Two individual heads are better than one.
No matter how great, intelligent, rare, gifted, and/or unique any individual is, the balance of two individual heads will always be greater than one individual. While many individuals in history have and will continue to be at the forefront of their industry, the other individual/individuals who contributed to that success are more rarely seen yet they have an outsized impact on what the public sees in general terms.
I would like to bring focus to focus and what it means in terms of balance. Single focus awards and recognition such as the Grammy’s, the Nobel Prize, or the Pulitzer Prize often paint an incomplete picture of how exemplary individuals attain the highest achievements and honors in the world. This myopic framework fails to take into account the other individual(s) who made the achievement possible. We’re often presented only with the figurehead. While they may be impressive on their own, the number of people who truly “make it” in any discipline by themselves is so small and rare as to be inconsequential. Effectively all successful individuals got to where they got because they were part of a team. That team could be two people or 200 people, but it took a team nonetheless.
Here are a few examples:
- We recognize a handful of faces and names in the movies we enjoy, but every major movie you’ve ever watched had dozens of people that you’ve never heard of (from studio executives to financiers to writers to stunt artists to editors) without whom the film would not be possible. This applies even to subcategories such as writing teams, not to mention the literary authors on whose work many current television and film projects are based. A great example is the film Avatar. Most people know that Avatar — the highest grossing film of all time — was created by James Cameron but cannot name a single one of the over 2,000 special effects and visual effects artists that arguably made the movie what it was.
- Your favorite song probably sounds nothing like your favorite song when you take away the arrangement, production, mixing, mastering, and supporting instrumentals (not to mention the managers, promoters, and distributors who got it into your ears). Another example in this industry is musical groups. While it’s common for only the lead singer of a band to be well known and even to gain “solo artist” status, these artists have bandmates who are foundational in co-writing and performing their musical canon while remaining relatively anonymous (i.e. Eric Clapton and the members of Cream, Sting and the members of The Police, Frank Sinatra and The Rat Pack, Toots Hibbert and the original Maytals Band, etc.). Furthermore, iconic songs like “White Christmas” performed by Bing Crosby were not written by the artist at all but by songwriters and composers (in this case, Irving Berlin) who very few know exist. The great Whitney Houston would not be “Whitney Houston” without her discography, yet she did not write any of the hit songs that define her career.
- Nearly all of the most successful businesses of the modern era all involve one public leader we all know and at least one private leader who contributed equally if not more so to the business (i.e. Apple (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak), Uber (Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp), Microsoft (Bill Gates and Paul Allen), Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes), and Tesla whose founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, were already in business 5 years before Elon Musk came aboard as CEO).
These consistent examples appear nearly everywhere you look, proving that two (or more) heads are, indeed, better than one. In my view, focus must then be understood in terms of a duality existing in the mono of the individual. There is always an individual/core group of individuals behind every single publicly accomplished individual.
This past Thursday I had the opportunity to witness an historic Harvard Graduation Ceremony when my sister was among the graduating class. What made this particular ceremony especially poignant was the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, in attendance as the keynote speaker. She spoke about current affairs in a relatable, relevant, emotionally in-touch manner. This represented the tone of the entire ceremony from the shocking diversity displayed to the accountability taken by Harvard on all levels pertaining to its history in direct contrast to its future. It took more than who we saw at the podium on that historic occasion to have such accomplished individuals on that stage.
In my specific case, finishing university was not my path. I didn’t have the persistence in formal educational settings to get to a graduation ceremony beyond high school (and even then my motivation was my parents who have sacrificed their lives and well-being to make sure we always had what we needed). I never had the strength to overcome my doubts in terms of the higher education system and its blind spots. I have never and will never be able to change my Behavioral RNA™️ in any regard, including this one. That is why I’m grateful every day for my sibling who has managed to do and accomplish everything I could not. Her courage, discipline, fortitude, and mental strength are up there with the top leaders of the world in scale and, tangibly, in scope. Therefore the admiration, pride, and respect I have for all she’s accomplished go beyond what she’s gained and resides in what she’s become as a graduate of the prestigious Harvard university.
As a separate and very different individual than me, she has proven to the world (but, most importantly, to herself) that she is not only enough but one of the best to ever do it. Her unique accomplishment also underwrites the point in that she herself could not have achieved what she did without our parents, her mentors, and the institutions where she worked and got her education.
Do you have a friend, associate, parent, extended family member, teammate, or sibling that proves the theory of two heads being better than one?
