The Iceberg Illusion: What People See Vs What They Don’t

Ace Green
4 min readJun 23, 2016

I came across this illustration and it really struck me. There is this glamour around success that only appears when you have already made it. People like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook reap the rewards of this success.

But what about what people do NOT see?

Sacrifice

Whether you quit your stable, high paying job to peruse your dream or already have a business running but have to sacrifice luxuries to keep it running. Success always comes with some sort of sacrifice.

Failure

The iceberg illusion would have you believe those that made it, never went through failure. But time and time again we are proven that’s not true. The story of how Apple was founded and Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple are a great example of that.

Disappointment

This usually comes after failure and often even in between the various stages. You create a product but it doesn’t become a hit. Or you are extremely close to a new feature but get stuck. Or you release a product and receive bad reviews. Disappointment is part of the game, one thats never all rosy.

Persistence

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Ace Green

I dabble around in the FinTech space - Like travel, music, golf and fishing - Looking to leave a mark on the world - The guy behind @StockSwipe @ChronicTimer