This past term, I was a lab assistant for an MSc module on statistics, and it got me thinking... man, i wish i was better at stats! Why? Because as I see it, our life is unfortunately ruled by probabilities and their associated statistics. Trouble is, in many instances, it is impossible to actually quantify these odds. In spite of this, we are so quick to attribute any misfortune as being 'unlucky' and any success as being 'skill'. (Aside: In fact, the phrase, "unlucky" is one of my most hated phrases). How can this possibly be?! Truth is, all people can really do is put themselves in the best position to succeed and then rely on external factors (read: luck) before true success is/can be achieved. Is this true for all walks of life? I will attempt to convince you yes. Let's start with an obvious one - one that is a big part of my life.
Poker. I've been playing since I was roughly 15. We'd each buy in for $10 and the dealer would call the game. Kings and little ones. Chicago. Baseball. And the list goes on. For my group of friends, it was just a different way to hang out and pass the time. I continued to play through high school and got caught up in the online Moneymaker craze of 2003. Fast-forward to the present and I still manage to play. Mostly to make money (which I then re-invest in stocks) but also because there still is a bit of excitement. To the casual observer, they can't understand how there is money to be made in a game of 'luck'. Thing is, an experienced player can tell you the odds of hitting a set on the flop or a flush after the flop, whereas inexperienced players will see this as a virtue of being lucky. Trouble is, most people have a problem differentiating between 'odds' and 'luck'. If I get my money into the pot when i'm ahead in the hand, odds are I will win more often than I will lose. Therefore, in the long run, it is a winning proposition. Luck is only observed if you examine that one particular hand and do not consider the entire sample population. Let's dumb this down further. Say we took a 6-sided dice and painted 4 sides red and the other 2 sides black. You would always bet red (66% chance of success versus 33% chance of failure). If you just bet once and it came red, that might be lucky, but the odds of it being black still haven't changed and it shouldn't change how you would bet. I realise this is a bit over-simplified (because you can easily calculate the permutations), but I will now look at other aspects of life and attempt to convince you that life is really not much different than a game of poker.
Finding a Job. When we look for a job, we don't just apply for one place and then get it. To increase our probability, we: a) apply for many jobs, b) get more education, c) get experience, and that's just to name a few. And even after achieving these things, it does not guarantee us that job. All we're doing is putting ourselves in the best position to succeed. We are still at the mercy of luck. How? Well, what if some other equally qualified candidate interviews before you and the company decides, "let's not waste any more time, we've found our guy", does this mean you were 'unlucky'? No, because your qualifications don't serve as a guarantee - they just increase the odds of you being attractive to the employer. (Upon reading this, you may shake your head and think I'm crazy. I think the main reason is because you can't put a number or odds of getting any job, but the same principles mentioned above in the poker example relate to this as well. However, we all inherently know it to be true or else we would never apply for more than one job at a time). And that's what we have been taught our whole lives... to try to stack odds in our favour in order to succeed.
Playing Sports. This is probably the most guilty of being a part of the 'unlucky' phenomenon. A football hits the crossbar. Unlucky. Double fault in tennis. Unlucky. Really? I'd argue that getting tackled by a member of the crowd when you're leading a marathon is unlucky, the former two examples are just unskilled! Does that mean we should stop trying? Of course not. Thing is, each and everyone of us is not perfect and the reason for our imperfection is not because of luck. Let's take the tennis serving example. Let's say you're a really good server and you get in 75% of your first serves, this means that 25% of the time you get to the 2nd serve. The good thing is, you're a really good 2nd server who can get it in 90% of the time. Now, these are really high percentages for any pro tennis player, but you still double fault 2.5% of the time. So when they double fault in a match, is that unlucky? NO. It's built into their statistical long-run. This is why we have practices - we develop our skills in order to increase our success percentages and stack the odds in our favour. Now this is quite straight-forward as it is pretty much a closed skill (i.e. the odds of you hitting your serve have very little to do with what your opponent is actually doing.. i know it's not as clear cut as that, but for all intents and purposes here it will be). What happens when it's an open skill such as a penalty shot? Well, it's all the same really, except now you need knowledge of the individual player. Where do they like to shoot? What visual cues can I pick up from their approach? This is why they watch so much game tape so that they can 'play the odds' and make the best tactical approach. Does it always work? No, but this is not a factor of luck. Either that or it is always a factor of luck - one or the other. And yet rarely do we ever consider a goal to be a scored purely by luck.
So maybe the next time the word 'unlucky' is about to roll off your tongue, you will open your mind, and pause.
I can't take full credit for most of these thoughts and ideas for I have been influenced by life and the reading of 'Fooled By Randomness' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I highly recommend this book if you have some free time and an open mind.
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