Making your own luck

Think about the last time you closed a deal. Or the last time your effort paid off in large returns. Was it pure luck?

Forbes magazine recently asked members of its 400 richest list how much of their success they attributed to sheer luck. Responses varied. But none accredits their heaping success to sheer luck alone.

Take multi-billion-dollar real estate developer Jorge Perez, for instance. His path to richness started by building low income multi-family apartments and then transforming them until they eventually became condo towers. Mr. Perez says he assigns 33% to luck and that it takes equal portions of brain and hard work to achieve the success you’re after.

“I consider myself very lucky, especially when I work hard”, says oil and gas man Harold Hamm. “Only a small portion is sheer luck”. One of the nation’s biggest home builder’s, Eli Broad, shares the same sentiment about luck. He believes only 5% of his fortune came from luck and states, “the harder you work, the luckier you get”.

Here’s what other of the richest 400 had to say about luck . . .

Donna Dubinsky, creator of the personal digital assistant (PDA) affirms “luck was clearly an uncanny ability to see the future.” Being convinced her idea of a PDA was a wave of the future, she left Apple to team up with Jeff Hawkins, who created the palm pilot in his garage. The outcome: a 7 billion dollar mobile device that organizes your life!

Renowned motivational speaker and best-selling author of the Rich Man, Poor Man series, Robert Kiyosaki says, “Great leaders can see how a situation will play out and take action in response.”

And what does one of the richest people that everyone on the planet knows—Oprah—believe about luck? Well, she doesn’t believe in luck at all. A few years ago she announced to her TV audience, “I don’t consider myself lucky. I think luck is preparation meeting the moment of opportunity.”

Let me pause and go back to my original question. Has the success you’ve accomplished in the past resulted from pure luck alone?

If you follow the examples of the world’s richest self-made entrepreneurs, you see that luck can be defined as having vision or being flexible or forward thinking. Luck can also be construed as the universe or a higher power supporting you in its miraculous way to give you the courage, passion and relentless commitment you need to succeed.

My suggestion is be prepared to make your own luck because nothing worthwhile will ever come your way unless you put forth deliberate action.