Success | Page 5

LUCK
Some of the critics do not believe that the pinnacle of success stands
only on the three pillars of Judgment, Industry, and Health. They point
out that I have omitted one vital factor--Luck. So widespread is this
belief, largely pagan in its origin, that mere fortune either makes or
unmakes men, that it seems worth while to discuss and refute this
dangerous delusion.
Of course, if the doctrine merely means that men are the victims of

circumstances and surroundings, it is a truism. It is luckier to be born
heir to a peerage and £100,000 than to be born in Whitechapel. Past and
present Chancellors of the Exchequer have gone far in removing much
of this discrepancy in fortune. Again, a disaster which destroys a single
individual may alter the whole course of a survivor's career. But the
devotees of the Goddess of Luck do not mean this at all. They hold that
some men are born lucky and others unlucky, as though some Fortune
presided at their birth; and that, irrespective of all merits, success goes
to those on whom Fortune smiles and defeat to those on whom she
frowns. Or at least luck is regarded as a kind of attribute of a man like a
capacity for arithmetic or games.
This view is in essence the belief of the true gambler--not the man who
backs his skill at cards, or his knowledge of racing against his rival--but
who goes to the tables at Monte Carlo backing runs of good or ill luck.
It has been defined as a belief in the imagined tendencies of chance to
produce events continuously favourable or continuously unfavourable.
The whole conception is a nightmare of the mind, peculiarly
unfavourable to success in business. The laws of games of chance are
as inexorable as those of the universe. A skilful player will, in the long
run, defeat a less skilful one; the bank at Monte Carlo will always beat
the individual if he stays long enough. I presume that the bank there is
managed honestly, although I neither know nor care whether it is. But
this at least is certain--the cagnotte gains 3 per cent. on every spin.
Mathematically, a man is bound to lose the capital he invests in every
thirty throws when his luck is neither good nor bad. In the long run his
luck will leave him with a balanced book--minus the cagnotte. My
advice to any man would be, "Never play roulette at all; but if you must
play, hold the cagnotte."
The Press, of course, often publishes stories of great fortunes made at
Monte Carlo. The proprietors there understand publicity. Such
statements bring them new patrons.
It is necessary to dwell on this gambling side of the question, because
every man who believes in luck has a touch of the gambler in him,
though he may never have played a stake. And from the point of view
of real success in affairs the gambler is doomed in advance. It is a
frame of mind which a man should discourage severely when he finds
it within the citadel of his mind. It is a view which too frequently

infects young men with more ambition than industry.
The view of Fortune as some shining goddess sweeping down from
heaven and touching the lucky recipient with her pinions of gold
dazzles the mind of youth. Men think that with a single stroke they will
either be made rich for life or impoverished for ever.
The more usual view is less ambitious. It is the complaint that Fortune
has never looked a man's way. Failure due to lack of industry is
excused on the ground that the goddess has proved adverse. There is a
third form of this mental disease. A young man spoke to me in Monte
Carlo the other day, and said, "I could do anything if only I had the
chance, but that chance never comes my way." On that same evening I
saw the aspirant throwing away whatever chance he may have had at
the tables.
A similar type of character is to be found in the young man who
consistently refuses good offers or even small chances of work because
they are not good enough for him. He expects that Luck will suddenly
bestow on him a ready-made position or a gorgeous chance suitable to
the high opinions he holds of his own capacities. After a time people
tire of giving him any openings at all. In wooing the Goddess of Luck
he has neglected the Goddess of Opportunity.
These men in middle age fall into a well-known class. They can be seen
haunting the Temple, and explaining to their more industrious and
successful associates that they would have been Lord Chancellor if a
big brief had ever come