Following from previous posts ‘How Most of Our Decisions Are Bets‘ and ‘How We Constantly Underestimate the Role of Luck in Our Lives‘ I have received some reactions about the fact I was exaggerating wildly the role of luck in life.
Our education, vocabulary and most of the messages conveyed by role models would tend to demonstrate that success comes from hard work and commitment; and that success is deserved through an entitlement created by effort, rather than coming from luck – a terrible thought!
In her excellent book ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts‘ Annie Duke makes a great comparison: life is much more like poker than chess. In chess, there is no unpredictability; rules are set, and it is only a competition between minds. In poker, there is luck, psychology and unpredictability.
Of course, hard work and dedication does help. I am not saying that it is not important. But believing that one is entitled to success because of hard work and dedication goes one step too far.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that the belief in success being owed to hard work, and that hard work entitles to success, is a society-stabilisation message conveyed through the previous ages.
A lot of what happens in our lives is down to luck. The bigger our decisions, the more they are bets in uncertainty. We need to concentrate on being more lucky, know how to catch opportunities, rather than believing that keeping our head down and working hard will be the only solution.
