🎨 The Spray Tan Fallacy: what successful people do isn’t necessarily what made them successful

In May 2013 I coined the term “Spray Tan Fallacy” in a blogpost on the ReferralCandy blog. It’s a fairly simple and sticky idea, and it appears to have some lasting power – probably because it’s always relevant.

It’s also been mentioned in a 2017 blogpost by Tim Metz, and in another 2017 blogpost by David Fallarme.

I have found myself referencing it in conversations on Twitter:

• X succeeded and did Y, therefore you have to do Y to succeed like X
• wealthy people invest in real estate therefore you should invest in real estate to get wealthy
• big tech companies are dysfunctional therefore you should have a dysfunctional culture to become a big tech company