Are you confusing your good fortune due to your own skill rather than due to luck? I'm here to argue that above average wealth is mostly due to luck. Therefore, stop deluding yourself into thinking you're so great!
As President Obama said in a July 13, 2012 campaign election speech, “If you've got a business, you didn't build that.“
When I first heard Obama say this sentence, I was taken aback. From 2009-2012, I had been working on Financial Samurai for three years from about 5 am – 7 am and from 10 pm – 12 pm after working 12-hour days in finance.
If I wasn't building Financial Samurai, who was?!
I had also recently left my finance job because I wanted to be free. All I really desired to do was write while traveling around the world, so that's what I did.
Wisdom Grows With Age
As I've gotten older, I've come to understand more of what President Obama was talking about. Just like how it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a lot of help along the way to achieve your goals. Obama was referring to not building the roads and bridges that helped your business prosper along the way.
I firmly believe that it was mostly luck (~70%) that helped me achieve a basic level of financial independence at age 34. I got lucky getting a job at Goldman Sachs from a non-target school. Then I got lucky buying a stock that went up 50 times and selling it during the 1999-2000 dotcom bubble.
Of course, effort is also required to get ahead, but it's not the main reason. There are plenty of people who work much harder than you or I, yet will not achieve what we have.
The more we can recognize our luck, the more prosperous we'll become. The main reason why is because we will continue to work as if our luck will eventually run out.
I encourage you to list as many fortuitous events that have happened in your life. This way, you'll appreciate more of what you have and fight harder to achieve your goals and freely help others.
Outsized Wealth Is Mostly Due To Luck
When you accumulate a net worth of one million dollars, three million dollars, five million dollars, ten million dollars, or twenty million dollars, know this level of wealth is mostly due to luck. It has to be given the median net worth is about $200,000 today.
And when I say mostly luck, I mean greater than 50%. The range can be anywhere between 51% – 99% for how much luck was the reason for your outsized wealth. The exact percentage is your choice.
But if you have a net worth equal to 5X the median or you have an above average net worth for your age, consider yourself lucky. Beating the average so thoroughly is not easy.
In fact, roughly half of the world's richest one percent of people live in the U.S according to Branko Milanovic, a World Bank economist. Therefore, just being able to work in America is a huge lucky break.
Back in 2013, all you'd need to do was earn $34,000 a year per person to be considered a top 1% global income earner. Inflation-adjusted, the $34,000 hurdle is roughly $45,000 today. Back in 2013, the global median income was just $1,225 a year, or $1,600 a year in today's dollars.
A Review Of Some Lucky Breaks
My first lucky break was being born into a stable, dual-parent household. They worked in the U.S. Foreign Service which enabled me to live in five countries before coming to America at age 14. They also both speak Mandarin.
With this type of background, chances are greater you will speak a couple languages, interact with people from more cultures, adopt a zest for travel, be more understanding towards people of different backgrounds, and have a broader world view.
Since middle school, my parents have always tried to make me appreciate the value of money. My first experience with money came when my father scolded me for ordering a lemonade at a restaurant.
“Son, why spend $2 on a lemonade when you can order water with a lemon slice for free?” he said.
This moment instilled in me a level of frugality that has stuck ever since.
In high school, his lesson of frugality paid off when I told him I'd only be attending a public in-state university to save on tuition. He encouraged me to apply wherever I thought looked interesting, but I insisted on saving us money.
hankIn the end, his $2 lemonade lesson saved my parents, and ultimately me, over $100,000 in private university tuition in the late 90s. I always told them I'd pay them back once I got a full-time job and I did.
I’m grateful for my parent’s guidance. But things were not always easy. Here is a review of some lucky breaks that helped me build above-average wealth.
1) 70% Luck. Got Into A Respectable College.
After getting suspended in high school for fighting and getting caught shoplifting with friends and doing other illegal things, I thought there was no way any college would take a chance on this juvenile delinquent. But I paid for my transgressions and The College of William & Mary gave me a chance.
I kept the faith that if I did well in college, an employer would ultimately give me a chance as well. Luckily, I got accepted to college before my major transgression the summer after senior year.
Can you imagine spending four years trying to get good grades in college, knowing there was a high probability everything was for naught because of the mistakes you made in high school? For four years I had to keep the faith.
As a parent now, I totally see why kids having too much free time can lead to trouble. Few kids will become professional athletes, but at least playing sports may help kids stay out of trouble!
2) 80% Luck. Landing A Job In NYC.
