Was it luck or a factor?

Even after 1000 hours of flight time, these views never gets old.

I often think about what got me here, in the cockpit of a Twin Cessna. (As an aside, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, also preferred a Twin Cessna to pilot himself to visit multiple locations the same day, and continued to prefer a Twin Cessna even after he became a Billionare.)

Was it luck or a factor?

As an overthinker, I had to do some research.

“Things worthwhile generally don’t just happen. Luck is a fact, but should not be a factor. Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best. Negligence or indifference are usually reviewed from an unlucky seat. The law of cause and effect and causality both work the same with inexorable exactitudes. Luck is the residue of design” said Rickey.

In a blog post, Scott Truman, reflecting on Rickey's quote said... "The reason I like this quote so much as it gives a node to luck but it also attributes it to planning and work. When I hear someone attribute success to luck I always think about the 1000’s of hours it took to experience that “luck”... In the end, you get what you get and it’s how you handle, prepare and?hard work?that will dictate your success. I promise. I have known several people who were “lucky” enough to have the right family, inheritance, and Proximity to smart people but still ended up with nothing." (source)

I also believe in minimizing "bad luck" through intentional actions.

In other words, if you have a meeting at 14:00, and travel time is 30 minutes, don't leave exactly 30 minutes early as you need to factor in the possibilities of unexpected "unlucky" things happening. What if you need to get gas on the way, or see an unexpected road closure? By giving a healthy buffer you avoid having to give any reasons (excuses) on why you were late. You manage "bad luck" with things under your control.

I was recently reviewing Flight Test Standards for a multi-engine instrument rating. This states that a specific set of Flight Management Skills need to be demonstrated - all designed to anticipate "bad luck" to minimize things from happening that are seemingly out of our control. These "Flight Test Standards" should really be standards for life in any situation to maximize good luck.

I read in a book that Amazon just does a lot of experimentation to "run out of bad luck." I really like that idea - if something is important, doing a lot of things (not just doing for the sake of doing, but thinking through, documenting those things and learning from experimentation) will take you a long way to "run out of bad luck".

There are a lot of other quotes on luck. The other one I like is...

"Hard Work Puts You Where Good Luck Can Find You"?

The other variation of this quote is...

“Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity".

- Roman philosopher Seneca

When I searched that quote, I came across a post that said lucky people are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, creating self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations (look for silver lining) and adopting a resilient attitude that transforms “bad” luck into good.

We saw how some people transformed "bad" luck into good during the pandemic. Some went into hiding, binging on Netflix, while some took that as an opportunity to improve.

As the world slowed down and I had to direct all my energy somewhere - I completed five online executive education courses: Two from NYU with professor Scott Galloway (one on Business Strategy and the other on Brand Strategy), one from MIT (AI Strategy), one from Cambridge (Data and Decision making) and last, but not least, and one with Kellogg School of Business (Northwestern) prof Mohan Sawhney (Platform Strategy). Also getting a Multi-Engine rating during this time was an icing on the cake.

Yes, I am lucky. I've also had my share of bad luck, which I was fortunate for - as these were great lessons (for future posts, possibly a book).

We can't always take "good luck" for granted as we need to do everything to minimize bad luck. When (not if) bad luck were to strike, hopefully we are prepared and something we can recover and learn from - to turn "bad luck" into "good luck".