Effort versus Luck

There was an interesting post by Seth Godin this week about the myth of effort – that we seem to believe that people who are successful got that way less through hard work than right place/right time. Personally, I think we put in the effort to learn what we need to learn so that when luck does come, we’re ready for it. For example, I could get picked to be on, “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader,” and that would be luck. But if I was such a knob I didn’t know Monroe was the 5th president, and some kid did, then my lack of effort in school would keep me from winning anything. I do agree, luck is just a way to make it less painful to see people who do better than us. I knew a lot of talented actors when I was going to school at ASU, and I don’t doubt all of them – still unknown to the world – think Jude Law simply “lucked out” and had the career they could have had. I don’t know that I can write off luck – after all, luck is just another way of naming Eshu. It’s chaos that helps or hurts, but is otherwise indifferent. Rather than bemoaning our lack of luck, though, we should really be in training so we’re ready when luck comes. If I want to be an astronaut, it’s going to take luck to be selected. In the meantime, though, I should probably prepare myself – by running 10 miles a day, getting a Doctorate and becoming a Lieutenant in the Air Force. (Or something else that will be beneficial.) Because I don’t know that you make your own luck, but I do think you prepare yourself for when it comes. If you aren’t ready, then you don’t see the opportunity, and you are left unaware that you had just been lucky.

About the Author: Eric Reid

I am the Social Media Services Manager for Off Madison Ave. I've been with the company since 2006, when I was hired to do SEO, and link building in particular. When social networking sites started cropping up, at first I started using them to create backlinks - but they weren't the best for that, given all of the "nofollow" attributes. However, I did see the potential for all of the direct referral traffic they represent. Since then I've been actively pursuing both tactics for clients: Links that can help them for search, and social postings that get them involved in the conversation. It's about the coolest job you could ever get. ;)