Is it all about luck *or* hard work? A false dichotomy... (Thoughts on IH Episode 241)
I listened to part 1 of Pieter Levels's recent IH episode yesterday (https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/241-pieter-levels). He and Courtland spent some time talking about the idea that everything comes down to luck, as opposed to hard work or skill. Both agreed that the idea that everything comes down to luck is demotivating.
It's interesting to me that this is a point of debate. Without a doubt, luck plays an enormous part in our lives. Are you lucky enough to be born without an intellectual handicap? Are you lucky enough to be literate because you were educated? Are you lucky enough to have access to the internet? Luck matters.
Now, I understand the infinitely deterministic perspective: if you worked hard and consistently got up early, you were lucky to be an inherently motivated person or to have role models who demonstrated the value of hard work and persistence. If you had good ideas, you were lucky to be bright and insightful. Every decision you ever made was the result of elements outside of your control and, therefore, it's all luck.
That's true. 🤷🏻♂️
But it's not how we experience life. We experience life as though we have agency in our decisions. If we get up early or stay up late to work on a side project, we experience that as a choice. And if we consistently make choices that lead us towards our goals, we experience that as ownership of our achievements.
How can we reconcile these two paradigms?
I like to think about sports. Steph Curry is a lucky man -- the best 3 point shooter in the history of the world. He's got golden hands.
He's also got a crazy work ethic. Sure, that's luck, too -- good parenting, great coaching, a perfect temperament for an athlete. But Steph Curry doesn't experience it as luck. Steph Curry experiences it as a daily application of his will: to work harder, to get better.
Can Steph Curry own his records? Can Steph Curry say that he's proud of what he's done? Or should we tell him that he's just a lucky, lucky man?
This, to me, is a misleading and unhelpful dichotomy.
It is all about luck. This is the metaphysical reality, and it's not a bad thing. This should spur you to practice gratitude for the many blessings and advantages you have. Recognizing the instrumental role that luck plays in our lives keeps us humble and grateful. It helps us appreciate the things that might otherwise escape our attention or be taken for granted. Plentiful food. A hot shower. The internet. Being brighter and more motivated than the average person, and in contact with a community that inspires us to work towards our dreams. Having dreams and their foundation: hope.
&&
It is all about hard work. This is the lived experience, the lived reality. Steph Curry's incredible talent wouldn't have been enough for him to set any records, or even make it to the NBA, without thousands and thousands of hours of work. It was work he decided to do. He experienced it as thousands and thousands of decisions to move towards his goals. Similarly, nobody builds a business by being lucky. They build it by working on it.
If someone is trying to sell you on the idea that luck is all that matters, they are zeroing in on half of the truth.
If someone is trying to sell you on the idea that hard work alone guarantees a good outcome, they are zeroing in on half of the truth.
As is usually the case, the answer is more complex and nuanced than a black and white diktat makes it out to be.
For me, it comes down to this:
Work hard because without hard work, your talent will never see its fullest expression.
Always appreciate how lucky you are. Practice humility and gratitude.
Success usually happens at the confluence of hard work and luck.
This got longer than I had planned. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
Did anyone else have thoughts on this or any other part of the episode? I'm curious to hear what stuck out to you.
Or in other words: Create your own luck through sheer exposure!
If you haven't read Nassim Taleb, I highly recommend to give his books Skin in the Game and the black Swan a go. Entertaining and deeply philosophical at the same time.
From Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
"The biotech company seemed to follow implicitly, though not explicitly, Louis Pasteur’s adage about creating luck by sheer exposure. “Luck favors the prepared,” Pasteur said, and, like all great discoverers, he knew something about accidental discoveries. The best way to get maximal exposure is to keep researching. Collect opportunities—on that, later."
"Luck favors the prepared." Absolutely!
Will check out Taleb, thanks for the recommendation!
Also Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile; the whole incerto series. And if your up for a challenge there is Friedrich "thus I willed it" Nietzsche as well.
Good point. I'd like to express my opinion in another cultures' context.
In Chinese, 'luck' = 运气 which literally means convey/transport energy/spirit.
I've been studying eastern philosophy since I was young and I do feel like luck is the way you use your energy/spirit wisely. You have to leverage your energy in the right way and be laser focus in order to generate good fortune.
In this case, hardworking is the process that you use your 'luck' in a way that you are fully dedicated to your work. Just like Naval said, find something that feels like play to you, but looks like work to others.
I love the idea of getting paid to play... Have you been able to pull this off? What is your version of work that feels like play?
To me, writing feels like play because I've been doing it since primary school. I could write non-stop for the whole day without feeling drained :)
That's awesome. I just read your recent post about your journey. I'm really happy for you that you found a way to step outside of a toxic work environment and transition into something that you love! Best of luck going forward!