I got through 55 interviews over 7 rounds to land my first job in investment banking at a bulge bracket firm. Someone like me from a non-target state university had no business getting this job.
But I got on a 6 am bus to go to a career fair one Saturday and one thing led to another. Because nobody else got on the bus, I had more opportunities to interview and get a job.
Although my base salary was only $40,000 in Manhattan, my experience working in banking taught me how to invest, network, sell, and build relationships early on. Further, I don't know if I would have landed a job in the International Equities department if I didn't have an international upbringing.
I’m grateful for my recruiter, Kim Purkiss for giving me a chance. She was a strong black woman who didn't give up on me even though I kept getting bounced around various desks because nobody wanted me.
3) 90% Luck. Making Money During The Dot Com Boom.
In 2000, I invested in VCSY, a Chinese internet stock that climbed 50X in six months. I sat on the Asian equities desk and thought internet in China would be huge one day.
I invested $3,000 in VCSY out of the $4,000 total I had. Then I told my colleagues about the idea who then told their colleagues at different firms.
Because I sat on the Asian equities desk at Goldman Sachs, other people found the idea to be credible. In truth, I was just taking a punt on this name I knew little about.
The $3,000 turned into a high of $170,000. I sold at $155,000 before it completely collapsed to $0 a year later. I've been trying to hunt for new multi-bagger fortunes since, but with no luck.
4) 100% Luck. A Fortuitous Phone Call.
In 2001, a headhunter called my VP to see if she wanted to work for a competitor covering West Coast clients. She said no and handed me the phone because I covered West Coast clients out of NYC.
One thing led to another, and I got a new job with a raise and a promotion. Over the next two years, 90% of my old analyst class got let go. I’m grateful to my VP for thinking of me.
This one phone call is something I'm most thankful for. If it wasn't for my VP and this phone call, I would have lost my job during the many rounds of layoffs post the Dotcom bust. I knew I wasn't being offered a 3rd year analyst position at Goldman Sachs.
5) 50% Luck, 50% Habit. Frugal Living.
After arriving in San Francisco for my new job, I decided to live like a poor student for a year and a half because I didn’t know anybody and didn’t know where to live. I could have ended up doing “equities in Dallas,” as Michael Lewis wrote in Liar's Poker.
In 2003, at the age of 26, I put down $120,000 and bought a 2/2 condo in Pacific Heights for $580,500. I figured, best to turn funny money (VCSY profits) into a real asset. Coming to San Francisco before web 2.0 was a lucky break.
Today, the condo is a paid off rental worth ~$1,280,000. It used to be a strong-performing asset, that was once worth up to ~$1,450,000. But condos prices have underperformed in SF since the pandemic. That said, the condo still generates a steady $50,000 in gross rental income a year.
Everybody should consider consistently converting funny money into real assets. This way, you will be able to better extend your luck. Check out Fundrise, my favorite private real estate platform with over $3.2 billion in assets under management. I'm a six-figure investor in Fundrise funds to diversify my real estate holdings and Fundrise is a sponsor of Financial Samurai.
6) 60% Luck, 40% Guts. Went All-In On Real Estate And Didn't Get Laid Off.
At age 28 in 2005, I bought a single-family home I didn’t need on the north side of San Francisco for $1.5 million. The $300,000 downpayment took all the cash I had. I needed a $50,000 bridge loan because it was December, and bonuses weren’t paid until February the next year.
In retrospect, I was overly aggressive with my purchase. Things were good for a couple of years until the financial crisis happened. I was sweating bullets with my ~$1,100,000 mortgage. If I got laid off and couldn't find another job within three months, it would have been game over for my finances.
So I rented out a room for several years, held on, and survived. I’m grateful to my grandfather for the bridge loan, the government for helping save the economy, and my company for not firing me during the downturn.
Starting in 2016, I wrote about my investment thesis of investing in the heartland of America. So I ended up selling a San Francisco rental property and investing $550,000 in private real estate in the heartland through platforms like Fundrise and CrowdStreet, which offers individual deals for accredited investors.
Annual performance was in the mid-to-high single digits until the pandemic happened in 2020. In 2021, my heartland real estate investments shot up 41%! That outsized gain was due to luck due to the pandemic.
7) 100% Luck. Tried To Sell Property At The Bottom And Didn't.
In 2012, I tried to sell the house I bought for $1.5 million in 2005 for $1.7 million. I got no takers. It was embarrassing, so after 29 days, I took it off the market. Actually, my agent had told me a couple of people had been willing to offer $1.5 million, but I declined.
