I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine over dinner yesterday regarding the importance of luck in life and business. We were debating how large a role luck play’s in helping us achieve the level of success we desire in life. Everyone talks about being in the right place at the right time, or working very hard and creating your own luck. However, is that all there is to it? Do some people have a greater degree of luck on their side as compared to the rest? I do believe there is a fair degree of luck associated with the way our lives play out. I have met people who have experienced considerable amounts of luck in their lives but, have failed to capitalize on it. While there are others who happened to be in the right place at the right time, and managed to change the path of their life with that one chance meeting. Both people experienced a degree of luck, yet had completely different results.

In entrepreneurship there is a lot of talk about being able to see the future and position yourself to be in the right place when the time is right, since to have the foresight, but wrong timing of execution also ends in disappointment. They key to this is to understand that all of us will experience our share of luck in our lifetime. Converting that given opportunity into something bigger and better will be determined by our own level of foresight and execution. When people complain about how they are down on their luck or just never in the right place at the right time, I begin to wonder how they are actually following through with the opportunities presented to them.

Undoubtedly on the surface, the person who ends up winning the lottery appears to be an extremely lucky individual. Yet, nearly one-third of all lottery winners go bankrupt! My conclusion to the discussion we had was that although there are individuals who are luckier than average, it is the ability to maximize the opportunities presented to us in life that is defining. This requires analytical ability, farsightedness and execution capabilities in-order to maximize our expectations. It was an extremely interesting conversation and I would really like to hear from readers about their insights and thoughts on the role luck plays in our lives!