CDZ You Feel Lucky?

[LoneLaugher]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

 

[Elvis Obama]

The denial of luck is due exclusively to the desire for self aggrandizement. To the conscious myth making that people indulge in about themselves. Nowadays we call it building your brand. Mt. Trump is a genius! He started out with only a "small million dollar loan" from his father! A true self-made man!

Where does luck fit into a narrative like that? It was hard work and talent, and nothing more, they claim. Our culture is fundamentally dishonest in so many ways.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

Human beings have an inborn need to feel powerful. Giving any credit to luck for any success is like mentally giving away your power. People that are not balanced and stable can't do it.

 

[320 Years of History]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

 

[LoneLaugher]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Excellent cliche. But it really doesn't scratch the surface, does it? And...is the "opportunity" not simply luck?

 

[320 Years of History]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Excellent cliche. But it really doesn't scratch the surface, does it? And...is the "opportunity" not simply luck?

In some cases it is, in others it is not. I don't discount the role luck; neither do I overvalue it.

Luck is about the odds of being lucky. The whole point of the saying/cliche is to say that preparation is the thing that increases the odds of one's being lucky. For example, consider the following career path:

1. Go to school and do well (3.5 GPA or higher)
2. Get accepted to a college/university and attend it.
3. Plan on declaring one a major, but upon discovering that one likes a different and previously unexplored discipline more, select that new discipline as one's major.
4. Discover that the leading companies in one's chosen field offer internships.
5. Call the firms to ask what you need to do to get an internship with them and speak impressively (conversation shows maturity, personality, responsibility and intellect across multiple dimensions) with the internship recruiter(s).
6. The recruiter(s) tells you that you've impressed them to the point that they don't feel the need to do an in-person interview and that if you want the internship they have, it's yours, and you accept it.
7. Take the internship, perform well at it, and get offered a job that you will begin upon completion of your senior year in college provided you maintain your level of performance there.
8. You graduate well from college too (3.8 GPA or higher) and begin working a few weeks afterwards.
9. You perform well at your work, so the company offers to fund your MBA if you'd like to pursue one at one of their approved schools of business, but you'll have to work for them for thee more years after graduating if you accept the offer.
10. You accept the offer and get your MBA and again graduate among the top of your class.
11. You return to the company and fulfill your obligation, and in the course of doing so, rise to the upper tier of mid-level management in the company.
12. Out of the blue a recruiter calls and asks if you're interested in speaking with a competing company about a position there.
13. You agree to meet and have the conversation about switching employers.
14. After the meeting you receive an offer that triples your already good salary that you negotiate up to 3.5 times your current salary.
15. You accept the offer.
16. You continue to be a high performer.
17. Seeing your high performance, your superiors promote you and allow you to direct/grow your career and company fortunes accruing from that growth the way you want.
18. At this point you are now on "easy street" in pretty much all respects: you have an excellent career, you conduct your personal and professional life as you see fit rather than as others want you to, etc.
    • You may now be something of a maverick, so long as the results you produce prevent anyone from being able to complain too forcefully because when you are involved on something, everyone wins, and that's what your track record of the past 25+ years has shown. So when folks work with you, they know what they are getting, and though they may dislike some aspects of it, they know overall their expectations as go what they like and want are going to be exceeded.
    • You work on engagements you want to and don't have a thing (short of the occasional, where needed management review or oversight) to do with the ones you don't want to.
    • You develop a reputation among clients in a couple industries as being one of several "go to" guys for a given type of work.
    • You work as much/as hard as you want to work to meet the goals you set for yourself, which are always higher than those your company sets for you.

In the sequence of events and outcomes above, where's the luck and where's the preparation? I've emboldened and italicized what strike me as lucky events.

• Step 3: Had the student not been willing to explore different things that weren't part of his preconceived notion of what he wanted to do, he'd have never discovered that there was something more interesting out there to do. Seen another way, he'd have wasted the opportunity college presents for one to explore beyond one's known horizons.
• Step 4: Prior to engaging in the new major, the student didn't know that the field was such that high performers will have their post graduate job in place before graduating or that there were internships available in the field that led to some of those jobs.
• Step 6: The student didn't expect to be given the offer on the phone. The only reason for the call was to find out what he had to do to guarantee himself getting an interview. That he was impressive on the phone wasn't lucky, but that the recruiter was willing to forgo the in-person interview was for that was not within the student's direct ability to control or make happen, even if he could prejudice the recruiter to make such an interview a mere formality.
• Step 12: The professional wasn't seeking alternate employment. It was totally random. That he impressed the interviewers at the new company, much as he did the internship recruiter, was not luck; that was the result of years of preparation.