I wanted to sell because I had just left my job. The worst of the financial crisis had just passed. I wanted to minimize expenses and reduce risk. My wife and I didn't need a four-bedroom house because we didn't have kids yet.
I ended up selling the house for a million more five years later after my PITA tenants gave their notice due to luck. I only had one offer too, but it was $240,000 more than I would have taken.
The proceeds were reinvested in the stock market, bond market, and in real estate crowdfunding, which have showed positive returns. I’m grateful to my realtor for not pushing me to sell.
Today, the house I sold is probably worth $700,000 more (~35%). However, my reinvested proceeds have more or less kept up. I'm most thankful for the time and stressed saved not having to manage the property with rowdy tenants.
8) 70% Luck, 30% Ingenuity. Negotiating A Severance.
One October 2011 afternoon while sipping a Mythos beer in Santorini, Greece, I came up with the idea to engineer my layoff. Financial Samurai was growing and all I wanted to do was write online instead of be in an office for 12 hours a day.
One thing led to another and I negotiated a severance in the spring of 2012 worth five years worth of living expenses. At the time, it felt like I had won the lottery!
I wasn't too proud to negotiate. The majority of people I know think their employer would never offer them a severance. So they give two-weeks notice instead and quit. But quitting your job is more selfish than negotiating a severance.
I’m grateful to my manager and the head of HR for agreeing to make the separation work. I turned my severance negotiation experience into a ebook that has helped thousands negotiate millions in severance payments since 2012. The ebook has also generated over $500,000 in net profits so far.
9) 60% Luck, 40% Consistency. Growth of Financial Samurai.
Since starting Financial Samurai in 2009, the growth trend has been positive. I've had some flat years or down years do to some Google algorithm changes. However, for the most part, the journey has been good. A website can only go so far with only one main writer.
I'm grateful for the search engine traffic because I never expected it. I've got a small social media presence, an intimate free newsletter of 55,000 people, and a podcast and that's it. I'm not a part of any mastermind groups and I don't have a YouTube channel.
All I've done is continue to write and connect with others. I’m very grateful to all you readers who have commented and shared my work. I'm also grateful to Google, even though it can be quite fickle.
There's also something lucky and interesting in my space. Most personal finance writers don't have finance backgrounds. As a result, it's been relatively easy to differentiate this site by just being me and writing from experience.
Unfortunately, with the emergence of artificial intelligence ripping off content creators and Google changing its algorithm to show more of its own content, my online luck may be running out. If it does, at least I had a great 15-year run and converted most of my online income into real assets.
These real assets include a new primary residence and rental properties. This way, my hope is to extend my good luck for longer.
10) 50% Good Luck, 50% Bad Luck. Left A Fortune Behind.
On the one hand, leaving work at the bottom of the bear market was lucky because things didn’t get worst. Having an economic tailwind boost the value of your investments makes it much easier to stay retired.
On the other hand, leaving work right before things got really good made me miss out on millions of dollars in forgone compensation.
As Dan commented, The Best Asset Class Performers From 2001-2020, “My opportunity cost of cashing out of the stock market in 2019 was not as severe as yours dropping out of the labor force in 2012! Salaries and wages have gone up 30% since you decided to quit, and you’re paying for all those health insurance premiums out of pocket. Hope you can get it together.“
Ouch!
In retrospect, if I could retire all over again, I would have worked for another three years. If I did, maybe I wouldn't have felt as much anxiety and stress the first year. Hence, my decision to retire in 2012 was a combination of immaturity, impatience, and bad luck.
11a) 60% Luck, 40% Purposeful Hunting. Found a neighborhood before it got hot.
In 2014, I discovered Golden Gate Heights three years before Redfin named Golden Gate Heights a top 10 hottest neighborhood to buy. I was sick of living in the north end of the city for the past 12 years and wanted a change of pace.
New parks, new restaurants, new scenery, and cheaper prices sounded like a great idea! Since fake retiring in 2012, I had longed to move back to Oahu and find a home with an ocean view. When I realized I could just move three miles west in San Francisco to buy an ocean view home, I was sold!
Since 2014, prices have risen handsomely. I wish I had bought another house or two in the neighborhood back then. I’m grateful to the listing agent who agreed on my offer with a handshake, and rejected a $30,000 higher offer.
11b) 100% luck. Heartland real estate surged higher in the pandemic.
Since the pandemic began, demand for single-family homes on the less dense west side of San Francisco has grown. Almost every month, I've been chronicling homes that have sold and I'm astounded by the amount of demand.
