How much does luck play in results?

Let me introduce you to Brett's Triangle of Luck!

A friend of mine explained this and I absolutely loved it.

Each element is equally as important as the others, and without all three present achieving goals is a little harder or unlikely.

Let's have a look at each corner:

Person - This is the skill, hard-work, morals, values and work ethic that make up the individual.

Opportunity - This is the event that presents itself, the scenario that is occurring, or that the individual can manipulate.

Luck - This is the controversial element that is hard to quantify. This is the unexplainable phenomenon in the stars aligning in certain circumstances.

Let's look at some examples on how it can apply: If a runner had an opportunity to run in the London Marathon, they luckily had perfect weather and the individual started with no illness. But due to the mindset of the individual when they hit the wall at mile 20 they threw in the towel as they felt it was too hard. Perfect opportunity with the right amount of luck but the wrong personal skills.

If a very diligent cyclist who worked really hard with their training, was then given the opportunity to enter a cycling race, but on the day there was awful weather, a deer ran past and knocked them over breaking their bike. The luck was really against them here.

A runner who had been training for 10 years, every year they improve on their time and continues to work hard. This runner was born with an incredibly efficient heart and lungs resulting in a high VO2 max measurement and a low heart rate - they had no influence on this and were fortunate this is the case. Unfortunately each year the individual never gets a place in the London Marathon Ballot. So they never get the opportunity to run the famous race and set any records.

Some will say luck has no role to play, and I understand that point of view. I'm sure many can think of scenarios where someone had a stroke of luck to help them get a result they need, and equally someone had a few unlucky events work against them which massively altered the outcome.

Now this triangle doesn't ignore the person. And regardless of luck or opportunity the personal qualities cannot be ignored. No matter how much luck or opportunity someone has if they have not worked hard to build up the skills needed they will not be successful. There is no argument there at all.

I do sometimes feel that sometimes people can be a little hard on themselves when something doesn't go as planned, when perhaps they should look and see if a little luck was missing from the equation.

Although, as American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson once said: "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

I'd be so interested to know what peoples thoughts are on this, let me know!

Happy riding Mammoth Fans