In my last post, I talked about the story of Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer, and how even grand success doesn’t guarantee a golden path—or even future success—as life moves forward. Especially if you continue exploring the uncharted road of adventure, invention, and entrepreneurial ventures. Each former success may give you extra wisdom (and some extra cash) with which to arm yourself as you head into new territory, but the challenges are new, every time. And the odds are still high against any new venture succeeding. Just not quite as high if you’ve already succeeded in a similar venture before.
So what makes the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t? Or, in Wozniak’s case, an initial success but a subsequent failure (his second venture, Cloud Nine)? To a certain degree—indeed, to a large degree, the ideas themselves, and the skill of the person pursuing them, play a big role. That’s why venture capitalists are more likely to back someone a second time who has succeeded before.
But uncomfortable as it might be to contemplate, luck—or its twin, misfortune—plays a significant role, as well. By “luck” I mean bumping into the right person at the right party, who then becomes a conduit to funding or the right connections that tip the balance in favor of a hit; being on the “inside” of a circle as opposed to the “outside”; market forces that suddenly turn for or against your product or idea … and any other accidents of birth, acquaintance, circumstance or other forces outside our immediate and sure control.
The element that luck plays in our lives—professionally or otherwise—is uncomfortable to contemplate, because we really want to believe we can control what happens to us. Certainly we believe that if we’re adventurers of any kind, who have chosen to take the helm of the boat ourselves and steer it through uncertain and unmapped waters. Our belief in our ability to control events is what gives us the courage to proceed. If we thought life was just a crap-shoot, where our actions made no difference, we might think very differently about taking on that mountain, career, or invention.
And yet, the truth is, luck does play a role in how our efforts unfold. I was reminded of this again last week, when I happened to sit next to a Japanese-American man on a flight from Chicago to Boston. We got to talking, and he told me that he was on his way back to his home in Boston from several weeks in Japan, where he’d been clearing out his recently deceased mother’s house.
I expressed sympathy for his loss, and asked what his mother had been like. He smiled, and said that his mother had lived in Nagasaki, Japan, where he had been born in 1942. “My mother watched the progression of the war carefully,” he said. “My uncle, who was a doctor, was killed in the fighting in the South Pacific. And as the fighting moved closer, she had a feeling that it wasn’t safe to stay in Nagasaki. So she moved us to a small, rural village in August of 1945.” He paused for a moment. “We left four days before Nagasaki was bombed. And the train we took went through Hiroshima.” And then, just in case I wasn’t familiar with the timeline, he added, “the day before Hiroshima was bombed.”
Imagine the luck involved in picking the right day to leave town … and having made that “right” call, missing disaster on the road by a mere 24 hours. Why do we pick a Tuesday to leave instead of Wednesday? Who would think it would spell the difference between life and death?
One would have a hard time complaining about bad luck in life after coming out of that corner safely. But life is a mix. My seat companion told me how, years later, he’d come to the United States and worked as a Ph.D. scientist in computers. In the 1970s, he was working on a computer project for a Japanese company that failed because, while the product was superior, a key decision-maker with their launch customer decided he didn’t want to give the contract to a Japanese company.
How do you counter that? You have a great product, and yet, your company is the wrong nationality. Luck cuts both ways.
The company my seat-mate worked for survived, and it has sustained many ups and downs since. Indeed, he seemed at peace with the wins and losses and good and bad turns of luck that life entails. “Life is complicated,” he said with a smile. “For instance, my wife was also born during the war, in Japan. But we’ve lived in the United States for over 30 years. We love the United States. And yet, even that is complicated, because we both also suffered at the hands of the United States when we were small. A lot of damage was done.” He shrugged, as if describing a complicated relationship with a parent or sibling.
Oddly enough, it brought to mind an image of Kevin Costner, in the movie Bull Durham, saying about baseball … “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
So what do we do about that element of luck that can determine the outcome of the adventures we undertake? Work to control what you can control, and let go of the rest. Don’t beat yourself up for every party connection or left turn you didn’t make. Do what you can, and move on.
Oh, yeah. And remember what really matters, in the end. When I asked my seat-mate if it had been hard, cleaning out his mother’s house, he shook his head. “I mean, some of it was hard,” he said. “But seeing all the things of mine that she had saved, over the years … what came through the most, through all the good and bad, was just how much I had been loved.”
It would be hard to ask for more luck than that.
I have always been a big believer in luck, both good and bad, especially bad. Sometimes bad things happen to good people for no particular reaon and I have found that the only thing you can do is deal with the issue as best you can and move on. The trap comes when you dwell so much on the bad luck you’ve had at the expense of forgetting the good luck you’ve had. That’s why I like Thanksgiving. It’s a good time of the year to take a step back and take an objective look at the big picture and give thanks for the good things that have happened to you, which are there if you look for them.
Luck has certainly played a major role in my life. When I was mid in my mid 30s, I heard a song on the radio that I had not heard in years. I was very close to my home and when the song started, I made the decision to keep driving and enjoy the song. About 1/4 mile past my street, I got into a horrible car accident where I almost died. The paramedics and firemen who pulled me out said that they’ve pulled many people out of “less wrecked” cars that were dead.
I had many injuries, lots and lots of pain (sometimes so intense I couldn’t breath) and months of rehab that were plagued by vertigo. I spent a week in the hospital and this was right before Christmas. I was not in a holiday mood but I was grateful to be alive.
The wreck wasn’t my fault and thankfully both of the other drivers had insurance. I had to sue them both because neither would accept responsibility even though they both agreed that it wasn’t my fault but I was left with massive bills from all the medical providers.
I didn’t just waste the money from the insurance companies. No I invested it in something of great value, me. The settlement from that lawsuit enabled me to go back to University and pursue a career path that I’d always dreamed of…..computers. I obtained a degree in computer science with honors and I’ve been working in that field for many years now.
Throughout that experience, I can say that luck certainly played a huge part in my life. I was lucky to have survived the crash, lucky that both drivers had good insurance, lucky that I wasn’t permanently injured, lucky that I was able to pursue my passion and I feel luck to be working for my present employer. For all of this luck, I feel a lot of gratitude – but there were many times during that experience that luck and/or gratitude were not at the forefront of my mind.