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Recently I was posed the question “What is success- is it Luck, or is it hard work?” and after a great deal of research, philosophical debate, and a good amount of thought I have come to the choice that it is both. You cannot have success without the other.

When you study the success of others you start to realize that while many of them are skilled and talented, that they all needed a lucky break in order to skyrocket themselves into the success stories that they are today. One of my favorite success stories is J.K. Rowling. Who before publishing the Harry Potter Series. She was unemployed, living off of benefits, and a single mother who went through a terrible divorce. To one of the most well-known authors in the entire world, her books being translated to 80 different languages with many more to come. But harry potter would have never been if first J.K. Rowling hadn’t put the effort into writing her series, nor would it have occurred if a publisher reading the manuscript didn’t have a daughter who fell in love with it and begged for more. Which is an outside factor outside of Rowling’s control- or luck. Because of that small break, J.K Rowling sits as one of the most profitable authors of today.

In an experiment recently performed by popular youtube Veritasium, who also talks about this exact subject. He placed 1,800 imaginary astronauts in training with two randomly generated percentages of luck and skill. Curving the score to reflect a ratio of skill plus five percent. Then, he picked the top 11 candidates, modeling after real-world results. Running the experiment 1000 times he found that most of the people chosen had higher luck scores, while only about two candidates were chosen on hard work or skill.

So luck is an important factor in success, which irritates some people. Usually, because the concept of luck is out of your control. Which people who have acquired success usually look back on the people behind them that have failed and naturally assume that those that failed must be not as determined, skilled, or as smart as they are. Luck is not something that you can measure and see the direct results from easily- whereas hard work and determination are something you can see every day.

Hard work is important though to luck. Say that you and your friend are playing on a game show. There are 100 boxes lined up in a straight line. You and your friend know that there is one box that has one million dollars randomly in the boxes. These boxes are not easy to open and require a good amount of finagling to open. Each of you starts on the opposite side and begins to open boxes trying to find the reward. While your friend started on the lower numbers he stopped, bored and distracted, on box number 21. Deciding to indulge in the temporary rewards provided by the game host. While you determinedly from the other end work down the line of boxes. On your 74th box, you finally find the prize, realizing that your friend only had to open five more boxes from his end in order to receive the prize. He would have been lucky since the box was closer to him than it was to you. But because he quit, and due to your hard work you became the “lucky” one.

Thomas Jefferson said, “I find that the harder that I work, the more luck I have.” and I find that to be personally true. Luck only rewards people that have the determination for the hard work in the first place. If you can’t put yourself in a place where good luck is accessible then you can never catch a lucky break.

Harland David Sanders was a businessman that jumped from venture to venture. His early career was plagued with wars, the great depression, world war two, some affairs, and divorces, it seemed that colonel sanders would never catch a break. But yet, he still worked on perfecting his recipe and method of cooking fried chicken. Then in 1952, he was able to franchise the recipe to a large restaurant owner in South Salt Lake Utah. Whose sales increased dramatically. In 1959 he traveled negotiating franchise rights to various other restaurants while his wife Claudia mixed and shipped the secret spices to the various locations. The rapid expansion of the restaurants finally took off, and he sold most of the franchise for two million roughly sixteen million dollars in today’s standards. At this time he was 73 years old. Sanders would until he was 90 years old, still participating actively in the role of Colonel Sanders for the KFC brand. He appeared to crowds a month before his death in December of 1980 at 90 years old.

Without the years of work that Sanders put into his chicken recipe and method, KFC chicken would have never gained the fame or the rapid expansion that it had, nor the success that it has in this age. Without him traveling at an age that most of us start to think of retirement, he would have never been able to cause a domino effect of KFC restaurants that now span the globe. Was it luck? Most certainly, but Sanders had put himself in that position where he was able to claim it.

While in the pursuit of success remember this paradox. You are fully in control of your success through hard work, willpower, and determination. But also remember that there are outside circumstances outside of your control that can affect the outcome of your success. Thomas Edison is quoted to have said that “opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” luck, is a chance, a leap of faith, an opportunity to expand. But luck is meaningless if you are unprepared for it, as does effort and hard work if you never catch a break. That is why success takes both hard work and luck in order to create success.