Thank you! All the best to you too!
Happy New Year BTW!
I mean "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb covers this precisely:
Randomness, chance, and luck influence our lives and our work more than we realize. Because of hindsight bias and survivorship bias, in particular, we tend to forget the many who fail, remember the few who succeed, and then create reasons and patterns for their success even though it was largely random. Mild success can be explainable by skills and hard work, but wild success is usually attributable to variance and luck.
Lady luck favors the one who tries.
Differentiating between mild and wild success is an interesting idea. I agree with your point. For me, mild success would be more than enough. 😂
"Lady luck favors the one who tries." 100%!
Good post. In case you're interested, I just posted something about luck as well:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-get-lucky-on-the-internet-e0372a2865
Hey hey. I read your book. Interesting read! I liked your breakdown of the different types of luck.
"Don’t expect many compliments. Most people who like your work will never tell you that. If one person says they love what you do, probably a hundred people are thinking it." --> I think this is one of the most challenging parts of creating content. I think your idea of setting your expectations low from the get-go is a good one!
Thanks for reading! Agree, I'm struggling a lot with having too high expectations. Doesn't help to read about crazy success stories every day hahaha
I hear you! Reading too many of the elite success stories makes us myopic, I think. I've always said, "Expectations are a dangerous thing to have." Perhaps this is a reason to try to find ways to create that are inherently satisfying even without lots of affirmative feedback, whether monetary or laudatory. But we also create in order to share our creations, right?? It can be a bit of a pickle.
I will say that I'm a pretty frugal person, and while I would like to have enough wealth to afford a lifestyle of freedom and choice, I don't feel any need to have extravagant or 'crazy' success. What about you? What's the dream?
I have a lot of the same thoughts, been writing on anticonsumerism a bit lately. Total freedom is the dream, though just having that dream means I'm far from total freedom. But it does include financial freedom of course.
He bet on remote work and won. Similar story for zoom. We could be living in a totally different world right now where their solutions could be redundant. That's one point for luck.
Luck is something we can manipulate via hard work, but privileges are not. Here is a great comic strip about the topic;
https://www.boredpanda.com/privilege-explanation-comic-strip-on-a-plate-toby-morris/
levelsio done something great when no else does, started 12 startups in 12 months. It was something to be in headlines of wired those days.
https://www.wired.com/2014/08/12-startups-in-12-months/
If this didn't happened he might give up way earlier and we'd never know about his existence. On the other hand for some people making it to the wired headlines could be a piece of cake through their established networks.
Anyways he ride this popularity by trying hundred more stuff. He didn't get better at software development, we all seen those PHP files. He didn't get better at finding better problems. He worked hard to keep people interested and entertained until he manage to find a solution to make money. Increased the luck surface when it happened. He advocated for the nomad life style. Become one and showed to everyone.
That's a great comic strip. That last panel was artfully done. Thanks for sharing!
It's about drive, it's about power
Drive and power are definitely critical for persistence!
There's a religious saying, I heard in Turkish. It roughly translates like this:
'It's not findable by searching, but finders are searchers'. I think it fits nicely with luck/hard work too, although it was used for finding god in the original context.
That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. I do think that captures the essence of it!
Hard work increases the probability of serendipity. I find this quote by Lionel Messi pretty inspiring: "I start early and I stay late, day after day, year after year, it took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success."
Hard work + talent = high (or at least much higher) likelihood of success! I agree!
To add to this, success breeds further success. It is easier to be more successful once you have a success, e.g., a successful exit. This works even if the success is more perception rather than reality.
Yes, having a success under our belts is a huge confidence booster... And while I'm not a fan of arrogance, confidence is critical because without at least some confidence that we can succeed, we won't attempt anything!
Luck is important
Without a doubt!
99.99% luck, 0.01% hard work.
but when the 99.99% hit, you want to be ready.
Anything hard work can pay off, you are not thinking big enough (aka, you are actually more reasonable/realistic).
Your math might be spot on! 😂I like the way you phrase it... When the opportunity appears, you have to have done the hard work to position yourself to take advantage of it!
Yes, I believe its luck as well. You can make your own path in order to get lucky.
20 People could make the same product but only 1 gets lucky enough to succeed. Luck is a big part but so is giving enough effort to get the tasks done for your chance.
"Luck is a big part but so is giving enough effort to get the tasks done for your chance." Absolutely. If you're lucky, you'll get a chance. If you've worked hard, you'll be ready to take advantage of it!
Great point. If we think deeply we are lucky in many points. Just the option that I have to answer you has many points of luck. I totally agree that you need to work hard to bring out your full potential.
Absolutely, without being lucky in so many ways, we would never have found ourselves in this place on the internet having this conversation!