But the pandemic boosted heartland real estate investments the most in 2021. This was complete luck. Without the pandemic, heartland real estate prices would have increased closer to 10% in 2021, not 30%+.
Below are the returns percentages of the Fundrise heartland eREIT. 41.7% in 2021 is incredible. I expect prices to moderate and then strengthen after mortgage rates decline again.
12) 60% Luck, 40% Stubbornness. Not Selling Financial Samurai.
In 2018, I was very tempted by multiple offers to sell Financial Samurai for a tidy sum. But I turned them all down after running the numbers and speaking to one person who seriously regretted selling his site for millions. I stubbornly wanted to achieve my goal of publishing 3X a week for 10 years in a row by July 2019.
I would have regretted selling my baby in 2018 because Financial Samurai is still fun to run. It gives me something mentally stimulating to do after I spend time with my kids. Four years later, I've already earned back 100% of the potential purchase price. Now, everything feels like gravy with mashed potatoes and key lime pie.
The irony is if I was focused mainly on trying to make lots of money online, I probably would have sold and missed out on further gains. There are a hoard of online marketers I compete with who care more about profits than the joy of writing.
Further, if I had sold Financial Samurai, I also wouldn't have had the opportunity to write a traditionally published book. Publishing a book is a cool bucket list! As an author, I finally have some status to help my kids.
If you have a cash flowing online business that can't be shut down due to a pandemic, you've benefitted. Here's my step-by-step instruction on how to start your own website.
13) 100% Luck. Getting To Work In America.
I was born Asian and live in America. Living in America, alone, is like winning the lottery. But living in America plus being born Asian is like a dream.
Because I'm Asian, some people in America just assume I'm intelligent, even though I had a mediocre SAT score and didn't go to a fancy private university. It's funny because when I lived in Asia, people just treated me normally because I was part of the majority.
Even private universities like Harvard raise the required standardized test scores for Asians to get in. Although Harvard penalizes Asians for our personalities to throttle admissions, I see it as an honor Harvard needs to do such a thing.
Asians are seldom in race discussions because we don't fit a certain narrative. Therefore, one benefit may be that Asians are more free to just get on with our businesses. Being given the opportunity to work hard with less societal drag is a privilege.
14) 100% Luck. Don't need to sleep too long.
Since 1999, I've been able to operate on 5-6 hours of sleep a night plus the frequent 30-minute nap after lunch. I don't need to drink coffee or energy drinks to stay awake either. With more energy naturally comes more productivity. In fact, I've been up since 4:30 am editing this post before the kids get up.
I'm also a super optimist, probably due to having overcome all the troubles I experienced in high school. When someone says something cruel or says I can't do something, I get fired up to work harder. I love rejection! It's like spinach to Popeye.
Besides having asthma as a child, I don't have any disabilities that afflict roughly 15% of the world's population or one billion people. Of the one billion people, roughly 200 million people experience considerable difficulties in functioning.
We must not take our ability to walk, talk, see, hear, speak, and understand for granted. At the same time, we should help our brothers and sisters who do have difficulties. This is the minority we need to fight hardest for.
Finally, I don’t have a strong desire to be loved by strangers. As a result, I’m more easily able to speak my mind and break free from groupthink.
15) 85% Luck. Met My Wife In College.
Not only did The College of William & Mary take a chance on me, I also found my future wife in college during senior year.
Finding a life partner early on is either the best type of luck or manifest destiny. Life has been so much more fun having someone to share it with. Sure, there have been plenty of ups and downs. But at least the trend is positive!
Building wealth with someone is also much easier. You can be each other's champions before each job interview. You can share living expenses to save more money. As a couple, you can also take more risks, like one person retiring first or starting a business while the other holds down a steady paycheck until things work out.
We've been together for over 23 years and I hope we have 50 more. Marrying your equal is better than marrying rich.
Don't Take Your Luck For Granted
As you can see from the bullet points, most of the things that helped get me out of my parent's basement were due to luck. I do admit that, overtime, good luck feels better because I tend to start justifying some of my good fortune.
But I also made many terrible investment mistakes, such as buying a vacation property in 2007. This was a combination of stupidity, ignorance, and bad luck. Like a baby baboon, I thought my income and investments would keep growing to the moon forever.
15 years later, however, we still own the property. It is paid off and it's been nice to take the kiddos up there during the summers. Maybe they'll finally see their first snow this winter! Just don't remind me how much money I could have saved by just renting instead.
