We favor a look at success due to a phenomenon known as "survival bias," which causes our brains to ignore anything but what went right. For example, we look to old people on advice for living a long life when we should really examine those who died early to learn what to avoid.
It is often easy to do. After any process that leaves behind survivors, the non-survivors are often destroyed or muted of removed from your view. If failures become invisible, then naturally you will pay more attention attention to success. Not only do you fail to recognize that what is missing might have important information, you fail to recognize that there is missing information at all. You must remind yourself that when you start to pick apart winners and losers, successes and failures, the living and the dead, that by paying attention to one side of that equation you are always neglecting the other.
whenever you're looking at why someone succeeded, consider their mistakes and the mistakes of others on the same quest for success. Don't focus narrowly on their path and what they did, but rather open to other experiences. You must look at the entire picture because if you don't you miss the lesson altogether.
