The Part of Success We Don’t Like to Admit
This is one of the things I’ve changed my mind about the most.
Success demands talent, uncompromising work ethic, discipline, and a degree of relentlessness. But it also comes with something we choose not to accept - luck.
Our reflections on life often go like this. Most failures are due to things beyond our control while all wins are our own doing.
Why don’t we agree that luck is a factor? Part of it is ego. The rest is our belief that merit alone explains success. We earned it, right? That’s certainly what I believed until my journey exposed me to others.
Where you start in life matters. Who you are born to and where you are born are two of the most critical factors in where you ultimately end up. You have no control over either.
The same is true in careers. How important are a good company, a caring boss or sponsor, or being thrown into a visible project that truly matters to the business? And how much influence do we really have over any of these? I was lucky in ways I once attributed purely to merit.
You may be the most talented and hardest-working person, but if you start far behind others, there is little chance you will catch up. And if you do, good fortune likely played a role.
Pick any field. Startups, sports, music, or business. Almost every outlier has a story, and that story includes crucial breaks when the stars aligned.
This doesn’t mean sitting back and leaving everything to chance. We must give it everything we have, no matter the situation. But if we do end up successful, there’s nothing wrong in accepting that luck played an outsized role.
In the end, many successful people are lottery winners. Even if they dislike admitting it.
Acknowledging luck doesn’t weaken ambition. It strengthens humility.