You are unquestionably right for some portion of those failures, and I'd bet it's a large portion.
Nevertheless, there is an element of serendipity, good luck, good fortune, call it what you will, in any successful business endeavour. To some extent, yes, you can make your own luck, in that you can stack the odds in your favour but, if we are going with a betting analogy, it still doesn't entirely block the house from winning.
Many people are way too quick to take too much credit for their achievements. Everything we do is built on a foundation of what came before, supplemented by our own hard (and intelligently directed) work, and that rather hard to define good fortune.
Yeah, what bartread said. In no way did I mean to minimize the hard work that people do (and I did) to be successful. There is an awful lot of "make your own luck". But you still have to be at the right place at the right time. It's easy to say "well, duh, that's why I was there" and take credit and a certain amount of that is valid.
On the other hand, I've seen people with more talent than I have fail. If it were solely about their ability then they'd be rich.
Nevertheless, there is an element of serendipity, good luck, good fortune, call it what you will, in any successful business endeavour. To some extent, yes, you can make your own luck, in that you can stack the odds in your favour but, if we are going with a betting analogy, it still doesn't entirely block the house from winning.
Many people are way too quick to take too much credit for their achievements. Everything we do is built on a foundation of what came before, supplemented by our own hard (and intelligently directed) work, and that rather hard to define good fortune.
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