
Why are some people so much luckier than others? - eatitraw
http://ninjasandrobots.com/why-are-some-people-so-much-luckier-than-others
======
drblast
Some people are so much luckier than others because nobody writes articles
about Bob Jones, the failed actor, even though the Bob Joneses outnumber the
James Garners by orders of magnitude.

I'm now convinced survivor bias needs to be taught in kindergarden and every
year thereafter.

~~~
nate
That's a really great point. However, I think there's still a lot of value
studying a guy like James Garner and people who are the best.

I've actually studied acting for years. I've seen a lot of terrible actors and
people who are good and struggle to get parts.

On observation. One of the biggest things to being a good actor or at least
not a terrible actor is to learn that acting is much more about reacting.
Learning to listen. Stop reciting lines, and instead LISTEN to the other
people on stage and their needs and desires. Then react to those. A good actor
could forget all their lines and still get through a scene because they can
just react in character to what's going on around them.

James, as you can imagine from this article, was awesome at just listening. He
didn't start out as a great actor but this quality definitely helped get him
there.

On taking chances. I know some good actors who are baristas right now when not
acting. When James needed money as a starting actor he was helping other
actors recite lines, cleaning actors dressing rooms, even washing their cars.
Which do you think will get you more possibilities for "luck", making coffee
for random Joes, or helping Marlon Brando with lines?

But I agree with you that there are a lot of people trying and they'll never
be as successful as James. But I also know a lot of people who won't ever as
successful as they want because they do so little to find new opportunities.
Also, the article wasn't titled, how to be as successful as James Garner, but
was meant to point out some things Wiseman has found "lucky" people (not
necessary James Garners) doing that "unlucky" people aren't.

~~~
debt
This really is a very important point. The fact that James immersed himself in
the world in all respects(day job and as an amateur) likely increased his
chance of success.

If you were asked on the spot to name the names of a few acquaintances(not
people you know, only people you know of), you'd probably name those who
pepper your life most often. Now if those people made it known that they're
fisherman or actors or really into painting or programming or etc. Then the
next time someone asks "Hey you know of any good programmers? You know of
anyone interested in painting? You know...etc"; _you 'll be able to say yeah I
know a guy, he washes my car every other week._ It works out for you(because
you recommended a person) and it works out for the other person because they
get a shot at doing something they love.

James Garner allowed himself to seep into the consciousness of as many people
as he could so they'd associated him with what he loved; smart move.

A corollary may be that the more people that know what you love, the more you
become a person who loves that thing; both personally(mentally associating
yourself as an actor/writer/programmer/etc) and professionally("Yeah, James
he's an actor. Ben wants to be a painter. Sheila is trying to be a
cartoonist").

------
patio11
I rather like the Techzing guys' take on this, called "luck surface area,"
because it tracks with my experience and is actually weaponizable in a way
that "be more observant" is not.

[http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-
surf...](http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surface-area)

If you for some reason want to get into a guild protected by a scouting
system, then your priorities should be a) identifying what the scouts are
looking for and getting good at it and b) getting in front of as many scouts
as possible as often as possible.

There exist many opportunities which HNers want which resemble "a guild
protected by a scouting system" if you squint at them, by the way.

------
disillusioned
Perhaps instead of "fortune favors the bold," Virgil should have written
"fortune favors the observant." I consider myself extremely lucky in life, but
reading this article, I'm recognizing just how much of my luck has been a
direct result of my being bold, highly observant, or both. Great piece.

~~~
bitJericho
I'm higly unobservant and my life I would say has been very "unlucky" :D Great
article. Something for me to work on:)

------
lilibalfour
People who believe life is not fair and nothing will go their way, will always
find reasons not to act. People who believe good things are going to happen to
them will always take action and have more luck.

In other words, the more chances you take the luckier you get. Life is a
numbers game.

------
jellicle
Hero worship + survivor bias + "I did it all myself" autobiographies =
"there's no such thing as luck, it's all hard work".

Hey, is there anyone here who was born in a first world country, grew up
speaking the world's pre-eminent language, was born to parents in the richest
1% of the world population, grew up eating an ample supply of extremely
nutritious food, and received a first-rate education while still a child?
Anyone here like that?

~~~
aaronem
Hey, is there anyone here who feels the need to self-flagellate in public over
imagined sins, but not to read the article before trying to contribute to the
discussion? Anyone here like that?

