Do you know why successful people often credit their success to luck?

It’s because they’re being modest. They don’t want to tell you that they’re successful because they’re more intelligent than the average, and they work harder than the average person ever will and thus will never achieve success like them.

If they say that then it will make you feel like a loser. It will make you feel that you’re not smart enough—which may be true! And we don’t like people who make us feel bad. Successful people know that, and they want to be modest, that’s why they say they’re successful because of luck.

Calling Someone Lucky is Arrogance

Do you think Elon Musk is the richest person in the world because he’s lucky? Well, if you think that then you are arrogant.

Thinking that a successful person’s success is due to luck is arrogant because you don’t know what amount of work that person has put into it, what kind of effort has gone into developing his mind, his body, and getting his life in order.

Role of Cognitive Dissonance

You open the LinkedIn profile of your old colleague who used to be at the same level as you in the past, and now you see that he has grown far ahead of you in his career. If you are like the majority of humans, your reaction would be “He’s so lucky!”

He’s grown beyond your expectations, so your first reaction would be “He is lucky.” Do you know why? Because seeing that person who has grown beyond your expectations makes you feel like a loser. It makes you feel like a failure.

That reality suggests you’re a loser. But in your mind, there’s this movie going on in which you are the protagonist of your life. You are the hero. We all think of ourselves as the heroes in the movie playing in our minds. So, your mind is struck with something called cognitive dissonance.

Your mind wants to believe that you’re a hero, but the reality is suggesting that you’re a loser. You want to cope with that cognitive dissonance, and you concoct this explanation that this person is successful because of luck.

“I am unsuccessful not because I didn’t put in work. It’s just because the luck hasn’t come to me.” So now you can maintain your image of being a hero in your life’s movie.

That’s a cognitive dissonance. And we cope with it by explaining away somebody else’s success, which is beyond our expectations, by luck.

If you think you’re not successful because luck has not come to you, do you have to put in any more work? No!

When reality suggests you’re a loser, there are two ways to cope with that cognitive dissonance. One way is, as I told you, to explain their success away by luck. Another way is to start working because when you start working, your life starts changing and you get closer to success, and you enjoy that process because you’re growing now. Eventually, success comes to you. You no longer feel bad.

But that’s a long route. It requires work, which you don’t want to do. That is why I say, believing in luck is a loser’s strategy, because when you explain away somebody’s success by luck that means you don’t have to put in the work now.

But What About Uncontrollable Factors?

Now some people will say that I am ignoring the fact that there are some completely uncontrollable factors. So let me get into some nuances here.

When your preparedness meets an opportunity, that looks like luck. This is the equation.

Opportunity cannot be controlled; you don’t know when the opportunity will come. But preparedness has to be there. You have to be prepared when the opportunity comes.

So, when you’re seeing this successful person who started at your level but now has succeeded, it’s true that the opportunity went to him, but how was he able to grab the opportunity? Because he was prepared for that.

Opportunities are everywhere. They are floating around in the universe right now. There are new job openings. New career avenues are opening up everywhere even right this moment. And some people are grabbing those opportunities and changing their lives. Why? Because they are prepared.

So, you cannot look at a single instance and decide that this person is lucky. Let’s say you and this other person both have put in the same amount of effort; you are both prepared at the same level. The other person gets the opportunity and grows in life. Now you will say his preparedness met the opportunity, he got lucky. I didn’t get the opportunity, which was an uncontrollable part of the equation, so it’s a clear example that I am not lucky.

What I would say here is that you cannot decide that this person is lucky by looking at this one instance. Yes, the opportunity you could not control, the opportunity went the other way to that person. That doesn’t mean the person got lucky and you are unlucky. If you are prepared, then you will be able to grab the opportunity tomorrow, or the day after. Next month, next year.

If you cannot grab any opportunity for 5 years, and still if you say that I am waiting for the luck to happen, I am prepared but the luck is not coming to me, then you’re living in an illusion. You’re lacking the preparedness.

So, you have to look at the long run. When it comes to sustained success or failure, there is no such thing as luck. Because if you’re prepared then the opportunity will come. If somebody else is getting some opportunity and growing, and you are also equally ready as that person, there is no way you cannot see the opportunity in the long run. If you can’t, that just means you are not prepared. You are missing the part of the equation which is in your control.

So just because there is a part of the equation that you cannot control, that does not mean there is such a thing as luck. As long as you control the part that you can control—which is preparedness—to the fullest, the opportunity is bound to come to you.

In the long run, if you are unsuccessful, it’s because of your own fault. Your lack of effort, your lack of work. You have not developed your brain enough, you have not got smart enough, you have not become intelligent enough, you have not sorted out your life, you have not chosen the right strategies, right paths. You’re doing something wrong which you need to figure out, but it’s not luck.

