Comments by "Christian Baune" (@programaths) on "Is Success Luck or Hard Work?" video.

  1. I always said that luck if a major factor and that's because I started with huge handicaps. I spent 18 years in various institutions, which means that I had almost nothing and even buying school supplies was a challenge. Factor in that for people we were the bottom of the bin, pure trash! I even got papers marked zero in the process because my writings was "way above what I should be able to produce". I was rejected for evening school for about the same reason (and ended up going into a full bachelor degree). On the other side, I am born gifted and won prizes just for showing up. People often ask me how hard I work and how I can know all those stuff...well, it's a gift. I wanted to be a teacher, I did wait for years to get the right opportunity. That is, training that is available after work. Only in 2018 it started to appear here. So, now I can move on. My current job is developer, when I am asked estimates, my reply is simple: undefined. I am not paid to do what was already done. I am paid to do what other people can't. As a result, I mostly don't even know what I am going to do. Just what the end product will achieve. And luck is a big part! On one project I had to do, it went from months to about 3 days. I looked around and found a tool doing exactly what was needed if tweaked properly. I even fixed a bug in it! In another project, I had to save a consultant. It took me half a day, days were planned. Lucks too! On top of that, I did nothing to have intelligence. No hard work or whatsoever. And this creates problems when I work with others as my time is more valuable...in a literal way. If I take 5 minutes to explain something, I can loose an hour worth of work of the same person. And everyone is entitled to ask 5 minutes of my time because "If you take 5 minutes for me, I'll spare one hour". Except they are not alone asking "only 5 minutes". And then comes the issue of "This week I saw the team did a quarter of the work, what did happen ?". The answer is pure butchery: "I helped everyone, so I had much less time to complete tasks". It's totally unfair, unjust and sound pretentious. That's because it's unusual and your mind find it easier to think I am an asshole :-D I also burned out since I was able to take any job, so one of my boss asked if I could do Y and my reply was "in no so long, yes". So, I ended up programming, doing support, managing servers, fixing devices, managing tablet fleet. That was too much and when I said my boss "I can't manage all of it anymore because I am overloaded", he thought I was having a tantrum! After all, I am able to do it all! The only job I did not do was "selling", because I have a tendency to be blunt. I have also worked in that "back seat", mainly doing long time jobs and being a resource to "unblock" people in the team. That never last long as I am asked to "push thing through because we are late". As a result, I work in a team of one. I am even switching career for peace of mind and because it is my dream job. Luck plays a big role. What you can decide, though, is to let an opportunity pass; There you have real control. Make the best of what you were given and remind yourself that if you get lucky, you have to make use of it.
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