------
Thrymr
It turns out that about half of all people are luckier than the median. And
~2.5% are two sigma luckier than that.

It's a weighted random number generator. Some people make their own luck, and
some have luck thrust upon them. Some people work hard and never get lucky.

Obligatory XKCD applies here too: [http://xkcd.com/904](http://xkcd.com/904)

------
grecy
"The harder I work, the luckier I get" \--Henry Ford.

~~~
Mikeb85
And this really is the answer... Luck is created. You'll never win the lottery
if you don't buy a ticket, you'll never create Facebook if you don't create a
business, and you'll never meet to girl of your dreams if you don't ask girls
out...

~~~
taeric
On the flip side, nobody should expect to win the lottery just because they
bought a ticket. Same goes for all of the other scenarios. Statistically you
could expect that no matter how hard you work, you won't "make it."

~~~
Mikeb85
The fact that you may not make it to the 99th percentile doesn't mean you
won't see any success. Not everyone who starts a business will make billions,
buy many make enough to live on. Especially more traditional businesses. Most
people will get married. And most won't win the lottery, but that's not really
putting in work anyway.

~~~
taeric
Right, the point is more to make sure your definition of "making it" is not
essentially "win the lottery."

~~~
Mikeb85
No, of course not. But those that put in enough work, are observant, etc...
can make it to say, the 80th percentile. Then of those, the most talented
might make it to the 95th. And those who have connections, or funding, or the
right idea, might make it to the 99th. But either way, achieving success and
being 'lucky' means putting yourself in the position to achieve success and be
lucky...

Chasing girls is a great example. The guy I've known who has been with the
most girls has also been turned down more than anyone I know...

~~~
taeric
Do you have numbers to prove it? Because... to many of us, it seems that _by
far_ the largest indicator on whether you will make it to the 80th percentile,
is if you started there.

~~~
Mikeb85
Numbers to prove success is possible? There are numbers that show inherited
wealth peaks and then declines, there are numbers show that most who have
multiple billions of dollars earned their money (as opposed to inheriting it),
but I don't think it necessarily matters.

Most individuals aren't entrepreneurs, most are content to work for someone
else on a hamster wheel and blame their lot in life for their lack of success.

So I have no doubt people who grew up wealthy or at least well-off are more
successful, since their parents taught and showed them that success is
possible.

If you grew up in a household where your parents ran the rat race and told you
that success is to get a degree and run the rat race, odds are that's what
you've done...

~~~
taeric
I'm curious to know of the actual numbers you are referring to.

I am not convinced you are wrong. However, I am also far from convinced you
are right. There is a lot of faith in "work hard and you can become rich."
Especially if you are trying to imply this can get you "multiple billions of
dollars."

Now, I personally think "rich" begins well before "multiple billions." I also
don't think the world is split between entrepreneurs and people content to
work for someone else on a hamster wheel. Truth is, as in many things, it is
much more complicated.

So, yeah, do you have any good links to the numbers you are referring to?

~~~
Mikeb85
I don't have any particularly large sampling with which to draw statistics
from, but here's an article which uses Forbes lists to draw some stats:
[http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/summer-2013/bi...](http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/magazine/summer-2013/billionaires-
self-made)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2013/09/18/how-
self-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2013/09/18/how-self-made-
forbes-400-billionaires-earned-their-money/)

I'd guess it's harder to poll millionaires since most don't own enough of a
public company for it to be reported.

Regardless, stats do a poor job of presenting possibility, and my guess would
be most poor stay poor, if for no other reason than a defeatist attitude they
inherited...

~~~
taeric
How would you propose to test this "defeatist" attitude hypothesis?

More interestingly, how would you reconcile it with the core hypothesis of
this article. That is, that people can create their own luck.

Also, many of the numbers in those articles are... interesting. To call Bill
Gates a "self made" individual is rather... cute. He is _far_ from a poor
family. Pretty much everyone they have that is a "self made" rich person came
from "upper middle class" families. (The articles words.)

This is concerning, as a large part of the problem that many fear in this
nation is precisely how far the gap has grown between "merely middle class"
and "upper middle." Consider, the vast majority of the "self made" rich people
it lists are people that had early access to technology. Something that was
decidedly situational related. Sheer numbers wise, it is on the level of
winning the lottery.

