Do you believe that success comes down to luck?
Whether it’s for your business or yourself, do you think that although your own actions are important, it is ultimately circumstance that separates the winners and losers?
Clearly this is a tempting and logical conclusion. After all, if you look back on any success story, you can guarantee there will be some insane stroke of fortune in there. Bill Gates happened to go to pretty much the only high school in the country with a computer. The first Harry Potter only got published after 12 rejections because Bloomsbury’s chairman gave the manuscript to his eight-year-old daughter, who happened to like it. The name “Nike” came to one of Phil Knight’s colleagues in a dream!
So it makes sense to assume that the greats get the breaks, and the rest of us, though equally worthy, simply weren’t so lucky.
For a long time I believed this too. I thought that the advice of most legendary founders wasn’t worth much, since it simply amounted to them “sharing their winning lottery numbers”. Their circumstances couldn’t be replicated, so neither could their results.
But that’s not true.
And for proof that it’s not true you only have to look to the masters of luck and probability: casinos.
Casinos illustrate how even in a world of randomness and unpredictability, it is still possible to guarantee victory in the end. The maths are very simple. Casinos lose all time. Of course they do, otherwise nobody would play. However because of the way the odds are stacked they win 52% of the time. On any given play they’re more or less as likely to lose as win, but stretched over time that 52% means they cannot lose. Despite thousands and thousands of defeats, they still pile up billions and billions of dollars.
When looked at this way, it’s clear that individual moments of good or bad luck are actually far less important than they first appear. Sometimes the casino will get insanely lucky or insanely unlucky, but in the long run it makes little difference.
By the same token, we can assume that the lucky breaks achieved by the rich and famous actually weren’t all that important either. Sure, they might have had a major bearing on the nature of that person’s success. Without access to that early computer Bill Gates might never have thrived in that particular field. But do you think he’d have thrived anyway, and found a different “lucky break”?
For sure. Because he is a casino. He wins 52% of the time.
Understanding this, the next question is obvious: how do we win 52% of the time? What can we do to tilt the odds in our favour this way? After all 50% won’t cut it. And 48% sure as hell won’t. Those are the sort of odds most of us are playing with, and although on paper the difference seems slim (and it is), in the big picture it’s actually a chasm.
Luckily the answer is very simple.
Simply believe you are in control.
Honestly that’s it. It sounds trivial but it’s actually astonishingly rare. People might intellectually understand they are in control of their own lives, and ultimately responsible for where they go, but they don’t actually feel it. They’ll be the first to blame their problems on:
- The economy
- Their team
- Their business partner
- Their parents
- Their trauma
- The government
- The system
- Their society
…anything other than themselves.
Think about it for yourself. Think of all the things you believe are holding you back. All the blockers where you say “if only this thing was different, THEN everything would be good!”. For sure you’ve got a bunch. I know I do.
But the casino? It doesn’t.
Of course this doesn’t mean that some of the things you list aren’t “sub-ideal”. Of course they are. Just like the 48% losses. But they do not mean you aren’t in control. They do not mean you cannot choose each step you take, and make positive constructive moves in literally every circumstance.
Nelson Mandela managed this in prison. Viktor Frankl managed it in a Nazi concentration camp. So I’m pretty sure you and I can manage it too.
To make it simple, break it down into these three steps:
- Take responsibility for everything in your life, even if it’s not your fault. No matter how much you’ve been screwed over by circumstance, you need to identify and rectify your part in the matter. And trust me, you’ll have played a part. You don’t do this to punish yourself. You do it to empower yourself.
- Constantly make positive moves, no matter the circumstances. The ultimate enemy to defeat here is the quicksand of passivity. Of “waiting until the time is right”, or wallowing in self-pity and allowing life to simply wash over you. You have to keep “doing stuff” no matter what’s going on around you, because the stakes on each individual move are far lower than you think; it’s their cumulative effect that counts.
- Remain focused on your vision, without being too fussed about how you get there. Don’t fall in love with your route, only fall in love with the destination. Arnold Schwarzenegger knew he wanted to be world bodybuilding champion, but he didn’t know (or care) how he got there. Zig-zags, detours, and false starts don’t matter. The path will be wiggly and unpredictable but if you keep edging in the general direction, arrival is inevitable.
Do all this, and your win percentage is likely to be much higher than 52%. You will be beyond even the casino.
And success will be unavoidable.