I've also talked about my perpetual rejections, which is the main reason why I continue to save and invest today. Bad things like pandemics, bear markets, injuries, sicknesses, and deaths are inevitable. There is a comfort to saving and investing for dark days ahead.
Thankfully, we can get insurance to hedge against the worst. I felt tremendous relief when I finally got a new affordable 20-year term life insurance policy earlier this year at age 44. In 2013, I messed up by only getting a 10-year term, which resets at $723/month in January 2023!
Prepare For Bad Luck, But Appreciate Good Luck
Sooner or later, we all will get unlucky. And when we do, we must accept bad luck as a part of life. The return of the bear market in 2022 was a perfect example of why we need to stay humble and diversified. So many high flyers crashed down to earth, including may private companies that ended up laying off the majority of their workers or shutting down.
During bad times, we should also remind ourselves about all the lucky breaks we've experienced so far. Go through the gratitude exercise, like I have done with this post. I'm sure you'll feel more appreciative if you do.
I'd love to hear about your lucky breaks and how much you think luck plays a part in your success. What are some of the things you're doing to hedge against bad luck? How are you making the most of your good luck? Share some of your lucky financial breaks!
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Invest In Private Growth Companies
Even though great fortune is largely due to luck, you've got to regularly invest to get lucky as well. You can't just find the next Google or Apple without placing some bets. Personally, I allocate about 10% of my capital to venture capital.
I'm actively investing in Fundrise Venture because it is an open-ended fund with low fees and an attractive portfolio of private growth companies. It invests in:
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
- Modern Data Infrastructure
- Development Operations (DevOps)
- Financial Technology (FinTech)
- Real Estate & Property Technology (PropTech)
Roughly 65% of Fundrise Venture invests in artificial intelligence, which I'm extremely bullish about. I don't want my kids asking me in 20 years why I didn't invest in AI or work in AI today. To be able to invest near the beginning of AI is incredibly lucky.
The fund's investment minimum is also only $10, as Fundrise has democratized access to venture capital as well. Most venture capital funds have a $200,000+ minimum. Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Financial Samurai as our outlook is aligned. I've currently got $156,276 invested in Fundrise Venture so far.
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Great article. It’s funny how people are so prone to acknowledge bad luck and so reticent to acknowledge their good fortune. Ego driven probably. But one point on luck – “luckier” people seem to have a knack for seeing & reacting quickly and correctly to opportunities when they appear. Unlucky people seem
to walk around looking for four-leafed clovers.
Good article overall. It’s great to feel grateful and recognize that no one succeeds alone. That’s not incompatible with recognizing good decision making, personal responsibility, or feeling proud of accomplishments. Yes, if you have a successful business, investment portfolio, career, a great marriage, a wonderful loving family etc…you DID build it. No amount of luck can outrun bad decisions in the long run. Look at lottery winners.
I think it is a stretch that one can determine “good” luck based on a single isolated event. Good luck can quickly turn into bad luck we simply just don’t know, as we are inter-dependent and not independent entities.
Being born in the US (good luck) perhaps but if one gets run over by F-150 maybe rural Bangladesh was a better choice.
Believing in luck feels a lot like believing in magic. It does not require a lot discipline/awareness or even personal responsibility.
I found that the more I attribute any wealth or success I have to luck, the harder I work and the more personal responsibility I take because I didn’t do anything to deserve my good fortune.
If I get lucky, and then gray. If I don’t get lucky, then fine, because I didn’t count on Locke in the first place to advance. In the situation, any Luck turns into an unexpected bonus.
I think you may have missed my point. I don’t believe people know if “luck” is good or bad. To say “luck” is a key ingredient to success feels a bit disingenuous.
Gotcha. I guess I believe in people being more rational than you. I do believe people are aware of how much luck plays apart in any success they have.
What’s your story? Where are you in your financial journey?
My feeling is we can only influence the things we can control. The things we can’t control are where luck comes in.
PJH
Great Points!
From perspective on attributing luck to one’s success I believe the following:
1. Luck is a synonym for “God”, that allows supposed non believers to plausibly deny his involvement in their lives!
2. The Men who created the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence should be the inheritors of all praise for any of our entrepreneurial successes!
3. I know that other than a few good men and women during key life developing moments who interfered on my behalf with 5 minutes of their time and support that I was the sole driver of my own destiny!
Everything I own and hold dear I achieved on my own!
Moreover most of my achievements were being blocked or hampered by others interventions for one ugly reason or another!
Luck is how others view my achievements because otherwise they have to admit they have lesser qualities and capabilities than myself.
The Love for “God”, regardless of the amount of evil backlash for admitting it, is the key element in all good things that come my way!
