Why Luck Matters More To Success Than You Think

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Those who give inspiring lectures on how to be successful rarely admit how lucky they are in life. But to be grateful to fate for good luck is not just honest - it is necessary. Otherwise, such a success is worthless.

One completely non-instructive story

Robert H. Frank, a professor at Cornell University and author of a book on the role of luck in business, once told a very revealing but completely non-instructive story.

“On the morning of November 2007 in Ithaca, I played tennis with my longtime friend and colleague, professor of psychology, Tom Gilovich. Later he tells me that at the beginning of the second set I started complaining of nausea. And then he fell onto the court and did not move.

Tom shouted to someone to call 911, and he himself began to give me a heart massage, which he had only seen in movies before. And he even managed to make me cough, but after a few minutes I was completely still again. There was no pulse.

An ambulance appeared instantly. It was strange, because in Ithaca, medical assistance travels from the other side of the city and travels about eight kilometers. Why did the ambulance arrive so quickly?

It turned out that a little earlier there had been a car accident near the tennis court and the hospital had already sent a couple of ambulances there. One of them was able to come to me. The ambulance doctors used a defibrillator, and when we arrived at the local hospital, I was placed in a helicopter and taken to the largest hospital in Pennsylvania, where they provided the necessary assistance.

The doctors said that I experienced sudden cardiac arrest, in which nearly 90% of people do not survive. Most of those who survive have to deal with significant irreversible damage to the body.

For three days after my cardiac arrest, I could barely speak. But on the fourth day everything was in order and I was discharged. Two weeks later, I played tennis with Tom again."

There is no moral in this story. There is a conclusion: to Robert Frank it was just luck … Everyone will agree with that.

However, when it comes to success stories, it doesn't seem to be the case to mention luck and luck.

Many would be uncomfortable to accept that they were just lucky one day. Although personal success is highly dependent on chance. But, as writer E. B. White said, luck is not something that successful people talk about.

The price of a lucky chance

Not only that, many do not admit that they were once lucky. It turns out that most of us refuse to believe in luck at all. Especially when it comes to your own success.

Pew Research Center conducted a survey, the results of which are simply amazing. People who have achieved little and earn little are much more willing to talk about those life situations in which they were lucky.

And those who are already rich, successful and respected in society almost always deny the role of luck in their lives.

They insist that everything they have achieved was given to them only by tremendous work and hard work. Luck, they think, has nothing to do with it.

What's wrong with that?

When a person insists that he “made himself” and denies the importance of factors such as talent, love of work and luck, he becomes less generous and turns away from society.

Such people rarely support public undertakings, do not take part in the development of useful initiatives.

In general, these people do not want to contribute to the common good.

I knew it

There is a cognitive bias called the hindsight effect. This is when you say "I knew it!", "I was sure that it would happen!"

We tend to think that this or that event could have been predicted (in fact, not).

Why don't we believe in luck?

The answer is simple: we are by nature.

Our ability to learn is based on a simple principle. We see something hitherto unknown, compare it with previous experience, find common features and recognize, understand and accept.

Therefore, we estimate the probability of an event from the position of how many similar cases we can remember.

A successful career is, of course, the result of several factors at once: hard work, talent, and luck. When we think about success, we go straight - remembering hard work and innate inclinations, forgetting about luck.

The problem is that luck is not obvious. An American entrepreneur who has worked all his life and devoted every minute of his free time to self-development, will say that success came to him thanks to hard work. And he will, of course, be right. But he will not at all think about how lucky he was to be born in the United States, and not, say, in Zimbabwe.

Now the reader may be offended. After all, everyone wants to be proud of their achievements. And rightly so: pride is one of the most powerful motivators in the world. The tendency to overlook the factor of luck makes us especially tenacious at times.

But still, the inability to accept a lucky coincidence as the most important component of success leads us to the dark side. Where happy people struggle to share their happiness with others.

Two very instructive stories

David DeSteno, professor at Northeastern University, has provided impressive evidence of how gratitude leads to a willingness to act for the common good. Together with his co-authors, he figured out how to make a group of people feel grateful. And then he gave these subjects the opportunity to do something kind to the stranger.

People who feel grateful are 25% more likely to do something good and selfless than the control group.

Another experiment had an even more impressive result. Sociologists asked one group of people to keep a diary in which they had to write down things and events that brought a feeling of gratitude. The second group wrote down what caused the irritation. The third just documented every day.

After 10 weeks of the experiment, scientists discovered tremendous changes in the lives of those who wrote about their gratitude. Participants slept better, had fewer pains, and generally felt happier. They began to describe themselves as open to new people, felt compassion for their neighbors, and the feeling of loneliness practically did not visit them.

Economists love to talk about crisis and scarcity. But gratitude is a currency that we can spend without fear of bankruptcy.

Talk to a successful person. Ask him about luck and luck. As he tells his story, he may rethink these events and understand how many good accidents accompanied him on the path to success.

This conversation is likely to be easy and enjoyable. And upon completion, everyone will feel a little happier and more grateful. Who knows, maybe this magical feeling will be passed on to those who are nearby?