56. Luck, Stuck and Two Smoking Barrels

I change my opinions quite a bit.

And one thing that I’ve changed my mind on recently is the extent to which luck has an impact on our lives. 

I used to be an ardent member of the ‘You Make Your Own Luck’ School of Thought. Possibly because I’m a control freak, and possibly because it feels nicer to take all the credit when something goes well in life, as opposed to attribute it to something that’s completely out of our control.

I still am a member of the above School of Thought, though eeeever so slightly less so. 

Before we get properly started, I reckon we can split ‘Luck’ into two different sub-categories. 

1. Luck that we can impact (let’s call it ‘Controllable Luck’) and 

2. Luck that we can’t impact (which yes, probably makes sense to call ‘Uncontrollable Luck’)

The first one seems to largely be a numbers game. 

If we were to ask 1000 people for their number, we’d be (yes, slightly weird) but more likely to get one than if we were to ask 5 people.

Obviously, that’s basic probability, and Golfer Gary Player’s “It’s funny, the more I practice the luckier I get”.

Staying with sport, and this ‘Controllable Luck’ being a numbers game, I love the quote from legendary footballer Jimmy Greaves:

“To score 25 goals a season, all I had to do was get in the box 500 times. 100 times I’d connect. 50 times the goalkeeper would save it. Half of the rest would go in, and 25 goals a season would do me. Just by making sure I got in the box 500 times.”

Talk about an analogy for life. 

So as I say, I am a big believer of the impact we can have on our lives by playing this numbers game and ‘making our own luck’.

Though it’s the second one, ‘Uncontrollable luck’, that I now believe has a much bigger impact on our lives than I used to. 

There are a few examples in my own life that have hammered this home (ones that I won’t bore you with today), and more interestingly, examples that I’ve recently come across that I think really demonstrate this point. 

The first two are from investor Morgan Housel, and his two 10/10 books The Psychology of Money and Same As Ever.

Let’s start with one from World War II.

During one of the most decisive moments, in one of the most decisive battles (the Battle of Stalingrad), the outcome was influenced by something that was completely unplanned and completely unforeseen.

Mice. Yes, the kinda cute little rodents. 

In short, over 100 tanks were being prepared to join the German attack, which would have likely tipped the battle in Hitler’s favour.

However, despite having the most advanced equipment in the world at the time, when it came to joining the battle, almost none of the tanks worked.

Where they were being stored “Field mice had nested inside the vehicles and eaten away insulation covering the electrical systems”, as Historian William Craig writes.

Instead of the Germans getting the upper hand, this setback led to the Russians eventually inflicting Germany’s first defeat of the war, shifting the momentum towards the Allies. 

3 blind mice, and a huge dosage of blind luck.

Whilst on famous battles, there’s a similar(ish) sort of story during the American Revolutionary War.

In the Battle of Long Island, the British had George Washington and his troops cornered. 

All the Brits needed to do was sail up the East river, and as they vastly outnumbered the Americans, they would have captured them and wiped them out. 

It would have been the end of the war.

However, by complete chance, there were brutal winds blowing in the wrong direction meaning sailing up the river was impossible until the following day. 

This delay gave Washington and his troops just enough time to escape, continue to fight on, and eventually gain independence.

Historian David McCullough wrote

“If the wind had been in the other direction on the night of August 28th 1776, I think it would have all been over and no United States would have happened. Just because of the wind, history was changed”.

This whole uncontrollable luck thing was also a big theme in Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book ‘Outliers’.

From Bill Gates to Mozart, and Korean Pilots to Jewish Lawyers, Gladwell touches on a range of factors that impact success and general outcomes. 

The difference in this book is that it’s less about things like hard work, discipline and perseverance, and more about things like where we grew up, what year/month we were born, our historical cultural influences, and more broadly, just luck in general. 

One example is from a fairly well known band… 

In the late 1950s, a club owner from Hamburg was over in London trying to scout the best British musical talent to come and perform at his bars. 

Whilst in Soho, he met and got chatting to an entrepreneur from Liverpool who, by complete chance, was down visiting. Said entrepreneur bigged up the Northern music scene, and sent across a talented, but struggling high school rock band from Liverpool.  

When in Hamburg, this struggling high school rock band were given loads of free booze, which they enjoyed and made them want to keep coming back. 

So much so that between 1960 and 1962, they performed around 1,200 times (1,200 times!).

One of the band members, a man by the name of John Lennon said

“We got better and got more confidence. We couldn't help it with all the experience playing all night long. In Hamburg we had to play for 8 hours, so we really had to find new ways of playing.”

No other band in the world at the time were getting this much practice in.

The Beatles were made.

Largely started due to a completely random encounter in a bar in Soho. 

As I say, I’m a huge believer of the ‘you make your own luck’ thing. 

I think certain life outcomes can often be influenced by simple probability. The more we do something, the luckier we’re likely to get at it.

And although obviously no one thinks that luck doesn’t play a role in life, I think it can easily be overlooked as a contributing factor towards life outcomes. 

Probably because when things go well our egos like to take full credit for the success, and when things go badly blaming it on bad luck sounds like we’re making excuses/voiding ourselves of all responsibility. 

However, although it’s impossible to quantify, this ‘uncontrollable luck’ is something that I’m starting to give more credit to. 

And with any luck, this post may have resonated with you too.