Make no mistake life is brutal and painful, therefore being proud of yourself for your achievements should be your reward to yourself!
If it was not “God’s” involvement then it surely couldn’t have had anything to do with “Luck.”
I attribute God for all good things in my life and I attribute myself for being responsible and accountable for my failures and allowing bad results to happen because of my own inadequacies.
Chris
Bill
My apologies I left a post here but mislabeled/addressed it to PJH instead of yourself.
It appears it might have had to be removed because of that error.
Regards
Chris
Thanks for the article Sam!
I think luck plays a small role in success, but you still need to have the skills (and guts) to jump on an opportunity when it comes along.
I think we need to be careful about attributing too much of success to luck. Otherwise, there is likewise a temptation to blame bad luck for failure, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to improve your skills, knowledge, etc.
Hope you and your family had a nice Thanksgiving.
Heh, I lived overseas a few times as a kid and it was helpful, but I never came close to becoming fluent in another language. On the other hand, I tend to do okay in English.
Instead of ” . . . everything was for not . . .” try ” . . . everything was for naught . . .”
That said, yes, being born a US citizen is an enormous piece of luck. Someone once told me that, if it could even have a price, it might be worth in the neighborhood of half a million USD all by itself. Then, too, having parents with traditional values and a stable home is also luckier than it should be. Good health. High intelligence. Height. Handsome. All these things are lucky . . . but I still wonder: what would I have done if I could have swapped one or another for having been born wealthy instead?
“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.“
Always helpful if you supply the full context for that quote, which clearly indicates that the “that” in the sentence doesn’t relate to the business you’ve got, but the infrastructure mentioned in the previous – omitted – sentence that allowed the business to exist in the first place:
“Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”
Unless, of course, you’re intending to deliberately misquote and mislead (not that I’m a particular fan of Obama…)
Thank you. Check out the 6th paragraph of the post.
“Wisdom Grows With Age
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand more of what President Obama was talking about. Just like how it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a lot of help along the way to achieve your goals. Obama was referring to not building the roads and bridges that helped your business prosper along the way.”
Please let me know if you find any typos, grammar errors, and other areas of improvement.
Do you think above-average wealth is mostly due to luck?
“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.“ ~ Always loved that quote by Obama. Coming from a guy who never built anything in his life. It was a total slap in the face to any business owner who took the risk of going out on their own, raising capital, putting in 15 hours a day to get the business off the ground, the sleepless nights, anxiety that comes after your first successful year – wondering if or how you’re gonna do it again or top it, time away from family, making payroll for your employees, etc.
No, 50% + of success does not come from luck. All of your examples above came down to choice. You made intelligent choices because you’re an intelligent person. Not everyone is born with the same level of intelligence and therefore you can have people that work just as many hours, but make a fraction of the money because they lack intelligence or make poor choices in life. They also happen to be risk-averse. If you aren’t willing to take risks in life, you will always be average.
I agree with this. At 23, during the height of the Great Recession, I work endlessly, 15-17 hrs a day, 7 days a week. I did it as I didn’t have a choice in my mind as I needed along with my family to stabilize our business. My corporate job between my brother and I made up the shortcomings. This was a restaurant that we had to run so it isn’t a light labor industry. Our goal was just to break even at the time and the labor was a lost. Flash forward, 5 years later, through savings and relentless work, we had enough to build our rentals. The goal then was just to cash flow. We held onto the property and I suppose this can be attributed to luck. For us, it was more of a choice through our sacrifices. The properties has since appreciated 125%. There are other situation but I think that success is mainly personal sacrifices with some lucky break.
Great article! It made me think about my own personal journey and decisions I’ve made along the way. I used to think that my success was largely based on my decisions and calculated risk but being born a white male in America is a massive advantage that i never used to consider. Glad to be one of your 55,000
I attribute my good fortune/blessings, weathering of storms, and success, to God. I’ve experienced too many blessings, too many times including when needed most, for it to be random luck or coincidence. There is no doubt in my mind that it is God. I’m thankful and give all glory to God.
Thank you for sharing your story and acknowledging where your blessings come from, brother!
I always found that the harder I worked, the luckier I got.
Agreed – “Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity”.
I believe, as our founding fathers did, that we are blessed. Yes, “luck”, or happenstance plays a role in realization of your goals. So does grit, education, work ethic. At the end of the day, the only things we control are our work ethic and attitude.
