this question comes up a lot at forums , discussions. You either have to be lucky or not lucky but mathematically one can build ones luck as the law of probability says you can not be lucky only so many number of times , the more failed try's the closer you are. Its not a a motivational speech by a management guru its maths . If u flip a coin a 1000 times you would get an equal number , 500 heads and tails
Andy Grove has a wonderful notion of something he calls "earned luck". One needs luck to succeed, but you can't sit around waiting for it. I came across it in his biography by Richard Tedlow... a highly recommended read.
IMO the bigger the success, the bigger the influence of luck. If you have a good idea, are talented and work hard, then you're very unlikely to fail completely. But no amount of good ideas, talent or hard work can ensure that you'll be the next Google.
2) The Andy Grove/ Einstein thing, of trying, striving, working really hard and trying to strategically place yourself in the 'right place' will eventually pay off, one way or another. This is essentially what the article adresses. This is a different kind of luck though.
3) Apart from personal 'luckiness' and hard work paying off, there are also occasional black and white swans - large random external events which affect peoples lives in good or bad ways. These are unpredictable and outside your control. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a (quite hideous) website about this kind of thing: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ He may also have written a popular book.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 22.7 ms ] threadIf the above rule does not apply then it's 100% luck.
1) You make your own luck - for the most part - and that what we call 'being lucky' is a skill you can learn. See here for the research on this: http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/research/luckmain.html
2) The Andy Grove/ Einstein thing, of trying, striving, working really hard and trying to strategically place yourself in the 'right place' will eventually pay off, one way or another. This is essentially what the article adresses. This is a different kind of luck though.
3) Apart from personal 'luckiness' and hard work paying off, there are also occasional black and white swans - large random external events which affect peoples lives in good or bad ways. These are unpredictable and outside your control. Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a (quite hideous) website about this kind of thing: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ He may also have written a popular book.