So, yes, luck plays a role in the lives of many folks', successful or otherwise. However, looking at the events above, hopefully you can see that a lot of preparation went into being ready to receive and avail oneself of the luck that happened when it did. And that's the point of luck being when preparation meets opportunity.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Excellent cliche. But it really doesn't scratch the surface, does it? And...is the "opportunity" not simply luck?

In some cases it is, in others it is not. I don't discount the role luck; neither do I overvalue it.

Luck is about the odds of being lucky. The whole point of the saying/cliche is to say that preparation is the thing that increases the odds of one's being lucky. For example, consider the following career path:

1. Go to school and do well (3.5 GPA or higher)
2. Get accepted to a college/university and attend it.
3. Plan on declaring one a major, but upon discovering that one likes a different and previously unexplored discipline more, select that new discipline as one's major.
4. Discover that the leading companies in one's chosen field offer internships.
5. Call the firms to ask what you need to do to get an internship with them and speak impressively (conversation shows maturity, personality, responsibility and intellect across multiple dimensions) with the internship recruiter(s).
6. The recruiter(s) tells you that you've impressed them to the point that they don't feel the need to do an in-person interview and that if you want the internship they have, it's yours, and you accept it.
7. Take the internship, perform well at it, and get offered a job that you will begin upon completion of your senior year in college provided you maintain your level of performance there.
8. You graduate well from college too (3.8 GPA or higher) and begin working a few weeks afterwards.
9. You perform well at your work, so the company offers to fund your MBA if you'd like to pursue one at one of their approved schools of business, but you'll have to work for them for thee more years after graduating if you accept the offer.
10. You accept the offer and get your MBA and again graduate among the top of your class.
11. You return to the company and fulfill your obligation, and in the course of doing so, rise to the upper tier of mid-level management in the company.
12. Out of the blue a recruiter calls and asks if you're interested in speaking with a competing company about a position there.
13. You agree to meet and have the conversation about switching employers.
14. After the meeting you receive an offer that triples your already good salary that you negotiate up to 3.5 times your current salary.
15. You accept the offer.
16. You continue to be a high performer.
17. Seeing your high performance, your superiors promote you and allow you to direct/grow your career and company fortunes accruing from that growth the way you want.
18. At this point you are now on "easy street" in pretty much all respects: you have an excellent career, you conduct your personal and professional life as you see fit rather than as others want you to, etc.
    • You may now be something of a maverick, so long as the results you produce prevent anyone from being able to complain too forcefully because when you are involved on something, everyone wins, and that's what your track record of the past 25+ years has shown. So when folks work with you, they know what they are getting, and though they may dislike some aspects of it, they know overall their expectations as go what they like and want are going to be exceeded.
    • You work on engagements you want to and don't have a thing (short of the occasional, where needed management review or oversight) to do with the ones you don't want to.
    • You develop a reputation among clients in a couple industries as being one of several "go to" guys for a given type of work.
    • You work as much/as hard as you want to work to meet the goals you set for yourself, which are always higher than those your company sets for you.

In the sequence of events and outcomes above, where's the luck and where's the preparation? I've emboldened and italicized what strike me as lucky events.

• Step 3: Had the student not been willing to explore different things that weren't part of his preconceived notion of what he wanted to do, he'd have never discovered that there was something more interesting out there to do. Seen another way, he'd have wasted the opportunity college presents for one to explore beyond one's known horizons.
• Step 4: Prior to engaging in the new major, the student didn't know that the field was such that high performers will have their post graduate job in place before graduating or that there were internships available in the field that led to some of those jobs.
• Step 6: The student didn't expect to be given the offer on the phone. The only reason for the call was to find out what he had to do to guarantee himself getting an interview. That he was impressive on the phone wasn't lucky, but that the recruiter was willing to forgo the in-person interview was for that was not within the student's direct ability to control or make happen, even if he could prejudice the recruiter to make such an interview a mere formality.
• Step 12: The professional wasn't seeking alternate employment. It was totally random. That he impressed the interviewers at the new company, much as he did the internship recruiter, was not luck; that was the result of years of preparation.

So, yes, luck plays a role in the lives of many folks', successful or otherwise. However, looking at the events above, hopefully you can see that a lot of preparation went into being ready to receive and avail oneself of the luck that happened when it did. And that's the point of luck being when preparation meets opportunity.

You have far too much free time. Lucky dude.

 

[320 Years of History]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Excellent cliche. But it really doesn't scratch the surface, does it? And...is the "opportunity" not simply luck?

In some cases it is, in others it is not. I don't discount the role luck; neither do I overvalue it.

