What Drives Success, Hard Work or Luck?

Many people have succeeded by working diligently and assiduously for themselves. However, luck and being in the right place at the right moment can also contribute to success. 

Are society’s wealthiest and most successful individuals simply the lucky ones?

What is necessary for success? What are the secrets of the wealthiest individuals? The readership of periodicals like Success, Forbes, Inc., and Entrepreneur show that people are obsessed with finding out the secrets to success. The core premise is that we can learn from them because it was their traits—talent, skill, mental toughness, work ethic, persistence, optimism, growth mindset, and emotional intelligence—that propelled them to where they are now.

Success magazines and the way we allocate resources in society—from employment chances to fame to government funding to public policy decisions—are all predicated on this supposition. Assuming that the most successful people are also the most capable, we frequently provide resources to people who have a history of success while ignoring others who have failed.

But is this supposition accurate? 

Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman has devoted much of his professional life to researching the psychological traits that influence creativity and success. In his book Wired to Create he describes how he discovered that a select group of characteristics, such as drive, tenacity, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and openness to new experiences, do considerably explain variances in success, Kaufman was still surprised by how much of the variation is frequently unaccounted for.

Numerous studies and books, most notably those written in recent years by risk analyst Nassim Taleb, in his book The Black Swan; investment strategist Michael Mauboussin, in his book The Success Equation, and economist Robert Frank, in his book Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, have raised the possibility that chance and luck may be far more important than previously thought in a variety of industries and careers, including financial trading, business, sports, art, music, literature, and the sciences. Their claim is not that talent is everything; talent matters. Instead, they argue that the evidence reveals that if we solely concentrate on human attributes to understand the causes of success, we miss out on a very important component of the success picture—luck and chance.

Here are Some Other Research Findings

• Branko Milanovic published a report for the World Bank and the University of Maryland that showed differences in income across various cultures and countries is accounted for by their country of residence and income distribution in that country, not talent and skills.
• The impact of scientific research is randomly distributed, with high productivity alone having a limited impact on the likelihood of high-impact work in a scientific career according to a scientific study by Roberta Sinatra and colleagues published in Science;
• According to a study by Qianqian Du, Huasheng Gao and Maurice D. Levi, published in The chance of becoming a CEO are influenced by your name or month of birth; the number of CEOs born in June and July is much smaller than the number of CEOs born in December.
•  According to a study by Liran Einav and Leeat Yariv published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives,academics with last names that appear earlier in the alphabet are more likely to receive tenure at top departments at Universities.
• A study by Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg and Eric R. Igou published in the European Journal of Social Psychology showed that the display of middle initials increases positive evaluations of people’s intellectual capacities and achievements.
• A study by S. Laham and colleagues published in the Journal of Psychology found that People with easy-to-pronounce names are judged more positively than those with difficult-to-pronounce names.
•   A study by Bentley Coffey and Patrick McLaughlin found that females with masculine-sounding names are more successful in legal careers.

Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy , a book by Cornell University economist Robert Frank contends that while Americans often believe they control their fate and that effort pays off, this is only partially true. Many people achieve success in both their job and life due to luck as well. 

Frank provides numerous examples from his own life to show how luck played a role. He tells us about his own two near-death experiences, how he miraculously survived them, and how fate connected him with his birth mother when he was in his 30s. We also hear from many educators, creators, performers, and businesspeople who stumbled across the ideal opportunity or idea as a result of unplanned meetings or circumstances that set them on their present course. 

According to Frank, failing to recognize the significance of luck in our life makes us less understanding of why others struggle and blinds us to their disadvantages. 

The American Dream implies that all it takes to succeed in talent and tenacity, but Frank contends that this is erroneous thinking. Our birth family (and even birth order), the opportunities in our community, the schools we attend, and whether or not we have good adult mentors are all factors that are out of our control. We won't be able to bring about the societal change required to improve our lives if we choose to disregard this and continue to believe that only the deserving succeed. 

If being born into a fortunate situation is one of life's most fortunate occurrences, failing to recognize the significance of luck has done the most to diminish our society's overall fortune, according to Frank. 

Because we are oblivious to the numerous psychological biases we have that give the appearance of personal worth, Frank contends, we are blind to luck. The halo effect, for instance, is when we attribute good traits to persons who are successful or who in some other manner get favourable feedback. When something happens, we tend to think it was predicted even though there is no proof of this. This is known as the "hindsight bias." There is also the well-known attribution bias, in which we tend to blame others' failings on their personalities while seeing our shortcomings as the result of environmental factors. 

