Luck vs. Hard Work

I believe that Success is the result of 1% luck, 99% hard work.

You need to be lucky to succeed sometimes, but without hard work, you probably won’t ever succeed.

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Opportunity is when luck meets preparation?

You can only get lucky if you’re ready for the opportunity. Otherwise, you just missed your shot.

For instance, for WATonomous, at first, I got reached out to be in the simulation team by Stephen Wang, however the onboarding challenge was pretty hard so I did not complete it.

However, I met this guy called Alvin at a random CSC event, and he was in WATonomous. Had I not met this guy, he would not have reached out to me on Discord to tell me that he had an opening for his perception team, and thus I would not have been involved in WATonomous at all, I think.

So this is the benefit of Social Networking. Creating opportunities for yourself.

I sincerely believe that if I truly set my mind to something, I can outwork anyone. I have Grit.

Working Hard, the right way

Maybe Ruby is right, I want to work hard. But the right way. Something that takes a long time does not make it important.

The race is not to the one who works hardest! You need to work on the right problem at the right time and in the right way.

Outworking People

From Randy Pausch: The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. They are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.

I love that in today’s society, if you really want something, then you can just outwork other people.

Luck

There’s only been a few times that I have been lucky.

• CS138 midterm, I had no idea about the ls -lah command, I kinda just guessed and got 8/10 right which is crazy. I got the right answers, but the explanation for each of them was completely wrong

Stories

Steven He was rejected over 3000 times as an actor. He made over 200 failed YouTube videos. Today over 10M people follow him - and he’s changing how scripted comedy works on YouTube.

His secret?

He’d rather be unlucky.

If you’re lucky and you win that one in a million lottery ticket when you try for something, you could live off that win for a long time. But if you wanted another win - are you going to be lucky again?

But if you’re unlucky - you learn to work hard. You learn to go thru 999,999 failed lottery tickets to get that one in a million win.

And then - you know you can do it again. You don’t have to rely on just luck.

That’s how Steven He wins.