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The $100 MBA Show
Are Successful People Just Lucky? How Much Does Luck Influence Success?
00:17:40
If you’ve been grinding and still feel stuck, it’s hard not to wonder if success is just a rigged game where the “chosen” ones got lucky and everyone else got left behind. And when a viral video tells you your hard work basically doesn’t matter, it hits that sore spot fast. That kind of message can make you question everything you’re doing.
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Omar Zenholm
Tech changed the world, but so did the bubonic plague.
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Omar Zenholm
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Omar Zenholm
We want to save the world or control it. Most of us go. Dr.
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- [01:00]
Omar Zenholm
There's a video going viral right now that has nearly a million views that made me genuinely angry. Not because it's completely wrong, but because it's right about just enough things to be dangerous. This video is telling you that your hard work doesn't matter. The reason you aren't successful isn't your strategy, isn't your habits or what you do every day. It's just that luck hasn't found you yet. Huh? This video is titled the the diary of a CEO is making you less successful. The central argument around this video is actually buried under some genuinely interesting science, but he's really trying to convince you that successful people are just basically lucky and that's why they're successful. And today I'm going to tell you why that argument is just absolutely flat out ridiculous. And what confirms how ridiculous it is is the comments on this video. More about that later. So in today's video, I'm going to break down why this creator left out some really important things that make it so dangerous, make this video so dangerous to watch for people that are really trying. But more importantly, we're going to talk about luck. We're going to talk about how much of an influence does it have on success? Because no one's saying that luck is not a thing or circumstances or whatever you want to call it. The thing we're debating here is, is it the thing? Is it the only thing? Let's get into it. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start grow and scale. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week and more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. Before I destroy this argument, I want to be honest about what the video gets right, because it does get some things right. Survivorship bias is real. When we study successful people, we try to extract the formula and we're only looking at the people who made it who are successful. We don't see the millions of people who follow the same exact strategy and didn't make it. That is a legitimate problem with a lot of self help content, business content, finance content, success content. There's something called the Music Lab experiment. Let me tell you about it. 14,000 people were placed in separate music markets and the same songs rose and fell to complet different positions on the charts depending on which market they were in. And that is genuinely a fascinating study because it shows that early social momentum has an enormous influence on which things become popular. That is true. We're not denying that. And yes, some content in the self help space is designed to keep people anxious and keep people consuming and keep people feeling like they're one framework away, one hack away from a breakthrough. That is also true. And I call this out constantly on this podcast. But I'm here to say that in the video he's coming to conclusions about luck and success that are never supported by science. Let me break this down and make it super simple with the Music Lab experiment where they have all these different songs in different markets and some are rising and some are falling. The fact of the matter is, is that you have to create the song, right? You have to actually do the work and be in the marketplace in the first place to even rank as a top song. Okay? It conveniently misses that idea. The fact that people are watching a podcast Diary of a CEO in this example and thinking that they're going to be successful by just merely watching the podcast is just ridiculous. You have to do something with what you're learning, okay? You have to implement. I mean, in the comments there were people saying, yeah, I've been watching this podcast for years and nothing's changed. He can't just do the work for you, okay? He's presenting you information. And by the way, anytime you are consuming information, whether it's a podcast, a book, there's going to be information that's useful, and some of it's not useful. Take what's good, leave what's bad. But you can't say, I didn't come in first place in the marathon because I was unlucky and not run the race. You have to at least participate. The other thing he removes from the scientific experiments that he quotes, like the music lab experiment, is that they discovered that quality isn't a necessary floor. Your song has to have some level of quality to rank as a top song. So all the top songs have some level of quality. And this showed that success is not random. It showed that quality is a necessary floor. And luck operates in the space in between the floor and the ceiling. Yes, in order for you to have tremendous success, you have everything on your side. But the thing is, is that if you're not in that range where you're not actually creating something of quality and being in the space where you can get lucky, it's impossible for you to get lucky. And by the way, if you do something long enough, you will get lucky. If you've ever played any kind of card game or any kind of board game, you know this. When I was a kid on summer holiday, I used to play gin with my mom. And for years, she would beat me. I'm talking about. She just kill me, crush me completely. I'm talking about hundreds and hundreds of games. Every single time, I would end up with an L. And it was because I was a horrible gin player. I mean, she was in her 30s. I was nine. But one day, I did win. I learned from all my mistakes, and I got a good hand and I won. And I asked my mom, did you allow me to win? And she was like, well, why would I stop, you know, and all of a sudden let you win? Now I beat you hundreds of times. And I was like, yeah, I actually finally won. But guess what? You can't win if you don't play. But more importantly, you can't win unless you're at a certain level of quality of performance. Your product has to be at a certain level. Your business, whatever you offer in the world, in order for you to qualify for luck, you need to actually, one, participate. Two, participate at a level of quality that the market demands. Quality is the entry ticket. And with that ticket, the rooms you walk into, the relationships you build, the consistency that you bring, the hard work, the timing, it all capitalizes on which determines