Luck By Chance Or Luck By Design !

There can be an alternate title also for this – “Success by Luck or Success by Design”

Luck can be a very complex & emotional topic especially if someone considers himself not-so-lucky, hence  let’s try to explore this on purely logical terms without getting into its emotional or philosophical side of it.

Objective is to explore whether someone can design his luck or luck is purely an outcome of chance!

Let’s dive into it without further ado , let’s analyse 2 situations :

Situation 1

Here are two persons –Person A & Person B

Both work in same office, at same position.

Person A keeps all his savings in a fixed deposit in a bank and is of the opinion that luck is just a matter of chance.

Person B keeps his 80% money in a fixed deposit but invests rest of it in the stock market in established companies of the country as he believes that as good companies would grow, his money would also grow.

Now pause and think –who has a higher chance to make more money!

The logical answer would be that person B would have better chances of making more money because the person A has put a limit to his earning  by investing in an instrument (FD )where upper cap is fixed.

Who can be lucky here?

Logically Person B can be lucky if he has chosen the right companies & prices of those stocks go up multiple times. And person B tells us that he spends lot of time in studying the market, companies and economy in his free time. so he is increasing his chances of doing good in stock market by adding certain skills.

Hope the answer is clear to you: If the person B happens to have more money than the person A in the long-run , decide by yourself whether person B was lucky by chance or he made efforts to design his luck ?

Situation 2

Let’s assume that you run a business and you plan to hire a new CEO.

After interviews, you shortlist two.

And you find out that CEO 2 looks at the business from a long term perspective and plans to handle it in a wholesome way whereas CEO 1 is more sales focused.

Now you need to decide which CEO you should hire.

Let’s help you out.

You would agree that there can be two outcomes in the coming season – either it would be bad or it would be good depending upon economy, completion and few other external factors.

Outcome 1

Let’s first assume that season would be good – in that situation both CEOs would do well.

CEO 1 would do well, he may increase the sales in short run? But for him to succeed, external environment should be suitable every time. In case, one factor in external environment goes wrong, he would fail.

(That’s why there are many one success wonders, one-time-lucky all around us. They may succeed once or twice due external enabling factors – booming economy, having a great product in portfolio, shortage etc. – but they won’t be lucky every time)

But CEO 2 has higher chances to give you more profit in short run as well as in the long run – what if his cost reduction project comes out well, what if sales from new geography are awesome , what if he comes out with a new product which is far ahead than competition.

If any of the above happens, would you consider CEO 2 as lucky?

Would you say that he was lucky by chance or he was lucky by design because he was putting so many different calculated bets?

Outcome 2

2^nd outcome can be a bad season. The reason can be any- poor economy, a better competitor product or any other external factor.

Who would do better in this scenario?

CEO 1 , who is focusing purely on sales-growth would definitely fair poorly.

CEO 2 , may not be able to improve sales but he has taken chances on other aspects too. He may be able to improve costs, he may generate additional sales from new geography.

Would you say that he was lucky by chance or he was lucky by design because he was putting so many different calculated bets?

Conclusion:

If we keep the philosophy aside, we would conclude that success can be designed and one can be lucky by design.

The essence lies in taking as many chances as possible, knocking on several doors, having multiple strategies, diversifying your skill-set. You don’t know what may strike gold.

 

Life is a sequence of  making guesses and taking chances.

The more you guess, the more chances you take ,the more you learn.

The more you learn, the better you guess, the higher the chances of your success.

PS: Someone may criticize the approach of CEO 2 or person 2,may say that focus is missing!

Really?

Think about the person A,he was just putting all his eggs in one basket- the fixed deposits!

Where nothing is in his hands, he does not need to do anything and even if he wants he can’t change the outcome whereas person B is trying to acquire new skills, working hard on his investments to work, he is taking many chances.

Similarly CEO 1 is having a very narrow focus. While focusing solely on sales (may be this is his comfort zone), he is ignoring other doors of opportunities to improve bottom-line. He is no taking chances.