s results into a judgment against ourselves. We may also stop presenting achievements that only a very small number of people could realistically attain as standards that everyone else is expected to meet.

Genuine genius is a kind of ability. But being recognized by society as a “genius” is also a story that gets told about someone.

A person may possess extraordinary ability without ever receiving that recognition. Another may become, through timing, resources, and publicity, a much more dazzling figure in the public imagination than their actual abilities alone would suggest.

Of course, we can admire successful people and learn from their experiences.

But before trying to follow the same path, perhaps we should first ask ourselves: Which conditions have been included in this story, and which have quietly been left out?

Because many success stories don’t lie.

They simply leave out the conditions that mattered most, and that are often the hardest for anyone else to reproduce.

---

Notes

1. Shāng Zhòngyǒng (伤仲永)

Shang Zhongyong, often translated as On Zhongyong, is a classical Chinese prose essay by Wang Anshi (王安石, 1021–1086), a writer and statesman of the Song dynasty.

The essay tells the story of Fang Zhongyong, a boy from an ordinary family who displayed an extraordinary ability to compose poetry at a very young age, despite having received no formal education. His father began taking him around to impress others rather than ensuring that he received a proper education. As Zhongyong grew older, his remarkable early abilities gradually faded, until he was no longer noticeably different from other people.

The essay has long been used in Chinese education to discuss the relationship between natural talent, learning, and upbringing. In this article, the reference also raises a related question: why some gifted children become known to history while others remain invisible.

2. Tiānshí, dìlì, rénhé (天时、地利、人和)

This traditional Chinese expression refers to three kinds of favorable conditions: tiānshí (天时), the right timing or circumstances; dìlì (地利), advantages provided by one’s location or environment; and rénhé (人和), cooperation, relationships, and support from other people.

The expression has roots in classical Chinese thought and is commonly used to explain why success often depends on more than individual effort. It suggests that timing, circumstances, and human relationships can work together to make something possible.

In the context of this essay, it captures the idea that talent and hard work matter, but their results are also shaped by opportunities, resources, and the social conditions in which a person lives.

This essay is also available in other languages:

Chinese version: 很多成功故事，并没有撒谎，只是删掉了前提

German version: Viele Erfolgsgeschichten lügen nicht – sie lassen nur die Voraussetzungen weg