A scientist’s career can be seen as an unforgiving and steep climb towards a faculty position. Those who reach the top are highly celebrated. But, the struggles of those who don’t are rarely discussed and often dismissed as personal failure.

The first sentence in the title may not mean much to you unless you are Italian. If you are Italian, it will remind you of a 1980 hit song by Gianni Morandi, one of the most iconic singers in the history of Italian pop music. "Uno su mille ce la fa" literally means “Only one in a thousand makes it”. This song is about the difficulty of achieving success and, at the same time, glorifies the value of persistence and resilience: the climb is tough, but life itself is at stake, making the overall effort to reach the top meaningful. The song mirrors the reality scientists face: it highlights the harsh truths of (perceived) success and the crucial role of persistence and resilience in overcoming these challenges.

There are at least two pervasive assumptions about a scientist's career. The first is that the trajectory is linear, akin to the climb described in Morandi’s song. It conventionally begins with a master’s degree, a PhD, and then one or more postdoctoral jobs, culminating in the long-sought-after faculty position. But is this the only path to success? I have already examined the perils of considering the scientist’s career as a linear path, with a distinct arrival in the article “So, do you want to be a PI?”. There, I discussed the so-called “illusion of arrival”, which hits every time we reach a career goal (regardless of where we are in the climb). Reaching what appears to be the long-sought career goal quickly reveals yet another ascent ahead. Adding to the challenge is the continuous pressure and constant loneliness accompanying high achievement. The higher you climb, the more isolated you often become, as there's immense pressure to succeed and continue surpassing expectations. Paraphrasing Novak Djokovic, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, the pressure intensifies at the top because failure is no longer an option. The higher you go, the harder it becomes. This relentless pressure often overshadows the fulfilment that should come with reaching the top. In addition, whether the infamous PI position provides the best avenue to do groundbreaking science is questionable. PIs are often torn between managerial, administrative, and political matters that have little to do with science. So, the idea that success, i.e. achieving the top, means securing a faculty position is flawed. Challenging this conventional view of career linearity and success is the first step to avoiding cognitive biases and frustrations.

The second assumption, much more insidious, is that hard work equals success – in this case, a tenured faculty position. It creates a beautiful narrative of self-made achievement for those at the top. Yet, it also sets a dangerous precedent, implying that those who don’t make it simply didn’t work hard enough. This narrative is the epitome of the American (or Italian, in this context) dream – the emerging ethos of our societies that every person has the freedom and opportunity (and maybe even the duty) to succeed and attain a better life. It is also based on the “achievement ideology”, the belief that one reaches a socially perceived definition of success through hard work, and extrinsic factors such as economic and social background or geography, to name a few, are secondary to hard work and altogether irrelevant in the pursuit of success. In other words, the belief in meritocracy. As Morandi says in this song, “Puoi solo contare su di te” – “you can only count on yourself”.

Whether it's in science, music, or entrepreneurship, numerous top achievers describe their journeys as incredibly challenging. Many started with nothing and relied on sweat, tears, hard work, and countless sleepless nights. The path to success is demanding, regardless of the field. For a chef, it involves time spent in the kitchen. Musicians may spend endless nights perfecting their craft. For a scientist, this often means long hours in the lab, maybe after years of failure. You will hear their tortuous success stories from the many Nobel Prize winners’ biographies. These inspiring lives drive many people to “climb" a career in science. However, we ignore the bare truth, and this is where Morandi’s song is revealing: only one in a thousand will eventually make it*. These stories are as rare as their central character. We often overlook that this statistic isn't just a figure of speech – it reflects the harsh realities many in the scientific community face. Rather than seeing these success stories as rare events, we treat them as attainable goals for everyone. This mindset glorifies the winners and places undue blame on the majority who don’t reach the top, questioning the entire endeavour: more and more people realise that the chances of reaching the top are becoming slimmer with the pyramid wider at the base (number of students) and narrower at the top (number of faculty positions). Also, how do we justify the hardness of the journey when part of the “American dream” ethos blames individuals for failing to achieve? Finally, what happens to the dropouts who couldn't reach the emblematic top no matter how hard they worked? This narrative has some severe weaknesses.

