Privilege, Luck and Skill

When we look at history and try to understand the path to success of some of the extremely successful people we will understand that there is no single path to success and the very definition of success itself can vary depending upon the context (a personal thing). And importantly a path that worked for someone need not necessarily work for you/me.

Something that interests me, is to look at the approaches of the extremely successful people and understand what I can learn and apply for myself.

Let me take the case of three extremely successful people whom I look up to.

• The Peter Thiel approach - seek to avoid competition, find a compounding advantage. Pivot if the competition is too fierce. Being in the middle — not so good. In his book 'Zero to One' he reasons why Competition is for Losers.

• The Elon Musk approach - Be obsessed. Be obsessed. Be obsessed. If you're not obsessed, then stop what you're doing and find whatever does obsess you. This was one of the key messages in Justine Musk's answer on Quora when talking about the reason behind Elon's extreme success.

• The Michael Jordan approach- strive to be the best, compete and win. Double down in the face of fierce competition. Do watch 'The Last Dance' on Netflix which takes us through his winning mentality and a relentless drive to win at all costs.

But is my assumption of being able to replicate the approach of extremely successful people, by learning from them right?

With great confidence, I would say that by doing so we would be to develop the skills such as focus, optimism, growth mindset, mental models and ability to generate great ideas-- that got them where they are today. Two things we often ignore when it comes to success is the role of ‘privilege and luck’.

One thing you also need to look is, you can be extremely privileged and lucky to have been born to Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani but still, you need to be like Mukesh, have the right skills to capitalise on it to grow further and not like that of Anil end up broke.

So, the question here is that of 'Privilege, Luck’ Vs ‘Skill’ when it comes to success.

First, What is Privilege?

The fact that you are being able to read this blog post at the comforts of your home itself is a privilege and also whatever written here itself is applicable only if you have this privilege. I read a fact recently that even more reiterates this - ‘It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India to earn what the top paid executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in a year.’

If the family you are born in plays a significant role in driving your success you are definitely privileged even if you would like to deny it. I found this blog post by Ankur Warikoo and this video as a good starting point to understand privilege in a much better sense. Personally I wouldn’t deny the role of privilege when it comes to success and we are having a huge uproar regarding it on different contexts across media.

But, can privilege guarantee success? NO

And What is Luck?

Luck is the success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions. More so we often consider luck as about being at the right place with the right people at the right time. The concept and belief in luck is sure to bring divided opinions.

We consider those winning lottery as lucky people, whereas in America, most lottery winners are likely to declare bankruptcy and some of them even worse.

‘Success’ or more so Economic Success can be a result of privilege, others helping us (again a form of privilege), luck, a messed-up system, & various other circumstances. But to sustain it in a very long term you definitely need skills, that’s what I would say the case of lottery winners in America tells us.

Stefan Mandel, an economist from Romania, won the lottery 14 times using his skills before the era of online lottery. I would say he got ‘lucky’ through his skills or basically he gamed the system.

There are ways to attract more luck into our lives despite the existing circumstances through skill/effort.

1. Showing Up and Following Up

80% of success in life is just showing up. Showing up is more than merely putting in a physical appearance. It's also intellectually showing up and the remaining 20% is chasing opportunities with follow-ups. This is like in Marc Andreessen's word 'active' luck. When we tend to do more, there are more possible moments of breakthrough we generate.

2. Getting to know someone who knows someone.

This is about being in the right place with the right people at the right time. You will have seen some people getting more opportunities than you just because they know someone. To get to know that 'someone' you need to be curious, interesting and partner up with interesting people. This is also when other people might help you ( a form of privilege but through efforts/merit).

3. Working on yourself

There is no stopping when you are fully prepared and when you work towards being best at what you do. This is the part about building the ‘skills’.

Again take the case of Stefan Mandel, in the 1960s he was struggling to support his wife and two children on a salary equivalent to just $88 a month in Romania. He worked on an algorithm that would guarantee him a lottery win that changed his life. So work on yourself and build skills.

Where does this lead us to?

In the short-term success can be because of being lucky and privileged. But, in a very long enough timeline success is mostly skill.

Again for this to really work in your favour you need to be consistent in efforts to build skills. Consistency means you’re making progress even when you’re not “feeling it." It is about building small empowering habits that you partake in every single day that keeps you focused on your highest priorities. This will help you build skills to attain what you define as your success.

And remember this will take time. You might not see much success on an immediate basis. But over the course of many years, it will happen. And I think that's what matters.