It is a natural human instinct to think that our achievements, our position in life, is down to hard work and good choices. The narrative on social media runs that if only we adopt the five key behaviours of these famous entrepreneurs, we too could be rich. We want to believe this because it means that anything is possible.
The downside of this belief though is that it can make us blame ourselves when things don’t work out and more corrosively to lack empathy for others less fortunate than ourselves.
In reality luck often plays more of a role in our own success and the success of others around us than we accept.
Take the current crop of billionaires. They enjoyed extraordinary luck. They were born at the right time, to be the right age to benefit from the growth and early development of computers. They were also born into families that were able to get them the best education. Bill Gates, as an example, was one of the very few to gain access to a very early version of a computer at only age 13. He could do so because of the well-funded school he went to and the resources of his father who was a successful businessman.
This doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard and aren’t clever, there were other peers of theirs who weren’t so successful, but it is important to recognise the part luck had to play.
These tech billionaires are an example of the American dream. Not the one that says that everyone can achieve anything if they try hard enough, but the unspoken one that says with enough luck and the right circumstances, you can achieve anything if you try hard enough.
Charlie Munger, who with Warren Buffet established one of the most successful investment firms of all time, Berkshire Hathaway, enjoyed extraordinary luck early in life. He was playing with friends when they were attacked by a rabid dog. He narrowly avoided being bitten but his friend was and died of rabies. This simple sliding doors moment was the difference between death at age 7 and living to age 99 and dying a millionaire. He was also rejected by Harvard law school, but a well-connected family friend phoned the dean and talked him into admitting Charlie.
I don’t come from a well-connected or wealthy family but have to acknowledge that I was born in the relatively privileged UK in the 1970s and became a teenager into a boom time for the economy. I had my own sliding doors moment also. After dropping out of university, I had a series of dead-end jobs but was ‘rescued’ by a good friend who invited me to move to his area and flat share with him. I began applying for jobs including one in insurance for a big bank, not having heard back I took a junior researcher role at a trade magazine. I was a month into the new role when I received the offer from the bank. After much agonizing, I quit and took the bank job. This combination of a helping hand and good luck led 15 years later to the setting up of my own financial services firm. Things could have been very different.
You can read the personal story and the part he believes luck played in it, of millionaire founder of Richer Sounds, Julien Richer here.
If we are able to reflect on the role luck has had in our own success, we can be more humble about what we have achieved and perhaps more generous spirited to those who don’t have as much as us.
It might lead us to be more understanding of family members who are not as fortunate as us and more willing to give them our time and money. It might make us more open to giving to charities that help our fellow human, or to leave them a legacy.
It can help us to hold on less tightly to the money we have accumulated and that my friends is the secret to playing a successful retirement. Learning to be kind and generous to both ourselves and others when we enter that phase of ‘drawing down’ our wealth rather than ‘storing up’.
The Altor team are busy helping clients through the storing up and drawing down phases of their lives, from our offices in Hook, Hampshire and throughout the UK.