I have a problem.

I have a problem with people calling others lucky just because they are successful in one way or another.

I have no problem if being lucky is defined as having an opportunity meet hard work. Because that’s my definition of luck.

However, in most cases, people would assume that you’re who you are today simply because some random stranger helped you along the way or you won the lottery, essentially a “something for nothing” event.

I agree with them to the extent that if you’re successful today, you must have had a lot of opportunities presented to you before this. And I mean, A LOT. If you don’t believe this, read on.

The Stories of Outliers

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers”. It’s a book about the story of successful people, where they started and how they to where they are today.

Gladwell has demonstrated very clearly in the book that successful people had been given a lot of opportunities in life, since the day they were born.

Here are a couple of revealing stories of success:

1) Most professional hockey players in the NHL (National Hockey League in Canada) were born between January and March. Why?

They were given more opportunities as kids to train and practice because they were physically more mature than their younger counterparts. Why? The eligibility cutoff date for age-class hockey is Jan 1. According to Gladwell’s explanations, a boy who turns 10 on Jan 2, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn 10 until the end of the year. Imagine you were born in December, and when you were 10 years old you had to play with someone who was 12 months older than you. At that stage, they probably could beat you down using one hand.

These small advantages accumulated over the years to allow them to become word class players. That doesn’t mean that the players didn’t work hard or that they didn’t have strong and athletic bodies to back it up. They did, but they were also given a lot of opportunities since young.

2) Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. But he also got a lot of help along the way. How?

Gates had a lot of opportunities to practice his programming at the Lakeside, a private school catered to Seattle’s elite families. It was one of the very few high schools in the world that had access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968 (and you’d need one to code back then). These opportunities, among others, have helped the richest guy in the world to become who he is today. In fact, he said in beginning of the interview with Gladwell, “I was very lucky.”

Yet, we shall not be confused by Gates’s statement. He’d been programming almost non-stop (no summer breaks and stuffs) for almost 7 years in a row (the Windows 7 that I’m using now definitely didn’t come easy). He was extremely hardworking, he was passionate, and he had many wonderful opportunities.

This is surely not an exhaustive list, so if you like examples like these, you should get Gladwell’s book “Outliers” here.

Luck = Opportunities + Hard Work

In all the stories though, “being lucky” means seizing an opportunity when you see it, and be willing to work hard at it. There is of course sheer luck such as winning a lottery, but even that would naturally take time to manage your windfall, otherwise you’d end up broke like most lottery winners.

So, I hope you’d get the definition of “lucky” right the next time you say someone is lucky!

What’s your own definition of “lucky”? Tell us some examples and stories.

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