Luck gets way too much credit.
It’s often tossed around like it’s the ultimate explanation for why someone succeeded. It sanitizes the grind, erases the failure, and ignores the obsessive prep work that actually leads to wins. As Peter Thiel puts it in Zero to One, “You are not a lottery ticket.” That one line says everything: stop acting like you're just waiting for your numbers to be called.
Sure, randomness plays a role. But overindexing on luck makes people soft. It becomes a convenient excuse to not get your hands dirty. Instead of building skill, they wait. Instead of creating leverage, they manifest. Fuck that.
Reassessing "Right Place, Right Time"
Let’s talk e-commerce. My first store pulled $0 to $100,000 in 16 days. People said it was luck. But they didn’t see the hours, the stress, the dozens of failed product pages before that. They didn’t see the late nights debugging my own damn website or rewriting ad copy till it hit. That store wasn’t magic. It was a culmination.
Back in high school, I tried selling fidget spinners. The trend was red hot. I barely made $200. At the time, I didn’t have the systems, the knowledge, or the execution chops. Fast-forward eight months—I’d been stacking skills, building marketing frameworks, learning funnel optimization, and getting deep into behavioral psychology. When I launched that $100K store, I wasn’t gambling—I was prepared.
Some friends tried to copy me. They watched the store blow up and thought, "Cool, let’s run this back." Same niche, same vibe, totally different outcome. They failed hard. Why? Because they thought being nearby to success was the same thing as being equipped for it. They bet on the surface-level playbook and ignored the years of effort underneath. You can’t clone grit.
Even more wild: I’ve since met people who made serious cash—like hundreds of thousands—selling the same damn fidget spinners I flopped on. That confirmed it. The opportunity was always there. I just wasn’t ready. If I had today's toolkit back then? It would’ve hit. Timing didn’t fuck me—lack of skill did.
Control vs. Non-Control Variables
Everything in life boils down to two buckets:
Control variables: The shit you can actually affect—your skills, who you talk to, what you work on, how deep you go.
Non-control variables: Everything else. The economy. Trends. Who your parents are. Who retweets your content.
Non-control variables matter, but they’re not what you build around. You can’t depend on dice rolls. Strategic people double down on what they can actually push, tweak, and repeat.
Photoshop in high school turned into websites. Those turned into landing pages. Those turned into systems. And now I can take a product from concept to cash. That didn’t come from waiting on a breakthrough. It came from fucking around until I figured it out—intentionally.
Not every smart decision is going to hit. Sometimes you’ll be 95% right and still eat shit. But if you build in a way that keeps you in the game—low downside, high repeatability—you’ll eventually catch an edge. That’s how real risk-taking works. You bet knowing the floor won’t kill you.
Blaming Luck = Dodging Accountability
Most people lean on luck so they don’t have to take responsibility. It’s a security blanket. They say "he got lucky" instead of "he worked harder than me" or "he knew more than me."
But here’s the thing: the second you start believing that your actions shape your future, you can’t unknow it. It’s like a one-way switch. Once you flip it, passivity becomes unbearable. You start to crave the build. You chase discomfort. You hunt for challenges because you know that’s where the compounding starts.
What most people call "strategy" is actually performance. They copy TikToks, recycle tweet formats, regurgitate advice they don’t even use. It’s all aesthetic. No understanding. No reps. That’s why they burn out.
Chamath's Rule of Three
Chamath Palihapitiya once said you get three massive opportunities in your life. Just three. And they don’t come labeled. They show up messy. You’ll feel pressure, chaos, and a ton of uncertainty. Most people miss them because they’re waiting for a clear signal. Real ones prep so hard they can act fast even when the opportunity looks like a disaster.
Preparation makes luck irrelevant. It expands the surface area where shit can hit in your favor. And when it does? You're not overwhelmed—you’re locked in. One win turns into a model. That model turns into a system. And that system lets you run it back on demand.
Final Word: Don’t Be a Passenger
I don’t pray on luck. I obsess over control. I refine my tools. I build leverage. I compound knowledge. Because I know when those three chances come, I’m not gonna wish—I’m gonna execute.
If you're out here waiting for some cosmic sign to get moving, understand this: the game has already started. The players are already ahead. The scoreboard is updating with or without you.
Luck is a guest star. Preparation is the lead. And if you're serious about building something that lasts—stop fucking around. Get to work.
Because luck doesn’t make champions. Preparation does.