Luck
I often hear interviewers ask successful people what percentage of luck they attribute to their success. And I have never heard anybody to give the correct answer, which is 100%. Results are driven by luck. Whatever you have achieved in your life all happened because you got lucky. I want to prove my point with the following thought experiment. Imagine we're flipping a theoretical fair coin. It has a 50% chance of landing Heads up and a 50% chance of landing Tails up. We pick Tails, and we win. Would you say we got lucky? Imagine it came Heads and we lost. Would you say we got unlucky in this case? I hope we all agree that this result is purely driven by luck — nothing we can do to influence the outcome. But there are no fair coins in real life. Real life is not fair. Fairness of life is in the fact that it's indiscriminately unfair to everyone. Let's imagine we're flipping a digital coin now. We're able to adjust odds which we set at Tails: 51% and Heads: 49%. We pick Tails and win. Would you say we got lucky? If we lose, would you say we got unlucky? What if we set odds at 70:30? Aren't we lucky when we win? And unlucky when we lose? How about 99 to 1? If we say we got unlucky to lose in this scenario, it means we got lucky to win when odds where 99% in our favour. If you disagree with this, please tell me at which odds exactly we stop being lucky to win? If the result is uncertain (like everything in real life), we only succeed because we get lucky.
What does this mean? Does it mean we should stop trying and stop working to put our efforts towards achieving the desired outcome? No. We need to realise that we spend our efforts to improve our odds of success. That's all we can do. Improve our odds and let the luck to define the outcome. That's just a change in a mindset, but it has a considerable effect.
Realise how lucky you are. You are lucky to succeed in putting your shoes on. You are lucky to wake up this morning. There will be a day in a not too distant future when this will not happen. You got lucky your heart didn't stop while you were sleeping. You got lucky nuclear explosion didn't evaporate your body. Appreciate it. Be grateful for how lucky you are. If you're reading this, chances are you are in the top few percents of wealthiest people in the world. How much luck did it take for this to happen? Be grateful and work on improving your odds. That's all you can do. Improve your odds by 1% every day, and you will get an enormous effect due to the compounding. Stop worrying about failures. It's pointless because the results are out of your control anyway. Practice this mindset, and you get tremendous benefits and improve your life significantly.
'Chance favours the prepared mind', quote by Louis Pasteur comes to mind as I read your article. :-)
Gary Player said The harder I practice the luckier I get....So very true
I think Thomas Jefferson is a little too poetic for my tastes. I think that the real definition of luck is positive events that are out of our control (i.e. random). By working, you are slowly increasing your locus of control by either gaining new skills and knowledge or building relationships with others. The more you control (applying your skills or influencing others), the less random things are. Therefore, you can make positive outcomes rather than rely on them happening randomly. Or in other words, you are relying less on luck and more on your own abilities. For example, we don’t rely on luck that a software system will just work. We apply solid engineering principles in its design and implementation and we get it tested.