On a related note, as a country we tend to conflate happiness with wealth. As Sam has pointed out in the past, there’s a lot of value in a simple life and great relationships with your family and friends. For me, I find value in relationships and experiences – the wealth/FI supports the ability to pursue/enhance your relationships and experiences.
We are truly blessed to be in this country and for those that initially secured of freedoms.
Great article! Thanks for your humility and honesty in this write-up – it really comes through! We are all truly lucky and blessed, and your story is a great reminder!
Started life negative, 1 generation off The Res, then in foster care. Junior college only option. Yet later: bought a home near the bottom in 2010, and my company was bought out in 2011. The latter resulted in 3-5 years’ worth of 401(k) contributions overnight.
I give luck 50% but it wasn’t luck that…
– made me drive a dreadful commute day in and day out,
– stay late night after night,
– come in early morning after morning,
– stay in a lower wage tier to gain the critical experience,
– volunteer at ASU as an advisor to improve my resume and public speaking skills,
– take the crappiest work assignments week after week to gain the exposure and leadership skillz,
– add side hustles to make ends meet,
– skip vacations for 7 years to pay off my mortgage by age 45
– miss putting my daughter to bed every night because those hours and travel were simply expected.
I always knew what I was doing to get the experiences and stay ahead of my coworkers.
With great sacrifice comes great wealth…that’s the other 50% and that’s why wealthy is hard but possible. ♂️
I remember when I was a classroom teacher trying to break into administration. I went on numerous interviews with no luck. Then my daughter (who was about 12 years old at the time) went online and found a very small school district that was advertising an administrator job. I didn’t think much of it, but I wanted to show my daughter that I appreciated her trying to help me. So I applied for the job. They called me! I had to go through 4 rounds of interviews with the small school district (which is not common in my field), but I eventually got the job.
THAT JOB was the catalyst for my trajectory to a superintendent position (which, in the State I was in was 1/135 positions in the entire State) and set my path to FIRE.
I am still amazed at how that all played out.
Incredible luck! And great follow through after your daughter found that job listing. What are the chances right? But good things tend to happen to those who try.
“Because I’m Asian, some people in America just assume I’m intelligent, even though I had a mediocre SAT score and didn’t go to a fancy private university. It’s funny because when I lived in Asia, people just treated me normally because I was part of the majority.”
Exactly. Asians are more intelligent than whites. An Asian among Asians will be treated “normally” because everyone is Asian!
“A strong black woman…”
No Sam, you worked hard, take some credit for yourself. She either pretended you had less use than you actually did or did not care as a probable diversity hire.
Without Kim Purkiss selecting me and then fighting for me through the multiple rounds of interviews, 80% chance I wouldn’t have made it through the gauntlet.
The reason why I had so many interviews is bc no desk wanted me. But we finally found a fit in international equities.
There are many qualified for limited job openings across all industries. So landing a job is like winning the lottery.
We gotta be thankful and give luck credit!
I’ve worked hard in my life but I’ve also had a lot of good luck. Sure I’ve had bad luck and failures too but I’ve tried to turn each one into a silver lining.
I always have a tendency to get super stressed out this time of year. But this is a good reminder to take a step back from the frenzy of it all and be thankful for the luck and blessings we have.
I admire that Sam accounts for luck in his success. In general, I find any lack of accounting for some luck as supreme arrogance in a world of mystery and innumerable unknowns. However, I believe people can actively position themselves to receive good luck and be ready to capitalize when the right opportunity comes their way.
If you are always looking for a yellow car (as a metaphor for an opportunity), you will be the first to see the first yellow car cresting on the horizon.
Discipline and luck are the two most important elements for achieving success in life.
I enjoy that yellow car metaphor! Once I got my Honda Fit, I saw them everywhere. Same for my latest car.
Consistency is definitely key. Cheers
“I believe people can actively position themselves to receive good luck and be ready to capitalize when the right opportunity comes their way.” Spot on. Born in another decade Bill Gates would likely not be as rich, but I would bet that he would be successful by any measure. Sam, w/o the the good luck as he described, would have done well regardless, maybe not as well, but was destined for good fortune given his personal traits.
Funny how those who work hard, and smart (a key ingredient as working hard in a dead end position will not get you anywhere), almost always come out ahead.
Having worked overseas for many years, I agree, being born in America is a winning ticket. No easier place to improve one’s position in life.
Very grateful for you and your writing Sam… I also love listening to you and your wife on your podcast… You have such a “sweet relationship”- I also love that you referred to her as your “equal“… your humility is very refreshing… I also enjoyed the podcast where you admitted changing your mind about the Roth IRA… Very unusual for someone to admit they might have been wrong… and then reconsider their position. I have learned so much from you Sam… And I truly appreciate the generosity of your spirit.