where you end up. Like they say, luck is when preparation and opportunity meet. You gotta be ready, you gotta be doing the work. You gotta be qualified to get lucky. Self directed investing, Trading, Full service Wealth management, Automated investing, Financial planning, Thematic investing, Retirement planning. Phew. And to think that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life, stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair, detailing cars, or running a design studio, Square helps you run your business without running yourself into the ground. Take payments at a kiosk, counter, website, or with your phone, all synced in real time. With Square, you can track sales, manage inventory and access reports, whether you're in your shop on the go or running things solo. Plus, Square supports every major payment method, including Tap to Pay, and offers instant access to your earnings through Square Checking. Running a business involves a lot of moving parts, and Square helps simplify that. The hardware looks polished and fits right into your space without feeling intrusive. And the software is incredibly straightforward and intuitive. With Square, you get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexity. And why wait? Right now you can get up to $200 off square hardware at square.com go mba that's sq U-A-R e.com go mba run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. I'm going to give you an example and then share a story to really capsuleize what we're talking about here. Number one, I go to a lot of conferences, I go to a lot of festivals, I go to a lot of conventions for business, for my work. And if you go to these conferences, you know that the number one reason why you should be going and the number one value you can extract is the networking opportunity or the people that you're going to meet there. Because the sessions, you can probably watch the recording later, right? The sessions of the event, of the conference. But the people that you meet are only there in a limited time. So you need to really put on your networking hat and come in feeling like, I gotta meet people, I gotta be helpful, I gotta make sure that I'm showing up at my best self. This is not my natural state, right? I'm not naturally a networker. I'm not naturally somebody who's like, loves to party and loves to be around a lot of people and talk and ask questions and be gregarious. But I understand in order for me to succeed at these events, I need to do my best. I need to actually participate. I got to make an effort. And by making an effort, I then have a chance to meet interesting people that can then, you know, possibly collaborate with me. I can work with them, they can open doors, they can introduce me to somebody else. And that's how it works. That's how life works. And let me share a story with you that illustrates this crystal clear. It's one of the most luckiest things that ever happened to me, so to speak. But let's see how this luck manifests. A friend of mine, Matthew Kimberly, who's a fellow entrepreneur, invited me to a dinner. At that dinner was a man called Michael Port, who's a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, very successful entrepreneur. He had a large engaged audience of entrepreneurs and business owners on his email list. At the dinner, Michael and I really, really hit it off. We became fast friends and really got to know each other. And towards the end of the dinner, he offered to let me do a webinar to his list. Now, at the time, I was just starting out with my webinar software, Webinar ninja, and I was telling him about my software and why I built it and the problem it solves. And he says, that sounds really interesting. How about you run a webinar for my list and tell them about it? We're talking about over a hundred thousand people. Here's the kicker. Michael didn't ask for a penny, didn't ask for commission. He wasn't asking for a brand deal, nothing like that. He wasn't doing a deal. He was just trying to help me. And that webinar changed the trajectory of my business, validated a lot of things I needed to test out in terms of the product itself. I asked Michael, years later when we were on a holiday together, why did you help me that day? We just met at that dinner. We were strangers just a few hours ago. And he said to me, omar, I saw my younger self in you, and I wanted to help you. Here's my question to you. Was that luck? My answer to that question is yes, 100%. But how did I get access to that luck? If Matthew Kimberly, my friend, doesn't invite me to that dinner, then that moment of horror happens. How did I meet Matthew Kimberly? I actually met him at an event. I had to get up from my couch in my house and go to that event and meet random strangers at the time that was Matthew, and Matthew became my friend. And then Matthew and I stayed in touch. That takes effort. And then Matthew, when he was in my neck of the woods, invited me to dinner. I go to this dinner, I meet Michael, and if I talk to Michael and I say to him, I'm doing nothing with my life. I haven't done anything. I've kind of played around. I had some ideas I never actually implemented. Yeah, that's me. Would he help me out? No. I had to show up with something, right. I said to him, I have a product that's already been launched, that has users, that does xyz, that solves X problem. If I don't have that to present to Michael, to talk about to Michael, then there is no opportunity. Are we going to ignore the fact that I had to have a product in the first place to sell to an audience in order for Michael to even be interested in helping me? Are we going to ignore the fact that I actually showed up to that dinner, being fully present, being open, trying to meet new people, being curious instead of just sitting there moping around and being upset at my situation and saying, oh, you know, my business is not taking off the way I want to, and being negative, that has nothing to do with the fact that Michael asked me if I wanted to present to his audience. There are so many other ways this could have played out, but it played out in a certain way. So many things happened before that. So much work, so much effort, a lot of thought, a lot of deliberation, a lot of heartache in order to reach that moment. And then that moment happened. Yes, I got lucky that I met Michael that night, but I was able to do something with that luck because of the preparation. If this episode is getting your blood pumping a little bit, good, mine is pumping too. I think you should subscribe to the show because I'm actually working on an episode right now that's going to be released really soon titled Are youe Rich? The five levels of wealth and what you need to do to reach each one. You know, rich, poor, they seem very binary. What I've discovered that there are actually levels of wealth and some levels are actually more attainable than other. And some of these levels are actually not too dissimilar to the higher levels. Your life doesn't really change much. If you