Luck is about the odds of being lucky. The whole point of the saying/cliche is to say that preparation is the thing that increases the odds of one's being lucky. For example, consider the following career path:

1. Go to school and do well (3.5 GPA or higher)
2. Get accepted to a college/university and attend it.
3. Plan on declaring one a major, but upon discovering that one likes a different and previously unexplored discipline more, select that new discipline as one's major.
4. Discover that the leading companies in one's chosen field offer internships.
5. Call the firms to ask what you need to do to get an internship with them and speak impressively (conversation shows maturity, personality, responsibility and intellect across multiple dimensions) with the internship recruiter(s).
6. The recruiter(s) tells you that you've impressed them to the point that they don't feel the need to do an in-person interview and that if you want the internship they have, it's yours, and you accept it.
7. Take the internship, perform well at it, and get offered a job that you will begin upon completion of your senior year in college provided you maintain your level of performance there.
8. You graduate well from college too (3.8 GPA or higher) and begin working a few weeks afterwards.
9. You perform well at your work, so the company offers to fund your MBA if you'd like to pursue one at one of their approved schools of business, but you'll have to work for them for thee more years after graduating if you accept the offer.
10. You accept the offer and get your MBA and again graduate among the top of your class.
11. You return to the company and fulfill your obligation, and in the course of doing so, rise to the upper tier of mid-level management in the company.
12. Out of the blue a recruiter calls and asks if you're interested in speaking with a competing company about a position there.
13. You agree to meet and have the conversation about switching employers.
14. After the meeting you receive an offer that triples your already good salary that you negotiate up to 3.5 times your current salary.
15. You accept the offer.
16. You continue to be a high performer.
17. Seeing your high performance, your superiors promote you and allow you to direct/grow your career and company fortunes accruing from that growth the way you want.
18. At this point you are now on "easy street" in pretty much all respects: you have an excellent career, you conduct your personal and professional life as you see fit rather than as others want you to, etc.
    • You may now be something of a maverick, so long as the results you produce prevent anyone from being able to complain too forcefully because when you are involved on something, everyone wins, and that's what your track record of the past 25+ years has shown. So when folks work with you, they know what they are getting, and though they may dislike some aspects of it, they know overall their expectations as go what they like and want are going to be exceeded.
    • You work on engagements you want to and don't have a thing (short of the occasional, where needed management review or oversight) to do with the ones you don't want to.
    • You develop a reputation among clients in a couple industries as being one of several "go to" guys for a given type of work.
    • You work as much/as hard as you want to work to meet the goals you set for yourself, which are always higher than those your company sets for you.

In the sequence of events and outcomes above, where's the luck and where's the preparation? I've emboldened and italicized what strike me as lucky events.

• Step 3: Had the student not been willing to explore different things that weren't part of his preconceived notion of what he wanted to do, he'd have never discovered that there was something more interesting out there to do. Seen another way, he'd have wasted the opportunity college presents for one to explore beyond one's known horizons.
• Step 4: Prior to engaging in the new major, the student didn't know that the field was such that high performers will have their post graduate job in place before graduating or that there were internships available in the field that led to some of those jobs.
• Step 6: The student didn't expect to be given the offer on the phone. The only reason for the call was to find out what he had to do to guarantee himself getting an interview. That he was impressive on the phone wasn't lucky, but that the recruiter was willing to forgo the in-person interview was for that was not within the student's direct ability to control or make happen, even if he could prejudice the recruiter to make such an interview a mere formality.
• Step 12: The professional wasn't seeking alternate employment. It was totally random. That he impressed the interviewers at the new company, much as he did the internship recruiter, was not luck; that was the result of years of preparation.

So, yes, luck plays a role in the lives of many folks', successful or otherwise. However, looking at the events above, hopefully you can see that a lot of preparation went into being ready to receive and avail oneself of the luck that happened when it did. And that's the point of luck being when preparation meets opportunity.

You have far too much free time. Lucky dude.

I have no idea what to make of that, but it did make me chuckle.

 

[320 Years of History]

Sometimes.....we get lucky ( yep ) and find that someone else has put into words that which we have been thinking. I had one if those lucky moments today.

I am moderately successful in life.....but I've never been one to pound my chest and give myself all kinds of credit. That's because I know that things could have gone in the other direction had one event or another not happened....or happened differently. Yeah....I work hard. Yeah...I've got some skills. But.....I KNOW that I don't work harder than or have greater skills than.....others who haven't had as much success. This guy gives us all something to think about. Have a read.

Why Luck Matters—Much More Than You Think

Oh....if you feel compelled to explain how, in your case, it was simply hard work, talent and good choices that led to your high station in life.......resist the urge. Think first.

