Never has anyone obtained information through intelligence alone

The people who end up with more information than others do so essentially because they're inside the game. Only when you're in the room can you access information no one else has. Respect human nature, respect incentives.

You may look down on your current boss, but ask yourself: if he weren't exactly the person you see today, could he have passed the assessments and landed where he is now?

Everything runs on its own hidden logic. Every path to success is stitched together differently.

There's a different set of required strengths for pulling in deposits, for handing out loans, for courting key accounts, for building trading system algorithms, for navigating boss-employee dynamics and earning deep trust. A person who passes every assessment does so because every one of those distinct strengths is sharp.

What about being smart or hardworking? Those are just baseline capabilities.

Without baseline capabilities, you're irredeemable—like Liu Shan, unable to be propped up. But having only baseline capabilities doesn't mean you'll get through. What about integrity? Integrity is just your brakes. Without them, you might go fast, but you'll also crash fast. Yet none of these things directly constitute your competitive edge.

So don't just look at where someone sits today. Think about how they climbed there step by step. What did each step demand of them? How did they clear each milestone? They were prepared well in advance.

They show up with preparation against the unprepared—and that's why they look like they're guided by fate.