Mark Zuckerberg isn't Mark Zuckerberg

Seth Godin is rightest when he's wrong. Or wrongest when he's right.

Here's his latest:

Mark Zuckerberg isn't Mark Zuckerberg

"Mark Zuckerberg" has become a codeword for the truly gifted exception, the wunderkind freak of nature for whom traditional rules don't apply.

Well, sure, Mark Zuckerberg can drop out of Harvard, but you're not Mark Zuckerberg...

Here's the thing: Even Mark isn't Mark Zuckerberg.

This notion that there's a one in a billion alignment of DNA and experience that magically creates an exception is just total nonsense. Mark is successful because of a million small choices, not because he, and he alone, has some magical properties.

Mostly, the best way to be the next Mark Zuckerberg is to make difficult choices.

But the difference between anything and anything else is an aggregate of a million small choices! Everything you or I do - and everything we are - stems from that aggregate. Magic - an alignment of myriad small choices - is precisely what makes Zuckerberg "special". A "one in a billion alignment."

Yes, anyone could do equally well by making a plethora of canny nano-choices. Similarly, anyone could play like Paganini by carefully choosing their hand movements.

The deepest question is: what drives us to make the choices we do? We can't discuss that without getting all yoga. For one thing, scientists still have no idea what consciousness is.