Are successful people luckier than others?

No, successful people did not get more ‘good luck’ compared to others in the long run. They got a higher return on luck, making more of their luck than others.

We tend to think that ‘luck’ itself is one of the important, if not the most important factor, in determining success for a person. While it is undeniable that luck plays a critical role in what opportunities are available to us (someone born in Bangladesh in a lower-middle class family won’t have the same opportunities available as someone born in Canada in a upper-class family) and what outcomes we get despite our differential effort (you can come up with numerous examples where you got a better outcome than your effort alone would have predicted); we also know that just being ‘lucky’ does not always translate to ‘success’ in the long run. So, how should we think about ‘luck’ as a factor for success? Or, to frame it another way, are successful people more lucky than others?

Jim Collins tried to answer this question and reached a startling, but perhaps not too surprising a conclusion on hindsight. Collins focused on researching the successes of great companies in his book Great by Choice. Precisely, he aimed to find out why and how some companies thrive despite uncertainty, chaos, and luck. While his research and conclusions are about companies, I believe the same logic can be applied to people. Hence, I interpret his findings below for deciphering whether successful people have more ‘good luck’ than others or not.

To answer the question we started with, successful people are not more lucky than others, on average. Everyone is lucky sometimes, while unlucky other times. ‘Luck’ itself can be assumed to be distributed randomly among people and time periods, and so in the long term, very few people are lucky all or even most of the time.

Instead, what really matters is not luck, but the return on luck. I found this concept really helpful. ‘Return on luck’ means how well a person utilizes their opportunities when they are lucky, or what is the returns of being lucky. The successful people make sure they utilize their opportunities when they are lucky and that they are getting the most out of it, or highest returns possible.

For example- let’s assume student A & B both win the same scholarship that enables them to study at a top university without taking loans. Although both worked hard in high school, they were also lucky to get the scholarships among hundreds of qualified candidates. But A utilized this opportunity by learning from Professors, making new connections, getting the best out of being in a foreign environment. While B slacked off, didn’t care about learning much and depended on luck to get good outcomes. Here, the ‘return on luck’ for A is much higher than that for B, although both were initially lucky.

Neither of the extreme propositions- luck is the most important factor or, luck plays no role- is correct. No one will have sustained success due to pure luck. At the same time, all successful people were lucky at some points in their lives, just like everyone else. Of course, some of us are more lucky than others to be born and brought up in stable environments with educated parents. But not everyone makes the most out of their opportunities.

Hence, think about the return on luck, not about being lucky.