One of my favorite podcasts – How I Built This – asks each guest how much of their success is due to luck and how much is due to skill.
Almost all of them say luck was at least half the battle.
Of course, everyone gets lucky to some degree. But some people get a better return on their luck.
The critical question is not “Are you lucky?” but “Do you get a high return on luck?”
Yes, [Bill] Gates was lucky, but luck is not why Gates became a 10Xer. Consider the following questions: Was Gates the only person of his era who grew up in an upper-middle-class American family? Was Gates the only person born in the mid-1950s who attended a secondary school with access to computing? Was Gates the only person who went to a college with computer resources in the mid-1970s? Was Gates the only person who read the Popular Electronics article? Was Gates the only person who knew how to program in BASIC? No, no, no, no, and no.
“Return on luck” is a concept I always try to keep in mind.
On a long enough timeline, you and I are going to get very lucky a handful of times.
We’ll either be ready to make the most of those opportunities, or we won’t.
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