Often people ask about the role of luck in success. They are convinced that luck is a critical factor in achieving anything worthwhile. They feel that some people are just lucky and some are not. They talk about luck as if it were a matter of fate or destiny, largely inexplicable. They insist that a person gets to the top of his field largely as the result of getting lucky breaks, which they, of course, did not get.
I have studied the concept of luck for many years. My conclusion is that luck is a word that people use to explain away things that turn out much better than could have been expected. If a person achieves a great financial success at a young age, people say he was "just lucky."
Some people use luck to describe something remarkably good that happens that is out of the ordinary. But it is not luck at all. The fact is that all so-called lucky outcomes are really the result of probabilities. There is no such thing as luck.
The law of probabilities says that there is probability for everything that happens. These probabilities can often be determined with considerable accuracy. The entire insurance and under-writing industry is based on probabilities, which are expressed in actuarial tables.
BECOMING A MILLIONAIRE
There is s probability that you will become a millionaire in the course of your working lifetime. Today in America, one family in 20 has a net worth of more than one million dollars. This means that your likelihood of acquiring a million dollars is one in 20, or 5 percent.
However, this also means that your likelihood of not acquiring one million dollars, should that be your goal, is 95 percent. These are not good odds. Your job must be to improve the odds in your favour. Your aim should be to dramatically increase the probabilities of achieving financial independence by doing more and more of those things that will help you to achieve your goal. This principle applies to anything you want to accomplish.
The more different things that you do that are likely to help you to achieve your goal, the more likely it is you will do the right thing at the right time. If you set clear, written goals, make detailed plans, and continually upgrade your skills to increase your income, you increase the probabilities that you will earn a good living.
If you study money and investments, save and put aside 10 percent to 20 percent of your income every month, keep tight control over your expenses, and think long-term about your financial life, you will eventually become a millionaire. It is not a matter of luck. It is just a matter of probabilities.
