Is it Better To Be Lucky Than Good?

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Luck is one of the components of mojo, as I have said in an earlier post. However, it is important to understand a few things about luck.  For one, almost nobody is lucky all the time.  Only when a person is gone can you consider whether or not they were lucky.  Being lucky means you had better than average luck more often than not.  Luck over a lifetime is one of many things that follows a Gaussian curve, as illustrated in Figure 1.  At the tails you have people whose luck has been very, very good or very, very bad.  In the middle are people (many more people) whose luck averages out over a lifetime.

Now consider a person who is far luckier (or unluckier) than average so far.  There is no indication from what has happened so far as to what will happen in the next event from a pure luck standpoint. During a lifetime, luck can change many times in many ways.  

It was Branch Rickey  who was reported to have said, "Luck is the residue of design."  Many situations in baseball,  which after all was where Branch Rickey made his name, appear to be dependent on luck.  In reality, I believe they are dependent on a  combination of factors, only one of which is luck.  When a ball is hit directly to a fielder and it is caught, it is lucky that the fielder was in a position to reach it, but completing the catch required some skill in addition.  Here's another baseball example.  Suppose there is a left-handed batter at the plate.  The defensive manager directs the shortstop and center fielder to play on the first base side of midfield.  This is sometimes called "the shift".  Now the batter hits the ball directly to the center fielder who catches it.  Is this just lucky?  No.  The shift is a conscious decision based on experience and expertise that tell the manager that the odds are a left-hander will pull the ball toward the first base side.  This is not luck. It is design, as Mr. Rickey said.  However, there is luck that the ball went close enough to a fielder to be caught.  And there is skill involved in the fielder's not botching the catch.

 Lou Gehrig, in his famous retirement speech at Yankee Stadium, said "Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."  Was he the beneficiary of luck during his playing days? Sure, but there was also a lot of experience and expertise involved.  Was he unlucky to have fallen to ALS?  Sure, despite the famous speech.  Go back to the Gaussian curve.  Sometimes, we are lucky; sometimes, not so much.

Figure 2.  Lucky?
Consider the planets in Figure 2.  Was I lucky to capture them so close together, or was it a combination including the expertise of many scientists? Just because a person was lucky before, doesn't mean they will be lucky again.  However, when there are many factors involved including luck, it might make sense to rely on a "lucky" person, because the other factors may make them successful again even if luck doesn't.  Take Michael Jordan, for example.  He is quoted to have said,"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."  The take home lesson is that luck can go either way.  However, the best person to pick is still the one with the most skill, the Michael Jordan.

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/michael-jordan-quotes
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/michael-jordan-quotes
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/michael-jordan-quotes
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/michael-jordan-quotes
I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/michael-jordan-quotes

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