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How Much Is Luck A Factor In Success?
By Tim Gross - Internet Business Blog | May 24, 2008
It seems like a lot of unsuccessful people think luck plays a huge part in success… Not so coincidentally, some successful people see to think that luck plays no part in success (that success is nothing but hard work and determination).
Here’s my take:
Persistence, determination, and hard work mitigate luck, but that doesn’t mean “luck” doesn’t exist…
If there are 10 lottery tickets and only 1 winning ticket, if you buy 8 of them and lose and another guy buys one and gets the winner, he was lucky.
If, after careful consideration, you come up with 10 business ideas to pursue (and unbeknownst to you, only 1 will be successful), if you randomly pick the successful one first, you’re lucky. If you try 7 and they’re all losers, you’re unlucky… But you’re only a loser if you give up at that point… If you follow through with the other 3, you’re a guaranteed winner. (In this hypothetical situation.)
I’ve had consulting clients tell me that their first online business ideas was started on a whim and instantly started making money. That’s lucky.
The first “Million Dollar Sales Letter” I wrote (did over $1,000,000 in sales) took me 5 or 6 completely different sales letter rewrites before it became successful. There was nothing lucky about it. I’d spent years studying and practicing the art of writing sales letters, and this particular sales letter failed multiple times before I found the one that worked.
So I think both sides are “right”… If someone has been struggling for success for a long time and somebody else stumbles on to it quickly, yeah, there may have been some luck involved. (Of course, you know what they say about “overnight successes”, they often take years to achieve, you just don’t see the hard work.)
To make matters even more confusing though, only an idiot bangs his head against the same wall an infinite number of times and never gives up or changes direction… I knew many people in Hollywood who were struggling actors and never came to grips with the fact that they weren’t particularly GOOD actors… the truth is, they could spend their whole lives trying to become famous and never have a realistic chance of achieving it.
So that’s the struggle: Self-evaluation. How can you be persistent, but also be honest about your own strengths and weaknesses, be open to outside advice, make changes when things aren’t working, and also keep enough hope and enthusiasm when nothing is working that you don’t just give up?
It’s easier said than done. But as far as I know, self-evaluation, course adjustments, and sheer persistence are the best ways to put the odds in your favor.
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