Headline is arguable for some. Let me rephrase it: For anyone who succeeds, their outcomes don’t need to be completely aligned with their inputs. The reason: We are notoriously bad at differentiating between skill and luck. Stories of success tend to downplay the role of luck; stories of failure tend to overplay the role of luck. Similarly we tend to think of ourselves in that regard; good outcome? I’m a genius, bad outcome? I’m unlucky.
It takes a big deal of thought to measure the attribution between luck and hard work. Is it true the saying that “the harder you work the luckier you get”? And do all people who put in hard work end up being lucky?
I don’t believe I suffer from imposter syndrome yet sometimes I consider myself lucky, all things considered. But that made me curious to understand how luck works and why does it feel like being lucky is much more than what it seems. No one can claim they got favorable outcomes because they are lucky nor can they claim they did so because they just got the skill.
Luck is repetitions
So it turns out the answer is: preparation + opportunity. The most successful people develop an attitude of constant preparing. They’re always preparing in the background, without necessarily having an end goal from the process. They do the trivial work, with great magnitudes, so that when an opportunity is presented, they’re ready for it. Having money, network, reputation & trust credit are things that you can work on everyday without an end goal, they upgrade your social status without having to announce a specific output to the world.
“Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.” - Serena Williams
In fact, much of what we call “luck” is actually the macro result of 1,000s of micro actions. Your daily habits put you in a position where “luck” is more likely to strike. Our choices compound, both positively and negatively. This compounding makes the most significant difference in our lives.
This effect is prevalent in business, sports, investing, and relationships – People can achieve success through an opportunity only because of the prep they did prior to it. The repetitions they put in. That’s why I started with saying it’s true that inputs & outputs of success can be weakly-tied. In fact we see it everyday. I call this preparation process “Stacking Luck”.
Luck is good fortune. Let me explain why: Stacking luck is doing things that are generally not attributed to a specific output, but often work as great utilities in multiple situations & settings. These are things that increase your luck surface area! And bigger luck surface area is what can turn anything you touch into gold. Down the line, and with enough stack, it makes you don’t need to worry at every place you step your foot in, because with enough luck, it almost ALWAYS works out. Non-intuitive, I know. But not really, because the concept is really brought over from calculus lol. At the infinity of luck, NOTHING doesn’t work out. Ever wondered why those who achieve top-tier success are always privileged? It’s normal, the math works out.
BUT if you find people that can get lucky all the time, it’s certainly not about luck. They are doing something that you’re not aware of or not seeing.
So before you think success is built on privilege it’s critical to note that luck is zero-sum. Privileged people can’t just get luck out of nowhere. It can be that they built close relationships with the right people, or their family worked their asses off, or they positioned themselves in the right place or at the right time, but it’s always something, it can’t be nothing!
Although there is certainly luck that is uncontrollable—pure and raw: Where you are born, who you are born to, and the base circumstances of your life all fall into this category of luck.
I remember this dialogue by Harvey Specter from Suits:
“The odds were stacked against me. I won anyway. Because I win.”“You won because Edward Darby came forward. You got lucky.”
“Guys like you always think other people get lucky. I don’t get lucky. I make my own luck.”
I watched this back in 2017; since then I’m fascinated by the fact that someone can coin their own luck, and have what backs up an abundance of it.
In September I was attending a tech event, presenting there was an associate professor & investor, one of the thought leaders in the startup ecosystem in Egypt, he started his talk with these words: “I need you to never underestimate the role of luck in what you do”.
How to Stack Luck
And so within your journey, there are always things you can do that can help you stack more luck and optimize for success. Of course there’s variability in what you can do depending on which space you’re in, but these are some common things that are widely believed to help you regardless of your line of work — These are just luck boosters for your life:
1. Be the dumbest in the room
Once you’re in the room, talk less and listen more. Bad for your ego, great for your luck. Good things tend to happen in this type of rooms.
2. Hang out with optimists
In the book “48 Laws of Power”, law #10 states:
“Avoid the unhappy & avoid the unlucky” — “You can die from someone else’s misery; emotional states are as infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.”
Also remember: Pessimists sound smart, optimists get rich.
3. Always show up
When faced with two paths, choose the path that puts you in the arena —where collisions happen. Furthermore, surround yourself with people who are also in the arena. Side-walkers never get lucky.
It’s quite curious, because you often don’t realize “It’s great I showed up” until afterhand. So when you’re calculating your odds, it’s often something like: Should I show up & bet there’s a great opportunity waiting for me? or should I save time/energy & pray there was nothing for me anyway? Answer is you’ll never know, that’s why winners are contagious, you see them everywhere.
It’s relatively easier to get lucky when you’re engaging with people, interacting, and learning —in physical or digital worlds.
4. Write in public
Writing is one of the few things that enable you to make new friends while you’re asleep. It’s considered the #1 passive network builder. You literally share ideas into the world, waiting for similar-minded people to resonate with & reach out. As your web grows, connections —and luck— compound accordingly. Furthermore, there are no qualifications or requirements to get started with writing, just energy.
I’m a firm believer writing is an outcome for a big % of things we generally do everyday. One of my favorite articles on the topic is “How to Maximize Serendipity” by David Perell: https://perell.com/essay/serendipity/
5. Talk to strangers
New relationships spark new ideas, insights, and opportunities. These compound just as well as any financial investment.
“There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.” - William Butler Yeats
Last year I was invited to a lux dinner on a yacht in the middle of the Nile, I barely knew anyone there, except for maybe 2-3 people. I remember when I was there some stranger came & sat beside me, he said: “Hey, I don’t think I’ve met you yet” — It was a slick ice-breaker + It communicates that he already knew most people there or have met a bunch already.
I’ve been using this technique in social settings since then. It establishes that you’re a social and not a creep.
6. Send more cold emails & messages
Shooters shoot. To your surprise you never know when an important exec is going to reply to your email, because most actually do, and in some cases this can be a door to a golden opportunity.
Cold messages do wonders.
7. Embrace the unexpected
You should spend your 20s saying yes to almost everything.
Saying yes puts you into uncomfortable situations that often lead to new relationships, opportunities, and growth. These unexpected moments are luck-rich. Embracing them is how you capitalize.
This is complementary to “Always show up”.
8. Engage in good faith
You don’t have to be a sneak in order to network. You can always offer value to receive value. If you can just focus on delivering easy value to as much people as possible, there’s no way around luck.
MJ & the Bulls
The documentary “The Last Dance” shows a peek into the rise of the 1990s Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, one of the most notable dynasties in sports history. The documentary dives into MJ’s training & preparation: 12 hours worth of work everyday on the craft. Legendary work ethic. Non-rivaled.
His early coach Joy Williams, recalled a story of when young MJ first joined his team, he said: “He wanted to get better and then he had the ability to get better.” — “I’m going to show you. Nobody will ever work as hard as I work.” Williams says Jordan told him.
Years later, MJ & the Bulls win six championships & proceed to write what’s considered one of the best stories anyone can tell. Now what’s the role of luck in that? This story draws the line between the definition of luck as “sheer coincidence” versus “long preparation”. Both translate to the word “luck”, but only one of them is guaranteed to grant you magical outcomes.
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