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Success in life is 75% luck. Everything you control (dedication, tenacity, ambition, follow through, dependability) is in the first 25%. The remaining 75% is just luck that you have no control over. That doesn't mean you can slack on that first 25%, but even if you absolutely kill it on the first 25% you can still fail in life. I say this as someone that most would consider successful. Yes I worked hard to get where I am, but lots of people work far harder and have far less. I was born in the right place, with the right talents, in the right period in time/history, and with enough of the preferred genetics. Even had everything else been equal and I was born 20 years earlier or 20 years later, I wouldn't be nearly as successful.
It shouldn't be like this. Its not fair its like this, but this is reality.
A local YouTuber I follow said this once: "There's no guarantee that you'll succeed after working hard, but I guarantee that you won't if you don't".
It sounds cheap and all, but it finally ingrained itself to my brain because it's a less optimistic quote.
Success is luck, but you can even the odds by throwing my chips on the table.
Not actual gambling advice, but it's something I heard years ago and it's stuck with me.
there are common factors of succesful people. Working hard in some areas tends to result in more success than others.
WDYM? I can be a railroad mogul one day, or an oil baron, an automotive entrepreneur, a sugar plantation owner, or even a privateer, if I hustle hard enough, right?
Those are the only definitions of success?
I dont know about you but that's not "succesful" to me. Or at least not what my goals are.
I know that tongue-in-cheek snark can be difficult to detect for many people, but consider the context here: I responded to somebody who said that success is 75% luck. There is no amount of hustle that would let a person become a railroad mogul, an oil baron, an automotive pioneer, a sugar plantation owner, or a privateer today. Being born into the correct historical era to become one of those things is part of that luck. And my secondary implication is mocking the idea that many of those people achieved their success by working hard, or even working at all.
You need to define succes first. Depending on your definition I will either agree or disagree.
definitions are personal. If you are looking for advice find a definiton that is less about luck.
I using the conventional western definition here for this conversation. All of my basic needs are met, I have no worry for my future needs for probably the rest of my life if I need it to be. I am in good health. I have loving relationship. In addition to this I have extra resources that allow me to explore my interests.
No amount of redefinition will help you if you have a genetic condition like Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy which can cause you to keel over dead at 27 years old. No amount of redefinition will help if you're 8 years old in and are living in an active war zone. In those two examples, they didn't choose their circumstances. Nothing in their power caused them to be in their situations. Nothing in their power could change their situations. I would be equally powerless in their place. There is nothing intrinsic about them that makes them responsible for their situations. Why is it that those two people have those life threatening issues and I don't? Luck. Thats life.
Now, I get where you're going about taking what circumstances you have, and making the best of it. Or possibly exploring the philosophical nature of existence and coming to a different conclusion on what our few decades on Earth are for and how we can all ourselves successful. I don't think that's a bad thing to do personally, but understand that's a luxury that someone starving or dying from exposure likely can't seriously entertain. Entirely ignoring the base reality, even if we don't like it, is dangerous, and potentially callous and can lead us to indifference of the suffering of others and how they arrived there through no fault of their own.
i guess I didn't explain well. If your success means a private jet with pilots on call 24x7 that you can afford to fly where and where you want: you need a lot more money than I can help you with.
your success says something vague about resources to explore your interests. How much resources? If you want to make prinitive pottery that is cheap and a great hobby to be interested in. many other interest are more expensive. There is a reason boat owners call them 'a hole in the water you pour money in' - boats are also a fine hobby but if your success includes a boat you need more resources.
i agree that health is partially luck and so there is always a luck element. there is much you can do to earn money - keeping a great job is partially luck. There is a lot you can do to keep a relationship but there is some luck on if the other person doesn't leave you. There is a lot you can do for health but some luck as well.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to divulge my personal financial details on the open internet. Why does this number matter to our discussion? I appreciate if you're trying to offer financial or life planning advice. I don't think I'm in need, but I appreciate your concern.
I'll say this. On this chart, I believe I am past the fourth level (Esteem) and working on number 5 (self actualization).
Getting the job initially is a whole series of lucky events sometimes decades in the making.
Not only do you have do work hard on keeping relationships (this is part of the 25% I was talking about) you have to live to enjoy it. Further, your mate has to live and there's all kinds of things that can happen to them through no fault of their own (this is part of the 75% luck I was talking about earlier).
There is a tiny tiny fraction you can do to keep/improve your health vs the vast majority of the things in this world trying to kill you or make you sick/injured. I'd change the percentages on this even further: 10% in your control to 90% luck.
I don't mean you should tell me your criteria. if your idea of success is chess world champion - many have worked 12 hour days for years at it and failed - thus much luck is needed. likewise you may be great at business without ever making CEO. However more modest goals are reached by many - chess national master is in reach of many more. Engineers don't make near what the CEO does but many more get there.
i can never figure out relationships but those who study it tell me there are predictive measures of what they call success. (The experts don't always agree)
Gotcha, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. My apologies for misunderstanding your question.
All of those examples assume you're starting from a reasonably high baseline of stability, mental & physical health, resources, and likely education. My point is that you can't assume those things. Lots and lots of people aren't even lucky enough to have that starting baseline to even start working toward any of those achievements in your examples.
That's why I said that my particular personal goals are irrelevant, but where I've gotten most would look at and define it as successful, and that I recognize that so many points on that path I was lucky to have the "upside" outcome rather than the "downside" outcome which would have left me far less successful, or at worst, dead. It really doesn't take many of the inflection points in our lives to not go our way for us to be knocked way down or knocked out entirely. I am very lucky that hasn't been my fate.