A 40-Year Simulation Reveals the Hugest (Shocking) Factor for Becoming Wealthy
It is not hard work, talent, mindset, or consistency
Almost every form of success follows the normal distribution — a minority at the bottom, most hovering in the average, and a few exceptional ones at the top.
Take IQ for example. While a whopping 69% of the population lies in the 85 to 115 range, only 0.1% are below 55 or above 145.
Pro sports, arts, work hours, music, workloads, skill proficiencies, etc. all have similar bell curves — albeit with flatter or sharper peaks.
But the distribution of wealth is an anomaly.
The richest 1% own over half the world’s net worth — even more startling is the top 10 possessing a higher combined wealth than the bottom 5 billion people!
Even weirder is that multiple studies have found that the wealthiest people aren’t necessarily the most talented — in any shape or form.
Unearthing This Unexplainable Factor
With studies and analyses failing to explain the wealth distribution anomaly, number-crunching computers had to jump to the rescue.
Alessandro Pluchino and colleagues from the University of Catalina in Italy designed a computer model to simulate human attributes and real-world interactions with opportunities.
Creating “N” virtual people, the team coded them with attributes (talent, work ethic, mindset, etc.) that mimicked the real-world’s normal distributions.
Then they devised two kinds of random events — lucky wealth-boosting events and unlucky adversities.
Finally, they let the computer model chart the lives of these individuals over a span of 40 working years.
Also, to ensure the accuracy of the outcome, they ran the simulation multiple times.
And every run’s result pointed to one common baffling fact.
The Mind-Boggling Result of The Simulation
Ranking the individuals by wealth at the end of 40 years yielded a distribution exactly the same as the one we witness in our real-life societies. Even more surprising in Alessandro’s words is:
“The maximum success never coincides with the maximum talent, and vice-versa,”
While factors like consistency, hard work, innate talent, and mindset played some role, none of them were determinants.
So what then was the secret dollar-producing factor? The baffling hidden factor?
The culprit of the criminally skewed wealth distribution graph? To quote Alessandro again,
“Our simulation clearly shows that such a skewing factor is just pure luck,”
The Good News Is You Can “Manufacture” Luck
While it’s a shocking revelation, it doesn’t mean all hope is lost — since luck in real life isn’t purely random as in the simulation.
Luck is nothing but the sum total of things that don’t fit into our “known” factors — so a large part of it isn’t random but just unknown to us.
So while you can’t control the “amount” of your luck directly, you can increase the chances of good fortune showing you its face. Here are 5 ways to do so:
- Hone Your Opportunity-Detector: Opportunities are always coming our way, but we are hyperopic with them. Use every missed opportunity to sharpen your lens.
- Take (Calculated) Risks: Prefer ones with low risk-reward ratios and even then visualize and make peace with the worst-case scenario. Not every risk will benefit you, but the few that do will decimate the loss of the others.
- Embrace and Make the Most Out Of Failure: Winston Churchill said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”. Every failure increases the odds of the next attempt being successful.
- Explore and Improve Your Odds. Life is an unpredictable chain reaction of different individuals and things affecting each other. By exploring new people and new things, you can improve your odds.
- Never Stop Learning. Be humble and have a keen will to learn. Learn from your mistakes, failures, experiences, people you meet, etc. Every nugget of knowledge reduces the likelihood of failure.
- Believe That You Are Lucky. Strongly believe you are lucky, and you will be as luck is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Be it god, destiny, purpose, or passion, have a strong guiding light.
“Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation, while bad luck is when lack of preparation meets reality.”
— Eliyahu Goldratt
Final Thoughts
Luck being a significant factor, does not invalidate the other factors — in fact, the combo of talent, hard work, and consistency itself breeds a ton of luck.
As the Stoic dichotomy of control says, “Focus on what you can control and forget what you cannot.”
Astronomical forces beyond our control and understanding influence a lion’s share of the world and its events. But where’s the sense in giving up and descending into apathy?
In this world of 7 billion people, the probability of terrible luck stacking up against you alone is almost zero.
Good and bad luck come in waves — the only difference is while the flats are deeper for some, the peaks are taller for others.
So take heart, stay on track, and keep plowing ahead!
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
— Norman Vincent Peale