Is a person’s success based solely on hard work or luck?

We often hear stories of successful people who attribute their achievements to hard work,
perseverance, and determination. But how much of success is really based on these factors, and how
much is just plain luck? The assumption that a person’s success can be wholly attributed to hard work
seems naive but how much does it and luck play a part in forming a person’s future? In this essay I will
discuss the impact that both luck and hard work have on a person’s success using both simulation and
real life examples.

Success can be interpreted in many ways. For the purposes of this essay, success refers to achieving
one's goals or desired outcomes, whether in a personal or professional context. Success is very
commonly associated with hard work with many famous and prominent people even denouncing luck
in their success. For example, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, more commonly known as Pele, is
credited with saying the infamous quote, "Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance,
learning, studying, sacrifice”. This insinuates that, through his career path of football, luck never
played a part however this almost certainly is not the case. A person’s chance of being chosen for a
national football team is slim to none so external factors such as height, muscle density and natural
talent for the sport all play a massive part in the selection process. None of which can be altered much
by a person’s own will as they are predetermined. According to a study conducted by The BBC in 2015,
the most common months of the year for footballers to be born in the UK is from September to
November at 45%, while for those born in the June to August, period it is only 10%. This provides
evidence for the Relative Age Effect. This is a phenomenon that has been observed in many sporting
events across the world, including football. It refers to the tendency for children born early in the
selection year to be overrepresented in elite sports programs and teams, while those born later in the
selection year being underrepresented. This effect is thought to occur because of the way age group
competition is structured in youth sports, where players are grouped by their age on a fixed date,
typically September 1st. Children born in the first few months of the selection year are therefore older
and more physically developed than those born later in the year, giving them a developmental
advantage in sports. Currently in football, this is seen in the England Mens football team as 6 of the
26 players were born in this short time frame and more historically Gary Lineker, Wayne Rooney and
Michael Owen, hailed as being some of the best footballers, also follow this trend. This evidence
suggests that circumstances out of a person’s control, such as birthdate, causes a disproportionate
chance of them being successful in a field of work.

Another interesting way to explore the influence of external

factors on success is through the use of a mathematical model.
Italian physicists Alessandro Pluchino and Andrea Raspisarda
partnered with the Italian economist Alessio Biondo to imitate
the real world. In the study published through Cornell
University in 2018 a "toy mathematical model" was used to
simulate the evolution of careers of a collective population over
a work life of 40 years. The model assumed that a person's
career success is determined by both their talent and the
opportunities available to them. In this simulation a large
number of entities were assigned a varying degree of ‘talent’
Figure 1- Initial setup of simulations which was described as including traits such as intelligence, skill,
(N=1000 entities)
 motivation, and creative thinking etc. At
the beginning all entities were assigned
with the same level of success and every
six months were exposed to a certain
amount of lucky (green) and unlucky
(red) events. If the entities were to
encounter either of the events their
success level would double or half
respectively. The findings of this study
found that even in a scenario where
talent is distributed normally across the
population, the distribution of success is
Figure 2-Found normal distribution for talent versus Most successful highly skewed, with a small proportion of
individuals. individuals achieving significantly more
success than the rest. This is commonly reffered to as the Pareto Principle, which predicts which
predicts that a small number of people will end up achieving the success of most of the population;
which in this case is seen as the 20 most successful entities held 44% of the total amount of success
while almost 500 ended the simulation with less than the initial units of success. This is also reflected
in the world as well with only eight men owning the same wealth as the poorest half of the world

This, however, is not the whole story for the

assumption of luck being the only factor
neglects part of the story. A person must
make the most of all opportunities presented
to them. Pluchino, Biondo and Rapisarda
even include an explanation saying that they
defined talent as whatever set of personal
characteristics allow a person to exploit lucky
opportunities which I interpret for the real
world as being able to work hard to seize the
moment. So though their simulation showed
that there seemed no correlation between
the talent and success, they stated ‘People
with a medium-high talent result to be, on
Figure 3-Distribution of the final capital/success calculated over average, more successful than people with
100 runs for a population low or medium-low talent, but very often the
most successful individual is a moderately gifted agent’. However, this model is all under perfect
conditions. In the real world, external factors such as social background, economic status, access to
education, and even geographic location can significantly impact a person's opportunities and
ultimately their success. For instance, a person born into a wealthy family may have more
opportunities for education and career advancement than someone born into a less privileged family.
Which cannot be accurately included into this model. Similarly, a person living in a city with more job
opportunities and resources may have a higher chance of success than someone living in a rural area
with limited resources. This is where the idea that hard work must come into play or the previously
mentioned statistics showing how luck influences success would be 100%. So while external factors
may impact one's opportunities, it is ultimately the individual's own actions and choices that
determine their success.
Therefore, while hard work, perseverance, and determination are undoubtedly important factors in
achieving success, external factors such as luck and opportunities cannot be ignored. It is crucial to
acknowledge and address the systemic inequalities that exist in society that can limit individuals'
access to opportunities and hinder their chances of success. By doing so, we can work towards a more
equitable and just society where success is not solely determined by luck or privilege but by one's own
efforts and merits.

Bibliography:

Veritasium. “Is Success Luck or Hard Work?”. Youtube. 28 August 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I

BBC News. “Premier League uses data to nurture English football talent”. Bill Wilson. 27 March 2015
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32064842

Cornell University “Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure”. Alessandro
Pluchino, Andrea Raspisarda, Alessio Biondo. 9 Jul 2018.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068,https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf#

Figures: Cornell University “Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and
failure”. Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Raspisarda, Alessio Biondo. 9 Jul 2018.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068,https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07068.pdf#