What's Luck Got to Do with It?
The debate I often have with people is related to how lucky successful people are.
There seems to be a concuss that you can only be successful if you have luck on your side and to that, I love to quote Seneca: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” and in this sense, Seneca, the Roman philosopher, infers that we all have the opportunity to be lucky.
The one thing required to become lucky is to work at it.
It’s the preparation time that you would put in that will determine whether or not you will become lucky.
Usain Bolt didn’t become the fastest athlete out of luck.
He prepared, for years just to run 9 seconds!
And yes I also hear you that being in the right place at the right time relies heavily on luck.
In fact not!
Being at the right place at the right time relies on one’s ability to see and find opportunities.
Dwayne The Rock Johnson didn’t become the most highly paid individual in Hollywood by pure luck.
His famous words are “be the hardest worker in the room” is certainly true but I would like to add that hard work alone is not enough if you aren’t open to seeing and welcoming opportunities and even creating your own.
Sylvester Stalone’s iconic Rocky saga was turned down by every filmmaker.
He decided to film on his own initiative.
He created his own opportunity purely out of misfortune.
Opportunities don’t come knocking at your door and as soon as you open it’s like “Hey, I am your billion-dollar deal” or “ Haave you met the love of your life”
Take for instance Edwin Barnes; the little-known assistant of the famous Thomas Edison.
Edison is very well known for the light bulb but few people speak of Mr. Barnes’ endeavor to bring about Edisons’ audio inventions.
When Barnes entered work with Edison, he didn’t shake his hand and sign a VP of Sales at Edisso’s Audio Division contract but rather Barnes saw an opportunity for growth and he built on it.
For Edwin Barns;
“When the opportunity came, it appeared in a different form, and from a different direction than Barnes had expected. That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in the back door and often it comes disguised in the appearance of misfortune or temporary defeat, and that is why many fail to recognize opportunity”
In my opinion, luck is a byproduct of a set of ingredients mixed together in the right doses.
Those ingredients are creativity + vision + desire over consistency.
When you apply those 4 elements to anything you do in life you will notice that opportunities will come your way and that people will start to say how lucky you are!
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Written by Tarek Azmi.
Founder of Here’s Good News, a training and development company dedicated to your personal and professional growth, offering learning modules, coaching sessions, and personal training with this blog and the podcast to motivate and drive you to TAKE ACTION!
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