------
jqm
Sometimes what people call luck may be observation, preparation, positioning
or things of this nature....yes, that's true. These are things that can be
controlled. I'm sure we have all met people who believe they have simply
gotten unlucky while it's obvious to the outside observer that their actions
resulted in the consequence they consider bad luck.

But, there is an element of random chance that exists outside our control and
always will. This is what I call real luck and there isn't any use in trying
to explain "why" because there is no "why" that we can understand. It's just a
flip of the dice from our perspective. These kind of articles should really
differentiate and stop lumping behavior in with luck. They aren't the same.

~~~
localhorse
> But, there is an element of random chance that exists outside our control
> and always will.

Certainly. But - statistically speaking - this would affect everyone the same
way, positively or negatively. You're talking about chance, not luck as a
property or attribute that someone can have more of than someone else. It
might seem that way, depending on your sample size, but that's not really how
it works.

~~~
jqm
Maybe what you are calling luck I call chance.

Just for fun I looked the word up. It turns out that either definition can
apply.

I just take exception to the idea that everything is in our control. It isn't.
Some events our out of control and often we don't even see what's coming.

------
baddox
> James had a reason to be relaxed. He and his brothers grew up in a home of
> mental, physical and sexual abuse. ... If that wasn’t terrible enough, James
> grew up during The Depression in Oklahoma, meaning he, his family, friends
> and neighbors battled things like the Dust Bowl. ... James didn’t worry
> about much because nothing could be as bad as the life he had already lived.

Considering this is a crucial step in the thesis, I would like to see some
evidence that this correlation (between a miserable childhood and lack of
anxiety in adulthood) actually exists. It might _sound_ rational to look back
over your life, realize that the worst parts are probably over, and thus not
worry about the present or future, but I highly doubt this is how most people
actually behave.

~~~
thathonkey
As my family includes many sufferers of anxiety of varying degrees, I've done
quite a bit of research on the subject (in addition to personal bouts with
mental health issues of that type, going through psychotherapy, etc.) and this
James fellow is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

Typically childhood trauma like what the article mentions is much more likely
to lead to mental issues (usually something like anxiety + depression) in
adulthood.

So yeah, take that one with a grain of salt. It was a silver lining for this
guy that he had such a horrible childhood but that is a dangerous part of the
thesis to not mention as being very abnormal.

~~~
nate
Thanks for reading my article! And thanks for the insight here. I really
wasn't trying though to make it part of my thesis that you should have a
terrible childhood in order to create a non-anxious state to make yourself
more observant, or that you should give your own kids a terrible childhood to
make them more successful.

But it was to show how relaxed James was, and it also seemed to stem from how
he interpreted the terrible things that happened to him. I thought those
stories could help some of us realize that if we could re-interpret some of
the bad things that have happened to us the way James has, we could probably
become more observant too, and hence spot more opportunities.

Also, Malcolm Gladwell has some interesting bits in his latest book, David and
Goliath, about how childhood trouble like dyslexia can turn into
opportunities. I'm going to butcher the research if I try and bring it up now,
but there's some neat bits there if you haven't read them.

------
koliber
This is a topic I have been thinking about quite a bit. here are my thoughts:

Good and bad things happen to all people. When a good thing happens, you can
recognize the opportunity and seize it, or you can ignore it. The article
mentions attributes this to attentiveness, and that is surely part of it. I
also tend to attribute it to a mixture of intelligence and fortitude. If a
person is a go-getter and is intelligent, he will make more out of fortunate
situations than their counterparts. On the other hand, when bad things happen,
"lucky" people tend not to fixate on them and work on forgetting them.

If you agree with me at this point, the next part is just a numbers game. If
you are the type of person who always takes the same route to work, always
eats at the same restaurant, goes to the same part, and vacations in the same
spots, your chances of anything (good or bad) happening to you are limited. If
you do diversify, take new roads, discover new places, and meet new people,
you increase the number of things happening.

So in general, people who are positive, go-getters, and like to vary their
routines and people they interact with will be considered luckier than the
rest.

