Luck, preparation, opportunity
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” is a well-known quote attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca (though there is very little evidence that he ever said it). Let’s take a minute to think about it.
I have always felt unease at how this sentence is thrown around. Usually by successful people. As if luck has not really played a role in what they have achieved. I have worked hard and success is the logical outcome. Just work hard and you will get there. The problem with this view is that for each such individual, there are dozens, even hundreds, who work hard, yet do not become hugely successful. True, hard work might help outperform most of the competition, but the elite-level achievement escapes them. There are countless such examples in pretty much every human activity, business, science, athletic or artistic performance.
Then is luck a necessary element of success? To a point, yes. Although just as the successful diminish its role, the unsuccessful might attach too great importance to it, or use the reference to luck to mask their lack of effort or commitment. As the author Ryan Holiday said: “Luck is polarizing. The successful like to pretend it does not exist. The unsuccessful or the jaded pretend that it is everything”. It might just be that luck is a concept we have invented to explain other people’s success in a way that doesn’t make us feel bad about ourselves.
A better way to interpret “luck is when preparation meets opportunity” is to look at preparation and hard work as something that will put you in the best position for when an opportunity may come. In the striking distance. Preparation does not guarantee success, but without preparation, your chances of succeeding are slim to none. The phrase is really a call for action. Don’t just passively await opportunities, however favorable you think they might be. Chase them, relentlessly, refine and improve your game, grow and learn from your failures, then continue chasing. I love the tongue-in-cheek line from Stephen Leacock: “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”.
A brief personal example. In my university class, 18 young men and women were majoring in the Arabic language. Frankly, most of the students did not bother studying well. After all, most thought, what job were they going to find in a small country lacking borders with Arab countries, no economic collaboration, no prospects. All the teaching jobs and opportunities at Arab embassies or in the foreign service were already taken. Few of us disagreed and committed. Four years later, just as I graduated, a friend of mine gave me a call, telling me he had seen an advertisement for a job that required knowledge of Arabic at a local UN office. I applied, got hired, and have worked for the United Nations for 23 years since then, advancing from an interpreter to a senior management position.
It was a great opportunity that I happened to have been ready for. Still, he got lucky, many said. Should I have been upset? I was not. Every time someone asked me how I got in, I just smiled and said: I got lucky.
But not to worry, there are a few things we can do:
1. Accept that luck is always a factor. Keep your mind open, relax, be patient.
2. Prepare. Always. Elevate yourself, put yourself in the best possible position to benefit from luck (or, if you prefer, opportunity) if and when it comes your way.
3. Learn to accept failures. Even the best preparation will not always guarantee success when the opportunity presents itself. Many a man prepared, only to choke in front of an opportunity. That is not the end of the world. Learn from your experience, try again, do better next time.
4. Be grateful for the luck you have already enjoyed — your circumstances, opportunities, may be much better than a lot of other people. You may have had fewer challenges, a better starting point, stronger support, different genetics. Little more humility, please.
5. Finally, accept that other people are likely to attribute your success to luck, even when you know you put in the hard work.
So next time you hear — luck is when preparation meets opportunity — just remind yourself, it is not all that simple. And smile.