Thanks for reading and listening Maureen! It’s been fun recording with my wife. I hope our children will appreciate the archives when they or older. Will try to do more in the new year!
Finished up my Best Of FS 2021 post. Let’s see what 2022 brings.
Okay, on luck, anyone recall the old game, Zaxxon? You flew a little fighter craft that moved forward constantly and could not be turned. You faced a series of walls made of giant bricks where one brick would be missing. Using a joystick, you had to go up and down, and right and left, to align yourself so your forward progress would take you through that hole.
Life is kind of like that, except that on that joystick you control left and right, but up and down is random. The best you can do is line yourself up with the hole horizontally and hope that you will be the right amount of up or down when you come to it.
Which means there is luck involved, sure. But you are a lot less likely to get that luck without some effort on your part. Obama made it sound like it was all luck, and that luck was given to you by society alone. That rankled people who had spent some serious effort in their lives on getting lined up for a shot at success. He probably should have said everyone owes some part of their success to society.
Certainly true in his case. Obama and I are almost exactly the same age. While my dad was fighting in Viet Nam and my mom and I were eating at a card table in O’ahu (because we couldn’t afford much real furniture), and I was going to a public school, Obama was across town at the elite, private, and very expensive Punahou School on a full scholarship because his household was even poorer than mine. Society certainly set him on the path to success at an early age, so he likely thinks that applies to everyone.
As the old saying goes: You won’t find a general who thinks there is a serious problem with the promotion system.
I will go this far, I will agree that no one but maybe a child raised by wolves can fail to owe some part of their success to society, but only part. But how much? And how much is owed for this? One of the greatest sources of contention throughout history is on how much an individual owes to society, and how much society owes to individuals. If this gets too far out of whack one way, you get something like a human hive, something like what China would like to pretend it is. Too far the other way and you get anarchy, with everyone out only for themselves.
I consider my greatest piece of luck to be an American citizen from birth. And only incidentally because attempts to place a monetary value on a US Passport seem to wind up somewhere around 500k.
When you keep finding yourself “getting lucky” over and over… probably isn’t luck.
Perhaps. You have an example? Elon Musk comes to mind.
Maybe. Good luck begets more good luck because you have more opportunities.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. It applies to many things including picking stocks and investments. Nice picture too.
Thanks for the reminder about gratitude. I feel like equating one’s success to luck is a little like attributing it to God (a line I hear more often in my circles), when in reality, behind almost every lucky thing that happens to us there is a person who chose to enable that good fortune. I try to remind myself of this often so that I remember to thank those people when I can.
Thoughtful article, Sam. I find it interesting that in the West we attribute our success solely to our own doing, while in the East it is recognized that it is your community that led to your success. I believe the true answer is a mixture of both, but you wouldn’t be who you are and able to create what you do if it wasn’t for those around you that helped shape you into who you are today. It is also why I believe that intellectual property rights are not as prevalent in the East as the West, being that those around you don’t recognize creations as yours, but as the communities. Nevertheless, there is something to be said about hardworking and determination.
Hello, I am not sure how I’ve been receiving your emails/articles but I have to say I’ve been enjoying for some time now. After reading this article I’ve realized that I would like to share a bit and hopefully get a response.
I will have to say I’ve haven’t been the luckiest as I was born into a poverty city, a single parent which passed away when I was 12yrs of age. That left me scrambling to figure things out myself. After completing high school in 2007. I was highly interested in Real Estate and stocks but of course around that time the economy was in a horrible shape.
So I was forced into college which I’ve completed a B.S from Michigan State University. I purchased 2 real estate properties and I trade stocks. I am striving to earn a decent income of maybe 1 million a year but if I fall short then that’s cool.
What are your thoughts or tips? I need to do more studying on taxes, any tips? Is it true that you are supposed to used the banks to leverage your dollars vs saving at the banks?
I hope you or someone can respond.
Thanks
My thoughts are that getting to $1 million a year takes time and a lot of luck. Here is an article on who makes over $1 million a year. But if you are in the right profession and give it a long enough time, it may eventually happen. What are your goals for the money though?
Hello thanks for taking the time out to respond. My plan is to build residual income through real estate (if I manage 15 units that at the lowest will generate 100k per year), I will invest in the stock market, Fundrise and start a business.
Not buying it! Luck has a lot to do with it, but the decisions you make in life has more to do with it than luck.