On Luck

Most people believe that hard work and aptitude lead to success, that is wealth and or fame. While these talents are no doubt required, the problem with this thought is that there are many, many hardworking capable people who do not succeed. The difference between the two groups is luck, or chance.

This starts with your birth. Lucky people are born in the developed world to wealthy and successful parents. Unlucky people are born in impoverished conditions where success will be difficult.

The reason luck is not considered as part of success is because successful people want to believe that they alone are responsible. The following quote from journalist E. B. White is apposite:

“Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.”

There are a number of studies that show the influence of luck in a person’s success. One of the more interesting is by Pluchino, Raspisarsda and Biondo, the first two being Italian physicists, the latter an economist. See link to the paper below.

In brief. they built a model which took a number of individuals with varying talent (intelligence, skil, motivation etc.) and exposed them to lucky and unlucky events. The chart below shows some of the results.

Evolution of Success for the Most Successful and Least Successful Individuals. Credit: Pluchino, Biondo, & Rapisarda 2018

They discovered the expected pareto distribution, that is a few people hold most of the world’s wealth. But more importantly, as shown above, those exposed to good luck did vastly better than those exposed to bad luck. In the chart above the more talented, but unlucky, individual has no success at all, whereas the less talented, but lucky, individual does exceedingly well.

But in the real world very few believe in the role of luck. In large part this is because it requires admitting that they do not control their destiny. So, you get quotes such as the following by Benjamin Franklin:

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

I shall conclude with one of the best quotes on luck I have read, by Hunter S Thompson:

“Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many can keep their balance on it.”