How many of us have wondered how much of our success or failure is due to our own efforts, and how much is due to factors beyond our control? Majority of us struggle to understand the role of luck.
Do not get me wrong.
Attitude and intentioning needs to be consistently positive, no shortcuts there. And effort needs to be sustained, exemplary and in the right direction. However, Luck is challenging, both to measure and to accept. So is risk.
As humans, we all have certain cognitive biases that make it difficult for us to accurately assess the role of luck in our lives. They also make it difficult for us to learn from our own and others’ experiences, as we tend to overestimate our own skills, especially when we are on a roll and in a successful phase, and to underestimate the influence of luck.
One of the most famous examples of how luck can influence success is the oft-repeated story of Bill Gates. Gates is widely regarded as one of the most successful entrepreneurs and philanthropists of all time, with a net worth of over $100 billion. However, his success has not been entirely due to his own genius and hard work. He also had a massive stroke of luck that significantly influenced his future.
Gates attended Lakeside School, a prestigious private school in Seattle, Washington. In 1968, when he was 13 years old, the school acquired a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for its students. This was a rare opportunity at the time, as most schools did not have access to computers. Gates was fascinated by the machine and spent hours learning how to program it. He soon became one of the best programmers in the school, along with his friend Paul Allen.
Gates and Allen continued to pursue their passion for programming throughout their high school years, taking advantage of various opportunities to access computers. They even formed a company called Traf-O-Data, which sold a device that analyzed traffic data. Their exposure to computers gave them a huge advantage over their peers, as they developed skills and knowledge that were scarce and valuable in the emerging field of software.
Gates’ attendance at Lakeside School was a stroke of luck that significantly influenced his future success. His passion and dedication to learn programming was entirely his effort. The risk he took to learn paid off. He later admitted that “If there had been no Lakeside, there would have been no Microsoft”. He also acknowledged that “I was very lucky to be exposed to software at exactly the right time”.
Here’s the math:
1968, there were approx. 303 million high-schoolers globally
~18 million lived in the US
~ 100,000 lived in Seattle area
~ 300 of them attended Lakeside School.
Gates had a 1-in-a-million chance to get such early access to a computer. The odds were the same with his class-mate, Paul Allen, who was the Microsoft co-founder. So was it for 298 others, though. Dropping out of Harvard to pursue his fledgling software venture was a gamble of monumental proportions. Gates’ decision to leave behind the security of an Ivy League education for the uncertainty of a startup exemplifies the type of risk-taking that is often necessary for groundbreaking success.
For every Bill Gates, there are countless individuals with similar talents and ambitions who never encounter the same opportunities. I believe luck adds a significant layer of humility to the understanding of success. It prompts us to acknowledge that factors beyond our control can significantly influence our outcomes.
For those of us navigating the complex waters of leadership, understanding the roles of luck and risk can foster a more nuanced approach to decision-making. It encourages us to remain vigilant and adaptable, recognizing that while we can and must control our efforts and strategies, we must also remain humble and prepared for the unpredictable tides of fortune.
Some people say luck doesn’t exist. The fact of the matter is that many of us may not notice it when we have it. We call it planning. Or talent. Or discipline. But in any complex system, when the same actions produce different results, we may be missing a crucial parameter. Could that missing parameter be luck? One gets to see toppers from colleges get ignored in job placements. And someone with an average profile meets the right contact in a hotel bar and lands a dream role. Over global travels, one has seen some brilliant musicians playing in hotel bars and lobbies while the kid of a famous personality goes viral overnight with a re-mix version done on a laptop. All in the equation of randomness. One has seen some truly talented actors do a hundred plus auditions, get rejected every time, and disappear. Someone meets a director at a party and becomes a household name.
There is huge amounts of evidence that suggests that luck plays a big role in life. A concept i refer to as “The Ovarian Lottery”. Who decides how one is born in North Korea or Afghanistan. No matter how much talent or effort or intentioning one has, life would be uphill. Geography then, by default, is defined as what? Yet, when majority of the ones born in influential and advanced environments become successful and write books, they attribute their entire success to their effort, vision and strategy.
Luck is like the wind. No one can see it, but when our boat suddenly starts moving, we attribute that to our effort and navigational skills.
Finally, acknowledging the existence or lack of luck does not take away from our story. It actually makes our story more complete. It makes one gentler and certainly less arrogant. Believing in luck does not mean one doesn’t have to put in exemplary effort and the right attitude and intentioning. It just makes us more human. And in a world that is becoming hugely unequal, being more grounded and more human might be the only thing that matters.
The second most misunderstood four-letter word is Risk. More on that in the next one………