The Stock Market

Let’s take an example of the stock market now. Because the stock market is a pure gamble, right?

Let’s say you enter the stock market with another person. You both are novices with the same level of knowledge. You only know the basics—how to buy and sell, nothing else. You buy different stocks, randomly. The stock that he bought rises and he makes a profit. And you on the other hand lose money in the same period on the stocks that you bought. So now you’re going to say that he got lucky. How else to explain that?

Go back to the previous point. You cannot look at one instance in the short term and decide luck. You have to look at the long term.

Let me ask you this question: how does one learn the best lessons in the stock market? Anybody familiar with the stock market knows and would answer that losses are the best teachers.

This person looks lucky to you right now because he made a profit on the very first few trades of his life. Do you think that is good for him? And that you made losses is bad for you? No!

Now what is likely to happen is that he becomes overconfident and loses the money in the long run, because that’s what quick success does to people. When you succeed without making an effort, that is not as fortunate as it may look. Anybody experienced in the stock market would agree that this person is in a very dangerous position right now. Unless he gets smart and realizes that he should not be carried away with this and instead should learn the fundamentals of the market, he may lose money very soon.

You on the other hand, who is thinking that you’re unlucky, have two possibilities. If you just blame your losses on luck, you may not have enough motivation to put in the effort to learn the stock market. You might quit. “I am unlucky, this is not for me!” On the other hand, you can take full responsibility for your losses, and blame yourself by saying, “Oh, I should have done the research, I should have understood how the market works.. maybe if I had done more work, I would not have suffered the losses.” If you take responsibility for your losses, you are more likely to put in effort.

Now you might argue for the sake of argument that even if you blame it on luck, that doesn’t mean you will not learn. But the fact is, to the extent that you blame your losses on luck, your intensity of effort will be reduced. It’s just math.

How About Lottery Winning?

Winning the lottery seems like the cleanest example of luck. What else could it be? What is the effort that a lottery winner has put in?

I would go so far as to say that there is no involvement of luck in lottery winning because it requires intelligence to handle the windfall of money that you get when you win a lottery. Most lottery winners end up where they were within a year or two. Why? Because they don’t know how to handle money.

Again, if you look at the short term, you say he won the lottery so he’s lucky. No! Look at the long term. What happens to the life of the person after two years of winning the lottery? If somebody wins a lottery and changes his life forever for the better, then you must give him credit because he was prepared. He had the preparedness part of the equation in place. The opportunity was random like it always is, but he had the preparedness, he knew how to handle money. He must have had some experience in life, he must have learned from those experiences about how to handle money, how to keep life in order, and how to not swindle wealth… so you have to give him credit. That’s not luck. To say that this person has got lucky is being arrogant because you are taking the credit away from that person.

The Final Argument

If you’re not as successful as you would want to be in life, and you are saying that it’s because you’re not lucky right now, I want to ask you something, just to test if you have taken care of the preparedness part of the equation.

You may think that you’re doing “your best” but that doesn’t mean anything. I want to ask you how many hours in a day are you working towards your goal. How many hours are you consuming entertainment? How many hours you’re going out and partying with your friends? How many hours you’re spending not working towards your goal with a singular focus?

Your best or 100% means that every waking moment of your life that you could spend working towards your goals is being spent thus. And then if things are not working out for you, and opportunity is not coming your way, you can say “I am doing my best, giving my 100%”.

But let me tell you, if you do that, there is no way that the opportunity will not come to you. You are bound to succeed.

Until and unless you are spending every waking moment of your day, 16 hours, with a singular focus working towards your goal, you cannot say “I am doing my best”. So, if your effort is any less than that, and then you’re blaming your lack of success on luck, you’re a loser. It just shows that you don’t want to work.

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There is no scenario, no nuance so far, which is convincing enough for me that there is any benefit to believing in luck. The moment you believe in luck, to the extent you believe in luck, your intensity of effort will be reduced.

Am I making 100% effort, working 16 hrs. every day? No, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if I am not successful the way I would like to be, I am not going to say I am waiting for luck. I am completely self-aware that if I am not as successful today as I would like to be, it’s because I have to put in more effort, I have to be productive in more ways. I am not blaming luck.

If there is one takeaway that you can get from this, it’s that when you look at a successful person, your first instinct would be to say that he’s lucky. Stop yourself. You are no one to judge that that person is lucky. Your mind is using a defense mechanism to stop you from feeling like a loser.

There is another way to stop feeling like a loser, which is to start working and progressing towards your goal. It may be a long path, but it’s the winner’s path.

Believing in luck is for losers.