Steven B. Zwickel
April, 2018
A lot of people tense up as soon as I tell them that I am going to explain the secret to success. They think I am going to tell them that the secret to success is hard work. People expect to hear that, even though they don’t really want to hear that. People are hoping you will give them a secret shortcut that doesn’t involve having to get up and go to work every day. But, they expect me to tell them that the secret to success is hard work. It confirms their own beliefs that, by working hard, they are on the right path to success.
Hard work can help a person become a success. It may help and it (probably) won’t hurt, but it is not a sure way to reach success. Millions of people have worked very hard and not been successful. At the same time, it seems obvious that many people who didn’t work very hard at all have become successful. So there is no correlation between hard work and success.
I am not going to tell anyone to find something you love doing and turn it into a career. If it did that, I would be afraid that far too many people would try to make a living ciriticizing other people’s taste in music. If you have a passion and can make a career out of it, more power to you. Few of us are able to follow that path. I suspect many people put that sort of thing off until they are retired and less concerned about making enough money to live on. Besides, turning a hobby into a business is very, very hard work and I already explained why that is not the secret of success.
The secret to success is something that is, unfortunately, beyond our control. It is luck. Good luck. Great good luck.
You can’t make luck and you can’t make yourself lucky. You can put yourself in a position where, should you get a lucky break, you can take advantage of it. Opening yourself up to opportunities as they come along is one way to encourage Fortune to smile on you. Preparing yourself with a solid set of skills would also make it easier if and when luck comes along. There’s no official list of skills, so you’ll just have to learn to do everything and hope that you are ready when luck shows up.
Good luck!
