Good Luck or Good Judgement

It was Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the American Declaration of Independence, who wrote 'I am a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it."

As you review one year and look forward to the next, it's likely that the question of luck comes into your thinking. Did you work hard and smart? Were you helped by any lucky breaks that lifted the fortunes of your business this year? Or are you hoping that your luck will change in the new year? Have your children done well at school through sheer hard work or have they been lucky in the teachers assigned to teach them?

Aristotle pointed out that our abilities depend in part on our background and family life. Many successful business people who come from family backgrounds affected by tragedy say their later success in life is due to the self-reliance they learned in their early years. When we come to acknowledge and reward someone for their success, whether at school or at work, it's important to be clear on whether that success is due to luck in some form, or to personal effort.

When you work hard and skillfully, persevering in spite of obstacles, good fortune is predictable. It leads inevitably from the efforts you have put in and if someone says you are lucky you would probably feel quite upset. From the outside it might look like luck but you know better. Interestingly, people who are successful, tend to put their success down to their own efforts; while those who are unsuccessful tend to say that they have been unlucky, thereby avoiding responsibility for their failure.

There is the luck of being in the right place at the right time; but not everyone is alert and courageous enough to take advantage of the opportunities with which they are presented. This luck requires that you react to it with vision, skill and competence if you are to turn it into success.

Finally there is the kind of luck that brings good fortune - or catastrophe - out of the blue. It's mostly unpredictable and uncontrollable. These are the cards we have been dealt and all we can do is play them as best we can.

Going into the new year I hope that you and your family will be the recipients of good luck in all its forms.

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