Luck is something that always confuses me. Everyone that I looked up to always associated their successes with luck. I like to think of myself as a pretty lucky person. I have graduated on time from one of the best universities in Indonesia. I have gotten a job in these challenging times for all of us. My friends often ask, “How do you get x?” and “How are you able to do y?” which I usually answer, “Well, everything just aligns perfectly, I guess,” or “I don’t know, I guess I’m just lucky.” this often annoys them since doesn’t provide any information. In reality, I do what I can and hope for the best.
I began to understand how annoying it is to get the “I’m just lucky” answers. I asked some friends who have achieved something remarkable, such as getting a job at a world-class tech company, winning a national competition, and getting a master’s degree scholarship. I always feel that this doesn’t tell the whole picture.
What I learned is to take more chances. My friends often asked why I always say “Kuy!” which is an Indonesian slang word for “Let’s go!”. I was still curious, and doing something new was an exciting experience. With every opportunity that comes my way, I try to be curious and take my chances to understand it better first.
The equation of successes
Imagine that person A is a “naturally lucky” person with a success rate of doing something at 40%. Then, person B is just an average person with a success rate of 20%. If person A does 10 of something, statistically, person A will have successfully done four things. However, while having only a 20% success rate, person B can succeed in doing something by doing 30 of something, which produces six successes.
Person A
Effort x Luck = Successes
10 x 40% = 4
Person B
Effort x Luck = Successes
30 x 20% = 6
Luck is only one part of the equation that is out of our control. However, how much effort we put into something is the part that is very well in our control. We often minimize the effort that we spend on something and maximize the luck that we have.
How it happens
Effort x Luck = Successes
100 x 20% = 20
How we normally see it looking back
Effort x luck = Successes
40 x 50% = 20
My friend who got a job at Google has some luck, but it doesn’t do justice to all the effort he exerted to get the job, the 20+ previous rejections he gets. We like to romanticize successes. It was foretold from the beginning that it would happen overnight. I learned that this was never the case. Even if you consider yourself unlucky, you can put in extra effort and take more chances to make up for it.
I learned that having the mindset “I just do what I can do and hope for the best” is a great mindset to have—in a sense, separating what is under your control and what is not under your control. Be curious and open to new opportunities that come your way, do your best, and become unattached to the result.