You're right that a lot of outcome comes from past experience. I don't think a resourceful person riding a bike for the first day can be nearly as good as a non-resourceful person who's been riding for decades. So outcome isn't purely a function of past experience.
But let's take a group of people who have the same experience in a domain. Then I would define resourcefulness as the component of outcome that depends on the person, specifically how much self-drive the person has, and how much the person can leverage the tools in his or her situation.
Resourcefulness, as define this way, I think is some part skill. You have to be intelligent enough to put the match and sandpaper together to start a fire. Part of it is tolerance for being burned -- it's much harder to cold call a VC if to you it's personally painful to be told to shove off. And as pg mentioned in previous essays, the last part is determination. Resourcefulness is inherently related to schlepp and you won't schlepp unless you really, really, care about the problem.
Basically, I think you're right in that some situations really benefit those who've seen it before. But at the same time, to dismiss the effort and self-ambition of the person isn't quite right either.
But let's take a group of people who have the same experience in a domain. Then I would define resourcefulness as the component of outcome that depends on the person, specifically how much self-drive the person has, and how much the person can leverage the tools in his or her situation.
Resourcefulness, as define this way, I think is some part skill. You have to be intelligent enough to put the match and sandpaper together to start a fire. Part of it is tolerance for being burned -- it's much harder to cold call a VC if to you it's personally painful to be told to shove off. And as pg mentioned in previous essays, the last part is determination. Resourcefulness is inherently related to schlepp and you won't schlepp unless you really, really, care about the problem.
Basically, I think you're right in that some situations really benefit those who've seen it before. But at the same time, to dismiss the effort and self-ambition of the person isn't quite right either.