These biases might manifest in the following ways: If I am the CEO of a successful company, I (and others) will tend to think that it is because of my moral character and business acumen, when in reality, it may have more to do with parental benefits, the school I attended, chance encounters with people who could advance my career, or unpredictably changing market conditions. 

Does this imply that talent or hard effort is completely unimportant? No, Frank replies. Although not as much as we may believe, effort and intelligence are important. Additionally, if we cling too tightly to these justifications and think we earned our good fortune, we are less inclined to treat others fairly or with empathy. 

Dacher Keltner conducted a study at the Greater Good Science Center in which three students were placed in a lab and one student was chosen at random to lead the group as they completed a task together. Four chocolate chip cookies were brought in and placed in the middle of the table after the experiment had been running for thirty minutes. Typically, the designated "leader" accepted the extra cookie and ate it, acting as though they deserved it (often loudly and greedily). This study reveals how power may taint our image of ourselves and our interactions with others, as well as how simple it is for us to forget about luck and chance. Other studies lend credence to the idea that when we hold positions of power, we often fail to treat people with respect or even to recognize their needs. 

Fortunately, Frank has some suggestions, among them practising appreciation. In an experiment conducted by his then-research assistant Yuezhou Huo, participants were asked to recall a positive event that had recently occurred and then to list one of three possible explanations for why it had taken place: 1) outside forces beyond their control, 2) traits or behaviours they possessed, or, as a control, 3) just "reasons." 

They then had the option to contribute a portion of their registration cost to a charity. People who were asked to describe external causes for their luck donated 25% more to charity than those who were asked to list personal traits, while those in the control group donated a proportion that fell in the middle of the two. In other words, generosity toward others may be influenced by thankfulness for the blessings we have received in life—things over which we have little control. 

Based on a "progressive consumption tax"—a tax based on the gap between income and savings rather than income levels alone—Frank also proposes hefty tax increases for the very rich. At first glance, it seems like straightforward liberal politics, but Frank supports his proposal with economic theory and psychological research that demonstrates why this would be effective. 

One reason is that when taxes on the very affluent are raised, relative purchasing power does not change, meaning that people would not suffer from these changes while wealth redistribution would benefit everyone (including the wealthy). Even though many people dislike paying taxes due to a psychological condition known as loss aversion, Frank maintains that taxes are a necessary investment in the future of society and the only way to fund the necessary repairs to our failing infrastructure, environmental problems, and educational system. 

According to Frank, a progressive consumption tax also makes psychological sense. He describes how research has revealed that our local frames of reference have a significant impact on how we perceive ourselves and how happy we are. Spending down the economic ladder is affected when the extremely rich indulge in wasteful self-spending, forcing individuals with lower incomes to go beyond their means to keep up. People also cannot simply identify this propensity and refuse it, as failing to maintain relative spending can have serious social repercussions, such as making it difficult to enrol your children in a good school. 

Frank is adamant that this type of tax will boost the well-being of the wealthy, even though many of them may find it difficult to recognize the benefits for themselves. More money spent on oneself won't make you any happier, according to research, after you reach a certain point. In actuality, investing more in other people and living in a more just society are the keys to everyone's happiness. 

"The standards that define special in each case would change proportionately, leaving successful individuals just as happy as before," he says. "If all mansions were a little smaller, all automobiles a little less expensive, all jewels a little more modest, and all celebrations a bit less expensive." 

Of course, there are significant costs associated with doing nothing to reduce wealth inequality. The income gap is widening, as Robert Putnam eloquently discussed in his book Our Kids, and this is leading to wider and wider inequities in opportunity. Children from low-income families who performed well on math aptitude tests in the eighth grade were less likely to complete college than children from high-income families who performed at the bottom percentiles in math, according to a sobering Department of Education study that Frank recalls in his book. There is a problem here. 

When trying to improve society, Frank's book makes a strong case for the need for us to take our collective demands more into account. It is founded on the social realities of our lives and our demands for more cooperation and trust, in addition to making economic and political sense. Frank is hopeful that getting the wealthy to stop spending excessively on themselves and to equalize the wealth in society by altering tax laws will result in a happier and healthier society. Additionally, it won't significantly increase the costs for the wealthy while helping our fellow residents. 

For a deep dive into the issue of the myths of meritocracy and how hard work is the ticket to great success (the American Dream), read my extended article published on Medium.com, “Why Personality, Intelligence and Hard Work Won’t Guarantee Achieving the ‘American Dream.”