------
sayemm
Best post on luck, similar to this one, is by Paul Buchheit, "Serendipity
finds you" \- [http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-
finds-y...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-
you.html)

And the best book IMO is by Michael J. Mauboussin, "The Success Equation:
Untangling Skill and Luck in Sports, Business, and Investing" \-
[http://www.amazon.com/Success-Equation-Untangling-
Business-I...](http://www.amazon.com/Success-Equation-Untangling-Business-
Investing/dp/1422184234)

Way better than Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work, he's got his head up his ass way
too much and makes too many hyperbolic remarks.

------
abc_lisper
Isn't there a basic math aspect to this?

Everything like looks, basic intelligence, rhythm, musical ability,
sportsmanship are distributed among people according to a (mostly) uniform
distribution.

I would believe you can say the samething about luck.

Now don't get the wrong idea that I advocate people to be bums waiting for the
"luck" to happen to them. Not everybody who works their ass off(while being
smart) is successful. We can quote a lot of examples from history to see this
isn't the case.

And then there are people like Kardashians, who got to where they are, by
what?

~~~
Nocturnographer
Actually, physical attributes are probably distributed closer to a Gaussian
distribution - most people clustered around the average, with a small number
of exceptionally lucky and exceptionally unlucky people in the tails of the
distribution.

I would agree with you that in some vague sense, we might be able to think of
a "luck distribution" with similar properties; however, it's not obvious what
exactly that would mean in terms of what is actually being measured. Wealth?
Happiness? Recognition in their field? All of these in the short run? The long
run?

~~~
abc_lisper
Yeah, you are right. It is Gaussian distribution.

We have to come up with an accurate definition of luck, and a way to quantify
it. It is a function of work put in and the results obtained. And we have to
define how to quantify work.

Another way is to think of world with no luck in it. How would it affect us?
Would the world be the same?

------
lttlrck
This coincidental connection made me smile: Queeg -> Red Dwarf -> Luck Virus

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Queeg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Queeg)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queeg_(Red_Dwarf)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queeg_\(Red_Dwarf\))
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine_(Red_Dwarf)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarantine_\(Red_Dwarf\))

------
bjones53
I remember reading somewhere that the question, 'Why are you lucky?' is used
by companies during interviews. The question is supposed to say a lot about a
person' attitude, self-confidence, self-worth, etc... The conclusion was why
would anyone want to work with someone who perceives themselves as being
unlucky. (Does anyone have a link to this article?)

Has anyone had to answer this question during an interview? Do you think it's
a question worth asking?

------
pervycreeper
Tangential to this article, but chance events which effect an individual's
life circumstances tend to be subject to feedback loops, where more of the
same become more likely, in the sense that someone in bad circumstances
(possibly partly attributable to bad "luck") has an increased range and
likelihood of events that could make those circumstances worse. Same story
with beneficial events, mutatis mutandis.

------
darkFunction
I can relate to this somewhat. My grandmother always said I was lucky in life,
and joked that if I walked up to a bus stop then three buses would turn up. I
do consider myself to be observant to the point of distraction (I am also
forgetful, lacking common-sense, and lazy).

Of course, I've not measured just how observant I am against anyone else, and
it's just a hunch, so I could be talking shit. Enjoyed the article!

~~~
junto
I'm similar to you. I notice potential problem situations amd opportunities
way before friends and family do. I'm also lazy but also very particular.

With regards to coding it means that the lazy part of me wants to write as
little code as possible, but the particular part of me is pedantic about
making it both elegant and neat (I have a thing about consistent coding
styles).

I am also very forgetful (terrible remembering birthdays for example) but more
recently I've come to notice that I'm forgetful with regards to things that,
in all honesty, I don't find important to me. Hence others are disappointed
when I forget their birthdays bit it doesn't really bother me if I don't
celebrate mine.

------
j_s
See also: last month's discussion of the _Commencement address by Bill and
Melinda Gates_
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7954266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7954266)

------
cek
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." -Seneca

~~~
jedmeyers
After US Airways' 1549 "lucky" ditching Capt. Sullenberger said that "for 42
years, he's been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience,
education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that
he could make a very large withdrawal". So you might say that he got lucky,
but you never see a student pilot with 4 hours flight time being this lucky.

~~~
emp
He is also a glider pilot. I always hope when I am flying that the pilots fly
gliders or Pitts Specials.

------
kghose
I always recall Larry Niven's RingWorld and that amazing statement about
probability (The Puppeteers breeding "lucky people").

------
ceejayoz
So he was lucky to be observant and positive. Heh.