The first problem with the “climb” metaphor resonates with the “invisible backpack” issue I recently described here. While one could think that we all have the same possibility to embark on the climb, our potential is not limitless and is much more limited than we think. Based on what is described in that article and extensively explained by Robert Sapolsky in his book Determined, our intrinsic abilities (including resilience and perseverance, I would argue) are often predetermined and further shaped by external cues that are not under our control. In other words, no matter how hard we work, we will reach our physical, mental, or social limits, which could compromise the climb at any point. Ignoring these limits has critical consequences for our lives. As nicely put by Gabor Maté in his book The Myth of Normal, societal expectations often fail to account for individual differences, leading to a homogenized view of success that can be toxic to our emotional well-being.

Even in the best-case scenario that one has all the appropriate characteristics to reach the top, other factors that could sabotage this climb come into play. The carrot that keeps us moving forward along the ride is the myth of meritocracy, i.e., the idea that our merit will be rewarded at some point. While it is likely that the one in a thousand who made it to the top deserves it, we shouldn’t think that all the other 999 that “failed” did not. Having participated in this climb for over 20 years, I know this too well. After years of dedication, a postdoc project might fail, limiting the chances of getting a good paper. Due to unforeseen delays, a researcher might miss the eligibility window for competitive grants. A tenure-track PI might miss out on promotion because key papers weren’t published in time. Many colleagues who have not managed to take a position, grant, or award often did so not because of lack of merit but because of reasons unrelated to their excellence, mostly sheer luck (or lack of it; this is what I like to think for myself, too). There is another issue: academia is permeated by “intergenerational persistence”, a phenomenon whereby the success of one generation of scientists may depend on the previous one (i.e., the success of your boss). Luck and pedigree aside, reaching the top is a worthy goal but shouldn’t be the only measure of a successful career. But is not reaching the long-sought-after top a failure? It’s time to broaden our definition of success in science. We should celebrate the contributions of those who advance knowledge at every level, mentor the next generation, or persevere in the face of challenges – even if they don’t become chairs or, in the “best-case scenario”, Nobel laureates. This means recognizing that success can take many forms and that the journey, with all its ups and downs, is what matters. Eventually, success is much more about self-accomplishment than reaching a top from which one may not like the view.

Morandi’s "Uno su mille ce la fa" reminds us that not everyone will reach the top. While this song was seen almost as a hymn for the new generation to try harder and be the one in a thousand, it can also remind us that we shouldn’t diminish the value of the climb. Making this practical for whoever wants to start this beautiful career: always give your best effort, but remember that hard work, while necessary, is not sufficient to reach your goals**. And, as Morandi said in this song, “la vita e’ una marea” – life is ebb and flood: there are too many factors that we can’t control that eventually contribute to this climb. Also, we shouldn’t portray only the image of the lone Nobel Prize winner as our ultimate goal, but rather that science is a profession that takes many shapes and paths. And many of them can fulfil us. By supporting each other and acknowledging diverse forms of success, we can create a more inclusive and realistic scientific community – one that values every contribution, not just those from the one in a thousand who make it.

*Actually, this 1/1000 statistic is a bit harsher than reality. According to a (possibly outdated) report, only 3.5% of students who complete a PhD secure a permanent research position at a university. Of those, only 12% (or 0.45% of the total) make it to the professor level.

**The concept of hard work is also subjective, which can create even more problems with this simple statement. Progress in science is obtained through experiments, and hard work eventually boils down to the number of successful experiments in the unit of time. For PI, this is even more complex to calculate. Maybe we need an article to cover this.

I thank Stefano Pluchino and Alessandra Stangherlin for the discussion and critical feedback.

Top image of post: by Peter Chou from Pixabay