I won't pretend that I'm not of the school that says "luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

Excellent cliche. But it really doesn't scratch the surface, does it? And...is the "opportunity" not simply luck?

In some cases it is, in others it is not. I don't discount the role luck; neither do I overvalue it.

Luck is about the odds of being lucky. The whole point of the saying/cliche is to say that preparation is the thing that increases the odds of one's being lucky. For example, consider the following career path:

1. Go to school and do well (3.5 GPA or higher).
2. Get accepted to a college/university and attend it.
3. Plan on declaring one a major, but upon discovering that one likes a different and previously unexplored discipline more, select that new discipline as one's major.
4. Discover that the leading companies in one's chosen field offer internships.
5. Call the firms to ask what you need to do to get an internship with them and speak impressively (conversation shows maturity, personality, responsibility and intellect across multiple dimensions) with the internship recruiter(s).
6. The recruiter(s) tells you that you've impressed them to the point that they don't feel the need to do an in-person interview and that if you want the internship they have, it's yours, and you accept it.
7. Take the internship, perform well at it, and get offered a job that you will begin upon completion of your senior year in college provided you maintain your level of performance there.
8. You graduate well from college too (3.8 GPA or higher) and begin working a few weeks afterwards.
9. You perform well at your work, so the company offers to fund your MBA if you'd like to pursue one at one of their approved schools of business, but you'll have to work for them for thee more years after graduating if you accept the offer.
10. You accept the offer and get your MBA and again graduate among the top of your class.
11. You return to the company and fulfill your obligation, and in the course of doing so, rise to the upper tier of mid-level management in the company.
12. Out of the blue a recruiter calls and asks if you're interested in speaking with a competing company about a position there.
13. You agree to meet and have the conversation about switching employers.
14. After the meeting you receive an offer that triples your already good salary that you negotiate up to 3.5 times your current salary.
15. You accept the offer.
16. You continue to be a high performer.
17. Seeing your high performance, your superiors promote you and allow you to direct/grow your career and company fortunes accruing from that growth the way you want.
18. At this point you are now on "easy street" in pretty much all respects: you have an excellent career, you conduct your personal and professional life as you see fit rather than as others want you to, etc.
    • You may now be something of a maverick, so long as the results you produce prevent anyone from being able to complain too forcefully because when you are involved on something, everyone wins, and that's what your track record of the past 25+ years has shown. So when folks work with you, they know what they are getting, and though they may dislike some aspects of it, they know overall their expectations as go what they like and want are going to be exceeded.
    • You work on engagements you want to and don't have a thing (short of the occasional, where needed management review or oversight) to do with the ones you don't want to.
    • You develop a reputation among clients in a couple industries as being one of several "go to" guys for a given type of work.
    • You work as much/as hard as you want to work to meet the goals you set for yourself, which are always higher than those your company sets for you.

In the sequence of events and outcomes above, where's the luck and where's the preparation? I've emboldened and italicized what strike me as lucky events.

• Step 3: Had the student not been willing to explore different things that weren't part of his preconceived notion of what he wanted to do, he'd have never discovered that there was something more interesting out there to do. Seen another way, he'd have wasted the opportunity college presents for one to explore beyond one's known horizons.
• Step 4: Prior to engaging in the new major, the student didn't know that the field was such that high performers will have their post graduate job in place before graduating or that there were internships available in the field that led to some of those jobs.
• Step 6: The student didn't expect to be given the offer on the phone. The only reason for the call was to find out what he had to do to guarantee himself getting an interview. That he was impressive on the phone wasn't lucky, but that the recruiter was willing to forgo the in-person interview was for that was not within the student's direct ability to control or make happen, even if he could prejudice the recruiter to make such an interview a mere formality.
• Step 12: The professional wasn't seeking alternate employment. It was totally random. That he impressed the interviewers at the new company, much as he did the internship recruiter, was not luck; that was the result of years of preparation.

So, yes, luck plays a role in the lives of many folks', successful or otherwise. However, looking at the events above, hopefully you can see that a lot of preparation went into being ready to receive and avail oneself of the luck that happened when it did. And that's the point of luck being when preparation meets opportunity.

You have far too much free time. Lucky dude.

FWIW, I've sired and raised three kids, and mentored quite a few more. In the course of doing so, questions such as yours have come up multiple times. Your question isn't unique in being something that one must consider when guiding young people. As I near 60 years old, it doesn't take much to just type those thoughts that developed ages ago and have been refined over the past 30+ years. As for the sequence of steps, well, that's even easier as they are a high level depiction of how my own life has gone. I didn't have to invent anything...if anything I had to consider what events weren't central to the topic at hand and thus leave them out.