want to learn more about that hit, subscribe so you don't miss it when that episode drops. The real problem with this argument about it's all luck is that not that it's wrong, but that it's conveniently wrong. And this is what bothers me the most, is that when people hear this, when people hear like, oh, yeah, I'm not successful because I'm just not lucky, all these other people that are successful got lucky. It's not my fault. You are relieved of the responsibility of any solution. Once you hear that and think it's facts. When you believe success is random, if you believe that there's nothing that you can do to influence your ability to be successful, then you just give up. And it just, it's easy just to be like, okay, then I can just give up and can stop trying. That's comfortable, it's comforting. It's also making you feel better about yourself because it means that you're not doing anything wrong. And in a lot of ways, you become a victim. You start asking yourself the question, why should I try? Why should I grind? Why should I sacrifice? Why should I show up on the days when I don't feel like it? At the end of the day, the universe will decide. And here is where the video becomes genuinely irresponsible, in my opinion. It's really dressing up as an intellectual argument. That's really just a big excuse. That's just the truth. And the reason why it has nearly a million views is because it's confirming a lot of people's feelings about how disappointed they are in their life. There's an answer why they're not doing well. Well, it's just because I'm not lucky. That's the answer. Finally, listen, I've watched people succeed. I've watched people fail. I've watched people almost make it and then quit at the last moment. But I've never, not once, seen someone put in years of genuine, consistent focus, effort, something the market wanted and walked away with nothing. Not once. I've never saw somebody actually do the work consistently for years and not benefit. I've seen plenty of talented people get unlucky. I've seen plenty of hard working people face setbacks. But the people who keep going, who kept building, who kept improving, kept learning, who kept showing up and found a way through it every single time they succeed. And if success is mostly luck, that pattern would not exist. I want to say one more thing because this needs to be said, okay? Because this video is part of a trend that is genuinely frustrating. I'm not talking about any random creator. I'm talking about a creator who's built an audience, who's monetizing that audience, who's succeeding in the very creator economy. They're criticizing making a video that says the people who are giving you advice about success are the reason why you're not succeeding. Think about that for a second. This is the argument that's being made. Don't listen to successful people talk about how they succeeded because they're just lucky and they don't know why it happened. But do listen to me, someone telling you that all the other content is making you less successful. And if survivorship bias is a problem, it applies to that video as well. If the business model of keeping people anxious and consuming is a problem, a video designed to make you distrust every other source of information which is conveniently driving you back to his channel is a part of the same machine. He's criticizing what he is doing. I'm not saying this creator is a bad person and he probably has good intention. I'm saying his argument has a blind spot the size of China. And the point of this video is that I really wanted to expose it. I wanted you to see it, and I wanted to really talk about this whole narrative that people just get lucky and that's why they're successful. Here's my honest, complete take. Luck is real. Timing matters. Social momentum matters. Being in the right room at the right time matters. And some people work incredibly hard and face circumstances so unfair, so stacked against them that the odds are generally not equal. And I acknowledge all that. But to just conclude that you should be skeptical of all efforts and all habits and all skill building and all learning is a really horrible conclusion. That's not a growth mindset, and that's a victim mindset. That is a mindset of saying that, hey, things are not working out because of other things around me and not me. Guess what? You can't control the things around you, so that means you're going to be there forever. You like that answer? No, I don't like that answer. I rather just focus on the things I can control, which is what I do and how I live and how I think and how I behave. And I want to be that kind of person so that when luck comes my way, I know how to take advantage of it. Because to deny the fact that skills and effort have a lot to do with success is to deny reality. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I spent the last 20 years building businesses, and in that experience, it taught me one thing above everything else, and that is the people who succeed are not the luckiest. They are the most prepared when luck arrives. Listen, there are plenty of successful people that are not brilliant they're not smart. They're not. They're not hard working. They just got lucky. Yes, yes, that happens. But that's the aberration. That's the exception. And also, can we just for a moment just say, like, success has many forms. Okay? It's not just financial success. If you want to be a successful husband, you can't just get lucky. You have to work on it. You have to be better listener. You have to have some compromise. You have to care. You want to see your partner succeed. You have to show love. You have to show compassion. You can't not do those things and say, oh, my relationship failed because I got unlucky. Give me a break. If this episode got you fired up, great. I encourage you to keep moving forward. Learn from your experiences, your mistakes through the experiences you're having. Keep building. And in my opinion, you only fail when you quit. If you want to keep learning, check out one of my most recent episodes called 20 Years of Business Knowledge. In 20 minutes, I share the things that really matter. The essentials to succeeding in business. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. Whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts, by hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. And it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.
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Liberty Mutual Representative
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [20:27]
Omar Zenholm
Hey, everyone, check out the this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date? Oh, no.
- [20:32]
Liberty Mutual Representative
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [20:38]
Omar Zenholm
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [20:39]
Liberty Mutual Representative
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [20:43]
Omar Zenholm
Liberty, Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.